Even $100M entrepreneurs get nervous (here's why)

If you've been living under a rock, you may not have seen the latest interview that's taking the entrepreneurial side of the internet by storm—Alex Hormozi and Tony Robbins. Both of these men are either loved or hated depending on who you ask, and both are more monetarily successful than the vast majority of humanity will ever be, so when they sit down to chat, it's bound to be interesting.

What was most salient for me when I sat down to watch the interview though, what jumped off the screen right from the first moment, was the nervousness of Alex Hormozi in the interview. I posted about it on LinkedIn at the beginning of this week I was so shocked—he's more materially successful than almost anyone ever, and he's still nervous in an interview.

What gives?Everything is a status game

In his landmark book Impro (one of the four required reading books at Palantir), Royal Court Theatre master Keith Johnstone discusses his theory that every interaction between two people involves a “status game”. There is always someone who is higher status and someone who is lower status, and there can never be a neutral, level playing field. He doesn't go into why this may be, but he's quite comprehensive in his diagnosis.

What's so fascinating about this is that status is a relative thing, not an absolute thing. So even though Hormozi's “status” vis a vis the rest of the world would likely be higher (if we take wealth as a proxy of status, which it often is), in terms of Tony Robbins, his status is lower. He's come as a supplicant to learn from Tony, and clearly cares very much about making a good impression.

You can see throughout the interview how this status is maintained, both by Hormozi and by Robbins. Hormozi consistently plays the lower status in the relationship—talks fast, doesn't make consistent eye contact, looks to talk or react quickly—where as Robbins plays the higher status—talking about his wealth and achievements, his prestigious contacts, and even at one point telling Hormozi how to behave with his material wealth.

Status is important to humans because—and we have to remember this always when we're discussing behaviour—we are running on savannah hardware in a modern world. In the small communities that we developed in—and most evident today in primate communities—status determined allocation of scarce resources like food and sex. The lowest status might have even found themselves in a place where they were unable to survive. (Ironically, some social theorists see the same thing happening with the modern dating scene, where the higher education of women, and thus higher standards, has left them with a smaller pool of eligible men and therefore perhaps a resurgence of polyamory as an adaptive solution.)

Hormozi, then, despite his objective material wealth and the fact that no matter what happens with this interview with Tony Robbins, his wealth will be secure, is still experiencing that automatic nervous system response of “what will happen to me if I screw this up?”There's nothing wrong with feeling how you feel

Lisa Feldman Barrett has an interesting theory about how emotions are formed that might have helped Hormozi in his time of need. Her idea is called “The Theory of Constructed Emotion” and essentially says that the emotion we feel is not “essential” but rather a label that we put on a set of sensations. A set of sensations could be fear or anxiety, but it could also be labeled excitement.

In every waking moment, your brain uses past experience, organized as concepts, to guide your actions and give your sensations meaning. When the concepts involved are emotion concepts, your brain constructs instances of emotion. (Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions are Made)

This is fascinating because according to Barrett, one's prior experiences—the basis of the “predictions” of the brain—affect how one perceives a given physical state. Yes, you could have been taught that this particular set of sensations indicates anxiety and fear, but if that's true, you can also learn that it indicates excitement, especially in the absence of anything to be truly fearful about.

The story we tell ourselves about our sensations is largely what generates the emotions, in Barrett's conception, and this is a powerful tool for self-regulation in times of acute distress.We all feel, and we all get “nervous”

I write all of this analysis, not to criticise Hormozi for feeling nervous, but rather to acknowledge that this is a universal emotion, especially where one's perceived status is lower and therefore one could potentially be under threat. This is all normal and nothing to be railed against.

What is instructive for us is what to do about it when our nerves do seem to be getting the best of us, and here there are a few tools at our disposal, both mechanical and psychological:

Breathwork, especially physiological sighing. Since the physical substrate of emotion is sensation in the body, particularly activation of the sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze, and procreate), you can downregulate this quite effectively through breathwork, or at the very least, slow measured breathing.

Slowing down. This is related to the above, but involves the whole body. When you feel like you're having to rush or you can't catch your breath, that is exactly the time to slow down. Move as if you're in water, breath deeply, speak slowly. There is no rush, and it's generally difficult to speak too slowly, but very easy to speak too quickly and have trouble breathing well.

Reframing. You can ask yourself a simple question—is the story I'm telling myself about my emotions correct? Could I be feeling this way physically due to a different emotion?

It's important to remember one fact that the business world tries to iron out of us: we are human, messy organic creatures, not machines. We are meant to feel emotion. It's normal, not a sign that we're inferior or impostors. Once we learn to accept that our sensations fluctuate, sometimes for reasons unbeknownst to the conscious mind, then suddenly the judgement falls away and we can learn to be who we are, not who we think we're meant to be.

Until next time,