Everyone faces “clutch” situations, those times when you need to function under intense pressure. Few excel in these stressful moments; most choke. New York Times columnist Paul Sullivan investigates what makes the notable few who can handle stress so reliable under pressure. He interviews top athletes – including Tiger Woods – highly decorated combat veterans, seasoned heads of financial institutions, and successful traders to discover their secrets and methods.
Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen
The word “clutch” generally refers to the device that enables an automobile’s transmission to shift gears. But in the American vernacular, clutch has a completely different meaning. To “be clutch,” or to “perform well in the clutch,” is to do your best under the most stressful, pressurized circumstances that give you little time to make decisions that carry serious consequences. Very few people do well in the clutch. Most people “choke” or fail to rise to the occasion. “Transferring what you can do in a relaxed atmosphere to a tenser one is not easy – or else everyone would be clutch.” And of the small percentage of the population capable of being clutch, most of those only are clutch in specific circumstances.
Tiger Woods might be the most clutch professional golfer of all time; he is able to make incredibly difficult shots at crucial moments in elite tournaments with the same apparent ease he demonstrates on the practice tee. But Woods’s highly publicized, scandalous private life, and the choices he made there, suggest that his astute, high-wire decision-making skills in golf do not transfer to other areas in his life.
Clutch...
Comment on this summary