Have you seen the movie Apollo 13? In case you’re unfamiliar with it, it is not the sequel to Apollos 1 through 12. It’s a nail-biter of a movie that tells the true story of the ill-fated—and almost disastrous—Apollo 13 mission to the moon. At the risk of ruining it for you, the crew of Apollo 13 never made it to the moon. Instead, they nearly died when an onboard explosion made it virtually impossible for them to return safely ...
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Imagine you’re in this situation. You’re a professional hockey player. You’re playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It’s the deciding game; you’re in overtime. There are 10 seconds left, and suddenly, one of your teammates passes the puck to you.
What would you do? Would you panic? Would you choke? Would you rise to the occasion and save the day?
How would you feel? Nervous? Alarmed? Excited? Confident?
Overtime in the deciding game, 10 seconds on the clock…and it’s all up to you.
A friend of mine got a flat tire on the way to the airport last week. It was a crisis, and she missed her flight.
I got a flat tire on the way to the airport several years ago. It was an inconvenience, and I made my flight.
What was the difference between the two incidents?
Planning.
When I have an important flight, I get to the airport ridiculously early. My travel mantra is, “I’d rather be bored at the airport than panicked on ...
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I just saw the new Mission: Impossible movie. I’m not going to give anything away here (because you may not have seen it yet, and besides, I’m not that kind of a jerk), but it is absolutely filled with high-pressure situations!
As in the previous five installments, Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt. And, as in the previous five installments, there’s a lot at stake. What I find interesting, though, is that the three elements that create a high-pressure situation for Ethan ...
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On December 29, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing more than 100 passengers and crew members. That, of course, would be tragic under any circumstances. What makes this incident doubly tragic, though, is that the accident was entirely preventable. In fact, had the story had a happier outcome, the cause of the crash would have been almost laughable.
Because the two pilots were too busy trying to ...
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In other words, when we’re under pressure and need to make a decision, we all have a tendency to simplify the situation to two choices, and ...
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It’s great when people agree with you, isn’t it? It’s a wonderful validation — of your thoughts, your ideas…of you. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Yes, it’s great when people agree with you.
Except it doesn’t move the needle. Especially when the agreement comes too early.
There’s a great scene in the old TV series The West Wing. Leo McGarry is the Chief of Staff to liberal Democratic president Jed Bartlet. In this scene, Leo is offering a ...
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Let me give you a hypothetical high-pressure situation.
You’re the pilot of a small, single-engine airplane. You take off, alone, in this single-engine airplane, and head out over a large body of open water. At about 800 feet above this water, your single engine starts to sound funny (and not in a “ha-ha” way), and you notice you’re not gaining altitude at the rate you should be. At around 1200 feet above the water, your single engine quits.
This is a high-pressure ...
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We all love the “oh-so-cool” person who can just “wing it” in any situation, don’t we? That’s why we admire (and secretly want to be) James Bond — the guy who can go through a brutal, life-or-death fight with armed assassins, and then thirty minutes later stroll into a high-stakes poker game (in a perfectly-tailored, freshly-pressed tuxedo, of course) looking like he just had a facial and manicure.
We all want to be the person who, off-the-cuff, always says the perfect ...
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Engagement drives results.
That makes sense, doesn’t it? When your team is more engaged, you get better results. But it turns out the reverse is just as true, if not more so.
When I was producing my hit comedy TV show in Seattle, my team and I would look at the ratings every week. It was a point of pride for us that we were number one in our time slot for ten straight years. Seeing the numbers there in ...
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