A CEO client complained to me that I never smiled at his jokes or showed any reaction to his presentation during a coaching session.

He is what some might call a ‘natural communicator’ able to confidently navigate most situations with people positively responding to his jokes and gifted storytelling.

What I was doing was inserting uncertainty into his practice to make him feel uncomfortable and less confident than he would have been if I nodded and laughed my way through his (admittedly funny) introduction.

This was to put some pressure on him wouldn’t have existed in the environment we were rehearsing in (a corporate meeting room with an audience of one – me - instead of a ballroom in front of hundreds).

When practicing it is important to feel pressure ideally by making the situation as realistic as possible so that on the day of your performance you aren’t feeling the physiological signs of nerves for the first time. To do this insert psychological stress into your practice because coping with this is a skill that can be learnt (and taught).

Where this stress comes from will be determined by your level of competence, what you are practicing for, where and when. Ideally, you will make the practice as deliberate as possible by replicating as much of the actual event as possible. But this can rarely be done so find another way to put pressure on yourself in rehearsal or when practicing your Communication Moments.

An example from my youth football coaching to bring this to life in a different way. I make all the practice sessions competitive from start to finish with teams scoring points or goals throughout to build ‘scoreboard pressure’ into their development.