The performance coach for the top 0.001%
Pressure Point by Paddy Steinfort, book cover Avery / Penguin Random House

The best handle pressure the same way.
Pressure Point shows you how they do it.

For twenty years Paddy Steinfort has coached and advised high stakes specialists (athletes and artists, executives and entertainers, surgeons and soldiers) through the pressure-packed moments they'd be judged on. Now he is sharing the stories, science and systems behind it all with you. In the leadup to the book release, he's giving away three FREE bonus chapters. Just pick the most relevant to you and he'll email it the day it's ready for advance access.

One email when your chapter is released, then the occasional note on performing under pressure. Your details stay private. Unsubscribe any time. Privacy policy.

Covered by Sports Illustrated  ·  The Wall Street Journal  ·  Forbes  ·  USA Today  ·  The Athletic  ·  The Kansas City Star  ·  ABC News  ·  The Independent  ·  FOX Sports

  • The bonus chapter you pick, in full, as a PDF, the day it releases next month
  • The waitlist for the book, with exclusive pre-sale access next month

The work itself

“I'm not a shrink. I'm a stretch. I'm here to help people get better.”

Paddy Steinfort

Pressure shows up in our body first, then our brains, then our choices, then our actions. The book explains the science behind why that happens, then teaches the same one page tools Paddy gives his clients, built to be used in the moment, not remembered afterward.

Trophy in hand, after the final
Trophy in hand, after the final
Australia 1, Denmark 0. World Cup, Qatar 2022
Australia 1, Denmark 0. World Cup, Qatar 2022
With Awer Mabil after the win, World Cup 2022
With Awer Mabil after the win, World Cup 2022
The Socceroos huddle, World Cup 2022
The Socceroos huddle, World Cup 2022
With Lionel Messi, World Cup 2022
With Lionel Messi, World Cup 2022
On the pitch before kickoff, Qatar
On the pitch before kickoff, Qatar
Trophy in hand, after the final
Trophy in hand, after the final
Australia 1, Denmark 0. World Cup, Qatar 2022
Australia 1, Denmark 0. World Cup, Qatar 2022
With Awer Mabil after the win, World Cup 2022
With Awer Mabil after the win, World Cup 2022
The Socceroos huddle, World Cup 2022
The Socceroos huddle, World Cup 2022
With Lionel Messi, World Cup 2022
With Lionel Messi, World Cup 2022
On the pitch before kickoff, Qatar
On the pitch before kickoff, Qatar

Choking, measured

The better they got,
the more they missed

Every penalty in three tournaments, sorted by how famous the taker was on the night. Nobody in this chart got worse at kicking a football. The only thing that changed is how much the world expected of them.

Choking, measured

The more famous he was, the more he missed

Every penalty shootout in the World Cup, the European Championships and the Champions League. Each kick was sorted by where the taker was in his career on the night: before his big individual award, or after it. Read the bars top to bottom and you are watching one career run forward.

Penalties converted

Future stars, before fameMen who would later win a major award0%
27 kicks. Same men, earlier in the story.
The ordinary internationalNever won a major individual award0%
299 kicks.
The same stars, after fameThe world already knew their names0%
40 kicks. Same men, later in the story.

The best players in the sample missed most often, and they were worst at it after they became famous. 23.9 percentage points, OR = 4.31, p = .036.

You can see it happen
How fast famous players rushed the kick
0.48 s
How long unknown players took
0.78 s
Scoring rate when they rushed
68.2%
Scoring rate when they took their time
82.4%

The famous players stepped up a third of a second sooner, and the players who hurried scored less. Rushing is what pressure looks like from the outside.

Nobody got worse at kicking a football. The first bar and the last bar are largely the same men, a few years apart, and the only thing that changed in between is how much the world expected of them.

Status raises the stakes without raising the skill. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why this is not a football finding.

Who was studied. 37 shootouts, 366 kicks, 298 players, mean age 26.6. A complete population, not a sample. Inter-rater agreement 92.8 percent.

Jordet, G. (2009). When Superstars Flop: Public Status and Choking Under Pressure in International Soccer Penalty Shootouts. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21(2), 125-130. Source

Pick one

Where does pressure
find you first?

The chart above is what pressure does when nobody has trained for it. These three chapters are the training: the same tools Paddy gives the people in these photographs, one for each arena pressure shows up in. Pick the one that sounds like your week and it arrives with a single page you can run the day you read it.

Bonus chapter 1 of 3

A tool to lead

For the person the room takes its cue from

What your team reads off you in the ninety seconds after it goes wrong, and how to manage that specific window.

Comes with The Ninety Second Strategy.

Bonus chapter 2 of 3

A tool to perform

For the person the result actually lands on

The reset that interrupts the pressure response before it reaches your hands and your voice, in about sixty seconds.

Comes with The Sixty Second Reset.

Bonus chapter 3 of 3

A tool to support

For the parent or partner on the sideline

What to say in the car afterwards, and the far more important question of what not to say before.

Comes with The Car Ride Routine.

What it is not

Not positive thinking

Telling yourself you are fine does not change what your body is doing. Thinking positive doesn't help. If you think it is, well, that's part of the problem.

Not a visualisation exercise

Feeling calm for an afternoon is not the goal. Performing on a bad day is. I can give you a visualisation exercise. You'll feel nice afterwards.

Not therapy

The work stays in the present, on the days you have to perform. What we're going to talk about is what happened yesterday and what happened today.

The book will not make pressure disappear. No one can promise that. What it does is leave you better equipped the next time it shows up.

On the record, the day before

The morning of the Super Bowl,
this ran in the paper

Kansas City Star, 12 February 2023. Published at six in the morning on the day of Super Bowl LVII. Patrick Mahomes won his second Super Bowl MVP that night.

The Kansas City Star12 February 2023

Meditation and perfecting the mind: How Patrick Mahomes handles the Super Bowl stage

By Sam McDowell  ·  Published on the morning of Super Bowl LVII. Mahomes won his second Super Bowl MVP that night.

He used to talk about how your mind can only think about six things at the same time. Patrick Mahomes, quoted in The Kansas City Star

Before he even started a college game at Texas Tech, Mahomes was introduced to Paddy Steinfort, a mental performance consultant for the school.

Years later, Mahomes still uses what he learned there. One lesson in particular has stayed with him.

“And if you were focusing on the crowd, and then you're focusing on how big the game is, then you're not thinking about what coverage is the nickel playing, or how's the nickel going to adjust versus this coverage and stuff like that. So I kind of just keep it in that perspective.”

Patrick Mahomes

On a dry-erase board in his office, Steinfort would chart the six items required to enter Mahomes' mind before any given play, the "non-negotiables," he labeled them.

“There's literally a thousand things our mind can have in our working memory. But as soon as you bump in the Chiefs away uniforms, the idea of your left foot has left your mind again. So it really is just this rotation, almost like a carousel, where there's only a few things that can sit front and center. And our job as a lead performance is to deliberately put what we need there.”

Paddy Steinfort

Read the full article at kansascity.com  ·  Press coverage is cited and linked to the original publication. Publications are named for identification only and do not endorse this book or this offer.

The same story, from the next chair

Kliff Kingsbury watched it happen

Paddy Steinfort laughing with Patrick Mahomes
Paddy with Patrick Mahomes
I've spoken on the record about his work with Patrick Mahomes, which I saw the impact of right before my eyes during our time at Texas Tech. Pat felt like he could trust him. His background as an athlete himself, combined with his techniques for applying positive psychology to ensure peak performance, make him one of the most notable minds in sports psychology throughout the world.
Kliff KingsburyNFL Offensive Coordinator, Washington Commanders. Former Head Coach, Texas Tech Football

Twenty years of pressure

NASCAR  ·  Philadelphia 76ers  ·  FIFA  ·  Boston Red Sox  ·  Philadelphia Eagles  ·  Toronto Blue Jays  ·  New York Liberty  ·  Football Australia  ·  Texas Tech  ·  Richmond Tigers  ·  Adelaide Crows  ·  New Zealand Black Caps  ·  New Zealand Breakers  ·  GameSquare / Dignitas  ·  Google  ·  Microsoft  ·  Stanford Medicine  ·  Mayo Clinic  ·  Cleveland Clinic  ·  U.S. Naval Academy  ·  U.S. Army  ·  Ropes & Gray  ·  Royal Melbourne Hospital  ·  Village Roadshow Theme Parks  ·  Northwest Texas Healthcare System  ·  International Positive Psychology Association  ·  Platform Ventures  ·  University of Pennsylvania  ·  Cirque du Soleil  ·  NYU Grossman School of Medicine  ·  UT Austin  ·  CAL FIRE

Organisations Paddy has worked inside or advised, and which are on the public record. Client names are not listed. People at this level are entitled to keep the work private, and most of them do.

On the record

Five worlds. One nervous system.

Thirteen endorsements from people who work under real pressure: athletes and coaches, military leaders, doctors, executives and performers. Every one of them put their name on this book.

Military

I know first-hand from our work together that the tools which will make up this book work in the most extreme situations. Paddy has spent his career helping people conquer these moments, across a range of mission-critical environments, where the cost of failure can be catastrophic.
Coleman RuizFormer U.S. Navy SEAL joint task force commander, multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq

Medicine

He has a unique ability to break down complex, high-pressure scenarios into actionable strategies that have had a lasting impact. Early in the pandemic, he gave our emergency department a timely session on building connections, emphasizing vulnerability and psychological safety, concepts he's applied with elite sports teams. This guidance made a huge difference for us.
Al'ai Alvarez, MDDirector of Well-Being, Stanford School of Medicine

Business

Paddy Steinfort is a truly unique and incisive thinker. I've witnessed his work with Google and Microsoft executives, Navy SEALs, as well as the world's top athletes. The same highly effective advice that activates the highest paid athletes and top executives is no longer exclusively available in the locker room of the World Cup, the NBA court, NFL field or the big tech boardroom.
Matthew TargettDirector of Partnerships, Google. Three time Olympian

Sport

Working with Paddy Steinfort over the past two seasons has been invaluable for our team on the journey to becoming World Champions. He's helped us navigate not only the big moments in big games but also the sustained pressure that comes with carrying the weight of other people's expectations, hopes, and dreams, especially in a city like New York, where the spotlight is always on.
Sandy BrondelloHead Coach and three time WNBA Champion, New York Liberty

Sport

When I hit the wall and was feeling the fatigue of my first season as a starter in the big leagues, I just wanted the season to end. Paddy Steinfort worked with me almost daily, helping me get back to feeling like myself and regain my swagger. The tools he gave me not only got me through the toughest part of the season, it helped me turn things around just in time for what ended up being a historic playoff run.
Mark VientosInfielder, New York Mets

Sport

Being coached by Paddy was a blessing. His approach to the mental game helped me get through some of the toughest moments, and the lessons still stick with me today. If anyone doubts the power of the mental game, they need someone like Paddy.
Raheem MostertRunning back, Miami Dolphins. Holder of multiple NFL playoff records

Sport

Paddy was able to break me out of my shell. I'm never one to really sit down and talk with someone about how I played or a bad stretch, but he's the guy where you don't have to meet in an office. It kind of got me into this Zen. He's the man.
TJ McConnellPoint Guard, Indiana Pacers. Ten year NBA veteran

Military

Handling pressure is invaluable whether you are a sportsman, Soldier, or just trying to handle any challenge. Given my background coaching special operations Soldiers and elite athletes I can confidently say that Paddy brings a set of tools to help those wanting to learn more about high performance.
Cecilia CraftFormer Lead Cognitive Coach, U.S. Army. Director of Mental Performance, Philadelphia Phillies

Business

In both business and life, handling pressure is the difference between success and failure. His insights have helped top performers at the highest level in sports, finance and beyond.
Justin KennaCEO, GameSquare

Business

I had the opportunity to have Paddy Steinfort around my team at Microsoft, and even in a short amount of time he definitely had a big impact. His simple models and cool analogies helped us feel better about navigating uncertainty in any form, whether it's in our team or out in the marketplace.
Stacey BargarPartner Manager, Microsoft

Stage

The time I've spent working with Paddy Steinfort has been one of my greatest periods of growth, as both a performer and a person. Whether you're going through it as an artist or an athlete, Paddy's insights on handling pressure and the tools he shares are invaluable.
Cody SimpsonTop ten Billboard artist, Broadway actor, Olympic trials swimmer

Stage

Paddy's ability to understand the unique pressures faced by artists and provide actionable strategies was truly impressive. His insights bridged the gap between mental performance and artistic expression, ensuring the performers could thrive under the intense demands of their craft.
Veronique RichardMental Performance and Creativity, Cirque du Soleil

Stage

My job, like anyone in entertainment, is packed with 'now or never' moments. Paddy Steinfort really understands the risks and rewards of being in the spotlight, whether it's on stage, on TV, or wherever pressure shows up uninvited, like an ex at a party.
Ronny ChiengComedian and actor. The Daily Show, Crazy Rich Asians

Quotes are verbatim. Named individuals speak for themselves and not for their employers.

So, which pressure is yours?

Pick your chapter and the waitlist sends it the day it releases next month, with its card. One email, and you can leave whenever you like.

Sports IllustratedDaily Cover · 2020The Wall Street JournalExpert · 2023ForbesProfile · 2021USA TodayFeature · 2024The AthleticProfile · 2017The Kansas City StarMahomes · 2023ABC NewsWorld Cup · 2022The IndependentExpert opinion · 2022FOX SportsWorld Cup · 2022

Press coverage is cited and linked to the original publication. Publications are named for identification only and do not endorse this book or this offer.