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Have you been forwarded the DARE High Performance newsletter? You can sign up here to receive your own copy in the future.

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

This Week’s DARE at a Glance:

Thought Of The Week: Mastery over your internal world is the ultimate sovereignty.

Managing emotions under pressure: A question from an audience member sparked the idea for this week’s newsletter.

Book of the Week: ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahansa Yogananda. 

My Week: A leading law firm in London and a flying visit to Toronto.

Thought of the Week:

“Mastery over your internal world is the ultimate sovereignty.”

I had a thoughtful question from an audience member in Toronto this week:

“You talk about managing your emotions at 100m under the sea, but how do you actually do that? What are you thinking about?”

“Good question. I imagined my consciousness as an electric cable. In the centre was copper. The copper wires were live. They had three tasks to achieve:

1. Manage the pressure – just a series of rehearsed physical tasks.

2. Scan my body for tension and remove it.

3. Create the insulation.

Outside was a plastic sheath of insulation between my live copper wires and all the other circuits of my brain.”

Her face showed a mix of intrigue and total bafflement.

 “What other circuits?”

“Survival circuits. My need to scan for uncertainties, risks, dangers and then release biochemicals (emotions) to make me avoid them– we all do that to survive.

The little voice that tells me I can't do it and I will probably have an injury in around 15 seconds when I mess up. The voice that tells me that ‘I'm just me’, I can't do things like this and I should pack up and go home, that says ‘You Don’t Belong Here – you’re not good enough.’”

No bafflement now. Just intrigue.

“What’s the insulation made of?”

“I made it myself. Out of music. I used a piece from my Kundalini Yoga class. The music is called “Aad Guray Namay”, the version by Deva Premal.

I played it on repeat while training, travelling, running, doing breathwork. Over and over until it lived inside me. So that in the ocean, 100 metres down, it was still playing in my imagination. Music takes a lot of mental processing power. So it is a good sheath to create.”

“Do I need to use music too, then?”

“Depends on the task. If you need insulation in a meeting, it could be a distraction.

But I know a woman who is still recovering from being in a very manipulative cult as a child. She has learned to draw bold lines in marker pen around herself as boundaries to stop people triggering her old emotions and stop herself from becoming compliant to senior women and men.”

“Ah. I think I get it. Thank you.”

Book Jim To Speak.

Using your imagination is not a gimmick. It’s not soft. It’s a human superpower. It’s a high performance tool.  

My trip to 100m isn’t enough for you to buy in? No problem.

Here you can actually see imagination being used by the Blue Angels, the US Navy version of the UK’s Red Arrows display team. What a privilege!

You might think warriors would feel self-conscious doing this together: you’d be wrong. It’s a superpower – a high-performance tool for excellence at the speed of sound.

How would you or your team react to the invitation to visualise together?

In DARE: The ‘Evaluation’ part asks us to try whatever we need to with vulnerability and humility to deliver the Result.

It sounded so simple at first, right?!

This week, I’m inviting you to try the same.

Think about a pressure situation you have coming at you this week.

1. What is the Result you want from it?

2. What tool can you create to use your imagination to protect your performance from external pressure?

3. What is the most valuable cue you can focus on to help you when you’re under pressure.

4. To get your new Result, will you take these clear Decisions and Actions even if the Tiger roars?

Please do let me know what happens – I would LOVE to hear. Just hit reply and you are in my inbox. A place on my ‘DARE: to speak’ course is offered to the author of every story we publish (anonymity can be preserved).

Book Of The Week.

This week we are entering the realms of emotion, imagination, self-sovereignty: living effectively and peacefully inside yourself in order to operate effectively.

We’ve entered the mysterious art of controlling your interior world – where addictions, insecurities and demons roam freely. So I am taking a risk and heading to the spiritual.

It’s the book Steve Jobs gifted to his friends at his funeral. Jobs remains a great inspiration to me, I read the Isaacson biography once every two or three years cover to cover

But this week’s book is Steve’s guide, which also assisted me greatly in the preparation for the dive.

"Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda

My Week.

One to one work with senior leaders who want to develop greater self sovereignty, push their own boundaries and inspire their organisations is always a great privilege and challenge. A new journey began this week which I am grateful for.

My schooling ground, the legal profession, is moving very fast. The traditional models and ‘roles’ are being questioned.  Should a law firm be run part time by committees of lawyers (Partners)? Or owned by a private equity and run by an executive team?

The winds of this storm powered my sails for a second week, this week with a dynamic London firm. Last week, of course, working with the fast-growing Leonard Curtis back in my other legal schooling ground – the city of Manchester:

I am finishing this week’s Newsletter in the BA Lounge in Toronto. An afternoon spent with 600 of the national team of one of our powerhouse global organisations. They’ve served us in our homes for nearly 200 years – and are challenging themselves in Toronto today to ensure they are still serving us in 200 years time.

Don’t forget to tell me how you’ve used the power of imagine to succeed this week. A free place on my ‘DARE: to speak’ course for every story we publish (anonymity can be preserved).

Write your story 🖋️

Jim