The worst advice you can give or receive.

It's the most annoying thing to hear...

Source: Ryron Gracie

I get it, we all have days or even weeks when we're stressed.

We feel it in our sweaty palms, our nervous stomachs, our elevated heartbeats.

You know what the worst thing to do in this situation is?

Telling someone - yourself or anyone else - to "calm down".

Unfortunately, I have learned that calm does not - shall not! - come by invoking its presence or demanding it to show up.

A truly terrible circle of life. 100% do not recommend.

Calm comes when we can get our bodies and our minds to a place where we can focus, breathe, and let ideas come to us freely and without constraint.

Similarly, we get our points across with more clarity and impact when we are calm: we think better, we reason more easily, and we have more elasticity in our mood.

When we are calm, our stakeholders receive and perceive us as less threatening, less adversarial and more collaborative.

Calm communicators are more influential and impactful communicators: we prize their rationality, thoughtfulness and level-headedness.

In short, in work and in life, calm can help us convince, persuade, and connect.

I'm devoting a whole chapter of Powerfully Likeable to calm: what sort of things do you want to know about calm communicating?

Any tips you've found useful for being calm at work?