Daily Thought for Change

I woke up on my birthday feeling almost drunk.

No, I haven’t touched alcohol in 25 years. But I’d stayed up late for a call with San Diego, and the next morning I leapt out of bed at 5am - thanks to that Huberman-induced cortisol cycle. (Damn it works.)

Something was off the whole day.

My thoughts were sluggish. Writing took 30 minutes longer than usual. If I’d had to record a solo podcast, it would’ve been a sloppy recording. 

It reminded me of something I read once: a lack of sleep can impair your brain as much as being legally drunk.

I don’t write about health and fitness all that often anymore, mostly because I’ve locked in the fundamentals, and with clients we work predominantly on implementing things, building systems - after that, the rest falls into place. But this day was a solid reminder:
If you don’t have your physical foundations in place, you’ll need a lot more “hacks” to function.

And sleep?
That’s the king of all health habits.

With many of my clients, sleep is the first place we start. It’s where your energy, clarity, focus, learning ability, mood, decision-making, emotional regulation, and empathetic leadership actually begin.

Here’s an empowering note:
You have far more control than you think over your sleep quality.

If your sleep isn’t solid, do a quick check-in to see if you are doing everything that can be done:

• Regularity is king. Same wake/sleep time every day = a synced melatonin–cortisol cycle.

• Substances matter. Caffeine, alcohol, and late-night meals mess with your brain-body chemistry.

• Move. Daily steps and exercise improve sleep quality across all populations.

• Light management. Sunlight in the morning, minimal blue/bright light and screens at night. More time outdoors works wonders.

• Micronutrients. Multivitamins and minerals like magnesium help your body and brain make the “sleep cocktail” they need.

• Don’t overstimulate. Late-night workouts, stressful emails, or intense planning can keep your mind wired. Wind down. Try a hot shower as well.

Check your sleep.
Check your routines.
Start there.

How’s your sleep been lately?

PS If you want to work on your sleep habits together - find me, I'm a SSR-certified coach

The Cost of a Smile

What does it cost you to smile?

Not much. Maybe a few calories to flex some facial muscles.

But what’s the ROI?

I was humming and dancing along, walking back from my gym session on the way back home on my birthday. I thought to myself, I'm 38 today, feeling better than ever, did quite a few awesome things - now it's time to squeeze all the juice and plan and do something audacious!

For me, a smile always shifts how I see the world. 

Just a little. Even on the darkest days. A sprinkle of optimism on that sour grape. It nudges me to notice the brighter side. The possibility side. The “maybe this could turn out well” side.

And what’s the ROI of that?

I do more. I reach out. I try again. I make that call, send that message, finish that thing I was putting off.

Because suddenly, the future feels like it might be worth showing up for. Like it might actually work out.

"Research indicates that facial expressions can influence your emotions. This suggests that consciously or unconsciously changing your facial expression can affect your emotional experience. For example, smiling can lead to increased feelings of happiness, while frowning might intensify feelings of sadness"

And when you feel better, you do better.

"The most valuable thing we learned from expectation theories is that expectations affect behaviors significantly. This study deepens this knowledge, and proposes a model that puts forward the idea that optimistic expectations stimulate proactive personality characteristics…

...earlier study points out that optimistic expectations have significant potential to directly and positively affect the level of work engagement, work outcomes and work performance”

There’s a body of research that shows that optimists are more proactive AND better at strategic thinking and decision-making, and delivering results.

And I see it in my work all the time. Clients often say:

“I just don’t feel motivated.”
“What if I put in the effort and it still doesn’t work?”
“I’m scared I won’t pull it off.”

It’s not laziness. It’s a loss of belief. Temporal loss of optimism that often causes less action.

We procrastinate not because we’re out of motivation but because we’ve quietly decided that trying might not be worth it.

So back to that smile.

That tiny, no-cost facial change could tip the scale. It can raise your optimism just enough to get you moving. And once you’re in motion, everything else changes. Everything becomes possible.

Because what's the cost? And look at the upside 😊

On my birthday walk around the local park, I noticed something.

Somehow, when it comes to building stuff, we know how to think like systems people.

We define the goal. We measure everything.
We break it down into materials, hours, labor, weather patterns.
We create contingencies.
We remember the purpose - 
Is this road for people or cars?
Should it evoke awe or just get the job done?

Look around.
We’ve gotten really good at building physical world that endures.
That lasts. That functions. That keeps us moving forward.

What if we approached the other parts of life like we do construction?
What if we built our lives with that kind of intention?

Workplaces. Food systems. Relationships. Our future selves.
What if we designed them like architects and executed like engineers?

If it’s worth doing - it’s worth doing it well.

We are the architects of our lives.
So how about we start acting like it more?

Map the ecosystem. Where do you need to plant the seed? What people, environment, culture, or infrastructure do you need to thrive? What's already there? What can you change, improve, shift?

Take stock of your materials. What do you need to gather, acquire, create?
(Skills, tools, knowledge, scaffolding.)

Schedule the labor. What kind of work needs to be done? Where does it live in your calendar? How are you prioritizing your time, energy, focus to work the plan?

Build in slack + feedback loops & keep the blueprint handy.
It’s never gonna go as planned so plan extra resources and time; the faster you can see what’s working, not working, the more you can notice progress - the less you get stuck; and never stop asking - What is it all for? - to keep yourself building what’s planned, knowing how to prioritize and why, how to make the right choices.

That’s how you become the architect you already are.

A good day to look at the blueprint.
What about you? When was the last time you looked at yours?

What you don't see might be what you most need to see

“Inattentional blindness,” writes Dan Heath in Upstream: how to solve problems before they happen, “is a phenomenon in which our careful attention to one task leads us to miss important information that's related to the task. When it's coupled with time pressure, it can create a lack of curiosity.”

That’s how you miss a gorilla running across a basketball court because you're too busy counting passes.

It’s also how you can go through life seeing only flaws, as a result stuck there even though opportunities for better life and work are floating all around you.

I never quite feel at ease around my dad.

Recently I realized why:
He’s always scanning for what’s wrong. What’s missing. What’s not good enough.
In the world. In people. In me.
And probably, most of all, in himself.

Only now do I understand - that’s not me. That’s how he’s been conditioned to see.
To focus on what needs fixing instead of what’s worth building.
No wonder he rarely smiles.

The more time I spend coaching, the more I realize:
Focusing all your attention on what’s not working - on problems, flaws, deficiencies - is actually one of the least effective ways to change anything.

People.
Organizations.
The world.

It’s deeply demotivating over time.
No one leaps out of bed excited to fix what’s broken.
People wake up energized to create, to build, to grow something better. And there’s a world of difference between the two.

When you’re stuck in what’s wrong, you can’t see what’s possible.
You lose the ability to access the full spectrum of solutions, especially the unconventional ones that require divergent thinking or creative cross-pollination from other fields (and yes, research backs this up).

You become myopic. So laser-focused on the problem that you miss the walkarounds.
You miss the leverage points.
You miss the strengths and resources already available because your brain is locked into the world as it is, instead of asking how it got here or what else might be possible.

That's probably what Einstein truly meant when he said that you can't solve the problem with the same level of thinking.

In coaching, I’ve learned there’s a better way.
A more energizing, human, and lasting approach to change.

At Precision Nutrition, it’s called awesome-based coaching.
Here’s how it works. And it can be applied to any problem in the world, orgs, systems of any sort.

“There are so many things you are doing well. Let’s collaborate on how we can leverage these to make more success happen.”

“Let’s zero in on these couple of spots that aren’t perfect, get disciplined about pushing yourself into obsessing about them until you get perfect so you finally can be OK about your life.”

Which one makes you want to do more, not because you have to, but because you want to?

In my experience, awesome-based coaching is what actually works.
It’s how my clients get lasting results, body mind work transformations, and enjoy the process of becoming more of who they already are at their best.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s also a much better way to build teams, grow cultures, and shape systems that allow humans to thrive.

Not by fixating on fixing what's broken.
But by seeing what’s strong and helping it grow.

PS: You don't need more discipline. You need something you care about deeply.

The Focus Dividend
I’m reading Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much.
It’s a fascinating dive into how having too little - money, time, connection - reshapes our decisions, thinking, and behavior. Sometimes for the better. Mostly not.

The upside we all felt at some point -
When you’re short on time and your workshop’s tomorrow? You’ll get it done.

I remember speaking at an innovation event. I attended day one, listened to the speakers, watched the audience. And realized, my talk wasn’t quite on theme. I had 6 hours in my hotel room to redo the whole thing.
I scrapped the original. Rewrote it from scratch.
The adrenaline kicked in. Dopamine rushed. Creativity sharpened. Dots connected.
It ended up being one of my clearest, most impactful talks. And the ideas from it are still paying dividends.

That’s the “focus dividend” scarcity sometimes gives us: clarity under pressure.

But it’s not a strategy. Not for the important things.

An Olympic-level performance doesn’t happen in a last-minute scramble. It’s the result of years of training, groundwork, reflection, and preparation.
Brilliance in the moment can happen but only if the foundation is solid.

The real cost of scarcity is what the authors call tunneling.

When you’re chronically short on time, you become hyper-focused on the next urgent thing - emails, calls, meetings, tasks, social obligations.
It feels productive.
It feels necessary. It feels unavoidable.
But it adds up to… nothing worth talking about. (That's how you end up answering "I'm just busy", when somebody asks how you are)

You never get to the book & learning. The deep thinking. The long walk. The body of work. The real growth.
You just keep ticking boxes. Someone else's boxes.

And then you look up and wonder one day, how do they (people you admire) have time to build something meaningful, more rewarding? Must be some genius!

Here’s a radical idea:
Don’t reply to that email.
Don’t buy that thing.
Don’t run that errand.

Wait 24 hours.
You’ll be surprised how irrelevant most “urgent” things become with a little space.
What’s left is time to rest, time to think, time to reinvest in what actually matters.

As Mullainathan and Shafir put it in Scarcity:

“Scarcity alters how we look at things; it makes us choose differently. This creates benefits: we are more effective in the moment. But it also comes at a cost: our single-mindedness leads us to neglect things we actually value.”

Right now, I’m focused on exiting my own cycles of scarcity - time, money, relationships, work.

How? By minimizing commitments. So things don't own me and I focus on what I choose.

I say no to almost every invitation.
I avoid impulse purchases that feed the ego but drain the soul.
I filter commitments through one question:
Does this add to the body of work I’m here to build?

It’s a harder, yes. But what’s left never feels rushed or wasted.
Fewer needs, fewer obligations - more meaning. More focus.
More life on my terms.

There's another quote I love from modern day money guru - "Spend extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don't." - by Ramit Sethi, and it's not just about money.

Comment and let me know👇 Or share it with someone who needs to hear it.

The opposing forces

"Should I just stay here?"

Every time I go back home to spend time with my parents, there’s this moment, usually after a week or two, when a tension creeps in.

It’s incredibly comfortable. Familiar. Safe.
But I start missing my "new home", now Cape Town. The challenges. The unknown. The things that push me forward. The going away. The diving into unknown.

Should I just stay here, where it’s easy?

But I know what happens then, I start to wither. I miss the stretch, the friction, the reward of change. The aliveness of growth.

On one of our Lion’s Head hikes, a friend and I talked about this exact thing, this universal, internal tug-of-war:
Stay with what you know, or venture into the unfamiliar.
Seek comfort or pursue growth.
Hold the shore or set sail.

Turns out, this isn’t just personal. It’s biological. Neurobiological as Andrew Huberman would say.

I was listening to the Hubermanlab podcast, and Andrew explained that our nervous system is wired with two opposing needs:

• Homeostasis: to keep things steady, minimize disruption, keep the balance.

• Reward-seeking: to risk what we have in pursuit of something better, or at least something new.

The tension isn't a bug. It’s a feature.

Those who create meaningful lives, who shape the world in quiet or loud ways, they don’t get stuck in the tug. They move. They leave the shore.

They choose growth every time.

Tony Robbins says: "In life, you're either growing or dying."
He's actually saying the same thing - you can’t have both: comfort and growth. You’ve got to choose.

So, lately, which have you been choosing more?

Balance? Or growth? Rewards? Or homeostasis?

Winner’s Upgrades 🏆

Look dumb.
Ask for help.
Make it easy for people to say yes.

Did you know that asking your neighbor about the best spots around is still the fastest way to get all the essentials you need? Faster than trying to read all the Google reviews? (That's how I find good dentists, hairdressers, all the best spots for walks anywhere in the entire world with no fail)

When we think of “winners,” we picture perseverance, grit, discipline.
Superheroes grinding late at night.
Brilliant minds who figured it all out. Alone.

But when you actually study achievement, you find something different.

You find people who are quick to say:
“I don’t know. Can you show me?”
“Can I hire you?”
“Can you help?”

That’s the first step to accelerated learning:
Extreme openness to admitting you don't know.

The faster you can say “I don’t know,” the faster you can learn.
And the faster you learn, the faster you grow. "I don't know" is a magnet for learning.

How many times last week did you say, “I don’t know”?
How many times did you step into a room where you weren’t trying to be the smartest person?
Where you chose learning over looking like you’ve got it all together?

There are libraries of wisdom and solved problems walking all around you.

We say we don’t need to reinvent the wheel…
Yet the higher we rise, the more we try to.

We white-knuckle our way through tech, strategy, relationships, operations.
Instead of reaching out to someone who already solved the very thing we’re stuck on.

Truth:
There’s someone out there who holds the answer to 90% of your current roadblocks.
You just need to ask.

And then there’s this move, the most powerful way to help people say YES! to you:
Asking, “How can I re-shape what I offer so it becomes easy for someone to say yes now?”
Not: “How do I make them see the value of what I already made?”

That flexibility? That empathy? That ego-free shift when you are meeting the world where it is, not ordering it to change?
That’s how things start to move.

Like Ryan Holiday says,
Ego is indeed the enemy.
Not because it makes you look bad, or do bad things.
But because it slows you down.

Success is rarely about being the smartest.
It’s about learning faster, asking better, staying flexible to find the middle way.

So, where in YOUR life is ego slowing you down?
Where are you clinging to pride when you could be accelerating progress?

In the end, the world doesn't care how smart you look, it cares about results and value delivered.

The one thing

I ran a workshop yesterday on using behavioral science to close the gap between strategy and execution so you can get real results, not just cross your fingers and hope.

And one of the biggest challenges leaders face, even with the best systems and smartest minds in the room?

Choosing the 1 thing worth focusing on.

Whether it's in health, business, personal growth, career, or relationships, trying to do everything at once spreads your energy thin. You end up busy but ineffective. Exhausted, but no closer to meaningful progress.

Great businesses don’t fall into that trap.
They slow down to think.
They search for the main constraint, the one key target, and then focus all their resources there until it’s resolved.
That’s how momentum builds, and most importantly, stays.

People who create real change do the same.
They commit. They simplify. They focus.

The real challenge isn’t knowing we should focus.
It’s having the courage to:

• Identify the one thing - your leverage point, the root issue that unlocks progress across multiple layers.

• Let go of distractions, even the good ones.

• Commit fully.

It's very important, though, to make this decision about one thing not on a hunch but grounded in evidence.

The book Reset: how to change what's not working outlines a few tools for finding your leverage:

• Go and see the work.
  Don’t guess. Follow the whole process yourself. Where does it break?

• Study the bright spots.
  Where is it working, at least better than elsewhere? Why?

• Rise above silos.
  Ask an outsider to look at your system without bias or attachment. Often, what’s invisible to us is obvious to someone else.

As my birthday approaches, I’ve been reflecting on what I want the next decade of my life to be about.

What do I want to build?
What’s the 20% that could give me 80% of the fulfillment I seek?

And most importantly...

What’s the major theme that’s been quietly holding me back, maybe for years, that I finally need to face and fix?

Do you know what YOUR one thing is now?

“How do I get my people motivated?”
A classic question, asked by leaders, parents, coaches, teachers alike.

Somebody once asked me in a workshop,
“Do punishments motivate people? Like fines, bad grades, demotions?”
"Sure. But only to a point."
You’ll get compliance. Minimum effort.
But never commitment, never excellence.

If you want people to give their best, you don’t motivate them.
You help them motivate themselves.

Even early in my career, I sensed this.
Long-term motivation never comes from a carrot🥕
Not a raise. Not an award. Not six-pack abs.
And definitely not from a stick.

If you want sustainable performance, consistency over tiem, the fire has to come from within - 
from identity, from ownership, from meaning.

Take this example from research with kids:
👉 “Do you want to be a good helper?”
Outperforms: “Can you clean your room?”

With adults:
👉 “Do you want to be a strong, grounded leader for your family or team?”
Outperforms: “Can you improve your feedback skills?” or “Will you hit the gym this week?”

Why? Because one speaks to identity and purpose. The other speaks to tasks.

That’s the core of what Daniel Pink calls the 3rd Drive, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
Biological needs (Drive 1) and carrots/sticks (Drive 2) only get us so far.
But lasting motivation, the kind that drives excellence, now and overtime, comes from:

• Autonomy (freedom to choose what, how, when, with who)

• Mastery (growth and getting better at something that matters to us)

• Purpose (doing something bigger than yourself, something you choose to stand for)

Want to stay motivated long-term?
Want to lead others to their best performance?

Design better questions.
Create the right rituals.
And build environments that spark ownership, growth, and meaning.

This is how the best leaders lead.
They don’t push. They ignite.

Are you still dangling carrots, or are you lighting fires within?

A friend recently replied to my advice on sleeping 9–10 hours to beat fatigue and crankiness,
“Tell this to my kids.”

It made me pause and think.
Our choices create responsibilities. And our responsibilities, in turn, create constraints.

But is that a bad thing?

I’ve always loved the phrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
It reminds me that when we choose to lead - a team, a family, a company - we’re not just signing up for impact. We’re choosing to carry weight. We’re saying yes to sleepless nights, tough conversations, hard choices. We’re trading comfort for meaning.

The more we succeed, the more responsibility we inherit.
And often, the less freedom we have in the moment, ironically, all in pursuit of the ultimate freedom: shaping our own narrative, our own future.

I just finished “10,000 Hours of Play: Unlock Real-Life Legendary Success” by gamification pioneer Yu-Kai Chou. The book is a call to arms,

Live like a superhero🦸
Define your mission.
Discover your “superpowers” (your character strengths).
Gear up with the tools and skills you need to take on your quests.
Slay some dragons.
Make allies to take on bigger quests.

It's a how-to for doing something that matters with your life.

But Yu-Kai also offers a quiet truth we often miss in the hype of heroism, pursuit of goals or leadership.
A legendary life isn’t just built on power-ups, wins, and mastery.
It’s built on responsibility.

Living life as a superhero isn’t just about what you get to do.
It’s also about what you must do as a result of your choices.

Here’s a great question to help you choose the right path with no regret (even with all the sleepless nights and hard work that you "have to" do now),

Have you accepted the responsibilities that come with the path you’ve chosen?

PS: “10,000 Hours of Play” is a brilliant guide if you’re piecing together what’s missing in your own legendary life to feel like a superhero, not a side character.
We also dove into this on the latest Change Wired podcast episode with Yu-Kai Chou - tune in to learn how to activate your success superpowers and design a life that feels like an adventure.