It’s not surprising that an athletically minded girl growing up in greater Chicago in the late 1980s would idolize Michael Jordan. What is surprising is why young Jessica Gelman admired Jordan and how her study of him went on to shape her life. “What fascinated me was the confidence he had to perform in the clutch,” Gelman said in a recent episode of the Corporate Competitor Podcast. “Watching the ’89 Bulls vs. Cavs playoff game when Jordan sank the winning shot got me interested in studying success under pressure. I knew I wanted to study sports psychology so that I could learn about how to perform in pressure situations in every area of life.”

Gelman’s smarts and skills at point guard took her to Harvard where she studied psychology and, when she wasn’t hitting the textbooks, she was rewriting the record books as a point guard under coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. Gelman’s team was the first Crimson squad to go undefeated in Ivy League competition, with Gelman becoming the only Harvard player to score more than 1,000 career points and hand out more than 475 assists.

Delaney-Smith taught Gelman some of the most important lessons Gelman would apply, not only on the basketball court but to her development as a business leader. “Coach had a definite philosophy of how to prepare,” noted Gelman. “It centered around using practice to make yourself more comfortable in high-pressure situations, building camaraderie as a differentiator, giving and receiving feedback and having fun.”

As a student at Harvard Business School, Gelman had the opportunity to work with the Robert Kraft family, owners of the New England Patriots football franchise and Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, on ways to increase the stadium’s revenue on non-game days. She parlayed the opportunity into a long term relationship with the Kraft family. Today, she is the CEO of Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR), which works with all of the major U.S. sports leagues and properties to apply business analytics in their operations.

In 2006, Gelman and Daryl Morey founded the MIT SLOAN Sports Analytics Conference, which is an incredible forum for both students and professionals in sports analytics.

“As you might imagine, there aren't that many female CEOs. There aren't many female CEOs who are in sports, and there aren't many female CEOs who are in sports and tech and analytics,” joked Gelman. “So, from my perspective, I've always been comfortable pushing my own limits.”

And to what end does she push these limits? This brings us back to that game winning Michael Jordan shot. Gelman believes that high-achievers like Jordan may enjoy some luck now and then, but the truth is “they make their own luck by being ready to seize the moment when it arrives.” Indeed, the success of individuals and entire teams can be built on a foundation of such preparedness.

In the podcast, Gelman offers several tips leaders can use to set the table for success under pressure. These include:

Gelman is a huge believer in giving feedback in the form of “kind hard truth.” Unlike the “cold” version, the “kind” one isn’t meant to humble or frighten. Explained Gelman, “Failure is inevitable, so what matters is that we learn from it. One of the biggest challenges as a leader is giving feedback to people in a way that raises their expectations of themselves.”