When we think of how arousal and performance are related, I think of it as kind of like how keyed up you are. The reason why that research comes to mind now is that when you're at extremely high levels of fluency, when you are extremely skilled, you can perform better at the higher levels of arousal. You need to prepare yourself for non-optimal performance and be okay with that. Give yourself permission to make mistakes.
Should you visualize success or failure? How do you bounce back from a mistake? And will Maria hustle Angela into a poker game?