Former U.S President Barack Obama Shares His Secret to Staying Calm Under Pressure

Barack Obama in no doubt lived up to his nickname ‘no drama Obama’ during his presidency but how was he able to keep his cool and remain calm when he was occupying one of the toughest and most pressure-laden positions in the world?

Addressing attendees at a tech conference hosted by software company Qualtrics in Salt Lake City, Utah last week, Obama admitted the nickname was justified when he made mention of it and went ahead to spill the beans on how he was able to overcome the pressures of the job.

“I have an even temperament and I don’t get too high and I don’t get too low, but that doesn’t mean that throughout the presidency and throughout my professional career that there weren’t times when I was constrained by, ‘Man I don’t want to screw this up. I don’t want to let people down. I don’t want to be seen as having made a mistake or having failed’,” he said, as reported by Business Insider.

He then admitted that his experience of a “shedding of fear” during his second term played a part in making him perform better.

“There’s no doubt by the time I was in my second term I was a better president than I was in my first term and it did not have to do with analysis or policy,” he said. “It had to do with what comes with any career, whether it’s sports or teaching or you name it you get enough reps, enough repetition and familiarity with the nature of the problems that you start being focused on the task and not how-are-you-doing-on-the-task and the self-consciousness that comes with that.”

Obama credited that mindset to his approach to the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate accords. He also added that he did not stress himself over making mistakes due to his experiences with addressing big problems.

“You know, I got this. And if I make a mistake we’ll figure out how to make up for it, we’ll learn from it,” he said.

He further on explained he did not pay attention to poll numbers or listen to punditry views but rather focused on “advancing this vision that I have and I hope the country will share, that we create a better country.”

On top of that, he said he shied away from social media and cable news sentiments, be it negative or even positive.

“If people were complementary, people assume you know more than you did,” he said, adding that it can be a prerequisite to cultivating an inflated ego, Business Insider further reported.

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