Have you ever left a nerve-racking challenge and immediately wished for a do over? Maybe after a job interview, a performance, or a difficult conversation? The very moments that require us to be genuine and commanding can instead cause us to feel phony and powerless. Too often we approach our lives' biggest hurdles with dread, execute them with anxiety, and leave them with regret. By accessing our personal power, we can achieve "presence," the state...

Jenny loves swimming, and her best friend has finally convinced her to join the school swim team--but when she is confronted by a crowd of spectators in competition she freezes up.

"On October 3, 2000, 21-year-old pitcher Rick Ankiel took the mound for the St. Louis Cardinals in Game One of the National League division series. All was going well until Ankiel, who'd been lauded as the next Bob Gibson, threw a pitch that missed the mitt--wildly. Then he threw another. Then another, five in all. Slowly at first, then rapidly, his once-impenetrable pitcher's psyche crumbled. He would forever look back on that day as the day the...

At first Camila is thrilled to be chosen to represent her class in the school spelling bee, but than she becomes anxious about performing in front of an audience and considers withdrawing.

Paul Giamatti stars as himself, agonizing over his interpretation of Anton Chekhov's Classic Play, "Uncle Vanya." Paralyzed by anxiety, he stumbles upon a solution via a New Yorker article about a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by extracting souls.. Giamatti enlists their service -- only to discover that his soul is the shape and size of a chickpea. His intention is to reinstate it once he survives the performance but complications...

"Nobody performs better under pressure. Regardless of the task, pressure ruthlessly diminishes our judgment, decision-making, attention, dexterity, and performance in every professional and personal arena. In [this book], we are introduced to the concept of pressure management, offering a score of empirically tested strategies to help us overcome the sabotaging effects of pressure"--