I was doing process-improvement work with two other people. Then a senior person told us we'd be on a panel at the company's town halls the following Thursday. We had four days to prepare.
Here was the shitter: it wasn't one town hall. It was seven over two days. Same panel. We had to speak at all seven.
I worked really hard on the preparation. I did well, and I was very nervous. The sessions were recorded too, which I hadn't known.
What I did in the five-minute gaps
There were five minutes between town halls. I went to the bathroom most of the time and played my pump-up song.
I did it in the midst of chaos. I did it for me. No one knew. I took that time for myself in my own big moments to work on my emotional state.
I had something familiar I could use again
Music was something I had already learned to use before speaking. It changed how I felt. Here, I used it before going back into the next session.
That is the particular thing I wanted to explain about those two days: taking a little time for myself while I still had more speaking to do.