What can extreme endurance teach a CEO, business owner, or sales leader about performing under pressure?
Quite a lot.
In this episode of The Workforce Alchemy Show, I sat down with Neil Thubron, an executive coach, sales performance expert, keynote speaker, endurance athlete, and author of Yucan: Achieve Any Big Goal Using the 7P Formula for Success.
Neil has worked at IBM, served in the British Army, led multinational sales organizations across 38 countries, and taken part in extreme endurance events including the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the Yukon Arctic Ultra, and a 5,500-mile offshore sailing race from Australia to China.
I have done Ironman triathlons and 100-mile ultramarathons myself, so this conversation became personal very quickly.
We kept coming back to the same question:
What happens when the plan stops working, the pressure rises, and quitting starts to look reasonable?
That question matters in endurance sports.
It also matters in business.
Leadership Under Pressure Starts With Clarity
Neil made an important distinction about leadership during difficult periods.
A leader needs to be clear about the destination, even when the route has to change.
He compared it to offshore sailing. The destination stays the same, but changing winds, storms, and sea conditions may force the crew to alter course.
Business works the same way.
A CEO may have a clear strategic objective, but market conditions, customer behavior, sales performance, staffing, or competition can force changes in how the organization gets there.
Strong leadership does not mean stubbornly following the original plan.
It means staying committed to the outcome while remaining perceptive enough to adjust the approach.
Why Employee Empowerment Matters
One of Neil’s earliest leadership lessons came while working as a young manager at IBM.
He participated in an experiment involving empowered teams. Instead of having every important decision flow through management, employees were given greater responsibility and authority.
At one point, Neil allowed his team to help select their own supervisor.
They chose someone different from the person Neil expected them to choose.
They were right.
That experience helped shape his view of leadership.
The people closest to the work often possess information, perspective, and experience that senior leaders do not have.
The leader’s job is not always to provide the answer.
Sometimes it is to create enough clarity, trust, and accountability for the team to find the better answer.
Fear-Based Leadership Can Hurt Performance
Neil also discussed one of the leadership behaviors he sees damaging sales organizations: fear.
When performance slips, some leaders react by increasing pressure.
More meetings.
More pipeline reviews.
More reporting.
More explanations.
More demands for updates.
Neil shared an example of a sales leader who was required to explain pipeline movement every day, including on a Saturday when customers were not working.
That kind of internal pressure can create activity without creating results.
A sales manager who is constantly preparing reports and defending forecasts has less time to coach salespeople, engage customers, and move opportunities forward.
Pressure alone is not a performance strategy.
The 7P Formula for Achieving Big Goals
Neil’s book, Yucan: Achieve Any Big Goal Using the 7P Formula for Success, provides a framework for pursuing difficult goals.
The seven Ps are:
Purpose
Know why the goal matters.
Neil distinguishes between an internal reason and an external reason.
The internal reason may get you started.
The external reason, such as your family, employees, customers, team, or a cause you care about, may be what keeps you moving when things become difficult.
Preparation
Prepare for the conditions you are likely to face.
In endurance events, that means training, nutrition, equipment, pacing, and contingency plans.
In business, it can mean developing skills, hiring the right people, preparing sales processes, understanding financial requirements, and anticipating problems before they occur.
Plan
Ambition needs structure.
A goal becomes more achievable when it is broken into actions, milestones, responsibilities, and measurable outcomes.
Pledge
There is a difference between wanting something and committing to it.
Neil describes the moment when a goal changes from something you would like to achieve into something you have decided you are going to pursue seriously.
Perception
No plan survives unchanged.
You have to pay attention to the results you are getting.
If the strategy is not working, change the strategy.
Do not confuse commitment to the destination with commitment to a particular route.
Pain
Difficult goals come with difficult moments.
Neil recommends developing a pain strategy before those moments arrive.
Who will you call?
What will help you regain perspective?
What routine, music, coach, mentor, or mental cue can help you get back into a productive state?
Persistence
Keep moving.
Temporary difficulty does not have to become permanent defeat.
Progress may slow. The strategy may change. The conditions may get worse.
Persistence means continuing to move toward the objective instead of allowing one painful moment to decide the outcome.
Resilience Is Not Working Until Something Breaks
One of the strongest parts of our conversation focused on resilience.
Neil sees leaders who interpret resilience as working earlier, staying later, pushing harder, and expecting their teams to do the same.
That is not sustainable resilience.
That is endurance without recovery.
Neil encourages leaders to protect what Stephen Covey called the “big rocks.”
That can include exercise, family time, recovery, reflection, sleep, and routines that help leaders remain mentally and physically capable of making good decisions.
Resilience should help you continue performing.
It should not require destroying yourself or your team in the process.
The People Around You Matter
This part of the conversation resonated with me personally.
During a 100-mile ultramarathon, there are moments when your judgment is not as sharp as it was at the starting line.
You are tired.
You hurt.
Your original plan may no longer be working.
That is when the quality of the people around you becomes incredibly important.
You do not necessarily need a cheerleader.
You need someone experienced enough to know the difference between discomfort and danger.
Someone who can tell you when to stop.
Someone who can also tell you when you are capable of continuing.
Business leaders need the same thing.
The right advisor, coach, executive team member, mentor, or peer can help you adjust your approach without abandoning the objective.
Watch or Listen to the Full Conversation
If you are a CEO, business owner, executive, sales leader, HR leader, or team leader responsible for producing results through other people, I think you will get a lot out of this conversation.
We talk about leadership under pressure, employee empowerment, sales performance, resilience, persistence, mental toughness, fear-based management, and what extreme endurance can teach us about achieving difficult goals.
Listen to the full podcast:
https://open.acast.com/public/streams/5cd334e4e3b953af742edd5d/episodes/6aa1971b156a52f88088a8cf.mp3
Watch the full conversation on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/DCC75iJIveo
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