It may be possible to turn anxiety into a superpower in some scenarios, recent research indicates. The study found that if entrepreneurs preparing to make a funding pitch connected their pitch anxiety to their passion for their venture, judges ranked their performance higher. Perhaps even more importantly, the judges were also more likely to recommend them for funding. This emotion reframing involved the entrepreneurs recognizing that they were feeling anxious partly because the project means so much to them. Entrepreneurs who tried other strategies to deal with pre-pitch anxiety, including suppressing or distracting themselves, did less well.
