Translator: Cristina Mantione
E: What does it mean to perform under pressure in the work that you do?
S: Performing under pressure, whether it's me or anybody else, is the same.
You know, I have the same pressure as anyone else. There's time, performance,
there's financial...I mean, there - you know - there's deadline
My preassures are not unique.
The situation's may be different or, you know,
but everybody has the same kinds of pressures, but what I found or
what I find fascinating is the interpretation of the stimuli.
If, if... let me explain: so, I was watching the Olympics,
this last summer Olympics, and I was amazed at how bad questions were that
the reporters were to ask to the athletes, and almost always they asked the same
question, whether they were about to compete or after they competed:
"Were you nervous, right?"
And to a tee all the athletes went:
"No!"
Right! And what I realized, is it's not that they're not nervous.
It's the interpretation of what happens in their bodies. I mean, what happens when
you're nervous, right? Your heart rate starts to go, you know, you sort of get
a little tensed, you get a little sweaty, right?
You have expectation of what's coming, and we interpret that "I'm nervous".
Now, what's the interpretation of excited? Your heart rate starts to go, you become -
you're anticipating what's coming, right?
You get a little sort of like tense it's all the same thing.
It's the same stimuli, except these athletes, these Olympic quality athletes
have learned to interpret the stimuli that the rest of us would say is nervous as
excited. They're also the same thing: "No, I'm not nervous. I'm excited, and so
I've actually practiced it, just to tell myself, when I start to get nervous, that
this is excitement! You know?
And so, when I used to speaking in front of a large audience and somebody said:
"How do you feel like?" I said: "Little nervous."
Now, when somebody says: "How do you feel like?"
"Really excited, actually!" And it came from just sort of telling myself:
"No, no, no. This is excitement!" And it becomes a little bit automatic later on,
but it's kind of a remarkable thing to deal with preassure by interpreting
what your body's experiencing as excitement rather than nerves and it's
really kind of effective. It makes you want to rush for it rather than pull back
and yet it's the same experience.