Imagine you're about to set off on the greatest challenge of your life. Or you're moving into the next chapter.
What skills do you need?
Let's say you're taking on the challenge of qualifying for an Olympic sport, like one of my clients did. Or you're setting off on your next entrepreneurial venture.
You could say that one requires much more physical preparation. The other requires different skills, mental preparation and knowledge. But human beings are not separate in their physical, mental or spiritual capacities. Everything we do must consider all of them.
An entrepreneur needs to tolerate the ambiguities and uncertainties of setting off on an unknown path. It requires skills you don't have, connections with people you don't yet know, and doing things that feel uncomfortable.
In sport, you need to tolerate physical exertion, pain and intensity that you might not yet be accustomed to. But the resilience required is also emotional and mental.
You need routines to strengthen the body. You need routines to strengthen the mind. And you need to consider where all this preparation is taking you.
This has happened on more than one occasion for me. An elite athlete comes to me and tells me they need support with nutrition. I start asking what they think about when they train, what they feel, what they visualise, how they speak to themselves. At first, they wonder why I discuss these things, because they see their problem as physical.
One athlete told me that the most groundbreaking change I helped her make was the way she spoke to herself. Over time, she could see physical changes happening as her inner talk changed.
She had been saying, “This is so difficult. How am I going to get through this? I always do this wrong.”
I simply directed her to bring her mind back to the present moment, to become fully engaged with what she was doing, to let go of “what if” and control what she could in the moment. If her mind strayed, she didn't need to worry about that too. Just notice it, avoid getting caught up in it, and bring her attention back.
This is attentional control. The moment of noticing is sometimes called meta-awareness. Researchers have studied this cycle of wandering, noticing and returning during focused meditation.1
I also asked her to reframe what she would characterise as negative outcomes as part of the learning process.
Instead of “I always do this wrong,” she could say, “I did it this way, and now I have learned how to do it better. And next time I will do it like this.”
That is cognitive reappraisal: changing how we interpret an experience. The connection to the body is measurable. In one experiment, people taught to interpret their stress arousal as useful preparation showed a different cardiovascular response, including lower vascular resistance, during a stressful task.2
Another elite athlete told me that reframing competition, and disconnecting their effort from the specific outcome, allowed them to make progress they had not thought possible before.
These changes began with how they thought, but they had very real physical outcomes.
I always tell my athletes, entrepreneurs and founders that life doesn't work in segments. Everybody likes to talk about separating the parts of life, but we're not separate beings. This is central to the Self Matrix: understanding the relationships between our physical, cognitive and spiritual dimensions.
When you notice yourself speaking negatively to yourself in everyday life, you have an opportunity to practise. Bring your attention back. Identify what you can control. Use what happened to decide what you will do next.
Then use the same things during training. Turn training into a battleground where you test these responses. Research on pressure training has found that expert basketball and darts players who practised with anxiety were better able to maintain their performance during a later anxiety test.3
As skill develops, parts of a task can require less conscious control. This is automaticity.4 What once stretched you can become familiar enough to leave more attention available for responding to what is happening.
As your capacity increases, the same task can become less demanding relative to your abilities. Researchers describe this as functional task difficulty: the challenge depends on both your skill and the conditions in which you perform.5
But how far can we develop that capacity?
This is where the frontier of human enhancement becomes interesting.
Photobiomodulation explores the effects of light on biological function. Vielight's brain devices use near-infrared light, with a rationale involving mitochondrial energy production; its newer systems allow researchers and practitioners to explore different patterns of stimulation. Neurofeedback takes another route, using feedback from measured brain activity as part of training, as programmes such as 40 Years of Zen describe.6
Then there are compounds that reach into the signalling associated with learning. In rats, the peptide Semax altered hippocampal BDNF and TrkB signalling alongside effects on learning. BDNF is a protein involved in neuronal development and plasticity.7
Researchers studying lion's mane identified specific constituents, including hericene A, that promoted the growth of branching extensions in cultured neurons. Hericene A and an extract also improved memory performance in mice.8
These findings open a fascinating question: can we improve the biological conditions in which learning takes place, then deliberately direct the experience that follows?
Our physical routines belong in that question too. In a trial involving older adults, aerobic exercise increased the volume of the anterior hippocampus, a region involved in memory.9
In my writing on sauna, I explored its relationship with recovery and well-being. Another connection is hormonal: an adult study found substantial temporary increases in growth hormone during repeated sauna exposure.10
There are powerful techniques that affect our own systems. Their value becomes clearer when we connect them to something we actually want to become able to do.
Neuroplasticity brings these questions together.
It is the nervous system's capacity to change with experience. But the ability to change does not decide whether the change will serve us.
In mice, researchers found that disrupting BDNF-related signalling in the amygdala affected learning associated with both fear and cocaine reward.11
That is the part I don't want us to miss. The capacity that allows us to learn also participates in patterns we may later struggle to escape.
When my athlete practises returning to the present and treating an error as information, she is practising the response she wants available next time. The same question belongs beside every technique that promises greater mental power: what are you doing with the capacity you are developing?
In my writing on flow, I explored a related distinction: feeling absorbed and having learned something are different questions. I want the experience to leave us with an ability we can use.
Visualisation makes the connection between experience and physiology especially tangible.
One of my favourite books on mental performance is Lanny Bassham's With Winning in Mind.12
With clients, I sometimes illustrate the connection through a frightening memory. Their heart starts beating faster; their hands become sweaty. Something imagined is producing a physical response.
Experiments have also measured changes in heart rate and breathing during imagined exercise.13 The body can respond physically to something we are only imagining.
But what we imagine, and why it matters to us, brings us to something deeper.
Viktor Frankl gives one of the most powerful examples. In Man's Search for Meaning, he describes being marched to forced labour while vividly imagining his wife's presence. He did not know whether she was alive, yet the connection remained a source of strength.
“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self”.14
This brings visualisation, love and the why into the same experience.
How does your tolerance change biochemically, mentally and emotionally when the why comes into focus?
And how do you decide whether that why is worthy of the person you want to become?
Aristotle brings another question into the discussion. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he describes character as something formed through repeated action.15 As I explored in my article on his virtues, the way we pursue something matters.
Why gives us reasons. Virtue must guide the process.
What we desire to do can differ diametrically. But I believe there is a common human foundation in our need for connection, kindness and benevolence. These belong in a discussion of performance because they belong in the life of the person performing.
This might sound a bit like pink fluff, but I always like to ground it back in the biological realities of how the body functions.
In a study of married couples, blister wounds healed more slowly following a conflict discussion than after a supportive interaction. Researchers also measured differences in inflammatory responses.16
The quality of a relationship reaches into the body's capacity to recover. For me, these connections are part of a much larger understanding of ourselves as biological and spiritual beings.
The spiritual connection is one of the most profound in relation to why. Life itself has a purpose. And nothing connects it more to that purpose than our mortality.
This is where purpose connects to Impact, the way I think of it. Helping someone, giving something of ourselves, leaving the world better: our connection with others allows something of this temporary life to transcend its physical end.
But even more than that, I love the Orthodox perspective on this. We cannot take our physical possessions with us. I love the way the Athonite fathers speak about what we give: everything we give in service, in helping others, in leaving the world better, we take with us in spiritual terms.
There is a great poetic truth to it.
For me, the spirit is immortal. The transition from this life to the next is like walking through a door. The character remains. The personality remains.
This changes the way we think about life and the way we conduct ourselves in it. It carries a powerful thread through everything we do.
And, of course, it brings us back to how we will direct improved powers, improved mental acuity, improved understanding and improved learning.
Where do we choose to direct our energy?
That question runs through my work across Body, Mind, Heart, Soul, Wealth and Impact. I want greater capability to help us live more fully, undertake what matters to us, and have more to give.
Think again about the challenge you imagined at the beginning. What would it mean to approach it with a stronger body, a mind you know how to direct, and a reason that holds you steady when things become difficult?
You can begin that preparation today. In the way you train, in the way you speak to yourself, in what you do after a mistake, and in the attention you give to the people around you. These are the moments in which everything we have discussed becomes part of how you live.
And this, for me, is what makes developing our capacities so exciting. We can prepare ourselves to take on something that once felt beyond us. We can enter the next chapter with more to bring to it. And as we become more capable, we have the opportunity to make that chapter meaningful for others too.
On Monday, I’ll bring this into practice: how to prepare your mind, train a specific ability and make the learning stay with you.
The whole newsletter at a glance.
↓ See how it all connects in the visual guide below ↓
Hasenkamp, W., Wilson-Mendenhall, C.D., Duncan, E. and Barsalou, L.W. (2012) ‘Mind wandering and attention during focused meditation: A fine-grained temporal analysis of fluctuating cognitive states’, NeuroImage, 59(1), pp. 750–760. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.008.
Jamieson, J.P., Nock, M.K. and Mendes, W.B. (2012) ‘Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3), pp. 417–422. doi:10.1037/a0025719.
Oudejans, R.R.D. and Pijpers, J.R. (2009) ‘Training with anxiety has a positive effect on expert perceptual–motor performance under pressure’, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(8), pp. 1631–1647. doi:10.1080/17470210802557702.
Poldrack, R.A., Sabb, F.W., Foerde, K., Tom, S.M., Asarnow, R.F., Bookheimer, S.Y. and Knowlton, B.J. (2005) ‘The neural correlates of motor skill automaticity’, Journal of Neuroscience, 25(22), pp. 5356–5364. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3880-04.2005.
Guadagnoli, M.A. and Lee, T.D. (2004) ‘Challenge point: A framework for conceptualizing the effects of various practice conditions in motor learning’, Journal of Motor Behavior, 36(2), pp. 212–224. doi:10.3200/JMBR.36.2.212-224.
Vielight (2026) ‘The Vielight Neuro Pro 2: The most customizable brain photobiomodulation device, explained’, 6 June. Available at: Vielight (Accessed: 29 October 2026); 40 Years of Zen (n.d.) ‘The science: QEEG mapping and neurofeedback’. Available at: 40 Years of Zen (Accessed: 29 October 2026).
Dolotov, O.V., Karpenko, E.A., Inozemtseva, L.S., Seredenina, T.S., Levitskaya, N.G., Rozyczka, J., Dubynina, E.V., Novosadova, E.V., Andreeva, L.A., Alfeeva, L.Yu., Kamensky, A.A., Grivennikov, I.A., Myasoedov, N.F. and Engele, J. (2006) ‘Semax, an analog of ACTH(4–10) with cognitive effects, regulates BDNF and trkB expression in the rat hippocampus’, Brain Research, 1117(1), pp. 54–60. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2006.07.108.
Martínez-Mármol, R., Chai, Y., Conroy, J.N., Khan, Z., Hong, S.-M., Kim, S.B., Gormal, R.S., Lee, D.H., Lee, J.K., Coulson, E.J., Lee, M.K., Kim, S.Y. and Meunier, F.A. (2023) ‘Hericerin derivatives activates a pan-neurotrophic pathway in central hippocampal neurons converging to ERK1/2 signaling enhancing spatial memory’, Journal of Neurochemistry, 165(6), pp. 791–808. doi:10.1111/jnc.15767.
Erickson, K.I., Voss, M.W., Prakash, R.S., Basak, C., Szabo, A., Chaddock, L., Kim, J.S., Heo, S., Alves, H., White, S.M., Wojcicki, T.R., Mailey, E., Vieira, V.J., Martin, S.A., Pence, B.D., Woods, J.A., McAuley, E. and Kramer, A.F. (2011) ‘Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), pp. 3017–3022. doi:10.1073/pnas.1015950108.
Leppäluoto, J., Huttunen, P., Hirvonen, J., Väänänen, A., Tuominen, M. and Vuori, J. (1986) ‘Endocrine effects of repeated sauna bathing’, Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 128(3), pp. 467–470. doi:10.1111/j.1748-1716.1986.tb08000.x.
Heldt, S.A., Zimmermann, K., Parker, K., Gaval, M., Weinshenker, D. and Ressler, K.J. (2014) ‘Bdnf deletion or TrkB impairment in amygdala inhibits both appetitive and aversive learning’, Journal of Neuroscience, 34(7), pp. 2444–2450. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4085-12.2014.
Bassham, L. (n.d.) With Winning in Mind. Mental Management Systems. Available at: Publisher information (Accessed: 29 October 2026).
Decety, J., Jeannerod, M., Durozard, D. and Baverel, G. (1993) ‘Central activation of autonomic effectors during mental simulation of motor actions in man’, The Journal of Physiology, 461(1), pp. 549–563. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1993.sp019528.
Frankl, V.E. (2006) Man's Search for Meaning. Translated by I. Lasch. Boston: Beacon Press. Quoted passage available in the publisher-authorised excerpt.
Aristotle (c. 350 BCE) Nicomachean Ethics, Book II. Translated by W.D. Ross. Internet Classics Archive, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Available at: Book II.
Kiecolt-Glaser, J.K., Loving, T.J., Stowell, J.R., Malarkey, W.B., Lemeshow, S., Dickinson, S.L. and Glaser, R. (2005) ‘Hostile marital interactions, proinflammatory cytokine production, and wound healing’, Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(12), pp. 1377–1384. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.62.12.1377.
Outstanding advice. Particle like the proactive self-talk and the emphasis on practice. In psychology, practice is a missing major component.