ATG 263: The Hyper-Optimizer's Trap With Dr. James Hewitt  ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **When Optimization Backfires** - James Hewitt describes obsessing over power-to-weight as a cyclist and underfueling himself. - That hyper-optimization reduced his performance and made him chronically unwell. Transcript: James Hewitt There's several. I can give you a really clear one from sport and also one from my professional life as a business person as well. In sport, it was around nutrition, actually. So cycling is a really curious sport because it's so measurable. So you can model what's required to perform really well in a particular race. You can look at the terrain. You can figure out what power output you need to produce. Wattage. In wattage, yeah, and given parts of that route. And that's basically, you're literally measuring how hard you need to push on the pedals for how long. But the ultimate metric is not just how hard you can push on the pedals, it's how much you weigh because of this ratio called power-to ratio. And that's really what's going to determine essentially how fast can you go up a hill which is often where races are won and lost so you're always trying to find this sweet spot between Producing the most power that you can at the least at the lowest weight and it can lead to this obsession in cyclists with reducing weight reducing your body weight and you're actually Limited in terms of how light your bike can be by regulations um so uh you at a certain point you say how can i strip more of me yeah and so i became completely obsessed with that and actually To a fault because i ended up um going too far and losing too much weight and then starting to lose power yeah um but also along the way just developed this very unhelpful relationship With with eating sure because i had these very specific goals around you my carbohydrates my proteins my fats my calorie intake essentially i was kind of starving myself i look back Now and i was chronically under fueled so you know this what could have been quite helpful for my performance, this goal of optimizing power to weight ratio actually ended up becoming This hyper optimized obsession, which ended up eroding my performance. And I was less healthy. I got more sick. ([Time 0:08:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/94d817b8-d86a-4e39-be17-6499a84a6083)) - **A Health Crisis That Reset Priorities** - James found a lump in the shower and was diagnosed with cancer in his late 30s. - That diagnosis forced him to apply his own performance advice and reprioritize presence and recovery. Transcript: James Hewitt And I observed that the days that they had a really hard day at work they might not be able to finish the training session that i'd set them that they were able to complete easily a week before Yeah when workload was lower so i started to apply a different set of tools to try and quantify the load associated with knowledge work work or we think for a living and so i was measuring Things like heart rate variability which we can dig into if you're curious but essentially how well recovered you are at night psychological measures about the effort they were putting In behavioral measures looking at how many hours they worked and ended up developing this conceptualization of knowledge work like a cognitive endurance activity so some people Were interested in the idea i ended up getting headhunted by this human performance company in switzerland and that really opened up so many incredible opportunities for me so i was Applying this thinking this model with formula one teams not just drivers you know the people behind the scenes with 14 500 companies i was traveling the world and i was really driven My new goal became you know do i achieve professional success in this domain sure how did you define that so well for me um a lot of that was about being able to have the opportunity to explore To you know apply my curiosity sure to try and develop expertise in this domain because i was just so fascinated by how we can learn how to optimize human performance in the workplace Um but also get the opportunity to work with really interesting people in bigger domains so big companies where we might be able to move the needle and improve thousands of people's Lives and that drive that goal-directed behavior as you might call it in many ways was really positive but i became so obsessed i was neglecting to apply the lessons that i was teaching Other people and so so much of my thinking was based on this idea that we need to not combine effort with this hyper optimization measuring everything quantifying everything it was Actually about finding this blend between effort and recovery and as much as I was teaching that I'd kind of lost sight of it in my own life and so at one point you know I was I was 100 plus Fights a year. I was, you know, way too many. Missed dinners with families, missed weekends. You know, we had young kids at this time. And my wife's amazing. Like she kind of, you know, wasn't giving me a hard time. But I knew in myself that I wasn't as present as I should be. And I kept going like that for a couple of years but then you know life something happened you know i uh one morning i was in the shower and uh um i found a lump i received this diagnosis that Changed everything and um you know finding out i had cancer was like you know someone taking a stick putting it through the front wheel of my bike and yeah found myself flying through The air and what age were you when that happened so that was uh that was only four and a bit years ago so i was in my late late 30s um then and um and really that forced me to confront this hard Truth that i hadn't been applying these lessons that i'd been teaching other people um that that goal professionally of trying to succeed and for me that meant having a really positive Impact it was you know it was a positive goal yeah but that obsession led me to lose sight of what was most important and apply those those same lessons to myself and so that cancer experience Really forced this kind of reset this rethink and a recognition that as much as goals can be helpful they can be harmful if we become unhelpfully obsessed sure how are you different on Jon Acuff The other side of that yeah ([Time 0:11:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77abdabd-473b-4306-9407-5e00ed3d3f36)) - **Proactively Recharge With Four Recovery Types** - Use the recovery experiences framework: detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control to recharge. - Schedule proactive recovery (e.g., a weekly day off) rather than waiting for rest to happen. Transcript: James Hewitt So there's this really interesting idea that people think of recovery as something passive, but actually the evidence would indicate that it's something we have to do. And there's a great framework that describes this. It's called the recovery experiences framework and it describes as several dimensions of recovery experience that really helps to restore us so one of those is experiencing what's Called psychological detachment so a sense of mental distance from your work okay so i try and do that but for me that often means i need to do something to distract myself so physical Activity is quite a good one for me so going for a long bike ride or even just a walk. Second one's relaxation. So try and do something where my cognitive load decreases. Because again, I'm such a curious person, there can be a tendency to dig in some pretty meaty content on my day off. And I have to tell myself, actually, you know, this is maybe not the day to do that. Allow my brain to relax um maybe even let my body relax so are you reading like fiction during that i mean like what is what does that look like yeah so i mean my tendency would be to kind of Read some academic research papers that i was curious to read and to catch up on does not sound relaxing yeah but um exactly and it's not really it's i've convinced myself it was but it's Jon Acuff Not my wife my wife will say like if she sees me packing business books for a vacation she's like i know you're sneaking work in yeah like that's you sneaking like if you're catching up On business books yeah or and i always joke like she's gonna catch me in the closet on email and like that's you know like i've snuck away to answer emails or so yeah so academic books okay So are you but are you reading tabloids like do you how far the other like are you like how far are you going the other direction wouldn't actually read much and um and instead you know i James Hewitt Might kind of like watch the watch a show with my watch a movie with the kids yeah and you know just try and do something that's totally non-work related that's relaxing because for me One of my challenges is i'm so curious um i will over consume content yeah and so having a day off for me is trying to deliberately um have a day where i'm not just getting more and more input Yeah um so the the third dimension is really interesting it's about um it's called mastery experiences and it describes how um when we are fully immersed in learning something new then That can really help us to experience some of that psychological detachment, that mental distance. But ideally, it needs to be non-work related. And so, I mean, people would be really surprised to know that I'm a geek about lots of things, I'm sure. Jon Acuff Yeah, I think they're shocked. James Hewitt They'll be like, I can't believe this. But I love coffee and I've got a really overly complex espresso machine at home. Ah, okay. So, you know, the full kind of dual boiler, E61 group, blah, blah, blah. People who like coffee will know what that means. Yeah. And so just taking the time to really like dial in that grind setting to make that perfect espresso is a mastery experience for me that I really enjoy. And the final one is about control. And that really describes a sense of autonomy. So deploying your time and energy in a way that's aligned with what you want to do rather than someone else's schedule. And so if you can experience those four things, this is what I try and do to recharge. Experience that sense of detachment, which sometimes is the byproduct. Relaxation, mastery, control. Proactively, I find at the end of that day, I've recharged in a way that I didn't for way too long. ([Time 0:16:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cc8bd384-0c40-4863-ae3a-c36150606ed3)) - **Choose Shorter, Frequent Vacations** - Prefer more frequent shorter breaks (3–4 day holidays) over rare long vacations for mood and energy gains. - Prioritize control and feeling safe to make vacations actually restorative. Transcript: James Hewitt Some really interesting research around vacations see i knew you would start the sentence that way there's some research about vacations and it's it looks it's looked at um the optimal Optimum duration for vacations and it actually seems that um three to four day vacation which we call holidays in England is actually as effective in terms of restoring mood and energy As a much longer vacation like 10 to 14 days because it seems that that recovery kind of starts to peak and then plateau okay and so the evidence would indicate that you're probably better To have more frequent shorter vacations than less frequent longer ones but the other interesting factor is is that this other research indicates the most effective vacations have Several characteristics but one of the most important is the experience of control but also an experience that you're in an environment where you feel safe and deloaded from other Responsibilities i mean this is why it's really hard when you've got young kids because your vacation is just another type of work right and it can be even more chaotic i'm thinking about A family going to disney right now and deloaded is not the word i would use so so when the kids were younger um i actually learned to accept that some parts of that vacation were not actually Vacation because i think sometimes parents end up beating themselves up because you feel like you know this should be the best experience of your life um as a family but actually you're Exhausted and so for me kind of one of my kind of tricks was to accept that acknowledge it and say this is about facilitating a fantastic experience for my kids but then be deliberate either In small chunks during the vacation or maybe even when i came home to say i'm gonna have a little bit of time to really recharge and recover. And just be honest about that. But really for me, it is about looking for those opportunities for more frequent, shorter periods, where maybe I might just say, you know, we'll have a long weekend somewhere, or even A day in the week where I'll just go for a long bike ride, for example. Rather than fixating and putting all my hope in this, you know, 10 day, 14 day vacation, hoping that's going to do everything for me for the next 12 months. ([Time 0:21:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aa551c92-2a54-477b-86d3-607631ac067a)) - **Hustle Myths Undermine Human Needs** - Hustle myths (willpower, passion, monk mode) distort autonomy, competence, and relatedness. - Overemphasizing them undermines motivation and increases burnout risk. Transcript: James Hewitt I think the first one would be this idea that um it's the idea that all we need is more drive yeah um secondly all we need is more more passion yeah and that we just need to do it on our own you've Just kind of of got to lock in go full monk mode yeah and the reason that those three are um really problematic is that there's elements of truth in all of them but they're massively exaggerated In a really unhelpful way and it ends up compromising our most fundamental human needs our psychological needs so would you say willpower passion and monk mode are the three yeah they Get you yeah um and i'd say the reason for that is that um there's this really interesting model called self-determination theory which i don't know if you've come across it before but Um it was first described by edward desse and richard ryan more than 40 years ago i have uh like the little book that desse wrote about it yeah it's brilliant isn't it and it's become the Most enduring model in the psychology of human thriving and it's become enduring because it's so predictive of positive outcomes um there's some models that sound good but they don't Stick around because they don't actually predict anything good or bad whereas this really does and they contend that humans have three fundamental psychological needs autonomy Feeling self-directed competence feeling capable and effective and relatedness which is about our connection with others and the problem with those those myths the kind of the hustler's Myths the myths of hustle culture the hyper optimizers is that they basically distort those three fundamental psychological needs so that sense of autonomy being self-directed And for you fall into the trap that it's about that you think i just need more self-control but there's this really interesting phenomena um called uh repenting hyperopia repenting Hyperopia yeah okay and it describes how um later in life people sometimes reflect that excessive use of self-control actually meant that they missed out on joy at the expense of maybe Pursuing some goals. So again, it's this kind of overextension. The second one around competence, that you just need more drive, you just need more passion. There's this really interesting phenomenon that describes, it's called the dualistic model of passion. And it describes how we can experience a harmonious passion where we're doing something, we're improving, and it feels flexible and energizing and fun. Fills you up. Or it becomes obsessive passion where that drive for competence, for getting better, is actually characterized by rigid persistence. And it's actually quite a significant contributor to burnout. So that obsessive passion compromises that sense of competence. And you could characterize this or you might experience this where if you can't do the thing that you're trying to build competence in that you're trying to do you feel bad but then if You do the thing you feel bad rather than being healthy flexible energizing and then this monk mode compromises relatedness and it's this idea that somehow you know i just need to focus On myself you know i'm protecting my peace lock in exactly and again there's bits of truth in that. But it's so clear that self-improvement is not selfish. And again, there's this really interesting notion that describes how when we invest in others, we actually get more back. We've experienced it, many of us have, but the data bear this out. And I think it comes from this idea that life is a zero-sum game, and this is what you see online. It's like if I invest in you, there's somehow less energy for me. Whereas actually the evidence points completely to the contrary, that if you really want to develop yourself, give away of yourself. ([Time 0:27:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2487bd59-f4ee-414b-99d5-c9db9f728879)) - **Forget 21 Days: Habit Timing Varies** - Forming a habit can take 4 to over 200 days depending on complexity and motivation. - Prioritize consistency and identity (becoming 'the kind of person' who does it) over a fixed day count. Transcript: James Hewitt Yeah so i mean that you can build a habit in as quickly as a couple of days four days yeah four days or it could be over 200 days yeah so and it depends on so many factors it depends on the complexity Of the task yeah how familiar you are with it already, your motivation to build that new habit, whether it really matters to you. And I think we've all seen this and we've felt it, we've experienced it, but it's so tempting. There's these people who say, oh, it takes 21 days to build a habit. The interesting thing is, is that that finding was based on how long it took people to get used to their new face following plastic surgery. Jon Acuff It's a weird habit, by the way. James Hewitt Yeah, exactly. It's not particularly generalizable, is it? Yeah. And you see that all the time. People try and generalize these statistics beyond their original intention. So it's just a range. ([Time 0:33:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d4c2c268-9392-4743-82b4-28d1bb139322)) - **Be Your Own Supportive Friend** - Practice self-compassion to counter self-oriented perfectionism by treating yourself like a friend. - Monitor and reframe your inner monologue when you fail to mirror kinder responses you'd give others. Transcript: James Hewitt There's two types of perfectionism other orientated perfectionism which is where we think that people expect perfection of us, and self-orientated perfectionism, which describes Expecting perfection of ourself. So I'll speak to the self-orientated perfectionism. The number one thing you can do is to try to exercise some self-compassion. And so the evidence is really compelling that that can help to overcome some of that self-orientated perfectionism. And the most simple way that I can describe that is try to be the friend to yourself that you aspire to be to others ah that's good so self-compassion is the antidote to self-orientated Jon Acuff Perfectionism what does that look like in the practical sense is it how you talk to yourself is it you leave yourself notes like what is a if i said to you i want to practice self-compassion James Hewitt Yeah how would i practice it so i think it is about paying attention to your soundtrack. Hey, there we go. Your self-talk, your inner monologue. And just notice what you're saying to yourself. And notice if you're saying things to yourself that you wouldn't say to a friend. I see this in my own life. ([Time 0:35:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c40cd936-1c2b-4b5b-9201-629499271bb3)) - **Why Winners Struggle To Enjoy Success** - The 3P model (Permanence, Pervasiveness, Personalization) explains why high performers downplay wins and magnify losses. - Reframe these attributions to accept success and reduce guilt or self-sabotage. Transcript: James Hewitt And there's a model related to it called the 3P model, which I find can be really helpful for people who struggle with this. I struggle with it. And the 3Ps stand for permanenceence pervasiveness and personalization so the um permanence one there's a tendency for people who struggle with this that when good things happen They assume that they're only it's only going to be temporary so they don't really let the good thing sink in and when a bad thing don't get used to it yeah a bad thing happens they think It's going to be like that forever so so say in my case to make this really practical i can win a gig for a really big event that i'm really looking forward to so like when i got to speak at the Global leadership center this year i was so excited when i booked that gig and my tendency is to be like right great move on to the next thing rather than really letting that opportunity Sink in. A bad thing happens, I lose a gig. It's all going downhill. My career's over. Permanence. And pervasiveness is about how we globalise and how we explain good and bad things. So there's a tendency for people like me sometimes who struggle with the good things to globalise failure. So say, again, in that example, I miss out. I don't book that speaking gig. I'd say, well, you know, never win anything. Never good at anything. Now, obviously, that's extreme. I probably wouldn't be that harsh on myself. But it's just an example of how we globalize the bad things. But then we localize the good things. So when a really good thing happens, we say, well, it's just a one-off. It only relates to this. You wouldn't say, well, actually, no, like maybe globalize it. This is because I've really worked at this, because I've got some great characteristics as a professional, as a human. So look at the broader implications of that good thing. And the final one is about personalization. Generally, if the permanence and the pervasiveness are well calibrated, you get the personalization right. The personalization describes how much you attribute success or failure to others versus yourself. And so, again, there's a tendency, if you struggle with this, that with the personalization piece, if a bad thing happens, you tend to over-attribute it to yourself. So you say, it's all my fault, rather than recognizing there might be environmental factors that could play a role. ([Time 0:37:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/13fb03af-ccdf-43f7-b7ac-24dec40efd79)) - **Systematize Celebration Rituals** - Ritualize celebrations with systems and team input instead of relying on willpower. - Create repeatable rituals (meals, weekends, crowd-sourced ideas) so wins get recognized and anticipated. Transcript: James Hewitt So i think so just generally speaking if you're trying to introduce a new behavior whatever it is or a new approach i always say systems beat self-control every time we really over index On our ability to apply willpower to solve problems it's generally systems that work and it's no different when you look at celebration so generally for me and for the people that i'd Work with i'd recommend that they create rituals for celebration and essentially things that you do the problem is it's like if you just leave it to chance you probably won't you won't Do it likely related to that challenge that i mentioned earlier around the you know the permanence the pervasiveness you localize it and you think it's temporary so you just say oh great Now move on to the next thing and so can you create some type of celebration ritual individually and as a team so for example um for me uh one of the ways i do this is with my family and so um If i've got a big win we'll go out for a really nice meal as a family so we've got two kids now they're 11 and 14 they really enjoy going to restaurants they're old enough not to kind of throw Food everywhere sure thankfully most of the time and so as a family have this ritual celebration so there's a couple of places that kids really like to go and we like to go as well and just Get into the ritual the routine of a big win and doing that and then periodically during the year like my wife and i will go away for a weekend to celebrate leave the kids with grandparents Sure and we'll stay in a nice hotel have some nice meals have some nice time together and as a team you might figure out as a team what can you do probably one of the best thing to do is speak To your team and crowdsource some ideas because even that process of speaking to your team and saying you know i want to get better at celebrating because i'm i know i'm not very good at It and what do you what could we do what would you like to do that would make you feel valued that would be fun that means we could have some can inject some joy into this team and celebrate Together for all the hard work that we've put into whatever we've been working towards even just surfacing that idea makes people feel valued. And it's a form, perhaps, of people anticipate the celebration, and often it's the anticipation that's better than the actual thing. So whatever the case, systems over self-control, ritualize it, have some routines and some ways of celebrating. ([Time 0:41:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/04f072c7-c042-4917-87fd-e9ad6f59d40c)) - **A Spoken Hotel-Check Ritual** - James speaks out loud in hotel rooms when leaving to check every area is clear. - He adopted the ritual from Japanese airline culture to prevent forgetting items. Transcript: James Hewitt And I get really stressed about packing and repacking, which is quite difficult in my profession because I do it a lot. Because if I'm not careful, I'll forget things. So when I leave a hotel room and everything's packed up, I go around every part of the room and I actually speak out loud, this area is clear. This area is clear. That's really good. Because if I don't, I get outside my hotel room, I'm walking down the corridor and i'm like did i forget something and i have to go back yeah yeah so and i got that idea actually from um this Is something that um it's in japanese culture and japanese work culture that if you watch kind of japan airlines they go through this kind of ritualized process when they're kind of Closing up the door for example and it's a way to kind of ensure high quality that repetition um and also remind yourself that you've done the right thing because it's ritualized so it's Very clear if something's got broken in that that chain that cycle so that's my little kind of one of my little quirks for leaving i like that this is this area is clear exactly so you're Jon Acuff More likely to leave something in the room versus forget to bring it? Both. ([Time 0:44:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b7f08f80-844d-4c2b-b8c5-e00dc7df2e3d)) - **Gamify Boring Tasks With Time Blocks** - Use time-boxed 'time aspirations' and Pomodoro blocks to make tedious tasks manageable. - Track brief blocks with a bezel or timer and avoid keeping your phone nearby to prevent distraction. Transcript: James Hewitt Because if I don't, I get distracted so easily. Jon Acuff A time aspiration. That feels very compassionate to yourself. James Hewitt Yeah. Well, it's kind of, so again, I find that it kind of gamifies the experience for me and it works really well if there's a task that I find a bit boring. So one of the challenges for me is if I'm preparing a slide deck, for example, for a client. So I do a lot of speaking. That's my main thing. Sure. But I also do some consulting and implement some of these ideas. And often one of the outputs will be some type of slide deck. Yeah. And I've got all the notes. I've got all the data. But I can't really be bothered to turn that into the slide deck. Yeah. And I've got to do it. Yeah. So my time aspiration will be, I'm going to try and do this in one hour yeah and i know it's a bit of a stretch and it kind of becomes a game then and it stops me from being tempted to you know Get my smartphone like look on social media distract myself because i don't want to do are you using a timer on your phone how are you timing that hour so um generally what i'll do is i'll Actually um i'll use my my watch so i don't have a smart watch i a mechanical watch. And it's a dive watch. So I've got a bezel on it. And so I use the bezel. You can hear it going? Yeah. To time the block. And often I'll Pomodoro my time. So 25-minute block of focus, five-minute recovery, repeat. Because if my phone is near me, it's too risky. I'll end up like my dopamine-seeking brain is going to go down the social media. ([Time 0:47:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ace38dfa-d0fb-4f0a-8ea9-09244a72c65f)) - **HRV Reveals Daily Capacity** - Nightly heart rate variability (HRV) tracks your psychophysiological resources and predicts daily drive. - Use HRV trends as a nudge to invest in recovery when readings drop relative to your baseline. Transcript: James Hewitt I use that um so there's one metric I'm really interested in called heart rate variability. Jon Acuff HRV? James Hewitt HRV, yeah. And that's a measure of the difference in time between each heartbeat. Okay. What does that reveal? So it's an index of your psychophysiological resources, John. Ah, okay. I bet you waited for me to say that. I was going to say that. I was going to guess that. I know it was on the tip of your tongue, wasn't it? And essentially that's just a fancy way of saying that it's a measure of the resources that we've got in our brain and our body in our mind and our body that's psycho physiological because The evidence indicates that when we have a relatively higher hrv reading relative to our baseline and so you track this every night you get a baseline over time that's an indication That you're going to have more drive physically and mentally yeah something i studied in my phd actually that on days where people's heart rate variability is relatively higher they Often feel more motivated they they report that they're more productive at work and if you suddenly get a drop in hrv or it's trending down over time that's an indicator often that your Resources are starting to get drained both mentally and physically and so for me that measure over time just acts as a another signal in the mix to help me get a sense of am i trending in The right direction do i need to maybe invest a bit more in my recovery because that perseverance strength is really helpful a lot of the time so i can just keep pushing through but it can Also mean that I get a bit detached from what's actually going on in my body. Sure. And I don't want to over-rely on a wearable, but for me it can be quite a helpful tool just to get that extra insight to nudge me and say, again, like I said earlier, I used to like to convince Myself I was a superhuman, an exception to the rule. ([Time 0:51:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d7eb82ea-7dff-4b52-8fa5-c5989f53f69b)) - **Belief Shapes Sleep Performance** - Perception of sleep influences performance as much as measured sleep metrics. - Avoid obsessing over imperfect wearable sleep data because belief alone can change physiology and outcomes. Transcript: James Hewitt A degree right for good and for bad so they did a great they've done several great studies on this but one for example shows that if you believe that you've slept longer than you actually Have because they're called it's called a sleep deception study so they and they put you in what's called a timeless environment and then they so you don't know what time is and then when They tell you what time it is and how long you think you've slept for they measure what happens in your perception but also your physiology and the remarkable thing is if you trick someone Into believing they slept longer than they did not only do they feel like they slept longer their brain performs like a more awake brain it's crazy you see this suppression in something Called delta brainwave activity unfortunately the opposite is also true so if you wake up feeling fine but then your wearable tells you that you slept less or you got less REM sleep, Then you automatically feel worse. So on a trip like this, for example, where I'm still applying all my protocols around jet lag and whatever, but still my sleep isn't perfect. I actually don't monitor my sleep at all when I'm away because the relative upside is too small relative to the potential downside. ([Time 0:53:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0f7e9fbc-7708-4eba-b38a-51ae0bad23c8)) - **Watches, Socks, And Undervalued Rest** - James openly admits he overspends on mechanical watches and calls them heirlooms. - He contrasts that with underspending on personal downtime and occasionally wearing socks with holes. Transcript: James Hewitt I've also, I probably also overspend on watches. Are you a big watch guy? I do like my watches. Yeah. Nice. I've always been really curious about watches. Sure. I love mechanical watches. Yeah. I worked in Geneva for quite a few years and that only kind of fed. Oh my gosh, yeah. Jon Acuff That's got to be the capital, right? James Hewitt I kind of handed that on to my kids as well now, which is going to be interesting come 18th birthday time. Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of pressure. So yeah, but I convinced myself it's an investment, right? Because I'm like, oh, it's a store of value. Like, you know, they're never going to. Jon Acuff And people recognize it. James Hewitt Yeah, it's an heirloom. I'm going to pass it on to my kids. Sure, you never own it. You just take care of it for the next generation. It's Patek Philippe. Yeah, exactly. That's what an amazing advertising campaign, by the way. That's so great. So, yeah. So, that's definitely, I'd say, some would call it an overspend. I call it an investment in the future. There you go. There you go. That's a good way to... But then, in terms of underspend, nothing really springs to mind. ([Time 0:56:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/996edb4b-5d8b-47de-bec5-d9630507e886)) - **Beat Procrastination With Tiny Actions** - Overcome procrastination by identifying its root, often fear of failure, and grant yourself permission to fail. - Start with a minimum viable action to generate momentum and prioritize progress over perfection. Transcript: James Hewitt I'd often say to people where's the procrastination coming from because very often procrastination is actually a manifestation of a fear of failure i found for me for many people that I've worked with so um give yourself permission to fail and aim for progress, not perfection. So choose a really small goal. So you've got a big project you're working on, find what I call minimum viable action. What's the smallest expression of working towards that goal that you can make a difference on right now and commit to doing that? And that can help to overcome some of that inertia. You give yourself permission to just make progress, not perfection. ([Time 0:58:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/72a0e0f1-335b-4bbd-978b-9df3fe1d3962)) - **Reframe Stress Into Fuel** - Reappraising stress as activation for valued goals changes physiology and performance. - Acknowledge stress, reframe it as useful energy, and believe stress can fuel rather than harm you. Transcript: James Hewitt Absolutely so there's some really interesting research you could just repeat which describes how our mindset in relation to stress plays a really fundamental role in determining Whether stress is going to be helpful or harmful so initially when we experience a stressor there's something called an appraisal phase a primary appraisal phase and essentially We're deciding is this thing a threat is it a challenge or is it something we can ignore that then shifts into secondary appraisal where we make a decision have i got what it takes to be Able to handle this challenge and that will then determine our stress response physiologically and also our behavior how we uh how we interact with the world and respond to this stress All but the evidence indicates that if we can kind of interfere in a positive way with that primary and secondary appraisal phase it can fundamentally alter our physiology our body And our psychology our brain so next time you experience something that's challenging first acknowledge it that means don't try and ignore it sometimes we try and push stress away Acknowledge it but then tell yourself shift your inner narrative and say this stress this activation i'm feeling is actually an indicator that something I value is at stake. And then try to transform stress into a form of activation and energy and use that energy to tackle the demand that was causing the stress in the first place. And if you combine that with a shift in your belief, so you acknowledge the stress, you reframe the stress, you use the energy and shift your belief that stress can be something that actually Fuels you rather than harms you. Then the evidence indicates that not only are you going to be able to tackle that challenge more effectively, but we see changes in physiology that actually help to protect us from some Of the negative impacts of stress. And there's a research called Alia Crum who's done a lot of great research in this. ([Time 1:01:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/10bd144f-8e92-40b3-a519-b2e2fbbc413f))