You know what you want to say.
And then, when it matters, you can’t access it.
The presentation. The difficult conversation. The moment you need to hold your ground.
You lose your thread. You second-guess. You defer.
The problem isn’t knowledge. It’s access.
Jane calls this the “Dare Gap” — the gap between insight and execution under pressure.
For 21 days, we’re practicing two things you already do every day: eating and speaking.
Not to optimize your life. To stabilize your presence.
What we’re actually addressing
What Jane sees: Brilliant people who know their material backward and forward. They can demonstrate perfect technique in rehearsal. But under pressure—it vanishes. The body, voice, and words that were aligned in practice contradict each other when the stakes are real.
What Savitree sees: The same pattern across trading floors, recruiting calls, high-stakes moments at work or in personal relationships. When the body is in flow — grounded, responsive, no second-guessing — words come naturally. The moment the nervous system shifts into overdrive or doubt, the voice disappears. Not from lack of knowledge. Because the body can’t hold the state that lets you access what you know.
The pattern we both keep seeing: People practice the techniques. They understand the Rhetoric Code. They know what to say. But something underneath isn’t stable. And under pressure, none of it sticks.
Because you can’t run sophisticated communication skills on a nervous system that’s running on fumes. The hardware can’t support the software.
The hardware upgrade
Here’s the piece most people are missing:
Your vagus nerve — the largest nerve in your body — is the superhighway between your gut and your brain. It’s the CEO of your parasympathetic nervous system. The part that lets you rest, digest, and actually process what’s happening around you.
When you rush through lunch — cold food, laptop open, barely chewing — your nervous system never gets the signal that it’s safe to downshift.
By 3pm, you’re still running in fight-or-flight. And when you walk into the speaking moment later that day? Your body is already grinding. The techniques you’ve learned aren’t accessible because the physiological foundation isn’t there.
The constant: Lunch
On-time. Warm. Sit down. Screen off. 15 minutes minimum.
This isn’t a break from work. It’s the rehearsal that ensures your voice is actually available when you need it.
How eating affects speaking: When the body is rushed, tense, overstimulated — language becomes tighter, faster, less connecting. You might still sound competent. But presence fades.
Lunch is the hinge. When you sit down — truly sit — your system shifts. Capacity returns. Breath deepens. Access widens.
And from there, speaking changes.
The software upgrade
This is where the daily speaking prompts come in. Each day, a small focus:
Notice when you hold back
Notice when you rush
Notice when your voice tightens
Notice what shifts when you feel steady
Week 1: Awareness — create the space to perceive yourself
Week 2: Experimentation — observe what changes when tension decreases
Week 3: Integration — let the practice become part of how you are
Not someone who performs. Someone who takes space.
What we’re noticing already
We’re five days in. Here’s what people are discovering:
On noticing the pattern:
“I wouldn’t have connected how we eat with speaking. I’m always catching up. This is a good practice to engage in.” — Sheri
“I’ve been ‘trying’ to diminish the amount of time I watch something on my phone while eating and screentime right before bed. I haven’t been as successful, but when I do it, I feel the difference.” — Alexandra
On actually doing it:
“While I often eat without a screen, I was in the middle of screening when I remembered to sit down for lunch. So it took me more than a few minutes to calm my system. The cool thing was, I could feel it. The nervous jittery energy, wondering why I am ‘suddenly getting off that train.’ I checked the clock for 15 minutes and I found it funny that I purposely slowed down my chewing, put down my spoon between bites, and cut my food into smaller pieces because I needed my meal to stretch out a little longer.” — Anna
“I love this practice! It is about learning our own essence pace. Def chewing and I wanted to swallow so badly and did a few times almost without even thinking about it.” — Diary of a Relationship Coach
On what shifts:
“I’ve done a bit of stepping into my voice and taking space within the last hour, unintentionally. More to come, so now I will pay attention and observe.” — Anna
The thing is, this isn’t about being perfect. It’s about return rate. You’ll have 10% days — chaos, travel, back-to-back meetings. The win isn’t a perfect streak. It’s how fast you come back to the anchor.
The 90/10 Rule: 90% of the time, you honor your anchor. 10% of the time, life happens. And when it does, you don’t blow up the whole system. You just come back at the next meal.
Listen to Day 1
In this recording, we talk about:
Why speaking techniques vanish under pressure
The physiological connection between eating and speaking
How to use lunch as strategic preparation
The structure of the 21-day challenge
The invitation
You can start anytime. The Chat remains open.
One constant: Warm, on-time lunch. Screen off. Sit down.
One variable: Daily speaking prompt in Chat.
That’s it.
The world challenges and delights us every day. Make sure your internal OS is upgraded — so you can harness the challenges with your feet on the ground and access to your words. And celebrate the delights without apology or waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Because there are many delights. You just need to be present enough to notice them.
Your voice tomorrow is built by your lunch today.
Don’t borrow from your capacity. Fund it.
Start with your next meal.
—Savitree & Jane
P.S. — Second Live: Monday, March 2
1:15pm CT / 8:15pm Berlin
We’re kicking off Week 2: Practice & Experimentation. We’ll look at what happens physiologically when pressure rises—and what disappears first in your speaking. Then we’ll run a live experiment together.
Bring your observations from Week 1.
