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Focus For The Week

High performance is iterative and honest.

Decide. Act. Evaluate the Result then DARE again: the DARE loop.

Any plan of action is dynamic and adapts fast as we learn, but only if we are capable of rapid and honest Evaluation.

Your Decision

I was holding onto a line, 6m under the surface, breathing pure O2. A standard post-dive drill.

Above me, I could see 30 sets of masks and goggles piercing the surface of the ocean. 60 eyes watching me. Tourists who came to see the cool freedive record happen. All looking down at the guy who failed. I had gotten to 80m, not 100. Red Card.

The dive had been planned to take 2 mins and 10 seconds. But I was submerged for 3 mins and 40 seconds.

It was a poor Result because of my poor Decisions.

In my early days speaking I failed a few times. But you get to disappear in the car and hide in the loos at a service station. You don’t have to stand on the stage while everybody looks at you in silence.

In my DARE model for High Performance, A poor Result means a rapid and honest Evaluation is required, followed by a new Decision and a new Action to modify the Result.

The great news was that the freediving World Governing Body, AIDA, had their judges in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, for two days.

I had 24 hours to Evaluate and to change my Decisions and Actions.

My Evaluation went like this:

The depth of a freediver’s max dive is not determined by how long they can hold their breath. It is determined by the ability to equalise their ears.

You may have felt your ears come under pressure, and perhaps become painful, in a swimming pool if you swim down.  If you dive on SCUBA you will have certainly had to learn how to equalise.

Mine was a No Limits dive. No Limits freediving involves using a sled like in my all time favourite film ‘The Big Blue/Grand Bleu’.

On a No Limits Dive I will reach a descent speed close to 2 metres per second. If I fail to equalise at exactly the same rate as pressure increases, I will suffer barotrauma in my ear – my ear drum will burst and bacteria will flood my inner ear. A poor Result.

At 30m the pressure seals my lungs: no more air for equalising. So at 25m, I push as much air as I can into my mouth. My mouthfill. When this is gone, I cannot equalise anymore.

On this failed dive, I exhausted that supply at around 80m. Ear pain began. I stopped the sled. I tried to find air in my mouth, between my teeth and gums, on the roof, anywhere. None.

I shook my head to dislodge air. None.

I unclipped to ascend to cause some hidden air to expand and dislodge. A terrible decision taken under narcosis. I failed to find any air.

I returned to my sled, found the intelligence to abort the dive and went back up for my Red Card.

As I bobbed on the line at 6m, being watched by the tourists, I remembered that during the descent I had felt that I could access air in my lungs at around 50m. I had opened my throat (larynx) to bring it into my mouth.

An illusion. Nobody can take air from their lungs at 50m. They are compressed and sealed. I had, of course, swallowed my mouthfill by opening my throat!

There are two rules in freediving: Follow the basic processes rigidly and push your limits slowly. I had broken the process and made up a new process on the way down according to ‘feel’.

I spent the evening alone, visualising the dive second by second with my eyes closed whilst working my laryngeal muscles, ensuring a tight seal.

The next day the dive was executed with new Decisions and Actions locked in.

The Result was delivered. 101m: the British record. The clear EVALUATION ensured that this was the case.

Do not doubt that you can change most of your Results with a clear, egoless, victim-narrative free, transparent Evaluation of your previous Decisions and Actions.

This is the High Performance DARE loop.

Your Action

Look back on your past week.

Find a Result that was sub-optimal. It does not have to be big. Being late for a meeting. Being ill-prepared. Losing a pitch. Not gaining buy-in. Losing confidence mid presentation. A day that was wasted responding to dysfunctional emails.

Evaluate YOUR role in delivering the Result (including your role in influencing others to adapt their approach).

Ownership is everything in High Performance. We can all find somebody to blame, we can all give away our power to change our performance.

What Action will you commit taking this week to improve your Results?

You’ve got this! You have my cast iron guarantee that careful Evaluation and new Decisions and Actions will change your Results.

Your Result and Your Evaluation

Inspire our community of over 25,000 Darers with your breakthrough!

Thank you to those who have sent in their stories of breakthroughs using DARE.

Next week I will begin publishing these to inspire our community. You can make a real difference around the world with your story.

My Week

Thank you to everybody who followed me on STRAVA last week! It’s been a real pleasure following your adventures and dealing the Kudos. I had a solid triathlon training week despite a lot of travel – but am currently really struggling to get to the pool. I am Evaluating!

I spoke to the outstanding leadership team of the company that 3.5 million Brits will trust their holidays to this year. My team have created a highlights reel that you can watch here.

A lot of speech writing has been happening for a trip to a leadership retreat on the Belgian coast via major events in Rome and Malaga next week. Follow me on Instagram or Linkedin and I’ll keep you posted on my travels.

I have chosen the pleasure of Ceri Evans’ company for my training sessions and travels this week. His book ‘Perform under Pressure’ gives you practical, immediate tools, successfully applied under pressure by the All Blacks, and is a masterclass in emotional intelligence and correct Decision making under pressure.

My next race is the Blenheim Palace Sprint Triathlon on 7 June. Will I see you there?

Write your story! 🖋️

Jim