1: The default mode for peak performers is not recovery, rest, and relaxation. 

“If momentum matters most, sitting still feels like laziness,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.  “And the more aligned with passion and purpose we become, the more ‘wasteful’ time off starts to feel.”

Yet, we need to prioritize recovery to avoid burnout.

“Burnout is identified by three symptoms: exhaustion, depression, … continue reading

1: The answer, according to one of the world’s leading experts on human performance?

Learning to be at our best when we are at our worst.

“And you have to train this kind of grit on its own, as a separate skill, But if we can do this, what we discover is real power. There’s real power there—and it’s power we probably didn’t know we had.” Steven Kotler writes in … continue reading

1: “Early-stage passion doesn’t look like late-stage passion,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.

Imagine LeBron James as “a little kid standing in front of a big hoop, trying to get his shots to drop,” Steven writes. “On the front end, passion is nothing more than the overlap of multiple curiosities coupled to a few wins.”

Sure, to be passionate, we want to … continue reading

1: Gallup researchers have calculated a national stress index based on a survey of more than 125,000 people from 121 countries. The analysts ask participants whether they had experienced a significant amount of stress the previous day, Dr. Daniel Friedland writes in his brilliant book Leading Well from Within.

The results? The higher the nation’s stress index, the higher the nation’s well-being.

“Further, individuals who were stressed but not … continue reading

So, what exactly is courage? Is it the absence of fear?  

No, philosopher Brian Johnson tells us.  It’s feeling the fear…  And then getting on with it.  Doing what needs to be done.  

Brian argues this is the mindset to cultivate as we show up in life. Yes, there will be challenges. Expect obstacles, he tells us. Then, get on with it. Feel the fear. Then, do what needs … continue reading

1: Super Bowl XLIX. Closing seconds…  

The Seattle Seahawks have the ball on the one-yard line. All they need to do is punch it in to score the winning touchdown. Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll calls for a passing play. The pass is intercepted.The Seahawks lose. Some sportswriters call it one of the worst calls in league history.

“Such judgmental comments can sometimes crush your morale and resilience,” writes Dr. … continue reading

1: VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.  

That’s our world. There are two ways we can show up.  

Option one? A reactive mindset. “We feel threatened with fear, stress, self-doubt, ego, and conflict; where an unconscious and reflexive series of protective responses can dominate our psyche and ripple through our actions, activating similar experiences in others that can instantly drain energy and fragment teams as well as families,” … continue reading

Dr. Daniel Friedland arrived at the board meeting feeling raw and out-of-sorts after an argument with his teenage son.  

Danny* was the board chair of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine. It was the morning of the second day of a combined board meeting with another leading organization in integrative health. The goal of the meeting was to formalize the upcoming collaboration of the two groups.

The leader … continue reading

1: Many of us view our sweaty palms, our need for moral support, or our rumination after a stressful experience as excessive “stress symptoms.”  Perhaps we see these signs and believe we aren’t handling stress well.   And, we think stress is something we need to recover from. 

As with so many aspects of stress, we are wrong, Kelly McGonigal writes in her powerful book The Upside of Stress.

“The last stage of … continue reading

1: Reva and her husband, Lakshman, took Kelly McGonigal‘s New Science of Stress course together.  After the last class, they flew to Australia to see one of their daughters, who was expecting a baby.

“Lakshman suffers from heart disease, and one of the symptoms is obstructive sleep apnea,” Reva explains in Kelly’s powerful book The Upside of Stress.  “He needs to use a continuous airway pressure machine on … continue reading