This is Levelheaded Talk, a podcast with Dr. Andrea Vitz that explores the power of emotional sobriety to help you give and get the most in your personal and professional relationships. This podcast is a discussion of concepts and is not intended to offer individual personal advice. As always, we implore you to discuss any sensitive personal situations with a licensed therapist or medical professional before you take any actions.

Jon 0:47
Welcome to Levelheaded Talk. This week, we're talking about five ways that you can build composure.

Andrea 0:53
So good. All right, so today is Control Your State. Control your state.

And you want to control your state. What I mean by that is before you enter a situation. So that's the moment-to-moment awareness training around how am I thinking, how am I feeling, what am I doing, moment-to-moment, what is my intention? How many reps have I gotten in? And am I serious about it? Am I obsessed with this? Am I obsessed with composure? Am I obsessed with my emotional sobriety? Because otherwise, I'm not going to be able to have it when I'm squeezed.

So I need to have that control of my state in the moment when somebody comes in, tries to squeeze everything out of me. So how do we do that?

Well, I think of composure as this. This is a simplified version, all right? Get your pen out unless you're driving.

It's a readiness and a strength behind your eyes. 

Try to feel that. Think about, close your eyes and ask yourself, if I'm, let's say you're in a fight with somebody or someone's trying to argue with you and they're upset about something or you're in trouble.

I want you to sit there and feel what composure would feel like. There's stillness, there's readiness, and there is a strength behind your eyes. There's also this ease and openness kind of in your throat, like you don't get that tied down throat, you just have this open flow in your throat.

There's an outward power radiating from your heart. It's outward, right? It's like this blast toward somebody else of just power, and you can call it love, you can call it energy, whatever it is, but it's not lacking composure.

It is composure. There's a strong and fast will in your solar plexus, like right where your willpower sits. It's very, very fast. It's very, very powerful. And there's like an internal courage and faith that's built before you even enter a situation, which we touched on a little bit. But this is why composure is training, because it's not something you just try to muster in the moment.

We have to in the beginning, of course, because without training, we won't be prepared. But it's really about controlling your state, not the circumstance. So if I'm walking outside, I don't know what might happen.

There might be a bear out there. There might be a criminal breaking in my car. There might be somebody, a neighbor that's mad at me about something.

I don't know what's going to happen. I need to have control of my state before I even walk out the door. And that composure is this steadfast awareness and decision.

It's an immovable decision that no matter what happens, I'm going to be this. Yeah. So in that, your rule or your law for yourself, your integral rule, is that your situation should never dictate your emotional state.

If it does, you've lost composure.

Jon 3:50
That is the definition of losing composure.

Andrea 3:53
That's it. And so even in a quote, crappy situation, you remain steady. And this is the key differentiator for leaders, because the ability to stay composed no matter what is happening externally is what makes you an effective leader.

There isn't another type of effective leader. Right. And so those are the things I really want you to take today, is what have you done, and what are you doing, and what will you do to control your state moment to moment, when you're alone in your room, when you're in the shower, when you're driving in your car, when you're having a conversation, practice this composure, that steadiness, and that strength behind your eyes.

That open outward energy from the heart, that openness and ease in your throat, that will, that strong in your solar plexus, and really like a foundation that you're standing on that comes from courage and faith. Okay. Does that make sense, everybody?

We got this. Okay. So tomorrow, we're going to talk about the fourth way to build composure, even if you're just starting out.

We'll see you guys tomorrow.