Maybe you're doing a pitch and you've said the wrong thing, or you showed the wrong slide. Or maybe it's the fact that you didn't bring the right materials for your client. How do you recover in that moment?
Maybe you're doing a pitch and you've said the wrong thing, or you showed the wrong slide. Or maybe it's the fact that you didn't bring the right materials for your client. How do you recover in that moment?
Start focusing on being your best rather than being the best. That subtle shift will give back your power and it will reduce the tendency to overthink.
Choking under pressure is not based on intelligence, or motivation, or experience. Some of the most talented people on the planet suffer from choking under pressure.
One of the very clear associations with someone’s inability to perform under pressure is a lack of confidence. A lot of times people choke under pressure because they don't think they have the confidence to follow through
I do a lot of presentations, and I have for a number of years. So, what do I do? How can I help you be your best under pressure and deliver when stage fright is negatively impacting you?
My goal is to try and help you get through those challenging conversations with a little bit of ease.
The goal of this exercise is to provide you with the clarity and confidence you need to make the right decision
"To succeed in business, you have to be willing to do what others will not do." That sounds like an over-simplification, but it's true. To succeed in business or in your job or as an entrepreneur, or whatever it is, you have to do what others are not willing to do. For example, make the calls, put in the hours, develop the product, and go to the pitch
One of the fastest ways for you to improve is to tell the truth. Nothing crushes your improvement faster than pressure. Pressure has this killer cocktail of doubt, fear, and worry. When that killer cocktail fires off, it totally crushes your improvement, totally crushes your advancement and it will kill any deal in a heartbeat
By doing this it helps you make less mistakes, helps you bounce back faster from mistakes, and it helps you buffer yourself against the effects of pressure.
Did you know that studies show when you're under pressure your brain actually works against you? What do I mean? When the pressure's up and you're under pressure and that choking moment is there, your brain goes into hyper drive. The emotional center of your brain goes into hyper drive and cuts off your cognitive thinking. Resulting in your brain actually working against you.
Are you panicked? Are you pumped? And then think about where's my optimal position? Where do I show up my best? And how do I close the gap between those two places? If you can close the gap and get good at noticing where that is, you will find a way to win
One of the most counterintuitive ways to get better under pressure is to back off a little bit. When the pressure's up, what do you tend to do? You tend to grab on harder, try harder and push with more effort. Right? Everyone does. Your mind is racing. You want to make sure you don't mess up. But when you're trying to do better under pressure, it actually hurts you. So, what I want you to do is to back off a little bit
How could you increase your risk tolerance? How could you be more confident, be more productive, and potentially hard-wire yourself to do that. This technique will not be based on pump up, or “rah-rah” motivation, or anything like that.
What happens when pressure arises?
Fear, doubt and worry creep into your mind. So how do you get rid of those thoughts? How do you stop them?
Quite often when you're under pressure and you're feeling the strain of a situation, you will magnify the experience and make it much worse than it actually is.
"A belief is a feeling of certainty about what something means.” Beliefs aren't necessarily real, meaning that you just have a feeling that it's real, but it's not necessarily real. Like you used to believe
When you fall, it's traumatic and if you're not careful it can change the way you see the world and change how you behave. A lot of people when given a second opportunity to try again simply won’t.
I have a technique I want to share with you today about how to overcome pressure. My whole platform is find a way to win using creativity and tenacity to perform your best under pressure. So, I have a technique on how can you actually perform better under pressure. What's the technique I want to share?
it's never been proven or even accepted, that if you're feeling some kind of negative tension or pressure or overwhelm, to simply avoid thinking about it. The actual gold standard treatment is to actually feel it, to flood your body with it and to go at it.
“Don't just go for a job. Don't just go look for what the wanted ads are saying, or what the posts are saying online. Go for something that sets your heart on fire. What is your calling? Where do you really belong? What do you love to do? Start to write that down.”
It's actually proven through data. You start to lose your focus and all of a sudden you're making mistakes you wouldn't normally make if you weren't facing pressure.
There's a great phrase. It says, "You can't get the blessing without the test." In other words, if there is no test, there is no blessing.
There's a great phrase. It says, "You can't get the blessing without the test." In other words, if there is no test, there is no blessing.
What I want you to understand is this: when you start getting in your head, you're dead.
Blacks aren't as smart as whites, Women are bad at math, and Asians can't drive
Unfortunately, the list of negative stereotypes are endless.
Have you had to do something like, a big speech, or pass an entrance exam, or handle a negotiation and you look cool on the surface but your stomach is turning in knots?
I love Michael Jordan. I do! I'm a huge fan but understand when the pressure was on, his performance actually went down
How do you turn it on? How can you activate your best abilities on command when nothing seems to be working?
The key is, to have...
What I'm talking about is, actually embracing your pain. Embracing your pain to get to the touch down, to get to the goal you're trying to achieve.
The number one pet peeve I have when it comes to winning is, people who believe you can’t do it.
People who say to you: "Who do you think you are?”; “No you can’t.”; “You can't do this." and quite often it's...
There are these moments when you are performing and all of a sudden things just go all to hell. What do you do? Some of the biggest challenges you will have are: your brain starts going too fast; or the crowd or the person watching you starts to turn on you; you start getting it in your head and you can't figure out what to do next.
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What happens when you lose your job? Or you lose business? Or a sudden illness in your body? How do you handle that? There are so many other scenarios where these things happen, does it totally debilitate you? Shut you down to the point where you can't think.
This week I’m focusing on a really important topic to me. Actually, and it's been a weakness of mine, I think my entire life, and that's this: giving up your power.
When you under prepare, that's when the fear starts showing up because you're going to go to the test, or the game, or the business meeting, or the interview and you haven't prepared and you get hit. All of a sudden, you lose focus, you lose control and that's where the problem starts.
As you are gearing up for your next chapter I want to explore a topic that quite often stops people dead in their tracks. Specifically, I want you to beware of the dream stealers and the hope killers.
It doesn't matter what they say or what they do or how they position you or how they evaluate you. You'll understand there's so much more to what you are and so much more is possible. You'll drop all those criticisms and realize you're good just because of the way you are.
Unfortunately, when you resist going into what makes you uncomfortable, it makes you weak. It's mental weakness training.
Once you rip the doors off the cage you will realize the only thing that is stopping you is you
I don't know is the one of the biggest obstacles that I encounter. What's interesting is, a lot of very famous, high profile coaches will say; "knowledge is not power, it is only potential power...execution is power".
Have you ever been in a situation where you were so scared, so terrified that you literally had no idea what to do next? A time in your life where you needed to produce a result but the fear was so real you could almost taste it.
I read recently that performance anxiety affects us all. It doesn't matter if you're a superstar athlete or a high powered CEO or trying to get back on your feet after a layoff. Our "nerves" can reek havoc on our performance.
Winning is not easy, which is contrary to most of the images that we see in the media.
Quite often when we see the gold medalist, the champion or the market leader; all that we are exposed to is their victory. We are not privy to their struggle,
How do the best producers keep going...even when they're not seeing results? What makes the biggest difference?
Honestly, it's their expectation. Specifically, their optimistic expectation.
Wouldn't it be great if you could give yourself a jolt of confidence whenever you needed it?
You may have heard the phrase; "Practice makes perfect". But have you heard the re-boot?
"Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect."
While I'm not a fan of aiming for perfection...there is some validity to this statement.
One of the most crippling factors of performing at your best, especially when you are under pressure is the need for approval.
At first glance many people would say that it's not true for them but the reality is, it's hard wired into all of us
Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be super human?
To be able to do the seemingly impossible.
Through all of that reading, I discovered something fascinating about divorce. Specifically, the number one predictor of divorce. Surprisingly, its not chemistry or family background or socio-economic.
Over the span of my career I've held many roles, most of which required me to perform under massive pressure.
I think what’s really important in business and in life is to be able to put your agenda aside and serve someone else’s needs first.
So, how do you become great? There's a great expression that says "champions are not born, they are created"
A crucial process that is key to performing under pressure.
I used to be a television and film actor. It truly was a great experience. However, I never could have predicted how perfectly, acting would work with my current business.
And I certainly could not have guessed that it would affect my clients so profoundly.
We're all under pressure to deliver in some capacity. However, actors have figured out a way to perform at their best regardless of what's happening around them and you can too.
I made a quick video explaining what I mean in depth.
Imagine being able to perform at your best under pressure. It's possible we just need to hone your acting skills.
Sometimes we really wanna make a big change in our lives but we don't know how, we don't have the training or the experience. What's interesting is that to make the giant leaps with your life often it's not about your resources it's about your resourcefulness.
Recently I achieved my green belt in Krav Maga. For those of you who don’t know what Krav Maga is, it’s the Israeli Military Defence System. In a nutshell, you learn how to fight against real world threats like, guns, knives, multiple attackers etc. It’s pretty crazy stuff.
I failed out of university.
It was an embarrassing, humbling and soul crushing experience. Until that point in my life I could practically create any result I wanted. Then suddenly it was over.
It was the stark realization that I wasn’t good enough.
We’ve all done it. Sometimes we tell ourselves certain things to prevent our egos from being damaged by the truth. Things like: “I’m not fat, I’m just big boned”; or “all men are cheaters”; or “you have to have money to get a good girl”; or “you have to kiss ass to get ahead”.
I was watching House of Cards last night and the Chief of Staff and Secretary of State didn’t want to let the public know about the President’s weakness. They felt if the public knew and in particular if their enemies knew, that they might try and harm the US.
I remember trying to land my first sales job in the pharma industry. At the time I had already accumulated what I thought was a lot of experience as a sales person. I had already successfully worked in retail and direct sales and had received promotions to management in both fields.
Early in my sales career I was deathly afraid of cold calling but I wanted to be an actor. I linked up in my mind, that if I was going to make it as an actor I would have to get over my fear of cold calling, specifically, rejection.
Making a two year old wait for ice cream is not a fun experience and I don’t recommend it. So, I’m watching this elderly couple that was ahead of us, try and figure out what the hell they’re gonna order.
Early in my sales career I was deathly afraid of cold calling but I wanted to be an actor. I linked up in my mind, that if I was going to make it as an actor I would have to get over my fear of cold calling, specifically, rejection.
How do you make someone do something, when they don’t want to? Or how do you make someone do something when it makes you feel awful even asking? I don’t know about you, but I really struggle with both of those questions.
It’s interesting because as I study more and more entrepreneurs especially the greats, the entrepreneurs who are considered to be household names; they hold a similar belief.
Here’s to the crazy ones. The Misfits. The Rebels. The trouble makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them glorify or vilify them about the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Sometimes there is absolutely no good reason to believe that you can win. Sometimes, there is no tangible evidence anywhere in your life to suggest you can pull off something extraordinary.
I recently read an article where Sir Richard Branson told the editor of Inc Magazine that, "whenever you have an idea, 99 percent of people are going to tell you it won't work." In addition to that the editor goes on to point out that people like Branson once had nothing else to go on but chutzpah.
Its so easy to get caught up with what's not working, on what we don't have and what we need to get done. Survival and short term thinking can easily become the dominant focus of our lives. And before we know it, days, weeks and even years fly by and we are no where near what we truly want.
Calvin Strachan made the Find a Way to Win programs after becoming a leader in several multi-million dollar sales organizations ranging from: direct sales to pharmaceutical sales to personal development.
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Join our vibrant community today and be the first to receive updates on our latest content, upcoming events, and special offers. Let's embark on a path of growth and learning together.
Sign up now and let the transformation begin!