Enhanced Recovery. Sharper thinking. Sustained performance. From @martinsoorjoo.
London
Joined December 2009
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The Sustained Edge retweeted
Great study-
Same penalty spot. Same twelve yards. Same goalkeeper.
When scoring wins the match, the best players in the world score ninety-two times out of a hundred.
When missing loses it… same players, same distance… sixty-two.
Nothing changed except how the target was framed. One is playing to win.
The other is playing not to lose.
A clear target gives you direction.
Framed as a win, it gives you the drive to go after it.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
The hardest operators on the planet — SAS, SEALs, Delta — are masters of nervous system regulation. Because sustained output requires sustained recovery. Ep 33 of #OutperformTheStorm — Recovery as Strategy Framework.
12 mins episode.
Link in first reply below.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
Every high achiever knows the law: your best ideas refuse to show up at your desk.
They arrive in the shower. On the motorway. Halfway through mowing the lawn.
Never — not once — in the meeting titled "Brainstorm."
Science has now caught up.
Researchers strapped sensors to 157 people and pinged them at random through ordinary days with creativity tests. The finding: a brisk 10–25 minute walk reliably predicted sharper creative thinking about an hour later.
Not during the walk. Not right after. An hour later — once the body had settled and the mind was free to roam.
Two details worth the price of admission:
A gentle stroll didn't work. It was linked to lower scores. The muse, it turns out, does not attend amblers.
And flat-out intensity didn't work either. Moderate effort. Then patience.
Darwin built a gravel path behind his house and walked it daily — he called it his thinking path. He never knew the dosage. Now you do.
So tomorrow morning: brisk walk, twenty minutes, no phone. Then put yourself near a notebook at the one-hour mark.
You're not taking a break from the thinking.
You're placing an order for it.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
Every decision you make today feels like it has ten dependencies.
Neuroscience shows that rapid context-switching doesn't just make you tired. It leaves "attention residue," structurally degrading your cognitive capacity for the next task by over 20%.
You jump from a cash flow crisis to a product review without a bridge.
You don't need a better agenda.
You need a 90-second state reset between rooms. Clean judgment requires clean capacity.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
WEF + McKinsey, January 2026: in the age of AI, the human brain does not become less important.
It becomes more important.
The advantage is shifting upstream — to the quality of the mind using the tools.
Not who has the most AI. Who thinks clearest when everyone else is reactive.
Link to new episode in first reply.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
One of the dangers of a long week is that exhaustion starts to disguise itself as truth.
Everything feels more urgent than it is.
Every problem looks bigger than it is.
Every decision feels heavier than it is.
Sometimes what you are calling “strategy” is just fatigue talking.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
Imagine performing after almost no sleep—and thinking faster, not slower.
In one trial, creatine during 21 hours of sleep loss sharpened attention and sped up mental processing for hours compared with placebo. The studies on the cognitive benefits of creatine keep stacking up.
I've been using creatine for years and have no doubt it works.
Creatine is one of the most powerful low costs fuels for body and brain.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
You're not just responsible for your own state.
Research shows your nervous system broadcasts to everyone in the room.
A dysregulated leader / #founder doesn't just underperform. They degrade the thinking of their entire team.
Calm is a #leadership multiplier. Not a personality trait.
Train the calm. New episode ↓
The Sustained Edge retweeted
High-functioning exhaustion has become the default operating state.
Decision quality erodes quietly. Teams feel the loneliness of command even when metrics look fine.
This is not classical collapse; it is sustained depletion masked as resilience.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
1/7
BCG and Harvard Business Review just named the cognitive degeneration you've been quietly living through.
AI brain fry.
Not from using AI. From monitoring it.
14% of AI users. 26% in marketing.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
A single dose of creatine monohydrate improved cognitive performance and processing speed during 21 hours of sleep deprivation (2024 study in Scientific Reports)
Your brain is hardware. Creatine is a firmware upgrade most founders have never installed.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
AI isn’t burning your people out.
Managing it is.
BCG found heavy AI users report “AI brain fry” — cognitive overload from supervising too many tools at once.
Errors jump ~40%. Decision fatigue spikes. Top performers start thinking about quitting.
AI can remove work.
But unmanaged AI multiplies mental load.
Leadership question:
Are you increasing output — or increasing cognitive strain?
This distinction matters more than most CEOs realise.
Link to HBR article in first reply below
#Leadership #Founder #CEO #AI #Burnout
The Sustained Edge retweeted
It's only mid March and so many are already exhausted. Time to switch to a sustainable strategy.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
AI isn’t burning your people out. Managing it is.
BCG found heavy AI users report “AI brain fry” — cognitive overload from supervising too many tools at once.
Errors jump ~40%. Decision fatigue spikes. Top performers start thinking about quitting.
AI can remove work. But unmanaged AI multiplies mental load.
Leadership question: Are you increasing output — or increasing cognitive strain?
This distinction matters more than most CEOs realise.
Link to HBR article in first reply below
#Leadership #Founder #CEO #AI #Burnout
The Sustained Edge retweeted
Being a CEO, CFO, CTO, Founder, Lawyer, Trader etc requires intelligence and skills.
That's the starting point.
After that it's down to being #Adaptable , #Antifragile and Emotionally Intelligent.
Irreplaceable human qualities.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗪𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 "𝗖𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹" 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗼𝘄-𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
By 11:00 AM on a Monday, many professionals have already burned through their most valuable asset: their decision-making energy.
Psychologists call this 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗲.
The research is clear. Every time you decide whether to answer an email, what to eat, or how to handle a minor scheduling conflict, you deplete your willpower.
The result? When a high-stakes strategic decision lands on your desk at 2:00 PM—the kind that impacts revenue or culture—you are biologically incapable of giving it your best thinking. You default to the path of least resistance.
You don't need more willpower. You need better algorithms.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆: 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
Research by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer shows that framing goals as "If-Then" plans increases success rates by significantly reducing the cognitive load required to act.
The principle comes from military planning: rehearsed responses to predictable scenarios. Special Operators don't improvise under fire (though sometimes they have to)—they execute pre-determined protocols, preserving cognitive capacity for genuine unknowns. This is known as pre-loading the decision.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗗𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗹: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 "𝗜𝗳/𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻" 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗹
To stay #antifragile this week, automate your #resilience. Create simple rules for common friction points so you don't have to "think" about them in the moment.
Pre-load your decisions with "If X, Then Y" protocols—simple conditional responses that eliminate the need to deliberate in the moment. You're not creating rigid rules. You're conserving mental bandwidth for the decisions that actually warrant it.
Three examples to try today:
· The #Focus Trigger: "IF a meeting finishes 10 minutes early, THEN I will spend that time on my #1 Priority Project (not checking my inbox)."
· The #Stress Regulator: "IF I feel my heart rate spike during a call, THEN I will take a 5-minute tactical pause immediately after hanging up."
· The Boundary Guard: "IF an unsolvable problem hits after 7:00 PM, THEN I will write it down and close the laptop until morning."
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝘁
When you automate the small choices, you hoard your energy for the big ones.
High performance isn't about working harder than everyone else. It's about ensuring your brain is fresh enough to make the decisions that actually cost (or make) money.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲 "𝗜𝗳/𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻" 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀?
#Productivity #DecisionFatigue
The Sustained Edge retweeted
The sheer volume of work on a Monday can be paralysing.
Special Operators manage overwhelming challenges through radical compartmentalization.
You don't think about the whole mission.
You think about the next 3 feet, next hour.
What is the ONE target you need to hit before noon? Close the other tabs.
Ignore the other noise.
Eliminate the target in front of you.
Win the day - win the week.
The Sustained Edge retweeted
Fear's evolutionary gift:
It honed survival instincts.
Modern twist—channel it into calculated risks.
Sunday strategy: Identify a bold move, mitigate downsides.
Make #fear an asset not liability.
