Dr. Justin Anderson is the Founder and CEO of Premier Sport Psychology, and he opened his session at TCS Live Minnesota by taking us somewhere familiar: back to our own best performances in sport, or at least what we believe were our best performances. But not the ones defined by stats or outcomes, rather the moments when everything felt aligned and the game unfolded with a sense of clarity and control.

He asked us to reflect on those performances and then consider what actually contributed to being good that day. Were the contributions physical or mental? Physical elements could be sleep, nutrition, or practice preparation, while mental could include focus or feeling a certain way on the ice or on the field. As the exercise unfolded, a clear pattern emerged in the room. While physical factors mattered, most coaches identified mental elements as the primary drivers of our best performances.

That reflection set the foundation for a deeper question. What truly separates good players from great ones? Why do certain athletes consistently perform when the pressure is highest, while others struggle in the same moments? Across scouting reports and draft rooms, this gap is often attributed to an elusive “it” factor, the belief that some players are simply built differently for high pressure situations.

Dr. Anderson challenged that assumption directly.

“There is no clutch gene.”

Pressure is a Privelege

Research shows that athletes who perform well under pressure are not biologically different from their peers. Instead, they are managing their attention differently. In every competitive moment athletes are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of information, some of it relevant and much of it irrelevant. This can include crowd noise, expectations from parents, past mistakes, and future consequences. What separates so-called clutch performers is not an absence of distraction, but an ability to consistently narrow their focus to the variables that matter most while letting everything else fade into the background.

That distinction is powerful because it changes what’s possible. If attention is the difference, then attention can be trained.

All the assets included in this presentation are available here.

Dr. Anderson explained how athletes often get pulled toward pieces of information the brain interprets as a threat. When that happens, the brain responds exactly as it was designed to do, releasing stress hormones in an effort to protect us. The challenge, of course, is that the brain evolved for survival, not for playing a game on the ice, and those same protective responses can interfere with performance when attention drifts away from the task at hand.

Feeling anxious or activated in a competitive environment is not a weakness. It is biological. It is the nervous system doing its job, protecting us from sabretooth tigers instead of preparing us for a game we choose to play.

Where coaches can unintentionally create problems is in how we respond to those moments. Telling players to relax or calm down feels helpful, but it often places their attention back onto the very situation they are uncomfortable with. In doing so, we pull them further away from execution and deeper into self awareness and hesitation.

Dr. Anderson offered a different approach.

“We want to normalize the situation and teach players that this activation is a normal part of the process. Our body being activated is not a bad thing for performance if we get our attention on the variables that matter most.”

Coaches’ Challenge

This week, take note of how you respond when players show signs of stress or anxiety. Instead of trying to calm them down immediately, help them understand that what they are feeling is normal, then guide their attention to one simple and controllable task in the moment. We don’t help athletes perform better by removing pressure. We help them perform better by teaching them how to see clearly through it.

Noteworthy timestamps:

• 0:00 Physical vs mental performance
• 3:10 Training attention
• 5:30 Your brain’s operating system
• 11:50 Intentional attention framework
• 13:00 Awareness
• 15:20 Intention
• 18:10 Reflection 
• 20:20 Renewal
• 23:50 The Mindset Matrix
• 28:25 The Focus bullseye