On Pressure, Prioritization and Retrospective Advice

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Over the past two years, The Daily Coach has conducted dozens of interviews with coaches, executives and other leaders about managing nerves under pressure, prioritization and retrospective advice.

For this week’s Saturday Blueprint, we put together some of our favorite quotes on these subjects from our guests.

On pressure:

“We do practice emergency scenarios. We talk about the terrible things that could happen. We had talked about battle damage in our pre-brief. I had thought about what I would do in that worst-case scenario.

But we’re also taught something very early in our career that really helps us remain calm under pressure and prioritize our actions. It’s “aviate, navigate, communicate.”

Aviate means we focus on the thing that is most important first, which is flying the airplane. You can’t stop flying the airplane.

Then, we navigate. We need to make sure we have a clear path, clear goals and objectives, we know where we’re going.

Then, we communicate. We communicate with others if we need help. We communicate with our team to make sure they know the way forward.”

-Col. Kim “Killer Chick” Campbell, retired U.S. Air Force

“You work on staying present, staying in the moment. Those guys who have been there before are able to do it. Getting through those experiences is so critical. No matter how much you talk about it, it’s a lot of experiential learning until you’re in there yourself. It’s really hard to replicate.

I (finished) one year winning 10 matches in a row, 17 out of 19, playing great tennis. I start the next year — I’m playing great. I play Carlos Moya in the next round, who’s No. 6 at the time. I had a match point and lost. I was so disappointed, being so close and not being able to overcome it. It really had a significant impact on me.

The next week, I had five match points against a guy who at the time was probably 40 in the world. I just really struggled with the ability to finish. When I put myself in position to win was when I would experience the doubt, not when I was down or felt I had nothing to lose.

That experience really had an impact on me. For the next eight months, I didn’t win back-to-back matches on tour. I was playing great tennis, but I really doubted myself in that moment when I put myself in a position to win.

Then, I was able to come through in a tough situation, and I was off and running. It took that one experience of being able to get over the hump. I followed that by getting to my (career-best) ranking.”

-Paul Goldstein, Stanford men’s tennis coach and former professional player

On prioritization:

“There’s always a mental sort between what’s urgent and what’s important. Many times, the urgent things aren’t important. A lot of people struggle to distinguish those two and jump on the urgent and never get to the important. That’s a problem.

I don’t know if I have a secret. I think a lot comes through doing this a lot and having the humility to say ‘I wasted time’ so that you don’t do it again. You start to see patterns of what works better and what doesn’t.

I do force myself once a year to go through what I call a calendar audit and look back at where I spent my time in the last year and how much of that was really a good use of time versus not. That helps you decide on prioritization, but I don’t think anybody’s totally mastered this. It’s ongoing.”

-Rob Thomas, IBM senior vice president of software and chief commercial officer

“I actually have a notecard on my desk that’s another Ryan (Holiday) phrase. It says, ‘Discipline now, freedom later.’ I think about that even when I’m getting back from a run and don’t feel like untying my shoes. The discipline now will pay off later. I look at that notecard and think I could be loosy-goosy and procrastinate and let things go, but I try to make just a little progress every day on things, and then, I feel good about it. If I feel like I throw a day away, I’m sort of kicking myself. I want to avoid that.

It’s not time blocked. It’s just bullet points of my four main projects. A lot of what I work on isn’t due tomorrow. The deadline for this is two months away, so I do napkin math at the start like, ‘If I do this amount of work on this each day, I’ll come in well ahead of the deadline.’ I know if I make this amount of progress, I’m in a good spot.”

-Billy Oppenheimer, research assistant to best-selling author Ryan Holiday

Retrospective advice:

“It’s O.K. to share uncomfortable feelings. It’s O.K. to tell somebody this is making me a little anxious. This is a lot to comprehend. There was a period of time when if you were a guy, you put your head down and you went hard. If you got in a hole, you dug yourself out. It wasn’t a really smart mentality, but it was the way generationally we kind of did things. I probably didn’t handle it the best.  

My advice, pretty much, would be you know your authentic self. You know what makes you happy, you know what makes you sad, you know when you’re nervous. Share it with somebody close. Let them help you navigate.”

-Clint Hurdle, former manager of the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates

“Slow down. I think I was in a hurry to do what I wanted to do and accomplish things, and I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the experience, but make sure you enjoy and appreciate the people who are around you. I played with and for amazing people. I think sometimes when you’re immersed in that, you can take for granted what’s around you.

There’s plenty of time to sit and worry about other things. I think I would’ve taken more time and concentrated on what’s really important. That’s what you’re doing right now and the people you’re doing it with.”

-Jay Bilas, ESPN college basketball analyst

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