Producing great results consistently is hard. Producing great results consistently—and under pressure—is harder. It takes a great deal of confidence to pull it off successfully.

But confidence, it turns out, is only half of the equation.

In a previous article, I talked about the importance of confidence when producing under pressure. And it’s true. Confidence is a vital attribute when you’re leading a team (even if that team has only one member—you) through a high-pressure situation.

Confidence, however, is no guarantee of ...

I used to work 100 hour weeks.

I still do, on rare occasions. But back when I was first producing my weekly comedy TV show Almost Live!, they were routine.

And most of those 100 hours, especially the final 24, were in panic mode. I spent much of those 24 hours trying to hide the panic from my staff.

So why was I in such a panic? Because the pressure was overwhelming, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

Each week, we had ...

Do you regularly find yourself in high-pressure situations? If you’re a leader (or a lion tamer), the answer is probably yes. And if that’s true, then it’s also true that you’re expected to produce under these high-pressure situations, right? In fact, that expectation to produce only adds to the pressure!

And that actually increases the chance that you’ll choke.

So how do you do it? How do you keep from choking in the big moments—the ones that really count?

Simple: use a pre-show ...