The 60-Second Reset — How to Shift Your State Before It Shifts Your Team

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I explore something that most leaders experience but rarely address: walking into a meeting still carrying the weight of the one before it.

Research on emotional contagion tells us that your team picks up on your state within seconds of you walking into a room. If you’re stressed, distracted, or mentally still in the last conversation, that transmits, and it affects everyone’s performance, not just yours.

The good news is that while you can’t always control what happens to you, you can control what you do in the moments before you show up for your people. I share two simple breathing techniques, and more importantly, a practical way to actually remember to use them.

Because knowing about a technique and building it into your day are two very different things.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your emotional state spreads to your team faster than you realise
• What’s happening in your nervous system when you’re under pressure, and how to reverse it quickly
• One simple breathing technique you can use in under sixty seconds
• Why most people know about these techniques but don’t use them, and how to close that gap
• A straightforward habit to build so the reset becomes automatic

Ben’s Key Takeaways

States are contagious. The mood and energy you carry into a room will affect how everyone in it thinks, feels and performs. This isn’t just a leadership idea, it’s what the research on emotional contagion consistently tells us.

Deliberate breathing works… but only if you actually do it. Most leaders are aware of breathing techniques but forget to use them in the moment, because there’s no trigger.

Set three alarms on your phone – one at the start of your day, one at lunch, one at the end – labelled with a word that connects to the reset. When it goes off, take thirty seconds to breathe and reset.

This isn’t about building a meditation practice; it’s about building a habit of pausing before you show up for other people.

A final thought:

You can’t always choose what’s on your plate. But you can choose what you carry into the room.

Want to learn more about how to be a leader?

The expression of interest form is now open for the next cohort of my ‘Leader in Me’ programme.

If you’re ready to:

• Build confidence and capability as a leader
• Break free from firefighting and become more proactive
• Learn how to inspire your team and deliver results…

Learn more and register your interest here.

Podcast Transcript

The 60-Second Reset — How to Shift Your State Before It Shifts Your Team

Think about the last time you walked into a meeting, still carrying something from the conversation before it.

You sat down and went through the motions without realising there was a large gap between how you thought you were coming across and how other people actually experienced you.

You’re not alone, though. We’ve all done it.

Research on emotional contagion tells us that your team picks up on your state within seconds of you walking into a room.

If you’re stressed, distracted, or still mentally in the last meeting… that transmits.

As I said in the last episode of The Leaders Kitbag – states are contagious. And your mood when you walk in will affect everyone’s performance — not just yours.

Now, here’s the good news.

You can’t always control what’s just happens to you. A difficult call or frustrating email, perhaps.

But you can control what you do in the moments before you show up for your people.

And it doesn’t take long. Even sixty seconds can be enough to shift your state.

So let’s talk about how.

The simplest tool you have is your breath.

Now, I know. Most of you will have heard about breathing techniques before. I had too. And I wanted to use them – I genuinely did.

But I kept forgetting in the moment because there was no trigger or prompt.

And I suspect that’s true for you.

When you’re under pressure, your sympathetic nervous system fires up.

Your heart rate rises, thinking narrows and you become more reactive.

Deliberate breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system — it brings you back down and clears the noise.

I’ve got one, lesser known technique for you to try.

It’s called the physiological sigh.

Breathe in through your nose… then add a short second inhale at the top to fully inflate the lungs. Then let it all go in one long, slow exhale through the mouth.

Done deliberately, it produces one of the fastest calming responses your nervous system is capable of.

Now — and this is the bit that matters most — knowing about these techniques and actually using them are two very different things.

I knew about breathing techniques for a long time. And the reason I didn’t use them wasn’t because I doubted they worked.

It was because I didn’t have a trigger — no moment in my day that reliably prompted me to stop and do it.

So if you want to close that knowing-doing gap, here’s a simple way to do it.

Set three alarms on your phone.

One just before you start your working day. One around lunchtime. And one at the end of the day.

Label each one with something that connects it to the breathing — “Breathe”, “Reset”, “Shift state” — whatever works for you.

When it goes off, do the physiological sigh or just take three deep breaths.

Thirty seconds and you’re done.

You’re not building a meditation practice. You’re building a habit of pausing before you show up for other people.

And over time, you won’t need the alarms.

The pause will become automatic.

Leadership asks a lot of us.

It asks us to show up consistently for other people, even on the hard days.

You can’t always choose what’s on your plate. 

But you can choose what you carry into the room. 

And sometimes, sixty seconds is all it takes. 

That’s it for this episode. 

As always, look after yourself, and look after those you have the privilege and responsibility to lead. 

Until next time… Lead on.