According to Jason Giambi's reported testimony, he used steroids and human growth hormones from 2001 to 2003. As a result, there is a good chance his $120 million contract with New York Yankees will be in jeopardy. Let me say right off the bat that this is not about kicking Giambi while he is down. It's about what we can learn from him.

In sports, the pressure of greatness is everywhere. Hundreds of millions of dollars are available for those few individuals who can put up the best numbers. What I do not understand is why Giambi took the risk. He had incredible numbers with Oakland from 1998 to 2000. I can only imagine the pressure of wanting to sustain and improve those numbers to land the really big money.

Why do I bring this up? Because investing applies the same type of pressure. The fastest-growing companies attract the buyers, and buyers beget higher prices, causing managers and employees to feel the pressure. And there is always pressure on investors to strike it rich by finding the next Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) or Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). Unlike sports, the pressure of greatness isn't concentrated in the individual players. Rather, it permeates everyone involved, which is exactly why Bill Mann's article on confirmation bias is important.

I am in the process of re-reading Financial Shenanigans by Howard Schilit. The book provides a litany of tools that can protect you from the pressures of greatness in investing, and I recommend that everyone read it.

For example, Schilit recommends that investors determine a company's revenue recognition policy and read the notes to its financial statements before crunching any numbers. These two provide valuable information, and Schilit gives a great example of the shenanigans HBOC used to boost its revenue before being acquired by McKesson (NYSE:MCK), causing McKesson all kinds of heartache down the road.

I decided to check out the revenue recognition policies for Taser International (NASDAQ:TASR) and Travelzoo (NASDAQ:TZOO), two highfliers that must be feeling the pressures of greatness. Here is what I found from Taser:

"We recognize revenues when pervasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred or services have been rendered, title has transferred, the price is fixed and collectability is reasonably assured. In addition, all sales are final, with no right of return."

Travelzoo's policy is very similar (search the 10-K for "revenue recognition"), but, because of the different nature of its business, also includes the criteria by which advertising revenue cannot be recognized and instead must be deferred.

I was glad to see that both companies maintain that they use conservative revenue recognition policies. That relieves some of the pressure on everyone involved and can give investors confidence in the credibility of the sales numbers. How investors use those numbers to make investment decisions is a topic for another article.

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Fool contributor David Meier hasn't had time to read the footnotes yet and does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned.