Aaron Smalls is a corporate event host, emcee, and DJ based in New York City. In this article, adapted from Episode 1 of his YouTube series Smalls Talk™, he breaks down why “calm down” fails before high-pressure moments, the Harvard research that proves it, and the S.A.V.E.™ system for giving nervous energy a job. If you’ve ever been nervous before speaking, presenting, or walking into a moment that matters, this one’s for you.
On July 9th, 2026, I was standing at my decks at the FIFA World Cup fan festival outside Boston Stadium. In three hours, sixty thousand people from all over the planet were going to walk through those gates, and my job was to have every single one of them at a peak by kickoff.
And my hands were shaking like dice at a craps table.
Twenty years on stages, and my hands were shaking. Here’s why that was the best news I got all day.
What Everybody Tells You When You’re Nervous Before Speaking
You’ve heard it before a presentation, before an interview, before a first date. Somebody squeezes your shoulder and says the two least helpful words in the English language: calm down.
Just relax. Take a deep breath. Picture the audience in their underwear, which has never helped one human being ever.
The belief underneath all of it is that nerves are a warning light. Shaking hands, racing heart, butterflies. Your body telling you that you’re not ready, and the goal is to make the feeling go away.
Being nervous before speaking gets treated like a malfunction. It’s not. It’s fuel without an assignment.
I lived by that belief for years. Then some of the biggest stages in the world taught me something different.
Nerves are never the problem. They never were. They’re just energy looking for a job.
That racing heart isn’t a warning light. It’s your body showing up early for work with extra fuel in the tank. The question was never how do I get rid of this. The question is: what job am I going to give it?
The Opening Shift at a World Cup
Back to July 9th. The festival grounds were empty, the stadium a banner-covered wall beside me, quiet for now. I noticed the shake in my hands, and for a half second, that old voice showed up. Twenty years in, and you’re nervous? At YOUR job? At sharing your gift?
That voice has a name. Imposter syndrome. And it doesn’t check resumes. Viola Davis has talked about it. Rick Rubin has talked about it. It shows up for everybody who cares.
But this wasn’t a wedding, and it wasn’t a corporate gig where I know the run of show cold. This was a World Cup quarterfinal. Sixty thousand fans, dozens of countries, a dozen languages, most of them arriving tired, hot, and hungry. My work was to take all of that scattered energy and hand it to the stadium at a peak, right at kickoff.
So I did the thing I teach. I stopped trying to feel less. I stopped asking how do I make this go away. And I asked the only question that matters: where does this energy need to go?
The answer was obvious. The first hour of a fan festival is the hardest shift of the day. Fans walk in cold. The liquid courage hasn’t kicked in yet, and nobody dances at 3 p.m. That opening hour needs somebody with more energy than the room has.
And energy is never my problem. I always have a surplus. The skill isn’t having it. The skill is knowing how to transfer it.
So every bit of that shake went into the open. The first call on the mic. The first record. The first family that walked in wearing three different countries’ jerseys, and I made them the main characters of the whole grounds.
Three hours later, sixty thousand strangers went through those gates as one crowd. Chanting. For two different teams, sure. Still one crowd. The grounds emptied behind me, and then I heard the roar come from inside the walls. The nerves never disappeared. They got promoted. They ran the opening shift.
What Harvard Found
A researcher at Harvard Business School named Alison Wood Brooks asked people the best way to handle pre-performance anxiety. Around eighty-five percent said the same thing your shoulder-squeezing friend says: try to calm down.
Then she tested it. Karaoke singing, public speaking, even math tests. And calming down lost. Badly.
Because anxiety is a high-energy state and calm is a low-energy state, and dragging your body from one end of that scale to the other mid-moment is like trying to parallel park a moving truck in a NYC parking spot.
But excitement is high-energy too. Same heart rate. Same electricity. It’s next door. So the people who simply said out loud, “I am excited,” sang better, spoke better, and scored better. They didn’t lower the energy. They relabeled it and aimed it like an arrow.
(The study: Brooks, A.W., “Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014.)
People feel you before they understand you. And your body is no different. It just needs to know what the feeling is for.
The S.A.V.E.™ System
When the nerves show up, I run a system I built for live moments called S.A.V.E.™ Four moves that turn pressure into presence.
Scan the situation. Not the story in your head, the actual room. What’s really happening? My hands are shaking and I have sixty thousand guests arriving. That’s it. That’s the whole situation.
Adapt the approach. This is the relabel. Out loud if you can. Not “I’m nervous,” but “I’m excited.” Harvard says those three words move the needle. I say them in green rooms, on planes, behind the decks.
Validate your victory mindset. Decide who the room needs you to be. Those fans didn’t need a calm DJ. They needed one who knows how to throw a party. Your audience on Monday doesn’t need a relaxed presenter. They need a present one.
Execute with precision. Give the energy its job, and make it specific. Not “do well.” Not “be funny.” Not “crush the pitch.” Those are wishes, not jobs. Aim it at the first twenty seconds. The energy of your walk-in. The volume of your first sentence. The eye contact on your open. Nervous energy is rocket fuel with no opinion about the destination. You’re the one doing the aiming.
Your Rep This Week
Knowledge can inspire, but reps make you magnetic.
Sometime this week, you have a moment coming. A meeting, a call, a conversation you’ve been putting off. When the nerves show up, don’t calm down. Say “I’m excited” out loud, then give the energy one specific job for the first twenty seconds. Just the first twenty. The room’ll take it from there.
Then come tell me what happened in the comments on the episode. I read every one.
New rooms open on Smalls Talk™ the first Tuesday of every month. And if you want to train this for real, with reps in front of a real room, that’s what Just Mic That™ is built for: aaronsmalls.com/just-mic-that/
Here’s to connecting people through energy. One room, one experience at a time.