Suggested questions

1You’ve seen pressure in boardrooms and extreme environments — what do most people misunderstand about how humans actually perform under sustained stress?

2Flow is often treated as the gold standard of performance. Where do you think that narrative has gone wrong?

3You talk about performance as “state selection” rather than motivation. What does that reframe change for leaders who feel constantly on edge?

4From your board experience, how does prolonged pressure quietly distort decision-making before anyone realises something is wrong?

5Many founders blame burnout on discipline or time management. What do you see instead when you zoom out across patterns?

6You’ve described extreme environments as a laboratory. What do deserts, mountains, and endurance races reveal about performance that office life tends to hide?

7How does chronic stress show up differently in cognition, health, and relationships — even when someone appears “high functioning”?

8As a father, what did you notice about how work intensity carries into family life if it’s never consciously interrupted?

9When organisations talk about culture, what are they missing if they don’t consider the dominant states their people operate in each day?

10Looking ahead, what do you think leaders will need to understand about human performance that most organisations are still ignoring?