Dawn: What’s the biggest mindset tip you have to get past being nervous? Nerves really help him. The more nervous he is and the higher the stakes the better he does, but not everyone is like that. I think I would just freak out. The higher the stakes, I would just be done. I don’t know how you use that to fuel you. Some people I think it just paralyzes.
Bo: Yeah, for sure. And it did me too. In professional sports, you’re very nervous. All those guys that you see or you might admire or look up to, they look pretty confident when they’re out there playing, right? But I wish you could see them when they’re back in the locker room. Like Jerry Rice is the greatest player to ever to play that game (NFL) and I was his teammate. I’d look over and right before the game that dude is puking in the toilet, but you can’t see it. What you see of Jerry Rice is like, “Boy, he looks confident. Wow, he’s the best player ever.” You don’t see him puking or sitting on the toilet. You just don’t see it, right? But what he does is he takes those nerves with him out there. He doesn’t try to pretend that he doesn’t have them.
Most people, and speaking coaches I hear them say this all the time, “Oh, just get over those nerves. You don’t need to be nervous; there’s nothing to be nervous about.” My son, he’s a nervous wreck before every game that he plays. He’s crying, he’s nervous, because it means everything to him. And coaches say to him, “Don’t be nervous. It’s just a basketball game.” And I’m saying, “Shut up.” It’s everything to him. It’s not just a basketball game. Okay? I say to him, “Axel, you know how you’re feeling? Put it on them. Put it on the other team. Walk out there and put those nerves on them. That’s what I want you to do. That’s what I do. I come out here and put the onus on you. And what that does to you is it implicates you and makes you a part of this story and a part of my job. You’re helping me and I’m helping you and now we have co-creation. Co-creation is the one thing that is the most intoxicating. Any of you who have had a baby with somebody, since you can’t have one alone, there’s nothing more intimate, right? So if you can do that with an audience, it’s your nerves that give you that connective tissue with an audience because everybody’s nervous.
I was trained by this great coach, whose name is Roy London, and he would say to me, “You’re not really nervous,” because my hands would shake when I got on stage. He goes, “That’s not nerves, it’s love. You want to be good. You love and honor the audience. You want to be good. That’s called love, not nerves. It’s okay.” And eventually I just let that happen. My hands shook forever—shook forever. And eventually they just kind of stopped shaking. But I didn’t care. Sometimes they still shake, you know? It’s just how it is. I care, right? I like when people care. I like when Jerry Rice throws up because I know what kind of performance I’m going to get after that. These are the guys who aren’t nervous in the locker room: “Yeah, we’re going to kick their ass. Yeah!” You know what those guys are doing the whole game? They’re on the bench. They might as well have pom-poms in their hands. They’re on the bench and going, “Go get ‘em, Jerry Rice! Get ‘em. We’re going to kick your ass. We’re getting you guys. Jerry, go get them.” Jerry’s puking. That’s how it goes. That’s the world we live in. You’ve got to use those nerves. They are your jet fuel. Don’t try to pretend you don’t have them—that’s what I do with them.
