Written by Willie Nicholson, Business Consultant
Willie Nicholson has held numerous leadership roles, building and empowering successful teams while enabling employees to grow and achieve career success. His go-to phrase is, "It's not who's right. It's what's right."
Benjamin Franklin famously stated, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes,” but he should have added that being put on the spot is also an unavoidable outcome.
I didn’t see that coming
Unless you’re not yet born, you’ve been put on the spot. Knocked for a loop. Rocked to the core. Speechless. We have all been put on the spot before and will be again. It can unexpectedly happen anywhere, anytime, and for many reasons.
There isn’t a mudroom designed to remedy life’s muddy problems and leave them at the door. A problem is a problem, whether in life or at work. They are just dressed in different clothes.
In this article, we will explore the “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” aspects of being put on the spot.
“Stories is life, life is stories remembered” Maya Angelou
While there has been a long-standing philosophical debate about whether life is a story, each of us lives a narrative. This is what philosopher Galen Strawson writes in his essay “Life-Writing.” Being put on the spot, however, is not enjoyable.
Being put on the spot simultaneously causes both a problem and stress. Is it the problem or the stress causing the grief? If we pick one over the other to deal with first, will it resolve the other? What if we choose the wrong one? What should our process be to deal with this? Will the process change depending on the situation?
Sometimes we must save ourselves from ourselves
The brain cannot truly process two things happening at the same time. Instead, it rapidly switches between tasks, giving the illusion of multitasking but only focusing on one primary activity at a time.
Experts are divided on which to address first: the stress or the problem. If the problem can be quickly resolved, you’d think the stress would subside. For instance, “Why didn’t you take the garbage out?” or “Why didn’t you get the report to me?” Take out the garbage. Produce the report. The stress and the problem both go away. Other experts think it’s important to manage the stress from a problem before directly tackling the problem.
Okay, the demand to process this is stressing me out just thinking about it, but let’s continue.
In his book, author Daniel Kahneman writes, “Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake acceptable, and the jump saves much time and effort. Jumping to conclusions is risky when the situation is unfamiliar, the stakes are high, and there is no time to collect more information. These are the circumstances in which intuitive errors are probable, which may be prevented by a deliberate intervention.”
The solution is not the outcome, and the outcome is not the solution
Stress tends to increase when you start caring about the outcome of a situation. Sometimes, we must just let go. Or, as Olympic and Polish tennis champion Iga Świątek says, “Sometimes it is not giving a shit, honestly. The secret to my success is giving myself the freedom to not care what people think.”
Sometimes, we must save ourselves from ourselves.
The extraordinary: How do animals handle stress?
In his book “Why Zebras Never Get Ulcers,” Robert M. Sapolsky, professor of neurology at Stanford University, writes about stress in animals. The zebra manages to get away but continues to spend the ensuing hour avoiding the lion. Both these situations are extremely stressful events, but the bodies of zebras, Sapolsky explains, are “brilliantly” able to adapt to such emergencies. Both “zebras and lions may see trouble coming in the next minute and mobilize a stress response in anticipation, but they can’t get stressed about events far into the future.”
They do not get ulcers because they do not anticipate stress like we humans do. It is the anticipation and worry that do the damage to us.
Do professionals get put on the spot?
When they’re at their best, athletes are focused on just being in the moment and executing their job. They’re not worrying about outcomes, how important a particular moment is, or what could go wrong.
The ability to perform under pressure is not innate; it’s developed through experience, practice, and often, learning from failure. Professionals don’t fear pressure; they embrace it as an integral part of their being. By preparing mentally as well as physically, they turn pressure into an ally, using it to sharpen their focus and elevate their performance when the stakes are highest.
Kelli Moran-Miller, a certified mental performance consultant at Stanford Sports Medicine, shares strategies she uses to help athletes manage stress in high-stakes situations. Methods such as transforming critical self-talk into positive reinforcement aren’t just for Olympians, she says, but can help the rest of us in everyday high-pressure situations.
Humans and animals: Regulating stress and coping
When put on the spot, it appears both animals and humans focus on being in the moment by regulating their tension and allowing their coping mechanisms to surface. In humans, stress can often be rooted in cause. In psychology, causality refers to understanding a phenomenon in terms of cause and effect. It is the effect stress has on us that magnifies the problem.
Let’s compare how animals and humans react to being put on the spot:
Reflection: Unlike animals, athletes constantly manage their thoughts, using reflection as a tool for learning and improvement.
Living in the present: Animals and athletes both must move on quickly after experiencing stress.
Biological reset mechanisms: After a stressful encounter, animals and athletes engage in behaviors that ‘reset’ them.
Survival imperative: Animals and athletes have no time for the past. What matters most is what you do now.
Social structures and hierarchies: Many animals and humans are social creatures by nature. Social behaviors can offer comfort and security. Studies indicate that positive social bonding and hierarchical structures can significantly support stress regulation in both animals and humans.
Funny words: Dialetheism, the liar paradox
Dialetheism refers to the philosophical view that some statements can be both true and false at the same time.
The Liar Paradox has been studied for over 2,300 years.
An example of the Liar Paradox is a situation with ambiguous boundaries, like someone being in and not in a room at the same time because they are standing in the doorway.
"Change your thoughts and you change your world." Norman Vincent Peale
Or, as Colleen Hooven said, “Keep an open mind; it’s the only way new things can get in.”
Being trapped can create stress and leave you in a situation where unclear or inexact choices between alternatives haven’t been made. When stuck, you may feel unable to change or escape. How do you avoid dealing with something like this?
Be your own hero
In her book Bold Moves Anxiety, Dr. Luana Marques, a Harvard Medical School psychologist, notes that anxiety is painful, but it is not what is keeping you stuck. She writes about transforming anxiety into power. Dr. Marques explains that psychological avoidance is the real problem. Avoidance teaches our brains to run away instead of facing challenges, and this behavior has a long-term cost because it robs you of the chance to live a bold life.
Living boldly requires us to change how we think.
Change how you think
The good news is research has shown that you can change your mindset through neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s amazing capacity to change and adapt. Your habits, both good and bad, get wired into your brain. What’s encouraging is that there are simple, research-backed ways to change your mindset.
The NeuroHealth website, which focuses on neuropsychology, includes these easy-to-do strategies proven to shift your mindset:
Try something new.
Mix things up; use your nondominant leg to start up the stairs or your nondominant hand to eat or brush your teeth. Move your mouse to the other side of the keyboard.
Take a trip and travel to a new city, a new country, or just down the road.
Be social and talk to people face-to-face.
Practice mindfulness by cultivating awareness of your breathing, thoughts, and feelings.
Meditate, as it has been proven to decrease stress and anxiety.
Another surprising method for changing your mindset is Thomas Edison’s napping technique, which he used to spark creativity. Edison reportedly napped while holding a ball in each hand, expecting that as he fell asleep, the balls would drop to the floor and wake him.
This phenomenon, known as the hypnagogic state, the creative sweet spot, was also experienced by scientists and innovators like Albert Einstein and visionary artists such as Salvador Dalí.
The takeaway is that you can be your own hero by changing your mindset, and it requires little formal training or intense activity.
The danger of being in our feelings
“Being in our feelings” or in our own heads can be the worst place to be. As poet Gary Syner aptly put it, “Beware of wandering into your head alone. It’s a dangerous neighborhood.”
“Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.”
Our biggest barrier is not always the situation but how we mentally approach it. Our thoughts can create an overwhelming cycle of stress and anxiety, making even the smallest challenges feel insurmountable. I’ve been there stuck in my head, circling the same worries and doubts without realizing that those very thoughts were keeping me trapped.
Managing stress is an ongoing challenge. It’s easy to get caught up in feelings of being overwhelmed. Stepping back, deep breathing, visualization, self-talk, and exercise are all practical tools that can help shift the mindset and provide mental clarity. They may seem small, but in the heat of stress, they can make all the difference.
Standing in the doorway between a problem and stress, trying to figure out what to do, can be paralyzing. It can cause us to want to dodge the situation, but there is nowhere to run when you are trapped. The best choice for most of us may be to focus on making the decision that aligns most closely with our values and principles.
Overall, the most important thing to address is psychological avoidance. It’s easy to keep pushing things aside because they feel overwhelming, but in reality, avoidance only strengthens the hold anxiety has on us. You may not be able to control the outcome, but you can control your effort.
The act of facing uncomfortable feelings without judgment, but with patience and understanding, is the key to moving past them.
We’ve reviewed that being put on the spot is a universal experience for both humans and animals. The champion is within us. What we’ve learned is that it starts with changing our mindset, rewiring our outlook, and focusing on taking action rather than obsessing over the outcome. We’ve discovered it doesn’t take as much effort as we think, and we have a long list of simple, memorable options to choose from.
Nothing happens without effort. Take your swings.
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Willie Nicholson, Business Consultant
Willie Nicholson, a thought leader and business adviser, helps others improve their knowledge of the business world. Because he didn’t have early mentors in his life, Bill entered the corporate world uninformed and inexperienced. Bill didn't appreciate the value of advice until he had the opportunity to work with two separate female leaders who helped him develop his early business understanding and aptitude. From then, he began to take an early interest in helping others understand the intricacies of business.
