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Armstrong
God, it's coming my way. It's one more thing. Armstrong and Getty.
Getty
One more thing. This could be anything. I am intrigued.
Armstrong
Kind of sports Kind of. Not kind of. Anyway, so there was one of the biggest comebacks in NBA history last night, certainly in conference finals history. Knicks coming back on the CAVS. They were 22 down with a little over seven minutes left, and they came back and ended up winning. Here's a little bit of that Merrill
Sports Commentator
three pointer in and out, that one halfway down bridges fires away one go
Armstrong
and we go to overtime.
Getty
And perhaps Cleveland was too cavalier. I'm Joe Getty.
Armstrong
So what was interesting about that, and this is what I kind of want to talk about is just pressure and the way it affects different people and whether it's a character issue or, or genetics or whatever it is. But I was actually mentioned to Joe during one of the commercial breaks. A weird thing about being so far ahead, like Cleveland was up by 22, is that when the other team starts to come back, it's almost. Well, it's not almost. It's definitely worse than if you'd have been up by five and they came back because you got this whole holy crap, we're, we're falling apart, this is embarrassing thing. And the crowd goes nuts because they're witnessing history and stuff like that. And you could see them choking. These are professional athletes who've been great their whole lives. And former mvp. What? James Harden, a horrible airball three pointer. Just, I mean, like into the stands as, as the Knick started to come back and all the celebrities are cheering and everything like that. Wow. So what that made me think of is how I got. Which story do I tell first. I'll go with this direction. The biggest choke I ever had in my life doing anything, any competition. This is not much of an athletic event. I was playing shuffleboard at a bar and I'm talking about the kind of shuffleboard where it's a wooden table that you put sawdust on and you got the little metal things and you slide them to each end like shuffleboard. And you try to knock the other guy off and everything like that.
Getty
Wow. Sawdust. I've only seen salt.
Armstrong
Really interesting sawdust. Like you put on the dance. Florida country bar they always use. But anyway, I don't even remember. It's been so long since I played. I used to play all the time. Great beer drinking sport. Good man. Gives you an excuse to stand there and pound beers for. For hours on end. When I was playing with this guy we used to work with and I was beating him really bad. And I remember if you play. Played a 21 or. I don't even know, let's pretend it's 21 and. And I'm up like 20 to one. And he starts to come back and he gets to like three. So now it's 20 to three. And he said, I'm going to come back and beat. Beat you with this. And I said, if you come back and beat me now because we're playing for beer, I said, you come back and beat me, I will buy your beer for the rest of your life.
Getty
Oh my, oh my.
Armstrong
20 to 3, 20 to 5, 20 to 8, 20. And when it started getting closer, it went. It went from, I'm not worried about this. I only need one more point now in two. As he started to get closer, kind of like the Cavaliers and the Knicks last night, it started to. It started to get really. It's just that the puck felt just different in my hands. And it's just, just the way that happens.
Sports Commentator
And it's weird.
Armstrong
It's such a psychological thing. Like the puck felt different in my hands. Like I couldn't just. Or like, did I always hold my arm this way? Did I have my elbow up like that?
Getty
Or did I used to have it down like this?
Armstrong
Just things you never thought about before become a thing. Yeah.
Getty
From the unconscious to the conscious. Yeah. Like elite athletes are super aware of that and work and work and work and generally have to screw it up once before they realize, okay, this is what it feels like. And the sports psychologists work with them a lot. You've worked your whole life to be in this position. This is a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Your nervous system is telling you, be scared, be scared. But you're not scared. You're excited.
Sports Commentator
Well, as.
Armstrong
And I've heard Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird say the reason that they're in there three hours before other players get there, you know, they're already Great. Why are you doing this? Because when you get into that moment, you need your body to take over so that your.
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Your.
Armstrong
Your rattled mind isn't in charge. Your body just does what your body has done a million times is. Is. Is better for that situation, according to Kobe or whoever. But anyway, so I'm playing this shuffleboard game. He gets closer, he comes back, and he beats me. Luckily, he's not a big drinker. He got fired from wherever we worked, and I have never seen him again because who knows how much beer I'd had to buy him in my lifetime. Geez, that was. That was 25 years ago. I wonder how many beers I owe him.
Getty
Yeah, I was going to ask you to send him a check once a month or once a year. Tell you what, that's going to be my kid's first case. When she gets out of law school, I'm going to have her find that guy and sue you. And then, you know, we'll get 33% of the beer and the attorney.
Armstrong
But I was thinking about this, and not just around sports, although I can only come up with one other example. I was watching my. My son last night, the boy scout thing I talked a little bit about on the radio show, and he wasn't one of the MCs. He just received a. An award thing that you went up for. But some of the emcees, and these are kids, and they were doing a good job in front of a crowd, about 60, 70 people. And a couple of them seemed a little nervous. A couple of them seemed really confident because they've done this many years and they get practiced. As the scout master was explaining, I said, you know, I'll bet I know college graduates who this. The. The first time they ever do that is the first time they ever do that when they're like 23. Ever stand up in front of that big a crowd doing something of any importance whatsoever? That's not just the classroom. And, and these guys have had these experience. This experience, and they're getting better at it, but I was. So is that people that are terrified of public speaking? That's not a character issue, is it? It's just that you're built that way or not, because.
Getty
Yeah, I think, yeah, a lot of it's inborn, a lot of it's experience, but it's both.
Armstrong
I've never been bothered by being in front of public for speaking stuff, whereas for the sports thing, horrified if it was in front of other people. I was. I was a mediocre athlete, but I Wasn't horrible. If I was just in the backyard with my friends, I was as good as anybody else.
Sports Commentator
I just. I was okay.
Armstrong
I could hit and catch and do stuff. I wasn't going to embarrass myself. I would have never tried to play Little League or any other sport if I was embarrassingly bad. I know a lot of people who just, you know, they. You're just not born with the ability to do sports at all. So you don't. I could somewhat, but I couldn't. In a game. I couldn't. In a game. That ball. That's why the intro was, oh, my God, it's coming my way. The ball gets hit in the air. And I got all these thoughts going through my head. Wow. All the people in the stands, everybody's watching. If I drop this, this is going to be the most. That's all I'm thinking. Oh, no. In the. In the backyard with friends, I just catch it and make the throw. Not think about a thing.
Getty
Right.
Armstrong
And I know people with public speaking, like, I don't think about anything. If I'm walking up in front of a crowd of public speaking other. This would be a funny thing to say. I might think that. But I don't think, oh, my God, what if I screw up? All these people are watching me. I don't have those thoughts. I know some people do.
Getty
Sure.
Armstrong
And it's weird how. Why? Just a quirk of the brain.
Getty
Yeah.
Armstrong
It's.
Getty
It's probably a stew of things. Life experience, you know. I don't know. It's an interesting question.
Armstrong
Can you think of another example between other than sports and public speaking? Is there anything else that's like that?
Getty
Oh, I get, you know, giving a sales presentation, that sort of thing. Being smooth and charming and getting the slides right or whatever on your power, you know, I don't know. I'm sure there are. Musical performance is one.
Armstrong
Certainly interactions with people of the opposite sex or same sex, if you swing that way. I remember I was amazed. I'm comfortable at this point in my life, but I certainly wasn't when I was younger. And I was amazed by the people that just seemed to be automatically. They just could walk up to any girl and say anything. I was just like, that's a superpower to me.
Getty
Yeah. That's like being able to do handsprings. I understand that. I've seen it. But no, I have. It's impossible for me to do.
Armstrong
Yeah.
Getty
I was terrible at that.
Armstrong
And they, they. They were just born with that for whatever reason.
Getty
Yeah. Which is why I and Judy can attest to this, which is why I went with just complete unvarnished sincerity. Because I wasn't clever with girls. I mean, I could be funny, but, you know, I was more of the, you're really cute. I'd like to go out with you sometime. Because I was not going to dazzle them. So I just went with, I'm going to be straightforward. And it seemed to work fairly well. Anyway, back to the sports thing. And this is so interesting because I told you part of this story. I was playing in a golf match. It was a match play championship. If you know anything about golf match play, you don't count up the total strokes at the end. You win individual holes. And I was getting absolutely thrashed by my friend, neighbor Sam. And I was down five holes with five to go, meaning it would take a miracle. And I. I don't want to say I gave up, but I more or less gave up. I thought, well, I'm getting beat, so I'm just going to have fun playing golf. And I won the next hole, and then I won the next hole, and then I won the next hole. And Sam, who is a better and more consistent player than me, he forgot which end of the club to hold. I mean, he fell apart. And I ended up beating him on the 19th hole, the extra hole. And he was just absolutely devastated. I was highly amused.
Armstrong
But.
Getty
And I thought about this, and it was. I've thought about this a lot. That started when I stopped giving an F. And so it's not like I rallied myself and showed my courage and led my men to the top of the hill. No, I gave up. And I got it out of the, oh, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. Part of my brain into the. I've done this before, and it's fun part of my brain. And if you can consciously do that, then you're Steph Curry. And. And, you know, part of it is the practice and trusting your. Your stroke and stuff like that. But I also guarantee you there are athletes in that position who say, this is fun. And some who think, oh, my God,
Armstrong
yeah. And, yeah, I guess confidence of success, I can. I can only apply it to, like, public speaking stuff. I can be in front of a big group of people and try a joke, and if it doesn't work, I'll think, yeah, I didn't work. But I'm. It's worked enough in my life that I just think, they don't all work. I'm not devastated by it. The next one will work or whatever. Kind of like Steph Curry or Michael Jordan's Nike ad that was so brilliant back in the day. I have taken the last shot 1286 times and missed because he took the last shot and missed a lot of times.
Getty
Right.
Armstrong
He didn't always make it, but he was just confident that, you know, I'm going to make it more often than
Getty
anybody else here, so might as well be me.
Armstrong
Might as well be me. Yeah.
Getty
Yeah.
Armstrong
I. I don't know. I guess it made me feel better about getting nervous in any situation. Watching one of the greatest NBA players of the last generation, James Harden, shoot up like a ME airball when the tide had turned last night, it's like, okay, I guess it can get to anybody. Armstrong and Getty here For hims, there are all kinds of great weight loss approaches that fit into your world out there. They've got them at hims with a wide range of affordable GLP1 options.
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Getty
final psychological question for you on this topic because I know this to be true myself. Friends, pros, everybody. Young players have no fear. In a lot of sports it's said they have no scar tissue, they haven't screwed up. And there seems to be a sweet spot because like I said, I've seen this in myself. I was utterly unconcerned with failure. Like as a young athlete, completely confident that self consciousness actually crept in and interesting. That's interesting.
Armstrong
So I could, as I get older, get more afraid of public speaking when I start to ramble and not be funny.
Getty
Yeah. And I'll. I'll give you this sign when that's happening. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then you got like older golfers, they get the yips. They can't even take the club back.
Armstrong
Oh, wow.
Getty
Yeah, there's no youngsters with the yips. In fact, that's one of the greatest pieces of wisdom I ever learned. And I have to relearn in golf. It's in putting. Specifically putt like a little kid.
Armstrong
I taught Speech 101 in college for a year. And there, there were kids that were like perfectly competent, smart people who couldn't hold the paper in their hand in front of 30 people in a room. They're just so scared. Yeah, choose that.
Getty
Oh, I feel for those kids. Yeah, that's rough. My favorite.
Armstrong
Yelled at them.
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Getty
That's the only way to straighten them out. Yeah, threaten them, belittle them. My favorite public speaking joke, the Simpsons Disappointed dad after the assembly, yelling at his kid. We the purple. What the hell was that?
Armstrong
I like confident bowlers. A strike to claim it.
Sports Commentator
And he got it. That is why I said that's number five. Are you kidding me? That's right. Who do you think you are? I am. Get it right.
Armstrong
Well, I guess that's it.
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Date: May 20, 2026
Podcast: Armstrong & Getty On Demand
Host: iHeartPodcasts
In this episode, Armstrong and Getty dive into the psychology of pressure, choking, and confidence — both in the world of sports and everyday life. Sparked by a historic NBA comeback and punctuated by personal stories of faltering under pressure, the hosts unpack why even the most practiced people falter when everyone is watching and discuss whether the ability to perform under pressure is a matter of character, genetics, or sheer experience. The discussion weaves in references to sports legends, personal anecdotes, and broader insights about human psychology.
"A weird thing about being so far ahead... when the other team starts to come back, it's almost… it's definitely worse than if you'd have been up by five and they came back because… we're falling apart, this is embarrassing."
— Armstrong ([03:30])
"I'm up like 20 to one. And he starts to come back… And I said, if you come back and beat me now... I will buy your beer for the rest of your life."
— Armstrong ([05:09])
"It's just that the puck felt just different in my hands… Like, did I always hold my arm this way? Did I have my elbow up like that?"
— Armstrong ([06:24])
"From the unconscious to the conscious... your nervous system is telling you, be scared, be scared. But you're not scared. You're excited."
— Getty ([06:40])
"Because when you get into that moment, you need your body to take over so that your rattled mind isn't in charge."
— Armstrong ([07:22])
"Is that people that are terrified of public speaking? That's not a character issue, is it? It's just that you're built that way or not, because..."
— Armstrong ([08:56])
"I've never been bothered by being in front of public for speaking stuff, whereas for the sports thing, horrified if it was in front of other people... The ball gets hit in the air... All the people in the stands, everybody's watching. If I drop this, this is going to be the most..."
— Armstrong ([09:11]-[10:12])
"They just could walk up to any girl and say anything. I was just like, that's a superpower to me."
— Armstrong ([11:07])
"I thought, well, I'm getting beat, so I'm just going to have fun playing golf. And I won the next hole, and then I won the next hole, and then I won the next hole. And Sam... he forgot which end of the club to hold..."
— Getty ([12:49])
"I have taken the last shot 1286 times and missed because he took the last shot and missed a lot of times."
— Armstrong ([14:24])
"Young players have no fear... they haven't screwed up. There seems to be a sweet spot... self consciousness actually crept in." — Getty ([18:33])
On shifting from unconscious competence:
"From the unconscious to the conscious. Yeah. Like elite athletes...generally have to screw it up once before they realize, okay, this is what it feels like." — Getty ([06:40])
On intrinsic vs. learned confidence:
"Is that people that are terrified of public speaking? That's not a character issue, is it? It's just that you're built that way or not..." — Armstrong ([08:56])
On letting go leading to performance:
"It's not like I rallied myself and showed my courage and led my men to the top of the hill. No, I gave up. And I got it out of the, 'oh, I gotta, I gotta' part of my brain into the, 'I've done this before, and it's fun' part..." — Getty ([13:05])
On the superpower of social ease:
"They just could walk up to any girl and say anything. I was just like, that's a superpower to me." — Armstrong ([11:07])
On youth and fearlessness:
"Young players have no fear. In a lot of sports it's said they have no scar tissue, they haven't screwed up. And there seems to be a sweet spot..." — Getty ([18:33])
The conversation is candid, introspective, and laced with humor and personal storytelling. Armstrong and Getty bring a playful irreverence (puns, self-deprecating stories), balanced by genuine curiosity about human behavior. Quotes and stories are delivered in their conversational, relatable style.
Armstrong and Getty use sports, bar games, and public speaking to illustrate broader truths about human psychology: pressure gets to everyone, experience helps but doesn't eliminate nerves, and fearlessness often fades with age and failure. Whether it's dropping an easy catch, missing a game-winning shot, or stumbling over words at the podium, we’re all susceptible — but those who persist, practice, and find joy in action are the ones who flourish.