Omnichannel - How to Express Yourself Clearly Under Pressure: Why We Ramble and How to Stop

Episode Date: May 31, 2026

Send us Fan MailThe Expressed Program: https://www.dominikalegrand.com/expressed-programYou know that feeling when you want to say something that matters to you. You rehearse it in your head, but when it comes time to say it, things don't come out the way you imagined.It could be: A sales conversation with a potential client  An event you're hosting and presenting in front of people  Or simply an important conversation where you need to speak up for yourself and what you believe in You get so nervous that you don't even recognize yourself afterward.You replay the conversation in your head, feeling embarrassed and thinking about how you could have said it better.You shame yourself, wondering, "Why can't I say this the way I wanted to?"The truth is, when something matters to us emotionally, we become activated.Our nervous system goes into alert mode.And in that state, several things happen in the body that can affect our ability to think clearly and express ourselves effectively.In this episode, we talk about: What happens to us on a physiological level in these moments  Why it happens  How to stay clear under pressure so you can express yourself with confidence instead of sounding like someone you don't recognize Enjoy.Learn More about the Human to Human programs here: https://www.dominikalegrand.com/programs-1

Hello, my dears entrepreneur friends, welcome back to the Omni Channel podcast. I'm in bed and I have about 30 minutes before I have to hop on a call. I just came back from Italy. It's been such an amazing trip, but I need to actively manage my energy because I'm about to step on stage today for the first time in my improv comedy journey. and I'm just trying to get some rest because I traveled four hours today and again, I need my brain to be functioning at optimal condition. And so what I wanted to talk about today is, first of all, I'm running a program called Express, and this program is for entrepreneurs who genuinely want to express in a way that lands with people. And the deepest, I would say, Nord star of the program is to become someone whose expression is actually moving people, not just hearing you. They're actually impacted by what you have to say. It's about how do I express in a way that lands with people so that when I speak, they pay attention.

When I speak, there's something in them that starts seating. There's something in them that starts growing. growing, there's something in them that is making sense. There's something in them that is being seen. There's something in them that feels recognized. There's just something in them that is moving down to where they want to go to an outcome or to see something from a perspective we never seen before or to discover something that will change the way they see their situations and their businesses and their lives. Their side of them that can play, reconnect with that. side of them that can enjoy expression for expression's sake before they fell into oh they need to optimize

this for the likes and the content and what do i say so people do things and and so how do i get them to buy how do i get them to see the value of what i'm offering like those questions they're not they're not what you're going to ask how can i express in a way that when i do they recognize themselves in it and therefore they move because they see that you understand them deeply. That is expressed and we are starting June 17. So if you want to come into the program, it's going to be linked in the description of this video. Now there's something I want to talk about today and that is around expression and since I'm going to step on stage, I'm already feeling quite nervous to be honest with you. And I think it's with improvised.

is that I'm doing this purposely because I want to be okay with not knowing exactly what I'm going to say and building that muscle of trusting my own intuition of what emerges in me in the moment to see if I can let go of the tension and anxiety of this has to be a certain way and then just to have fun and play and let people see me in that state. I think many times when we are either have something you want to say, you know, many times we script things, right? But improv actually pushes you to stop scripting and be in the present moment, right? Because when we are in the present moment, we aren't so much worried about, did I memorize my lines well? It's about what needs to emerge in the moment will have to be

emerging in a moment and trusting that expression instead of, filtering and withholding. And I think to me, improv really helped me unlock that side of me that was overthinking before speaking. You know, before I stopped into a scene, I was like, okay, I'm going to say this. So by the time I get there, this will be this, you know. But improv really is like, nope, no prep time, you go. And in the moment, you know, you'll figure it out. And many times you're reacting what's in front of you. So it's quite an interesting experience. have to tell you. But there's something about expression I wanted to talk about to you today. And that has to do with coherence and that it has to do with regulation and it has to do with

how do we maintain coherence when we express. Now, about a week ago before I went to Italy, I was hosting a workshop. And this workshop was about how to overcome the fear of being seen. And this was specifically done for intuitive entrepreneurs, more on the introverted side. But the underlying issues are, I feel like, they are so universal. I had a lot of people say a lot of things around what they fear will happen. And many times, the visibility or fear of being seen isn't something they are afraid of. What they are afraid of is the consequence of what happens when they are seen, right? Either being rejected or they think something.

of them or they don't recognize themselves anymore or the friends they don't recognize themselves anymore and they're like, who are you, right? So I don't want to go into the depths of that one. If you want to comment again, I'm going to host it again. I will let you know the details of that as well. But what I wanted to mention is that there was the specific person who said that, actually in a Q&A section of the workshop, he said that I don't like to speak. speak up because I don't want to be considered as a no-it-all. And also, I feel like when I speak up about something in my workplace, I sound like a buffoon. That's the expression, he said. I sound like a buffoon. And I don't want to sound like a buffoon. And it's so interesting to me because,

yes, you know, you might sound like a buffoon. And I was asking him, like, what do you mean? mean like what do you mean you sound like a buffoon like how does the buffoon sound like it's it's more like what do you think you sound like when you speak and he tells me that when he's very nervous like there is just something comes over him and he's rambling he's a little bit all over the place and he doesn't know why and it doesn't like that part of him is just somehow this comes out of him and it's just weird it's kind of like when you have to sing in front of a class you know i don't know if you have to do this in school. We had this. Well, many kids absolutely hated this. On music class, when you had to stand up and basically sing in front of the whole class. And it was this public embarrassment experience,

and especially the cool guys, they really hated it, they resisted it. I mean, making someone sing in front of the dust of the classmates and grading them also giving them of one to five. Honestly, I don't know. It's not really something. I can fully stand behind. But many times, what happened for me was, first of all, I love to sing. And when I had to sing in front of the class, what happened was I was so nervous. I was like, I know in the alphabet, I knew dominoical as the beginning of the alphabet. I know I'm right there.

I'm right there. I'm pretty soon. I'm coming. And you know exactly. you are the sixth and then who's before you and like as the anticipation is building up and you are like oh it's going to be me soon uh yeah that's how it feels but i remember standing up in front of the class and i tried to sing and i sounded nothing like i sounded like like i know how i sound like in the bathroom when i sing in the own comfort of my home when i sing but when i was singing and in front of my

whole class, I sounded like some sort of broken violin, at least to me. And that's when I realized, and I want to put this example next to the, do I sound like a buffoon, is that whenever, and I will talk about why, but whenever we are under stress, anxiety, we sound different, right? Because we are stressing out, like stress is affecting our vocal ability. and it also affects our thinking abilities. Can you believe that? So this also means, and by the way, we're going to go into the biology of everything because I loved, I loved understanding this to the degree that I did simply because high performance, like athletes, you know, athletes that are actually competing, they notice and they use it to their benefits. But here's the catch. Whenever we

are anxious or nervous, what happens is naturally our heart rate and our blood pressure goes higher, right? And so what happens is like when I'm sitting here right now, I would say my heart rate is about 85 to 90 BPM, right? But whenever I'm getting into a more heightened state, like because I'm anxious or nervous, my heart rate goes up. And with that, my cognitive functions, there's something starts to happen in the brain. So when I'm entering to 120, what happens is, is that you get to optimal peak performance. Why? Because whenever I'm standing on stage, and let's assume I'm hosting a webinar, if I was to speak with my 80BPM calm heart rate, I would probably

sound calm like this. I would take pauses when I speak and that would probably put you to sleep. But whenever I'm back to activation and I'm speaking from activation, like excitement, you can feel the energy, right? There's a different energy that you can hear not just through my voice, but through how I'm breathing, how I'm regulating, how I'm, there is tempo, there is movement in the way we speak at this level. But if I was to get really, really anxious and really nervous, you know what would happen? I would start fumbling and stumbling over my words. And we all do that. We all are affected. Because what happens is that when we hit the threshold, of optimal performance.

And this is, by the way, scientifically researched. Most athletes and high performance, they consciously regulate to keep their heart rate between the range of performance. So it doesn't go over. Because after around 160, 70, what happens to your brain is your cognitive functions are getting compromised.

And when your cognitive functions, functions are getting compromised, what is actually goes offline is your prefrontal cortex. And amygdala takes over, which is responsible for emotions, right? That's where fight-to-fight, all the responses they come. And that is what moves the blood to your legs and arms. So you kind of run from threat, which is what essentially happens to the body when you're feeling stressed out because of a perceived danger. but essentially with that your prefrontal cortex which is responsible for critical thinking

is actually losing its functions right so first of all it would lose coherence so you would start rambling your voice would start to shake you would sound like no one you can ever recognize and then suddenly you would stop making sense and there's a point where your memory is offline You can't remember facts anymore. You're not so sharp anymore. And there are times when your brain is basically a vegetable. Like when you are over 175, you're a vegetable brain, basically. So when we are in vegetable brain, I mean, at that point, like, you really don't make sense anymore.

Because your prefrontal cortex is offline. So many times when we are activated and we are in a role of expression, whether it's something so trivial to speak up about an issue for what matters, you know, like it could be a relationship issue, it could be a business issue, something that matters to you, you will get activated. And the trick isn't to not have activation because we talked about how When we speak with more activation, our words, they land more with people. Versus when we speak slowly like that, they might land, but they would feel different.

Right? So it's not just the speed. It's not just the tempo. It's the range in which we can play with our expressions. But why we regulate is to maintain coherence. and the way I like to do this is I think breathing helps, like definitely inhale four seconds, exhale,

hand on chest is very, very helpful to ground yourself, you're okay, you're here, you're fine. But at the same time, you don't have to lose the activation, you just need to keep it at a level so you still make sense. Does that make sense? I think the hardest conversation is the more emotional we are touched by something, whether it's anxiety because we are going to step on stage

or host an event or speak in front of people. Or it could just be perhaps you having to ask a question that you think is important to discuss with a client or with whoever. It's a conversation, it's a sales conversation, right? And there's an element in where, which there are emotions involved. You will feel that. You will feel activation. The trick isn't to not feel it. It's to work with it so that it turns to your advantage. And you need to regulate

for that. Right? Because if you don't regulate, we just talked about it. You lose coherence. People will not understand you. You also lose credibility in the way of speak because you lose conviction. When you are looking like you're not okay, people can, first of all, sense it, but they can also kind of read it from your body language, right? You can tell if someone is uncomfortable, if someone is anxious and nervous. You don't have to be a super empath to read that on body language in terms of what people are saying. And there was this show I was watching, I think it was the millionaire secret. And the whole show and the whole premise of the show,

if you've seen it on Netflix, it's about one person having a million dollars in their box and you have to lie that they don't have it. And basically the rest of the group have to vote for who has the million dollars. And at the end of this show, you know, someone gets to win the million dollars. But you have to kind of lie really well. You have to hold tension really well. And people are on to you.

you have to not show that and it's so hard for people because it's an unnatural state to be super calm and on the inside you're like they're onto me right and in that show what i have found interesting is how when people are getting blamed that they are the millionaires and even though they're not like how triggered they get and when they get triggered you guys there was this one lady i think and her maybe 60s, late 50s. And someone blamed her that she's a millionaire and she knew she wasn't. And guys, she was so triggered that she was like rambling. She was crying.

It was a mess. And that made her look more suspicious, you guys. Even though she wasn't a millionaire. But that made her look suspicious because when people are losing coherence, like, oh, there must be something after, right? and the credibility goes out of the window. We're like, oh, you're behaving very suspiciously, right? So when we speak with conviction, we keep coherence, and we make sense,

it's actually a superpower to regulate yourself to that state where you're not, I mean, super calm, it depends on what you want, but being reasonable, staying coherent, and even if active, but being able to maintain that coherence is actually going to help you land wherever you want to land and have people believe in what you are saying more and not doubt those words so much because you are a coherent under pressure right and this was something I had to learn for me the activation to work with the activation is essentially a thing that I'm still mastering and I don't think it's easy

I think it's definitely a challenge especially if you care about cause or if you care about why you want to express something I think so much if the care is there and you want to be good and you want people to receive you well like of course that will turn on some of that activation that that potentially could escalate into coherence loss but i think the key is is to first of all breathe i think breathing helps always moving your body helps always staying in a moment helps always like let's not anticipate scenarios that didn't happen let's stay with what we see and and also just you know, slowing down, pausing. It helps as well. Okay? So another thing I want to add here is I never really doubted whether or not what I say matters. And I think that's a big for other people because I think

most of us when we are expressing, and I had this, and I had this guy in my class named improv, He didn't come a lot of the times, but basically he had such hard time speaking up because what he learned is that what he has to say is not important. That when he came home from school, mom didn't ask how was school. And he learned that what I have to say doesn't really matter. It's not important. So I'm not going to say it. I think that's such a heartbreaking experience for a child.

to become an adult that believes that what I say doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything. If I speak, it's dangerous. If I speak, it will hurt people. If I speak, it will be ignored. In fact, I had one person for the master class that, you know what, my fear isn't so much about expression. It's about if I express, people don't, they won't care. It won't change anything. And I think that also goes back to that wound of what I say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't what I say. Right? So whatever you say matters and can that be your baseline? Like can you get around the fact that everyone's expression matters that if you have something you want to say, you should be able to say it? And I'm not saying we're unfiltered or uncalibrated. It's more about

enjoying the freedom of expression for the sake of expressing something. because you think matters and that's okay and that's enough. Even if the rest of the world doesn't think it does, the fact that you believe that it mattered, it's worth saying? I don't know. I'd like to believe that people have interesting things to say and stories to tell, evince them to share. That's what I believe.

So you want to come in to express I would love to see you and teach you inside of this live program. We're going to do at least three modules for three weeks. So every week you'll get access to a module. I have a lot to say about this. And what I found that really moves people, what are the nervous system states in which we move people more, not just in terms of our anxiety management,

and how do we regulate? I think regulation is baseline, but more of like what is actually something that people pick up on and how to reconnect with that side of you and how to stay with that expression even under pressure because when we start being visible, people might disagree with us and that's part of the game. Okay, so if you want to come in for expressed, I'm going to put a link in the description of this episode. Thank you so much for listening to this one. Wish me luck for tonight. I'm already feeling much better. Thanks guys.