”Don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress”

– Marcus Aurelius

Last week I wrote about the power of emotional investment. The reality is that I spend a lot of mine on our clients. 

Let me explain – working with leaders who want to explore their potential is a powerful collaboration. As I say to anyone we work with, I”m going to ask a lot of you, but you can ask a lot of me. We are on the journey together.

That shared space means understanding their world – their challenges, their aspirations, their doubts, their courage. It means understanding their potential, even when they can’t see it themselves. 

The emotional investment I make means that when I see the cosplay comedians of social media try and influence how you should live and lead, it provokes a rare thing in me – anger.

I cannot stress this enough – the version of leadership being sold to you online is a fiction.

The 5am ice baths. The perfect morning routine. The relentless productivity. All seemingly done to perfection. Here’s the reality – the vast majority of these characters have never operated at the level you do – the complexity, the pressure, the actual weight of the decisions you carry. They wouldn't last in your world.

I say this not to flatter you. I say it because I see it all around me – measuring yourself to a standard built for an audience, rather than a life. Quite frankly it's one of the most quietly damaging things you can do to your own performance.

So when I came across an article last week on a British Army officer called Will Simpson, one quote really stood out for me: “Lower the stakes”. 

Let me explain…

THE THEORY

When you fall short of what you planned and then beat yourself up for it, this self-criticism activates the brain's threat response. Cortisol rises and the prefrontal cortex (your centre for clear thinking and decision-making) essentially goes offline. 

The very cognitive resources you need to get back on track are the ones most compromised and that’s why it’s so easy for your attempts at growth and development to get derailed.

By contrast, self-compassion allows for consistency, which compounds neurologically in a way that intensity alone doesn't. Repeated behaviours reinforce and strengthen your neural pathways – your brain becomes faster and more efficient at executing the thing you keep doing. 

A smaller action done consistently builds more than a bigger one done sporadically. Inconsistency means you're effectively starting from scratch every time.

Knowing the science behind this, lowering the stakes makes perfect sense – putting too much pressure on yourself by trying to do too much is only going to damage your efforts rather than supercharge them. 

THE PROOF

You’d think if anyone was able to perform perfectly every time it would be Kevin O'Connor, our Elite Performance Advisor and a former Special Forces Team Leader.

Yet he’s the first to talk about the dangers of trying to do it all and the inevitable compromises to your performance that result from that.  

His strong belief is that the skill is in working out where you filter, focus and ruthlessly prioritize. Once you’ve established that, it’s then about determining your pathway of progression that is realistic, and accepting there will be times when you’re not hitting your marks. As he puts it himself, “focus on winning missions, not moments”. 

Like many high performers, he recognises that self-compassion is a strength rather than a weakness. He explains it in simple terms: "Punishing yourself for being human is self-sabotage. That's energy you can't afford to waste."

He knows that if you want to achieve sustainable high performance you need to learn how to lower the stakes. 

THE APPLICATION

Lowering the stakes means deciding in advance that some version of the behaviour always happens. Not the perfect version, some version.

It’s about creating repeatable behaviours. 

If you can’t make the AI training workshop, commit to experimenting with it for 30 minutes a day on a defined project. You still keep learning.

If you can’t go out for dinner with your partner, commit to leaving the phones behind and doing a 15-minute walk around the block to discuss your day. You still keep bonding. 

If you can’t make it to the gym, commit to doing a short run instead. You still keep moving. 

What you're doing is almost irrelevant. The commitment to not stopping is everything.

And be honest about what showing up looks like on a hard week. 

Forget the false standards of social media. You're in the arena. That's already more than most.

Don’t set yourself up for failure. Lower the stakes. 

J.

🔥  LIVE BETTER, LEAD BETTER  

The best content I researched this week:

1. I’d recommend reading the whole Men’s Health interview with Will Simpson that inspired my reflections this week. In the man’s own words: “Just get something done”. 

2. 3 tools to help you achieve more despite working less, all in a 90-second video courtesy of entrepreneur and investor Graham Weaver. 

3. And finally, some much needed perspective, as podcaster and endurance athlete Rich Roll shares how rebuilding his body after spinal fusion surgery has changed him. Expect lessons on patience and momentum he learned from lowering the stakes.