5 Simple Steps Toward World-Class In the Clutch

Performing under pressure comes from preparation, mental focus and fearlessness.

Clutch is a word often connected with sports. We think of the elite athlete who always comes through when the lights are the brightest and the game is on the line. However, producing when the moment most demands isn't exclusive to the world of athletics. Nailing the big sales pitch, pulling off the impossible deadline or anticipating a client’s needs before they do also can fall in the category of clutch. How is it that when the time calls for excellence some wilt under the pressure, while others step their game up? Here are five ways to go from average to world-class clutch:

1. Practice like you play.

Repetition through practice breeds familiarity. The more accustomed you are with any given situation, the less your nerves will be a factor. When you've been there and done that dozens or even hundreds of times, this naturally increases the level of confidence you have to complete the task at hand. The one critical mistake most people make when they prepare is that they go through the motions instead of practicing at real life "game speed." In other words, when they get to the actual situation, it feels different. The familiarity they attempted to lock-in with practice was partially wasted. To be truly clutch, you need to make your rehearsal as close to the real deal, at full speed. As an example, if you've got an important speech coming up, go run through the speech in the board room or stage where you’ll actually be presenting later.

2. Stick to your routine.

When you're clutch and in a big moment, it often doesn't often feel like one. The "moment" feels like any other one of the countless times you've been successful because you've executed time and time again. It's also critical to be in the right frame of mind leading up to the moment. In the hours, minutes or seconds beforehand, get yourself in a familiar rhythm. It could be wearing an outfit that you feel comfortable and confident in, visualizing success in your mind or even listening to the same song that gets you in the right mindset.

3. Appreciate the moment.

Clutch means that you embrace the big moment and the time leading up to it. Contrast that with someone who can't wait for the moment to pass or thinks to himself, "If I can just get past this." Remember, the moment is what you've worked hard to achieve. This is why you've put in the work -- to get this opportunity.

4. Slow things down.

When in the midst of a tremendous opportunity that calls for a clutch performance, it's all too easy to chase too many mental targets at once. Distractions creep into the picture. Clutch moments demand total focus and concentration. They don't require more thoughts processed quicker; they require fewer distractions, or a simplification of the process.

One way to help keep your thoughts simplified is to consciously direct them toward the positive and to drill down to the bare bones. When we get overly ambitious with our mental pursuits, allowing our thoughts to flow from one topic to another, it can be draining and take us off target. Slow things down by thinking only of the task at hand and the basics it will require.

5. Don't be afraid to fail.

The fact is, no one can come through in the critical moment 100 percent of the time. Look closely at the statistics of any ice-water-in-their-veins athlete and you'll find a time where they lost a round, big game or struck out with the bases loaded. Nobody is perfect, and the pursuit of the unobtainable imposes a pressure that will surely cause more misses than hits. Allow yourself to get past failures -- learn, move on and enjoy the wins. 

The media and fans will sometimes describe an athlete as possessing a "clutch gene" after delivering in a key moment. For just about any performer, particularly in sports, this might be one of the ultimate compliments. Performing under pressure, however, doesn't come from hitting the genetic lottery; it comes from the right amount of preparation, mental focus and fearlessness. 

Written by: Marty Fukuda

Credit: Entrepreneur.com

5 Social Entrepreneurship Essentials

The following excerpt is from Jason Haber's new book The Business of Good. Buy it now from Amazon

In The Business of Good, serial and social entrepreneur Jason Haber intertwines case studies and anecdotes that show how social entrepreneurship is creating jobs, growing the economy, and ultimately changing the world. In this edited excerpt, Haber offers his insight into what exactly social entrepreneurship is and why it’s catching on in larger numbers year after year.

What precisely is social entrepreneurship? Ask three people to define it, and you’ll get three different answers.

This isn’t to suggest the movement is shrouded in mystery. There are accepted understandings of it. Social entrepreneurs are agents of change. Their reason for existing is to tackle problems confronting society.

Writing in the Stanford Social Innovation Review a decade ago, New York University professor Paul C. Light gave a definition that I feel perfectly describes the term. “A social entrepreneur,” he wrote, “is an individual, group, network, organization, or alliance of organizations that seeks sustainable, large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas in what or how governments, nonprofits, and businesses do to address significant social problems.”

I like to define social entrepreneurship broadly as the mechanism by which private sector actors solve public and private sector problems that are currently not being addressed.

Traditional entrepreneurs look for opportunities in new markets. So do social entrepreneurs. Traditional entrepreneurs need to return capital to investors. So do social entrepreneurs (albeit in differing structures that we’ll examine later in this book). Traditional entrepreneurs require scale. So do social entrepreneurs.

But there are differences between them as well. The key distinguisher is: why. An entrepreneur is in business to deliver a bottom-line profit for serving a market in a better or more efficient manner. Social entrepreneurs have a triple bottom line to consider: people, planet, and profit. They’re not looking to solve an immediate problem. Instead they’re looking for scalable wholesale change to the underlying condition that led to the problem. As Bill Drayton of social entrepreneur network Ashoka put it: “Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”

Within the social entrepreneurial community sits a schism that makes its definition illusive. On the one hand, the school of thought championed by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. He sees social business as a virtuous cycle where profits are reinvested back into helping lift more people out of poverty. On the other hand are social entrepreneurs who believe profit-driven businesses with self-sustaining models will deliver more benefits, more efficiently, and to a greater number of people. To this day, the for-profit versus non-profit debate remains heated. But there is an answer: They are both right. Yet they are both wrong.

We need to encourage more people to enter social enterprise and to be embraced by the community of change. But as several people said to me: Not every problem is a market. It would be overly simplistic to believe that the slate of global problems could be eradicated solely by market forces. For this reason, the market also includes nonprofits that fill a tremendously important space.

Despite the degree of difficulty in social entrepreneurship’s practice and definition, more and more are flocking to the movement every day. What’s new is the velocity in the movement and the attention it now receives. The volume of and the speed at which new ventures are being launched under the social entrepreneurial banner is staggering.

For today’s social entrepreneurs, the status quo has little meaning or significance to them. They’re driven by a unique alchemy. A zeal to repair the world, coupled with a frustration with the way things are, created a group of people who have just HAD IT:

They’ve HAD IT with problems that have gone unsolved.

They’ve HAD IT with models that have haven’t yielded enough results.

They’ve HAD IT with naysayers who see no alternative to the world as it is.

Channeling their passion to make a difference, social entrepreneurs apply a HAD IT attitude: Hope, Audacity, Disappointment, Ingenuity and Tenacity. They’ve HAD IT and because they have, they’re poised to make a difference.

1. Hope

Social entrepreneurs are arguably one of the most hopeful groups of people you’ll ever encounter. Problem solving is hard. Harder still is to solve the underlying issues that lead to those problems in the first place. Their ultimate goal is to put themselves out of business by creating a world without poverty, with equal access to health care and education, gender and racial parity, and a protected, natural environment.

2. Audacity

“We got this,” superstar Millennial Maggie Doyne told me. Doyne wasn’t just referring to her incredible charity based in Nepal. She was referring to the global problems facing us today -- all of them. This same level of audacity runs through the veins of all social entrepreneurs. They dispel the notion that some problems are intractable. It takes a certain level of audaciousness to believe you can have scalable impact on not just thousands but potentially millions of people. Several social entrepreneurs I met told me their goal was to touch more than 100 million lives.

3. Disappointment

Pick your poison: the environment, poverty, human trafficking, public health, education, water, food. The list goes on. Social entrepreneurs have inherited a world not of their creation and not of their design. Venture capitalist John Doerr began his remarkable TED Talk on clean energy with a story about his teenage daughter. She was disappointed in those in her father’s generation. She believed they caused global warming and thus they needed to fix it. An emotional Doerr pleaded with the audience to tackle climate change so he could “look forward to the conversation” he would have with his daughter in 20 years.

There’s a level of sadness social entrepreneurs experience. They can’t believe these problems have gone on without an effective solution. Like any athlete knows, disappointment can hold you back or it can motivate you to work harder. The key for social entrepreneurs is to channel that disappointment to fuel positive social change.

4. Ingenuity

The approach of the social entrepreneur is new. It requires challenging the status quo. Instead of looking to the poor as a group to be pitied, social entrepreneurs view them as a market where goods and services can benefit both parties. Any successful product made by a social entrepreneur is either disruptive, innovative, or, perhaps, both. When selling a product in the developing world, it’s very possible that no competition exists.

In the developed world where consumers tend to have choices, social entrepreneurs need to disrupt existing models. From healthy food choices to better educational and vocational opportunities, social entrepreneurs take ingenuity to a whole new level.

5. Tenacity

Social entrepreneurs tackle problems that have a high degree of difficulty. To mount a proper charge against large obstacles it takes a certain attitude and mindset. It takes tenacity to the tenth degree.

“This is hard work,” said D.Light co-founder Sam Goldman. “If you’re going to leverage your time, your relationships, your sweat, your money, into solving a problem, why not try to solve problems that if you are successful in, you move history in the right direction?”

NYU professor Paul Light once said: “I also find that social entrepreneurs are driven by a persistent, almost unshakable optimism. They persevere in large part because they truly believe that they will succeed in spite of messages to the contrary.”

Written By: Jason Haber

Credit: Entrepreneur.com