“Performing Under Pressure” is a pretty good read for 2026. The amount of research, examples and analysis that the two authors put into the book is quite amazing.
The first thing worth mentioning is the definition. What actually is pressure? And how to distinguish pressure from stress. I doubt everyone knows the difference between the two and in fact it was only by reading the book that I came to care about and notice what exactly stress and pressure is. The book, after all, is more about “pressure”, not “stress”. So, this important distinction is one thing that I want everyone to understand.
Pressure is more of an emergency, on the other hand, stress is more “ambient”, which works like a slow danger. Imagine you are living in the prehistoric era as a hunter in a tribe, one day, out of nowhere, a pack of wolves attack you. Your life is now under pressure and every action you take now can make difference between life or death.
But aside from the pressure of being eaten alive by feral wolves, there is a constant threats that alway remind you, that is hunger, that is the coming winter, etc. These are stress, you are stressful about the next clean water source, about how to store food, how to ensure your tribe survives past the next winter,… These are stress, which require longer time planning, consistent actions and a bit of mental energy everytime. Pressure, meanwhile, is what you have to face at the moment, this maybe what to do in a competitive sport, when your team is losing in a 90-minute match, when you are doing public speaking, etc. Stress is all about future, while pressure is about now.
The two authors are very clear about pressure: Performance well in a moment of pressure is dificult but at least there are techniques to deal with these (which is also the main topic of the book). However, to deal with stress, the only workaround is to eliminate the source (or reduce its~). That’s the key difference between pressure and stress.
The whole book is about pressure and how to gain maximum performance under it. Various techniques, examples and studies are mentioned. One tip is about posture. An experiment compared people using an iPad (a device with a small screen) with people using a big Mac desktop with a huge screen. The research concluded that the iPad group, whose usage required them to hunch more, was less assertive than the other group. This is quite interesting, and it suggests that good posture helps increase performance under pressure.
There are many tips, skills & practices that is suggested to be effective when dealing the pressure at hand. However, for a long term improvement and to make the effect to be more resilient, the authors recommend people to build a “COTE of amour”, a set of skill with that help us deal with pressure. COTE means: “Confidence, Optimism, Tenacity and Enthusiasm”. One third of the book is for developing these quality in your life.
One famous example about COTE that I would love to mention is about “Enthusiasm”. The example that is given in the book is about the Pixar Studios, (famous for creating the Toy Story franchise). Back in early 2000s, the studio was not that big, although they had created successful movies like Toy Story 1, their Toy Story 2 was not that good and required a total rework, but the studio only had 9 months left (no deadline extension is allowed!). Under that much pressure how did they solve the issue? This is not about skill or talent (they were already the best in their field!), but rather spirit. One key figure who helped the studio is the head of studio, John Lasseter, who bring enthusiasm into the team. The study suggest that successful company or team require one person that bring enthusiasm into the team! John Lasseter is the source of enthusiasm of Pixar. He brought joy, provided optimistic outlook and the spirit to the team.
That’s it for the book. The book helped me to understand the problem of pressure & stress, and also gave a lot of tips for me. Check it out on Amazon. The book is available in English. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been translated into Vietnamese yet.
6 November, 2026
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