Nerves vs. Nervous

There's a difference between having nerves and being nervous. One means you care. The other means you didn't prepare.

Show Notes

In this episode of Shark Theory, Baylor pulls back the curtain on building a brand-new keynote from scratch and the psychology behind performance pressure.

Unlike refining a talk over months like a comedian workshops material, this time Baylor had to deliver something completely new. New stories. New structure. New neuroscience. And with that came something he doesn't often feel: nerves.

But here's the distinction that changed everything.

Nerves simply mean you care. Nervousness usually means you're unprepared.

Baylor breaks down why preparation is the one variable you can always control. Countless hours rewriting, rehearsing, scrapping sections, and refining flow removed the fear of being exposed when the lights came on. Because when you've done the work, the stage doesn't intimidate you. It reveals you.

He also revisits a concept from his earlier work: in life, you only truly fail about 25% of the time. Why? Because outcomes split into two categories: effort failure and experience failure.

Experience failure means you did your best and came up short. That's not failure. That's data. That's growth. That's the Olympic sprinter finishing fourth in the fastest race ever run and walking away with insight, not defeat.

Effort failure, however, is different. That's when you didn't prepare. Didn't practice. Didn't rest. Didn't train. That's the only category you fully control.

Most people don't rise to the occasion. They sink to the level of their training.

So the real question isn't whether you're nervous. It's whether you've done the work before the lights come on.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• The difference between nerves and nervousness

• Why preparation eliminates fear

• The two types of failure and how to tell them apart

• Why experience failure is actually growth

• How effort failure is the only one you control

• Why you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to your training

Featured Quote

"Nerves mean you care. Nervous means you didn't prepare."