The Live Wire

Who you are

Pressure reaches you in the first second and it reaches everyone else about a second later. Your voice changes, your pace picks up, and whatever you are feeling is already in the room before you've chosen to share it. Then you need to move — a walk, a workout, a phone call where you say the entire thing out loud — and once that's done you are genuinely fine again.

The upside is that nothing festers. People never have to decode you, problems get named while they're still small, and the recovery is fast because you don't carry anything into the next day. In a crisis you're often the first person doing something, which is worth a great deal when the alternative is a room that freezes.

The cost is that your first reaction is public and your first reaction is not your best one. People read your intensity as a verdict on them, and the ones who go quiet under pressure will find you a lot to be near. You also spend energy you didn't have to spend, because plenty of things that got the full surge turned out to be small.

Give yourself ninety seconds before you respond to anything. Not to suppress it — just so the room gets your second reaction instead of your first.

You know it's you when…

• A problem got named early because you said it out loud
• Someone took your intensity personally when it wasn't about them
• You were completely fine an hour after a walk

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