You Won’t Have All the Information. Make the Call Anyway.
Last week, FIFA and MLS referee Tori Penso spoke to one of my classes about performing on some of the biggest stages in sport.
Tori is the first female American referee to officiate a Men’s World Cup game. She wasn’t just the referee for one game…she was the referee in two!
My students got to hear her talk about making history. Preparation. Teamwork. Pressure. Mistakes.
But when I asked my students what stuck with them, many came back to one story.
The handball.
Tori was officiating a World Cup match. The game was 1–0. Both teams still had a chance to advance. Late in the match, a shot came toward a defender in the penalty area.
Tori heard the contact. She saw the ball's flight path. She saw the player's reaction. She knew it had hit his arm. But there was one pretty significant problem: She didn't actually see where it hit first… or if it hit anything first.
Her positioning had left the contact on her blind side. It’s a big-ass field. Something has to be blind. And her assistant couldn't give her the certain answer either.
The technical distinction mattered enormously. If the ball had deflected off the player's body before hitting his arm, it might not be a handball. If it went directly to the arm, it was.
She had a fraction of a second to decide.
And behind that fraction of a second were 15 years of work. Fitness tests. Film. Seminars. Thousands of decisions. Feedback. Mistakes. Games. More games. Studying the laws. Learning positioning. Learning players. Learning to recognize the tiny clues that most of us wouldn't even notice.
She estimated that the information she had put her at about 85% sure it was a handball.
Not 100%. Eighty-five…maybe a smidge more!
She pointed to the spot.
Penalty.
And she was right!
Later, when some of the best officials in the world asked her how she made the call, Tori walked them through what she knew...and what she didn't.
The response wasn't about certainty. It was about courage. The courage to lean on the experience and training you have when you don't have all the answers.
That may be one of the best descriptions of performance under pressure I've heard. Because pressure rarely gives us 100% of anything!
We have a funny idea about confidence.
We think confident performers know. They know they're going to make the shot. They know they're making the right decision. They know the presentation will go well. They know the strategy will work.
Usually, they don't.
Great performers aren't fortune tellers. They're prepared decision-makers.
Research on decision-making in sport supports this idea. A systematic review of 53 studies found that expert decisions depend on things such as the complexity of the situation, available time, prior experience and the information available in the environment. In fast-moving situations, there often isn't time to carefully analyze every possible option.
Research on professionals making high-risk decisions finds something similar. Under time pressure and uncertainty, experienced performers frequently rely on recognition-primed decision-making, using patterns and cues developed through experience to determine a workable next action rather than exhaustively comparing every possible choice.
That sounds a lot like Tori's handball. She didn't have everything. She had enough.
And enough + preparation + commitment allowed her to act.
Here's the part we can't skip. Tori wasn't advocating guessing or even suggesting she did. Her 85% was built on 15 years of evidence.
She told the students that by the time she reached the World Cup, she had survived a four-year selection process that began with roughly 200 officials and eventually narrowed to 35 referees from around the world.
That's why she described arriving at the World Cup not simply as nervous, but as prepared. The work had already been done!
That changes how we should think about pressure.
The big moment isn't when we suddenly become capable. The big moment is when we access what we've already built.
Our reps matter. Preparation matters. Our routines matter. Film study, failure, refection and even the boring stuff matter!
Because someday you may have half a second to use it.
This is where Tori's story gets even more useful.
Everyone performs.
The athlete taking the final shot performs. The coach deciding whether to call a timeout performs. The referee making the handball call performs.
But so does the surgeon making a decision, the teacher handling a difficult classroom moment, the salesperson walking into a presentation, the leader answering a hard question in a meeting and the parent deciding how to respond to a struggling kid.
The arena changes. The performance demands don't.
Something matters. You don't control everything. You won't have perfect information.
Your body knows the stakes are high. And you still have to choose what happens next.
Tori said she thinks about pressure differently. When people try to make a moment bigger…like “No American has ever done this before!”…she doesn't have to “put that coat on.”
Her job remains the same: Do the best job I can on this game.
She described pressure as something she channels into focus and energy rather than something she needs to eliminate. Because we know trying to eliminate pressure...or negative thoughts...or nerves only directs our attention toward them!
A recent meta-analysis examining 62 studies and more than 7,400 participants found better performance when people experienced demanding situations more as a challenge than a threat, although the overall effect was small. In other words, how we interpret the demands and our resources to meet them matters.
Pressure doesn't automatically ruin performance. We can learn to perform with it.
Then, Tori gave us the best reset cue!
Later, a student asked what happens when she knows she got a call wrong. Her answer might have been my favorite part of the entire conversation.
Young referees can make one bad decision, feel the pressure mount, make another bad decision and begin to spiral.
Sound familiar? One bad at-bat becomes three. One turnover becomes tentative play. One bad hole becomes four. One uncomfortable moment in a presentation becomes This is going terribly.
Tori's response? Get the next one right.
Not fix the last one. Not guarantee the rest of the game. Not prove you're actually good.
Get. The. Next. One. Right. And then get the next one right. Then the next. As she told the class, you can spiral down…or you can “spiral up.”
That's mental performance in its simplest form. Notice. Choose. Commit. Repeat.
Notice what is actually happening. Choose your response. Commit to the information and action available now. Then repeat when the next moment arrives.
Even with all of these gems, this, I think this may be the biggest lesson from Tori's story. We sometimes wait for confidence to feel like certainty. I'll act when I know. I'll speak when I'm sure. I'll take the shot when I feel confident. I'll make the change when I know it'll work.
Performance doesn't usually give us that luxury.
Tori had spent 15 years preparing for the World Cup and in one of the biggest moments of her career, she still didn't know for sure.
Preparation didn't eliminate uncertainty. It gave her something to rely on inside uncertainty.
That's a very different definition of confidence. Confidence isn't knowing you'll be right.
Confidence is trusting that you have prepared well enough to respond to whatever comes next.
Sometimes you'll nail the call. Sometimes you'll miss it. And when you miss it?
Learn. Reset. Get the next one right.
Because the game keeps moving. And so does life.
So, when you feel pressure this week, don't ask, “How do I make this pressure go away?” Try three different questions: What do I know? What does my experience tell me? What's the next decision I need to make?
Then make the call. You may not have 100% of the information. You don't need 100% certainty to take your next best action.
Prepare. Trust. Choose. Commit.
Then get the next one right.
Julie
P.S. Want to train your mental game like Tori does? Reach out and let's build an individualized plan for you or your team. juliej@ssbperformance.com
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance - www.ssbperformance.com
234-206-0946
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