How to sound more confident: say “I’m excited” instead of “calm down”
By Yogesh Pandey · 22 October 2026 · 2 min read
Say “I am excited” out loud before you speak. Calm is not the goal, because a racing heart does not switch off on command. In a Harvard Business School study, people who said “I’m excited” before singing karaoke got about 80% of the song right, against 53% for people who said “I’m anxious”.
Two minutes before your presentation
Your heart is going crazy, and everyone says, “Calm down. Just relax.” It almost never works.
Calmness is not the goal. Excitement is.
What the study found
A researcher at Harvard made people sing karaoke in front of others. Before singing, some said “I’m anxious” and some said “I’m excited”.
The anxious group got about half the song right (53%). The excited group got eight out of ten (80%). In the same research, saying “I’m excited” before speaking improved how persuasive and confident people were rated.
You called it the wrong name
You are not too nervous to speak. You just called it the wrong name. A fast heart and sweaty hands are what your body does for both anxiety and excitement.
So the way to calm down without trying to calm down is to say “I am excited”. Out loud. Even if you do not believe it yet.
- Two minutes before you speak, say out loud: “I am excited.”
- Do not try to calm down. Let the energy be there and point it at the talk.
Source: Brooks (2014), Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143(3), Harvard Business School.
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