Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance.

Research found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.

In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress.

As long as the stress isn’t prolonged, it’s harmless.

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They Breathe

The easiest way to make stress intermittent lies in something that you have to do every-day anyway: breathing.

The practice of being in the moment with your breathing will begin to train your brain to focus solely on the task at hand and

get the stress monkey off your back.

When you’re feeling stressed, take a couple of minutes to focus on your breathing.

Close the door, put away all other distractions, and just sit in a chair and breathe.

The goal is to spend the entire time focused only on your breathing, which will prevent your mind from wandering.

Think about how it feels to breathe in and out.

This sounds simple, but it’s hard to do for more than a minute or two.

It’s all right if you get sidetracked by another thought;

this is sure to happen at the beginning, and you just need to bring your focus back to your breathing.

If staying focused on your breathing proves to be a real struggle,

try counting each breath in and out until you get to 20, and then start again from 1.

Don’t worry if you lose count; you can always just start over.

This task may seem too easy or even a little silly, but you’ll be surprised by how calm you feel afterward and

how much easier it is to let go of distracting thoughts that otherwise seem to have lodged permanently inside your brain.

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Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances.

This lowers their stress levels regardless of what’s happening in their environment,

ensuring that the stress they experience is intermittent and not prolonged.