Drawing on 20 years of leadership experience in high pressure emergency medical and rescue situations, the author describes the consequences of pressure, both positive and negative, and teaches the strategies we need to attain states of peak performance.

Former TOPGUN instructor, Navy Ace, and award-winning commercial real estate salesman Bill Driscoll offers business leaders results-proven principles to compete in the fast-paced, global enterprise that is today's business world. For Peak Performance Under Pressure: How to Achieve Extraordinary Results Under the Most Difficult Circumstances, he interviewed more than 200 senior executives and 26 Aces to show readers how to make critical decisions under intense pressure; build strong, dedicated teams; maintain steadfast focus on their mission; and model the integrity and constancy they expect from their staffs while facing rapidly changing problems. In Peak Performance Under Pressure, Driscoll uses the following six-element formula to keep leaders winning while tackling the most high-pressure conditions: Planning + Preparation + Focus + Assessment + Improvement + Self-Discipline = Peak Performance These six tools helped Driscoll keep his head and make split-second decisions through 170 combat missions, 5,200 jet dogfights, and 510 aircraft carrier landings as an Ace fighter pilot. Chapter 1 outlines each of the six elements in the Peak Performance Formula, how that formula enables Ace fighter pilots to win no matter what and how their methods can work for business leaders. This chapter's assessment enables the reader to quickly identify his or her own peak performance challenges. In chapter 2, the reader learns essential techniques for creating winning plans, including a targeted overview of the three must-have elements in any successful business plan, and a logical four-step approach to using a daily action plan to accomplish strategic, operational, and tactical goals. Chapter 3 outlines some concrete steps for mastering the five levels of essential preparation for both team and personal success and for building the kind of physical, emotional, and psychological readiness that will help the reader overcome his or her biggest challenges and toughest competition in any arena. Chapter 4 takes a close look at the Aces' techniques for developing and maintaining laser-beam focus and attention to detail, and it offers a simple, three-step process for adopting those techniques to boost personal and team performance. In chapter 5, the reader learns why ongoing assessment is essential to attaining peak performance, some easy-to-follow methods for assessing performance and that of a team, and how to infuse an organization with the kind of essential accountability necessary to establish standards of excellence, gain customer trust, and improve outcomes in every aspect of the operation. Chapter 6 offers specific tools and techniques for making ongoing improvements in the reader's personal, team, and organizational performance. From improving self-discipline to acing key leadership skills, building confidence, and expanding one's sphere of influence, the skills learned in this chapter help the reader become a more effective decision maker, in any environment and under any level of pressure. Chapter 7 pulls together the "training program," as it outlines how the reader's ability to consistently adhere to the Peak Performance Formula enables him or her to face down some of the most common workplace ambushes and respond expertly to any rapidly evolving challenge. Here, the reader learns some simple principles for integrating the ideas and practices gained in the book into a never-fail plan for surviving and thriving both personally and professionally.

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 Performing Under Pressure, Drs. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry introduce us to the concept of pressure management, offering empirically tested short term and long term solutions to help us overcome the debilitating effects of pressure. Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one "rises to the occasion" under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse, and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance. Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do. Whether you’re a corporate manager, a basketball player, or a student preparing for the SAT, Performing Under Pressure will help you to do your best when it matters most.

You're an achiever. You're motivated, ambitious, and success-oriented. But you're also smart enough to know that if you push yourself too hard, you'll increase your day-to-day anxiety and endanger your health. The C Zone is for you.

In enemy airspace, high above the treetops of North Vietnam, two US F-4 Phantom jet fighters have downed their fifth enemy plane, thus securing their new status as “Aces.” The skies are finally quiet, and the safety of the ocean is just ahead. But in that brief moment of victory, they are blindsided by a surface-to-air missile. Bill “Willy” Driscoll, one of the most highly decorated Naval Flight Officers of the alast fifty years, demonstrates how his TOPGUN training prepared him for both life-or-death aerial dogfights and the demands of difficult business decisions. His remarkable military experiences, his 26-year award-winning career in the highly competitive Southern California commercial real estate market, and personal interviews with twenty-six other Ace pilots and over 200 business executives serve as a blueprint for achieving extraordinary results under the most difficult circumstances organizations face each day. Topics include preparation, risk assessment, team building, focus and listening, self-evaluation and improvement, avoiding pitfalls, and much more. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

The first research-based program to offer concise, clear ways to realize your best performance. As a therapist, physician, and mental coach, Dr. Michael Lardon has dedicated his career to helping athletes understand and better achieve peak performance. In Finding Your Zone, he shares with readers what he's discovered about reaching the state in which thoughts and actions are occurring in complete synchronicity, and how this state is accessible to all, not just the few. In ten key lessons illustrated by personal anecdotes from his clients' Lardon teaches readers how to access the zone not only in sports but in all aspects of their lives, by understanding how to: - Transform desire into will - Channel emotions to victory - Trust instincts and keep it simple - Conquer fear through acceptance - Perform under pressure