Tag: discipline

We close out our series on Clutch by Paul Sullivan with a look at, “How to be Clutch in Sports.”

Sports stories have been a staple of the entire book, serving as a rich source of performance under pressure examples.

With our focus now on sports themselves, I find the lessons and insights still broadly applicable.

My main take-away was the return to fundamentals. Fundamental skills. Fundamental discipline in training, practicing and honing those skills.

If I want to be able to rely on my skills under pressure, they need to be practiced to a degree that they are ingrained and feel natural.

While I understand the principle, I must admit the lifestyle of discipline, focus and training required to get to where my skills are so well practiced that they feel natural feels a bit out of reach.

I’m not sure if that out-of-reach feeling comes from never having been trained with the capacity to focus and work hard on a single skill like that. Or if the (more…)

Ouch.

When it comes to straight-talking about money issues, the initial feeling is usually, “Ouch”.

Downsizing one’s plans, shifting into a lower gear, or turning around and going back all feel nasty when money is on the line.

When the money is coming in, there seems little need to evaluate one’s decisions. The inflow of cash is almost universally interpreted as validation.

But what if you could have been making more? What if you could have been making the same amount, but having done so in such a way that built a sounder financial foundation and infrastructure?

We usually don’t give a very thoughtful look at our finances until we run into trouble.

It might be too late to respond well by the time the stitching is coming unraveled or the ship has sprung a leak.

Hence the significance of being “clutch” with one’s money. In this chapter, Sullivan explores stories where people were and were not able to make crucial (more…)

The problem with overconfidence is that, as easy as it is to spot in others, it is almost impossible to see in ourselves.

The problem with overconfidence is that our focus has shifted from the task at hand to ourselves and our reputations and abilities.

This chapter begs the question, what then is healthy confidence?

My starting definition would be a grounded comfort in who I am and what I am capable that results in being free from thinking about myself at all.

My attention is freed up to focus on others, on what is going on around me, on what I am doing at the moment.

Humility is a virtue that fits well here.

Neither a too high nor a too low estimation of myself. In fact, I’m not devoting any attention to assessing myself at all.

I already know myself, and I have made my peace with who I am and who I am not. I am okay with what I can do and what I cannot yet do.

I am not comparing myself to others. I am not trying to impress. I am simply not thinking about myself.

I am free to focus on meeting the demands of the moment. In clutch situations, that freedom to focus is crucial to being able to perform under pressure. In clutch situations, there is not time for distractions like thinking that you’re the right person to meet this moment.

What about for you? How much of your efforts to succeed have to do with thinking about yourself being successful instead of doing the actual work you want to succeed at?

What are your personal overconfidence or lack of confidence distractions? How might you help yourself shift your focus back to the task at hand?

What was your main take-away from this chapter? We would all love to learn from what you are learning.

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t by Paul Sullivan. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

How many times have I imagined myself speaking in front of stadium crowds? If I had a nickel for every time I planned all I would be able to do when my business was big enough to have a full-time team of employees, I’d be rich.

The time I’ve spent worrying about my great products being stolen instead of putting them out on the public table could have built twice as many.

I find myself, again, personally challenged by Paul Sullivan’s insights into what does NOT result in “clutch” performance.

Chapter 8 describes the perils of “overthinking.”

To continue with myself as an example, when working on any given task my mind tends to jump ahead and begin anticipating a plethora of future issues, successes and/or problems that may arise.

My attention and efforts then subtly shift to pre-addressing those issues. Yes, before they even become issues!

It sounds funny and oddly obvious to say aloud, but that’s not how I am experiencing it at the time.

Sullivan’s point is that such efforts are ultimately distracting, unproductive and sabotaging to the attention, focus and presence we need to be applying to the (more…)

A leader’s responsibility is to assume responsibility.

Unfortunately, like a fair-weather friend, many leaders—while more than ready to publicly accept responsibility for positive results—quickly shift responsibility elsewhere when outcomes are not as expected.

In this week’s chapter of Clutch, Paul Sullivan demonstrates that such a blaming tendency is linked more to failure than to success.

“Clutch” leadership, the ability to perform under pressure with the effectiveness that you would normally exhibit, is not characteristic of the blame-shifter. In fact, crucial to clutch performance is the

If you or I have a tendency to explain away our part in negative, difficult, or broken situations, we can pretty much count on choking. Instead of poised to face and work through the complexities that bedevil us, we will be presiding over our own unfolding ruin.

That’s enough of the abstract principles.

What about me? What about you? Do we dare hold up the spotlight of responsibility ownership to our own leadership practices? Our own choices, (more…)

“Being present” is a term of great personal interest.

Of all my professional traits and skills, the one I would describe as both my greatest strength and my favorite is my capacity to “be present.”

For purposes of our discussion of Sullivan’s Clutch we need to be careful, because he uses the word slightly differently than you are used to hearing from me.

Sullivan uses the theatre and stage acting to illustrate the characteristics of “being present.” When you are “on” you need to fully embody the character you portray. When you are “off” you are able to switch back and be yourself.

Being present means the experience of each is an all-or-nothing affair. You are not thinking about acting, how you want to come across, your facial expressions, or the intensity of your voice. You simply become the character.

It’s the self-consciousness that undermines the ability to be fully present in the role. It’s the extra thinking about what others are thinking, whether or not you’re effective, and what adjustments you might need to make that pulls you out of the role and sabotages your full engagement.

As we translate the acting illustration into our own pressure-filled, time sensitive, clutch moments that require our being fully present, the key question (more…)