High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 117: Performing Under Pressure with NY Times Bestselling Author, Dr. Hank Weisinger

Episode Date: June 24, 2017

A world-renowned psychologist and Author of several books including the recent New York Times Bestseller Performing Under Pressure, Dr. Hank Weisinger has also written several other books including Emotional Intelligence at Work, The Power of Positive Criticism, The Genius of Instinct, the New York Times Bestseller Nobody’s Perfect. He has spent three decades helping individuals and organizations enhance their personal and work effectiveness through innovative applications of clinical, counseling, social, organizational, and evolutionary psychology. He is a popular blogger for PsychologyToday.com, Huffington Post, Execunet.com, and Lifehack.org. To help more people deal with pressure, Dr. Weisinger has transformed Performing Under Pressure into a state of the art empowering E-Course Workshop Experience. You can get $5 off the $97 price with the COUPON CODE: MINDSET: Business Performing Under Pressure E-Course: https://hankweisingerphd.com/b2c/?ref=22   Young Adult Performing Under Pressure E-Course: https://hankweisingerphd.com/students/?ref=22   In this interview, Hank discusses: What is pressure and when we experience it What is choking and why we choke under pressure How our natural tools inside our body help us deal with pressure Get a description and summary at cindrakamphoff.com/hank.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here ready to listen to an interview with world-renowned psychologist Hank Weisinger. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, athletes, coaches, and consultants all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential or be high performers in our field or sport.

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So in today's episode, I interview Dr. Hank Weisinger about performing under pressure. Few people have developed an expertise in areas that really impact anybody and everywhere. And in today's episode, you're going to learn more about how to handle pressure and that we have these natural tools to deal with pressure. So Hank Weisinger is a creator, an innovator, a practitioner, an influential psychologist, and also a two-time New York Times bestselling author. Whether it's about performing under pressure, giving or taking criticism, or managing your emotions, his expertise has been recognized and sought out

by leading business schools, influential government organizations and agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. Now he has several books one of them includes performing under pressure which i just read last month when i was on vacation and that's one of the reasons i had hank on the podcast because i loved the book he's also written other books such as emotional intelligence at work the power of positive criticism, and the genius of instinct. Now what's really cool about that you're listening to this podcast is he's actually giving you a discount on his online course called Performing Under Pressure. I've checked it out. It's amazing. It includes 10 self-guided units to help you transform your natural tools into pressure management skills.

And each of the 10 units includes engaging videos, self-assessment instruments, pressure simulation experiences, interactive games, and it also includes lifetime access to his course called Performing Under Pressure. So it's normally $97, which is amazing given that he's a world-renowned psychologist and you can learn from Hank for only $97. And with the coupon code mindset, you're going to get $5 off. So again, that's coupon code mindset. And you can learn more about his course by heading over to hankweisingerphd.com. Or you can also find a link on my website, cindracampoff.com slash Hank. So here's just a little snapshot of the things that we discussed in this interview. What pressure really is and why we experience it,

why we experience choking, and he also provides numerous strategies on how we can reduce pressure and minimize pressure. Now one of my favorite quotes from the podcast is this, to reduce pressure, work to be at your best. Your best is good enough. So without further ado, let's bring on Hank. Welcome, Hank, to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm looking forward to talking to you.

New York Times bestselling book, Performing Under Pressure. So Hank, to get us started, why don't you tell us a little bit about your passion and what you do? Okay. I am a psychologist by trade with an interesting story. I was a terrible student in high school. I graduated close to the bottom of my class, the reason being my father was a story editor of Superman for 30 years, so I would be

reading Superman comics every single day, which was a lot more interesting than any science course or a social studies class. When I graduated, the first school I went to was in New Hampshire. My mother cried when she saw that one of the classrooms was a barn. This was 1966. So these three types of students there, underachievers, which apparently I was, who got kicked out of really good schools, and kids meanwhile I had the greatest two years of my life with wildly it's like the movie Animal Farm I took a psychology course the teacher inspired me I studied I got the highest mark in the class and it was the first time I ever got positive reinforcement which shows how important

that is and then I became a psychology major and started uh liking it more and more and went all the way my mother was a very compassionate person so I think that was one of the appeals of the subject I throughout my career I would enjoy helping people. When I was in therapy, there would be some therapists, especially in LA where I was living, that if you are five minutes over talking to your therapist, their clock is still running like an attorney and they're going to charge you for everything. I remember seeing patients, they needed an extra hour. It didn't matter to me. I wasn't thinking of the money.

I wasn't in the field to make money because I always wanted to be doing something else, writing books, lecturing, speaking with people around places. So that was just temporary, but I enjoyed the process of helping people, and I still I still do that so the the in growing up in a very creative environment I always found adding a bit of creativity to my work a book for me was always another creative project. That was the fun of it. And that's what I am passionate about. That sounds great, Hank.

Well, tell us how you got to study pressure. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on this podcast is because of your amazing book, Performing Under Pressure, which I have right here. You can see all the tabs I put in here, Hank. I have it too. Compare it here. I actually read it, let's see, in March on a vacation to the beach and actually really, really enjoyed it. I thought really good science and practitioner approach. And you also talk about sort of like how to address

pressure. But kind of just to get us started with this topic, tell us why you aim to study pressure. And I think that's an important distinction. There are many psychologists that will focus on, such as yourself, the performance and peak performance. Yes. Rather than studying the notion of peak performance, I studied the psychological construct of pressure. And now that I think about it, probably my first experience was from a patient. I was doing my internship at UCLA in the Brentwood VA Hospital. And I had a patient who was a Vietnam vet. He was picked up at LAX airport, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. I had a patient who was a Vietnam vet. He was picked up at LAX airport, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

I developed a relationship with him. We reached the point where he was now going to call his mother in Brooklyn to say, I'm getting out of the hospital. And I told him, I said, we're going to make a call from my office and you have three minutes to do it. If you can't tell her you're getting out in three minutes, that's going to be a problem. Now Now in retrospect, I never should have said that because it was imposing a time limit. And one of the things I found is that everybody is worse under a

time limit in terms of time pressure. You're hardwired almost to do that. If you didn't catch an animal 25,000 years ago in the daylight, you're not going to go hunting for something in the dark. So even that was an element of feeling the pressure that you only have a certain amount of time. How many times do people say just in our today's conversations, you know, there's nothing of hours in the in the day so anyway he calls his mother and within 30 seconds she's i start this is without a speaker

phone i can hear her launching a ballistic attack on him how could they let you out of the hospital you're not qualified you're sick and so on and literally in front of my eyes, he started shaking, started choking. Hey, this is not a Hollywood ending. That was the first observation that I actually saw of a person, quote, choking. Two years later, deja vu, I had an 18-year-old patient from UCLA. Okay. He needed to tell his parents that he was gay and the big day came and I had prepared him this time I had learned because I remember from the first guy so I was like a drill sergeant role-playing with them I anticipated everything his parents could say how could you do this to me what's wrong with you and yada yada

yada so I could prepare him for that and And he got through it, but it took him a half hour to calm down physically. But it did make me realize, and I'm sure you've had a lot of experience with this, the importance of a routine into the mood. And it was a way of practicing also. And then when I moved to Connecticut, this was 1994. I'm a diehard Yankee fan. Sure. When I was watching Yankee games,

it was like when I was growing up because they're on the cable every single game. So I was watching every Yankee game. And if I had not written books in anger management, I would have broken my TV set because I got sick and tired of seeing these players always quote, choke, strike out, pop up, hit into a double play when we needed a big hit. And I then asked the question, why are some people able to do better in a pressure situation and others fold?

And what I realized, contrary to conventional wisdom, is everybody folds. It's just that the elite athletes just choke less to a lesser degree. Michael Jordan did worse in playoffs than he did in the regular season. Derek Jeter batted, I think he had a lifetime average of 310 in the regular season. Well, in the playoffs, he also had a 310 batting average. He didn't rise to the occasion. He just didn't show. He just didn't do worse.

So, you know, it's like when the A student comes home, I aced my SATs, but if they've been getting A's since ninth grade, that's what you would expect. The story is more if they fall apart during their their sots and that was an important point because many people always when they get into a new job or something they try to prove themselves you know you would call it they start to press exactly yep and it's like when my daughter got a big promotion, she said, I have to prove myself. I said, no, you don't.

You already proved yourself. That's why you got to promote. You just have to continue doing what you are doing. And the more I started looking at pressure, I had written a book called The Genius of Instinct, which was based on evolutionary psychology. And I couldn't get that out of my head. So I started to ask myself, why do we have pressure in the first place? Nobody invented it. It evolved. And I started looking at the difference between pressure and stress,

which is people confused it to. And I thought even in research studies, academicians would confuse it to. They start to paragraph using the word pressure. They'd end the paragraph referring to the same situation, but using the word stress. There's major differences between those two terms. And if you confuse the two, then you're living high alert 24-7

because you're making every moment a do or die situation. I'm a big college basketball fan, and I will tell you that when I heard Bill Self of the Jayhawks after last year's NCAA tournament, after they won in the Sweet 16 and they were going to be lead eight, he says on TV, well, next week we play the biggest game of the year.

And I knew that was a kiss of death. Yeah, the more important you make something, the worse you do because you're increasing pressure. And I know as a sports psychologist, what the media hates is when an elite athlete says, it's just another game. How can it be another game? It's the Super Bowl.

It's the playoffs and so on. But that's the attitude that I have found allows them to do their best. Just like the students should say it's just another test rather than building it up. So the more I started, you know, looking at the research, and I found a lot of the great studies came from the UK and Australia and I was starting to see the results no matter where you are were global. Bottom line being nobody really does better under pressure. The key is not to be worse. The answer is closest to your capabilities. Nice, nice thanks. So you know there's a few things I want to follow up with there. It's a really good discussion already from the beginning, which I knew it would be. Tell us, how do you define pressure and really why do we experience it? Pressure is a, the, the

definition, and I like to see them on, especially in the context of how it differentiates and stress on some different dimensions. You know how it is. You have a new book coming out. I guarantee you already have thought of ways that if you were writing it now, it would have been changed. Of course. Things that you would have been added. So you're always realizing more.

And some of these things I realized after the book. But to start off with, pressure is a situation in which you have something on the line and the outcome is dependent on your performance. Have a job interview. It's dependent on your performance. In a sporting event, the outcome is dependent on your performance and and and the trigger there is when the outcome is uncertain the more uncertain it is the more pressure you feel because it creates anxiety if i'm watching a sporting event my team of the football game

is up 40 points and there's two minutes left. I'm changing the station. Unless I want to gloat over my friends who are rooting for the other team. Then I want to savor it, you know, every minute. But there's no suspense. And that is a big difference. If somebody guaranteed something, then there's no pressure at all. A student who goes in to take a final exam but already has a locked in no matter what he does they have no pressure on that it's only when you don't know what the outcome is going to

be okay as in the subjective feelings I found with stress the typical feelings that people associate with subjectively is exhausted this is why people say you need a vacation and sometimes anger with pressure I found the subjective feelings or anxiety fear and embarrassments as the person you know if they fail what are they going to tell people? I just read an interesting study. I'll actually send it to you. I'll find it useful. I'm choking from penalty kicks in the UK. And one of the things they found is that the higher the status of the athlete,

the better chance you can catch up because it creates the expectation. I should be able to, you know, deliver on that. Otherwise, why are they paying me all this money? I used to say to say that with a rod all the time when he'd come up they're paying this guy 20 million dollars a year and i'm getting a pop-up and you need a hit and it puts more pressure on on you when when you're not expected to win or whatever there's no pressure at all because of the um of the air interpretation and most importantly was a function of pressure. And unlike stress, which will sometimes help you, if my kids were, quote, lazy, I could motivate them,

as a boss could motivate an employee, by putting some more stress, i.e. some more demands upon them. So they become energized up to a point. Too many demands, you know, the person will be overwhelmed. But pressure never helps you. Right. It's out to get you. It's a selection mechanism for nature. This is what I learned from an evolutionary point of view. The idea is if you couldn't hunt, you're out. You're weeded out. Just like if students are in college, if they can't handle the academic pressure, they're out. A financial advisor who can't handle the pressure, they're

out of the business. Companies that start up and they can't handle the pressure, they're out. So that's what pressure, I like to say that it's a villain. If you had to personify it, it would be a villain. It's out to get, sabotages your thinking or your cognitive success tools, your judgment, decision making, your memory. They all go down as your psychomotor skills do. many times you've seen the movie where the person is so scared they can't even get the key in their you know in their car yeah so uh those are that's sort of how i conceptualize pressure and that tends to be the standard academic definition a situation in which you have a lot on the line and the outcome is dependent on your performance excellent Excellent. Well, and so if I could summarize, Hank, because I know you talk about the three determinants of pressure in the book, which you just mentioned. So the first is the outcome is important to you. Number two, the outcome is uncertain.

And then number three, you feel responsible for or judged on the outcome. You know, you said something earlier in the interview that I thought was really important that I think we should follow up on. And you said, you know, that people don't rise to the occasion when they do better. And when we try to rise to the occasion, that only increases poor performance. So tell us why we don't want to rise to the occasion and what we want to do instead. Well, you know, in the example I like to give that again being a big sports fan most people have seen the movie the natural yeah um robert redford for those who didn't it's the

story of a baseball player who's the greatest of all and the end of the movie the climax is a scene we've all seen in real life the game is on on the line. The best player is up. And what does he do? He hits a home run and everybody goes nuts. Now in the reality, in the book by Bernard Maumann, he's struck out. That's the reality. But Robert Redford's not making a movie where

he strikes out when the game is on the line. And I want people to realize that because I said they'll start to press. They'll think, this is my big moment. I have to rise to the line. And I want people to realize that because I said they'll start to press. They'll think, this is my big moment. I have to rise to the occasion. What I want people to focus on instead is just doing their best. If Bill Self said, all we have to do is play our best and we're going to the final four.

It doesn't matter what the other team does. If we play our best, we win. When one team that is really great plays a lesser team, the only way the lesser team can win is one, they have to play their best, and the better team has to play below their capabilities. That's the only way. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like when both teams play their best, the best team wins. Yes. So, you know, that's the mistake that people make.

So I would tell them to just, because that's the best you can do. Now, the caveat is your best might not be good enough. Okay, so we'll watch, at least I will watch Cleveland and Golden State tonight. Yes, so will I. Now, if LeBron scores 60 points and 20 rebounds and 15 assists, they can still lose. But he's not going to feel bad because he didn't choke. Athletes I have found, and I'm sure you have a lot of experience in this, is that when the other guy wins and the athlete has played his best,

they usually say, I give the guy credit. It was a great game and he beat me. That is very different than the person who hangs his head because he's felt or she's felt that they've let down the fans, their teammates, because they didn't perform up to their capability. Yeah. Yeah. I recently read this interview, I think with Kerry Walsh Jennings, who's a beach volleyball player. And she said before the Olympics that all she wanted to do was play her best and actually her best was good enough. And I thought that was a really good point, you know, to say best is good enough, you know, because you're

right. If we, if we try to rise to the occasion, that doesn't help us. You know, the same number of Nobel Prize winners went to Notre Dame that went as, you know, the same amount that went to Harvard. As Malcolm Gladwell says, the conclusion is Notre Dame is good enough. Ah, that's good, that's good, that's good. You know, Hank, one of the things you talk about is how the top 10% respond to pressure. Tell us a little bit about the study that you summarized in the book and what it means for us. What it means for us is that while the top 10% are the top 10%, they still do worse under pressure, but they do less worse than everybody else and one of the things that allows those people in terms of individual types of skills to do better is that they don't get defensive they're much more have a learning

mindset to growth if you will where they're always looking for ways to be better and and that's how they learn. And that allows them to sustain a higher performance. One of the things I've noticed about myself is like, whenever I'm working on a book proposal and I'll send it to my friends and I'm sending it to them and I'm thinking, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen and so on. And it's fantastic.

And then if they give me any type of negatives, it's like I get defensive and discredit their evaluation. And then after about three days when I'm thinking about it because I've now calmed myself down, I'm thinking, boy, they really helped me. This is really good information. And having been through that so many times, now I can shorten that three days. So actually when they start giving me criticism, because I wrote a book on that subject as well, is that I'm eager to hear. The attitude is telling me how I can do it better.

So I would say that another thing that differentiates the top from the rest is that attitude of tell me how I can do it better. Others are looking to defend what they're doing and they see they see that threatening. The biggest thing I've noticed about people who do well research-based that do well under pressure people should think about this this is your moment in a company golf tournament you know I found the financial industry I would do a lot of gigs, speaking gigs for those companies, and they'd be at nice resorts and they would have like a golf tournament and so on.

Most of the people got more anxious, the advisors, about playing in that tournament, especially if their boss was there, than they would making a presentation to high net clients. you know they freeze up so when you just focus on doing your best which might not be good enough it frees you from trying to have to be superhuman which the media perpetuates because we see things like that all the time. You know, the person coming, rising to the, you know, occasion. Back to the tragedy of the Boston Marathon. There was a social worker in the streets. And when she saw the injury of people, she like looked at. There was also a doctor, an ER doctor, who performed magnificently.

He didn't rise to the occasion. This is what he was trained to do. When somebody kicks a 50-yard field goal, that's not headlines. That's what they're trained to do. It's the headline if they miss the field goal. So that's very, is an important point. And I was saying the most important thing, you think of a pressure moment, presentation, crucial conversation, an audition, a sporting event. Do you see that situation as an opportunity or as threatening? Now, if you see this threatening, you actually do first. And it makes sense because then you're halfway in. Think back 50,000 years ago.

An early man has to jump over an edge, a ledge, and if they don't make it, they're dead. Now, that's no different than the Olympic athlete, you know, doing his or her Olympian. If I am confident when I say I can make this, this is an easy job, I'm going to have a greater chance than if I say to myself, I don't think I can make it. Then you get anxious and you'll probably trip while you're running to get your momentum up. So people need to see things. Do I see the situation as an opportunity. When I was giving presentations, starting out, instead of seeing it as threatening,

I said, this is a great chance to promote myself and an opportunity. And that created immediate excitement and enthusiasm. So I could be all in. If a person goes on a date and they have some social anxiety and they see that day as threatening, how do you think he or she's going to come across versus a person who goes in and say, oh, this is great. I'm going to get a chance to meet somebody. I might like them and yada, yada, yada. Yeah, that's awesome. So Hank, one of the things that I really got from your book that I really enjoyed when you're talking about the top 10%, you gave examples like, you know, basketball star LeBron James, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, that they were able to use natural tools with inside

themselves, right? These natural tools like their thoughts, their physiological response, their body movements, their voice, their senses. Now, I think you've already given us, you know, a few of those natural tools, but just kind of tell us a little bit about these natural tools that we have inside ourselves. Maybe not everyone realizes they have these tools. Right. And also, when you mentioned LeBron James, you know what? He doesn't even use the word pressure. Right. It's not in his vocabulary. He uses the word opportunity. He'll say, well, this is going to be an opportunity. It should be a lot of fun to see how good we are. They're not thinking in terms of pressure. Tommy Lasord, a former manager of the Dodgers, said that once a player starts feeling pressure, they're thinking that they're going to fail,

that he equated the two. Now, our natural tools, as you mentioned our thoughts our facial expressions our voice these are wired apparatus and you have those things because they can even have a visionary edge who had a better chance to survive if they got lost you know in the woods a person who had a very weak voice or a person who had a very powerful voice so they could yell help I think it's obvious that's no different than today who has an edge as a singer the singer with a weak voice or the singer with a powerful voice and what people do what is crucial to managing pressure and using the techniques that are in the book is to use

your natural tools, like your thoughts, like your arousal to work for you rather than against you. When I said that pressure is a villain, what it does is disrupts our natural tools. It disturbs our thinking. It distorts our thinking. It disturbs our physical arousal. You know, butterflies in the stomach or you feel a sense of tenseness. And it impacts our behavior. It either makes us too impulsive.

You know, I used to see,, and the guy would swing at a terrible pitch, and he would say, you know, well, he's a little too enthusiastic. That was actually the wrong word. It was really that he's too impulsive. What's happening is that the person is not managing his arousal, so the person reacts immediately. This is why in a lot of tasks, not in sports tasks, but in tasks that require judgment and decision-making,

slowing down your response is really important. And I've heard a lot of athletes, I've spoken to a few college athletes, was that at UCLA, and maybe a few college athletes when I was out at UCLA, and maybe a few professionals, but more in a social chance. I saw Dave Winfield, the Yankee player in front of the post office. But you probably heard this. It seems that what effective athletes are able to do is to slow the game down mentally.

So, you know, I remember when LeBron closed out a game, there were three seconds left when he got the ball, but in his mind that was a lot of time. And Derek Shearer was always able to slow the game down. So you're seeing it in slow and slow motion. And I have found slowing my own responses down many times in a pressure situation, having to perform or have a crucial conversation has made a big difference. You're slowing down your arousal because when you're feeling pressure and

anxiety, everything is, that's why you start to talk to yourself in shorthand statements and you don't challenge the truth, truth value. You know, people will say, well, this is the biggest test I'm ever taking or whatever, and they have to challenge that. What does that mean, the biggest test? Are you never going to have a – every test you take in college, at the time you're taking it, you think this is the biggest test in the world.

Yeah, absolutely. So if we wanted to slow the game down, would you tell us to slow our responses down, to slow our breathing down, to slow our heart rate down? Say more about that. Yeah, I would certainly say, for example, as a coach, at least in basketball, part of the art of coaching I have found is knowing what to call a timeout. Some of these teams, they get carried away and they're throwing the wall but they're playing like a wild pack of animals and that's when the coach needs to be able to call a timeout

a timeout is an interruption it slows down the game just down your breathing and starting to take deep breaths because when you're anxious you're you're you know speeding things up that's why a lot of people uh they confuse many times they have an anxiety attack and they think they're having a heart attack because many times the initial symptoms become the uh become the same i'll let you remember the scene from the great movie war of the roses with with Michael Douglas and Catherine Turner. And Michael Douglas had an anxiety attack. He's got a heart attack, and she gets disappointed by the anxiety attack. Well, Hank, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was about choking,

and you had mentioned a little bit about choking, but how does pressure choke us, and what would you tell us, you know, to do instead? Well, there are a lot of theories, and let me just define what choking is. Choking is performing below your proven level of capability in a situation that you want to do your best so a team for example that has already won their division title and they blow a 30-point lead that's not really a joke they don't really care you know the student in VA student gets a C on his chemistry test that's not a joke you didn't have to study you already got an A in the A in the class and also it's not choking if you can't do the behavior in practice. I laugh when I don't play golf but when I'm in LA my friend goes to play golf I'll go

with him right around in the car with him and he'll miss a three-foot pot and he'll say oh I choke. I have to explain to him no no you're not good enough to make that consistently. That's not a choke. And what happens is we choke for a variety of reasons. The big theory is now, as you would have tied into, what's going on in the brain. And we get distracting thoughts, for example. You know, we have two types of memories.

Working memory and procedural memory, located in different parts of the brain. Now, when you have to learn how to play a musical instrument, like a piano, you're using your working memory. You're learning. You have to memorize things and so on. Now after you have played that piece oftentimes it becomes automatic And now it's going into your procedural memory. Your procedural memory is your memory that does things

automatically. Everybody can remember when they learn how to drive. You get in your car, you put your teeth out in line, you check the mirror, you go through like a checklist. Nobody goes through a checklist after they've been driving for 20 years. It's like automatic. So for those types of tasks, the choking occurs because the person starts to become overly focused sure how they're doing am i doing this right and so on now why is a tennis player who has practiced his serve 10,000 times thinking about it my throwing the ball up I enough so you adding that conscious deliberation onto a task that you've

already done a zillion times, that's when the announcer says that I was thinking too much. Serena Williams said, I remember when she lost one of the Grand Slam tournaments that she was expected to win, and she's always expected to win, and Chris Everett said she's thinking too much. She's not just playing. Springsteen's wife said that she choked in a concert one time because she started thinking, did I call the babysitter? And what she said is when you're

up there, you have to remember, just play. There's no thinking. Just play. So that's one of the reasons we get these intruding thoughts looking at ourselves. So part of not choking is to be able to prevent yourself from intruding on your own thinking by distracting yourself. Why do a lot of athletes wear headphones when they're listening to music when they're practicing. You know, if you're humming a song, you can't be thinking, how many points are we down by? You know, what's the score? The Iowa State Frisbee team, who would have thought they'd have Frisbee teams, you know, back in the 60s? But it's like an NCAA tournament and they were choking in tournament play.

So they went to the psychology department and what the psychology department came up with, these are the studies that I referred to in the book, is found that if you're listening to a song, you will do better. And you'll do even better if it's a happier song. And you'll even better if you're singing the other. Because I'm singing the lyrics of the song,

I'm not thinking how many points are we down. That's a distracting thought. It's like, why is a pitcher in baseball worrying about what the score is? He can't change the score. The more I think about what's the scoreboard, I'm going to miss out my pitch. The only thing I can control is how I pitch to this particular person.

So that's one reason. Intruding thoughts, we become overly conscious. And other times we choke because we start thinking about what are other people thinking about as we are doing this. Yes. We say, oh, sweetheart, we're coming to your dance audition we'll be in the fourth row you know you're gonna make us proud that's the worst thing a parent can say even though the parent thinks that you're supportive because now that ten-year-old is thinking who they're my parents do they think I'm doing good I don't do that if they still gonna love me or

whatever and while I'm thinking most, I will start to trip and miss a particular step. So in both cases, whatever the task is, the key to not choking is to stay in the moment and not enrage yourself with these distracting, anxiety, arousing thoughts that either make us too focused on our own behavior a lot of men in terms of um sex this is one of the things that causes a sexual dysfunction it's it's funny because when um i told my friend a psychiatrist, I'm writing a book performing under pressure, his first thought was, oh, is it a sex book? And what will happen, this is called spectating in sexual dysfunction literature, they start watching their own performance rather than just enjoying the moment.

They will start to focus too much on their performance. One of the things I've always told my kids, and I would recommend this to everybody listening who has a child in school, is I just told my kids, just do your best. If you do your best, good things will happen. Don't worry about what the other kids are getting. You can control that. Carl Lewis said that when he was running a meet, he never thought about the guy next to him. The only thing that's going through his mind is getting a good start off the guns, as soon as the guns shoot, and running as best he can because he can't control how fast the other people run.

My father always used to tell me don't worry about the other guy. So people have to learn when they're going into a pressure moment strategies that will distract them from those anxiety arousing thoughts and there's things like like do that you're going to have some thoughts, but if you minimize them, like one very effective strategy, you just think of you're going into a situation, it's called the holistic work here, where you give yourself just one word that will trigger the behavior. For example, my son is in recruiting.

So I said, when you meet a client client give me one word that would say how you want to come across and he would say professional I'd say okay that's all I want you to be thinking then because if you're thinking professional you'll start acting in a professional way my word for a presentation would be fun because I know if I'm having fun most likely people out there are going to be enjoying themselves as well. That is very different than saying I'm going to meet with the client, I'm going to make sure I smile, that I listen, ask questions. See you're thinking now you're cluttering up your your mind and also using images. One of the interesting sports studies was that girls who had never played basketball before were taught to shoot free throws, foul shots.

And one was the old, you know, they were doing it the old fashioned way, underhand, you know, bend your knees and so on. So one group was given very specific instructions, bend your knees, spin the ball knees and so on so one group was given very specific instructions bend your knees spin the ball out and so on the other group was told just make believe you're putting the cookie in a cookie jar that's the group that learned better the idea of using images and metaphors and coming up when you're going into a pressure moment of an image that will help you becomes another effective strategy. What both strategies do is they distract you from anxiety arousing thoughts that tend to make us do worse. A student who's taking a test and they can't do the

first question and start saying to him or herself, oh no this is going to be terrible I'm not going to get into the school. Let him go on. And those thoughts go on for the next 10 minutes. That student's losing valuable time. It would be different if they just stayed focused on the test. I'll skip this question. I'll come back to it later. Yeah, excellent. So, you know, in the book, Hank, I know you gave us 22 tools that we have within ourselves, and you've already talked about several of those. Which one was your favorite within your book, or perhaps maybe the one that you use most often that you give to your clients?

I would say the one that I find that I personally use the most, and my life has become better, is minimizing the importance of the situation. When I first started teaching at UCLA, the first presentation, my thoughts were, oh, this is the most important. This is the game changer. This is the most important presentation. And if I don't do well, my career's over and whatever. Eventually, I switched to, so what if I give a lousy presentation? There'll be 15 phone calls on my answering machine when I get back to do others.

So minimizing the importance is really important. When your friends tell you, you know, it's not a big deal, that's actually good advice. Most managers, most parents make every project every test every assignment a big deal and it just increases more daily feeling of pressure and I would say the other one that is really important is multiple opportunities there's always going to be another chance a lot of times people choke because of the pressure distortions that the thoughts

that they're saying increase pressure and one of those thoughts is the idea of chance of a lifetime I'm never going to get this opportunity you know yet I remember how many times when I was at University of Kansas and I was working in counseling centers part of my training and I'd see the freshman girls, sophomore girl come in, my life is over my boyfriend broke up with me my life will never be the same I'm never gonna meet somebody who accepts me for the way I am and so on three weeks later when she's going out with somebody else you can even remember her her other boyfriend so the

people need to remember you miss a train there's always another one coming in ten minutes and when I think of that how many times living in LA getting going to the airport I'm gonna miss my flight this is going to be terrible until I would finally say to myself wait a, there's another plane leaving in an hour later anyway, plus you're flying United. We're going to be an hour late. Don't worry about a thing. That's good. You know, what about those people who are listening that say, you know, if I minimize the importance of the situation, what if I'm not prepared? Or what if I just kind of, you know, people might say, well, that I'm just going to not give my all in that situation. How might you respond to them and say, you know, actually minimizing the importance of the situation

can be really helpful for you? Okay, because first of all, you have to remember in a pressure situation, you are exaggerating. That's why you're feeling pressure. Therefore, you're being unrealistic. You're making this one thing, your whole life is dependent on it. I'm sorry, that is an over-exaggeration. It's not realistic. Therefore, you need to be equally unrealistic on the other side to bring it down. The person will still, when I'm writing a doing something and I say there'll be other opportunities or it's just another presentation that doesn't mean that I'm not going to do my best because that's one of the that's one of the precious solutions is focus on your on what is your

mission and in sports it's like Serena Williams said and I quoted her is that she says when she plays like I would say to people what do you think Ser is that she says when she plays, I would say to people, what do you think Serena Williams' goal is when she plays in a tournament? Everybody says to win. I said, no, her goal is to play her best because she knows that she plays her best. The chances are great she will win. And if you focus on just winning, now you're not in the moment because you're thinking of the outcome. Absolutely. The outcome, you're focusing in the present. I remember when I was watching the Winter Olympics and they had one guy on who's going on one of these downhill things

and it has a big jump in it. It's a crazy sport. he said that if he doesn't win the gold his season even though he's won all these other medals and tournaments it would be a wasted year he said if he didn't win the gold and when he said that i knew he was going to jump because i knew he's going to be thinking of the outcome. And the reality is when it was his turn, he fell in the snow. He wasn't focused. Winning the gold medal was the wrong strategy for him. What he should have been thinking is, I just want to do my best. If I do my best, like all the other things, I should win. Awesome. I know, Hank, that the book that I have in front of me is incredible. I love the science, but also like how practical it

is. And you have a course that you just developed. So tell us a little bit about the Pressure Principle course. I'm going to link up how to register actually on the show notes page, cindracampoff.com slash Hank. But tell us a little bit about the course Performing Under Pressure. One of the things I found, I prefer teaching much more than writing. And teaching is a different experience. As you know, you can do more things. I can't, in the middle of a chapter, have a conversation or answer questions that the reader might have. composed a bunch of activities, content, videos, great downloads that are learning tools, and then I orchestrated them in a certain way to create more than just a class, but an experience. So when somebody takes this online class, now obviously you can look at the

whole thing in one day, but then you're not taking the class. The class is experiential. You have to do the exercises. So I thought in today's world of online learning that an online class on the subject of pressure would be a great service to people whether it's people who are students you know there's a student version the young adult version whether in the business world whether it's people get anxious when they go out on a first date in all situations and for me the purpose was that if I can help people do a little better in those situations closer to their capabilities then I find that is a worthy legacy that I would like to have so I personally think the class is

a great product I think it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of different movie clips to illustrate points. It's got videos, interactive exercise, and one of the most important things, again, remember what I said earlier about it was never in for the money, students have lifetime access to the to the class. And the reason that is important is because the more you go back to it, the more you look at it, the more you practice the concepts, the better you do. You integrate them more into your life. Very few people are going to go back and read a book over and over and over. But people go back to the class to look at the videos, look at how they filled out the handouts, look at the changes they have made.

Excellent, excellent. So you have a business version and a student version. And if you head over to cindracampoff.com slash Hank, there's going to be links for you to register. And we're giving everyone who's listening $5 off the course. It's normally listed at $97, which is pretty amazing that you can get something so hands-on with a world-renowned psychologist and an expert on pressure. So you can head over to, again, cindercampoff.com slash Hank and the information is there. So Hank, you know,

you've given us so much value today, helping us understand the science of pressure, but then really some practical ways that we can deal with pressure. What would be some final advice you'd give to high performers who are listening? So those people who really want to reach their potential in sport or business and life. I would say back to one of those original points that anytime you're in a pressure situation, the strategy seems to be, befriend the moment. And that means that you are approaching it as an opportunity, as something that is fun. These are the big words, opportunity, fun, and challenge.

Challenge if it is a physical test, like in a sporting event, not a mental test because remember, people can fail challenges, so that can become threatening. I got a challenge for you, but some people don't want to put themselves in a challenging situation. So I like to use the words and we tell people we'll be partners to continue seeing everything as they do is an opportunity and and also here's another important thing that most elite performers do not do is share your

pressure feelings especially especially males. You know, the idea of making yourself vulnerable, vulnerability is conceivable. And vulnerability is a strength because once you acknowledge that you are vulnerable, then you can start to look at ways to protect your vulnerabilities, such as asking for help, learning new skills. If you act like you are invincible and nothing bothers you, when it really does, then it's hard to develop yourself. And those constant feelings become like a burden. You know, I want the readers to understand, I didn't really deal with this in the book, but there's two types of pressure needs. One is pressure performance

and that's for my kids my kids need to be perfect performers because they're at the age where everything they do has the potential to advance them just like when i was starting out i was a pressure performer because every presentation moved me forward if it's a bad presentation it can set me back and it certainly doesn't move me forward that's one pressure need the other pressure need which is more like in terms of my friends and I would say for people that are basically over 55, is what I call pressure reducers. And we need for a pressure reducer, I have a lot of successful friends who are attorneys

and they have had high profile cases, not even feel pressure when they have to make an opening statement or closing argument. Their pressure is, how much longer do I have to pay for my daughter's medical school? How many more years of law school do I have to pay for my daughter's medical school how much you know how many more years of law school do I have to pay for my son that's the prep they're looking to reduce feelings of pressure because many people feel that pressure is a burden it's a responsibility and this is why

when people when men get divorced and have to pay alimony or they don't have to pay for the ex-partners health insurance they feel not burden is off when kids get out of college your parents feel the burden is is off now one tip for that because I know a lot of parents, especially in today's economy, get stressed out when they have to pay college and school tuition. So a very important thing to do is when you are doing that is to redirect your thoughts to how much you love your kids. And all of a sudden that envelope of a $50,000 check will seem a little lighter.

It's a lot easier to carry a bundle of joy in your mind than it is to give out $50,000 to some school that still doesn't have a guarantee that their son or daughter is going to get a job when they get out. So remembering the positives of why you're doing them. And I would tell elite performers also, you know, the long-term strategies, you know, what are the attributes that allow you to do your best every day are confidence, optimism, tenacity, and enthusiasm. And nobody invented those attributes. It wasn't some positive psychologist sitting around at a university saying, hey, I have a good idea and I want to call it enthusiasm,

or I have a good idea and I want to call it confidence. These are attributes that evolve because they help us deal with everyday adversities. The confident warrior in the Roman Empire had an edge, just like the confident warrior from Merrill Lynch has an edge to today. So the class gives like blueprints of how to instill these attributes in yourself. And those are the attributes that allow you to do your best. And some of those every day will be your pressure moment. Is it really surprising about Tom Brady, you know, coming back and winning the Super Bowl? But he's the best quarterback every day. So, you know, he's

just playing his best. And in the end, the best usually wins. Super good, Hank. So the coat of armor, which is the four attributes you just mentioned, is in your book. And that's really about how to build long-term strategies for dealing with pressure, confidence, optimism, tenacity, and enthusiasm. Hank, you've given us so much today. I want to honor you for your work in this field and for also producing such incredible books and online courses like you have. There are several things that I got out of the interview. I want to repeat them back to you and also the listeners so they can just kind of hear a summary of the things that you talked about.

You talked about how pressure doesn't help us. They can really be our villain. So it sabotages our judgment and our decision making in our memory. But we have these natural tools with inside of ourselves to to deal with the pressure. And you gave us a lot of different tools that we can use, seeing that it is an opportunity, not a threat. You also talked about just working to be our best and that our best is good enough. You gave us an example of a holistic word cue, like your son talking about just being professional. And you suggested several others, like to develop our coat of armor, our confidence, optimism, tenacity, enthusiasm, to focus on our mission instead, and then befriend the moment so we can stay in the moment. We're not focused on the outcome

again i'm just so honored to have the privilege of interviewing you today what are the ways the listeners can reach you so you could give us your website maybe if you're on social media the ways for us to to connect with you as we learn more about your work well my website is Hank Weisinger PhD calm and pressure tweets on Twitter I invite people to connect with me on LinkedIn and Facebook also which I is really more for me for social engagement with my friends rather than business contacts. So I invite listeners to come to that page as well. Awesome. Thank you again, Hank. Again, if you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash Hank, it'll provide you the information that we were talking about with the online course and as well as the $5 off. So just thank you so much for your time, Hank.

Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it. Hank Weisinger's course called Performing Under Pressure includes 10 self-guided units to help you transform your natural tools into pressure management skills. And each of these units include engaging videos, self-assessments, interactive games, PDF downloads, and pressure simulation experiences. Now, to get $5 off, you can head over to HankWeisingerPhD.com and put in the coupon code MINDSET. And you get $5 off the original $97 price. Now, I couldn't imagine learning up about pressure from anyone else besides world-renowned psychologist Hank Weisinger. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset.

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