There will be plenty of opportunities to evaluate athletes during the Olympic Games and see if you think they choked at the moment they were trying to do their best.
To understand the phenomenon, I suggest you listen to this
Hidden Brain podcast: “Stage Fright.”There is a direct connection between what happens when someone experiences stage fright and is trying to win a basketball game with a series of free throws.
The podcast is described this way:
“The pressure. The expectations. The anxiety. If there’s one thing that connects the athletes gathering for the Olympic games with the rest of us, it's the stress that can come from performing in front of others. In this week’s episode, we talk with cognitive scientist Sian Beilock about why so many of us crumble under pressure –– and what we can do about it.”
As for disasters and emergency management, these too are events where we are trying to do our best. The TV cameras and the eyes of the nation may be upon us — will we choke? What can we do beforehand to keep from choking?
Eric Holdeman is a nationally known emergency manager. He has worked in emergency management at the federal, state and local government levels. Today he serves as the Director, Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR), which is part of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER). The focus for his work there is engaging the public and private sectors to work collaboratively on issues of common interest, regionally and cross jurisdictionally.
