What changes when the stakes rise?

Recently, I was talking with a friend who manages a marketing team when she asked me an interesting question.

One of her staff members is bright, knowledgeable and communicates well with the team. But when she pitches to clients, something changes.

“Why does she communicate so differently when she’s pitching?”

Is it nerves? A confidence issue? Does she need more presentation practice?

Without meeting her employee, I couldn’t know what was happening for her specifically. But I was interested in something else: the difference between how she communicates in one situation and how she communicates in another.

That difference matters.

We’re quick to call it nerves

When someone communicates differently in an important situation, we tend to reach for familiar explanations:

I’m nervous. I need more confidence. I should have prepared more.

Sometimes those things may be true.

But after more than 20 years as a Speech-Language Pathologist, I’ve learned to pay attention to patterns, not just the moment when communication becomes difficult.

If someone struggles to organize and express their ideas across many situations, that tells me one thing.

But if they communicate clearly and comfortably with colleagues, then become rushed, lose their words or sound noticeably different when pitching to a client?

They’ve already shown us that they can communicate.

So I become curious about what’s different when the communication changes.

Context is part of communication

We often think of communication ability as a fixed quality: someone is either a strong communicator or they aren’t.

In real life, it’s rarely that simple.

You might lead your own team with ease but struggle to find your words with senior leadership. You might be excellent with established clients but feel noticeably different when pitching to someone new. Or you may contribute comfortably to a meeting until someone challenges your idea or puts you on the spot.

That can be particularly frustrating when communication is normally one of your strengths.

You know your material. You know you’re capable. You may have prepared extensively.

Yet in certain moments, your communication doesn’t reflect what you know you’re capable of.

Look at the pattern

As a voice-focused Speech-Language Pathologist, one of the questions I come back to is:

Where does your communication already work—and what changes when the stakes rise?

That’s a different starting point from simply asking, “How can I become a more confident speaker?”

If your communication changes when the context changes, the context is important information.

It doesn’t tell us exactly why the change is happening. But it gives us a much better place to begin.

And if you recognize this pattern in yourself, it’s the question I explore more deeply in my free training:

You’re Capable. You’re Prepared. So Why Does This Still Happen?

Discover what may be happening when your communication becomes less reliable under pressure—and why the answer may go deeper than confidence or preparation.