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The Formula of Success: What Most High Performers Still Get Wrong What if success - real, fulfilling, sustainable success - wasn’t a mystery? In life, most people chase success or happiness as an objective, a single goal to have or to be, or not … In my work as a business executive, athlete, coach, and social life husband, father, son, … I’ve sat across from elite athletes, startup founders, CEOs, and high-performing professionals. Despite their vastly different domains, the conversations often revolve around the same core question of success. What if it was a mindset leading to a formula? I am introducing the Formula of Success (TFOS), which we will explore deeper in the following weeks, item per item.  The Formula
Success = ∑ (Time) ∑(Focus) (Preparation × Vision × Courage) + Luck - Goal Where:
Mind You: The Real Risks Behind Missing Factors Understanding TFOS isn’t just about knowing the elements, it’s about recognizing the dangers of imbalance. Here are the key patterns I’ve seen derail the driven:
Final Thought The Formula of Success isn’t theoretical; it’s based on life. It doesn’t guarantee a walk in the park, but it gives you a framework to make clear decisions, steady progress, and meaningful reflections, no matter what your field or ambition. It’s the system behind sustainable peak performance, but you still have to do it. Don’t forget! It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey! BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:
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Invest in High Potentials Character Beyond Skills: The Endurance Advantage In a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), your High Potentials (HIPOs) aren’t just your future, they’re your now. Most companies know this. That’s why they funnel budgets into management training, leadership development programs, and upskilling initiatives. But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud: that’s not enough anymore.  1. Health and Wellbeing: The Untapped ROI Driver Your HIPOs are under pressure, always increasing. They're constantly operating near max capacity. In the VUCA world, the real skill is stress resilience, not just stress management. The question is if you can build the character and mentality to deal with the extra stress. Burnout is up. Absenteeism is climbing. Studies estimate that burnout costs companies up to $190 billion annually in healthcare spending alone, with productivity loss, turnover, and disengagement stacking up more hidden costs. Yet we still act like stress is something to "push through." If you’re investing six figures in developing HIPOs, why are you leaving their health to chance? Supporting their physical and mental wellbeing isn’t a "nice-to-have", it’s a performance imperative. And when you show up for their health, they show up for your business: loyalty, engagement, and retention skyrocket. 2. The Mind-Body Business Connection Let’s stop pretending mental performance is disconnected from physical condition. A healthy mind lives in a healthy body. You want focused, high-output leaders? Then prioritize strength, endurance, sleep, recovery, breathing, mobility, nutrition, and hydration, not in silos, but as part of an integrated strategy for workplace performance. Think of it as executive conditioning. You are not just surviving the workload but thriving in it. 3. You Hire for Character. So Start Investing in It. Every HR slide deck says, “We hire for character.” So why aren’t we continuously training, nurturing and building character? Endurance sports, and all it encompasses, isn’t just about physical performance; it’s a character-building crucible. The year-long journey of consistent, personalized endurance coaching hammers in grit, discipline, emotional control, and delayed gratification. What most managers gain over 5 years of corporate grind, a HIPO can build in 1 year of endurance-based development. It’s not just health. It’s a transformation of body AND mind. 4. Psychological Breakthroughs Lead to Boardroom Brilliance
There’s something powerful about doing what you once thought was impossible. From completing a triathlon to smashing a personal best. When HIPOs succeed outside the office, breaking through unsurmountable barriers, their psychology shifts. They stop seeing limits. They start thinking in terms of “what if I can?” instead of “what if I fail?” And the day-to-day challenges “feel” relatively easier, manageable, which improves stress resilience. That mindset echoes by example across teams, presentations, negotiations, and leadership challenges. You're not just building confidence. You're creating contagious belief in what's possible. 5. Strategy Lessons from the Racecourse to the Boardroom Multi-sport endurance training is a masterclass in real-time strategy, agility, prioritization, and resilience. These aren’t just physical skills, they’re direct analogs for business:
And unlike traditional coaches, GREAT ENDURANCE coaches are former business executives. We don’t just teach the sport. We translate it into strategy and mentor your HIPOs through both. Best Case: Unleashing High Potential on All Fronts When you build HIPO health and character, you don’t just get a fitter employee, you get a more resilient leader with heightened self-awareness, strategic clarity, improved energy levels, and the grit to drive results under pressure. You also foster loyalty. HIPOs who feel invested in are more likely to stay with the company. It’s a long-term play with exponential returns. Aurelien Latour, HR Director - Employee & Labour Relations EMEA at Apple confirms "By having myself gone through this experience of the Ironman 70.3 supported by GREAT Endurance, I was able to experience the many benefits of the preparation and outcomes, but also reinforce my conviction as HR Leader that triathlon and especially long distance is a life and work ethic that elevates personal’s capabilities in a unique way!" What If You Don’t? Let’s be blunt: you’ll lose them, or break them. The HIPO's who feels unsupported? They’ll leave. The ones who don’t learn to manage stress and energy? They’ll burn out. And the pipeline you spent years building? Gone. Worse still, you’re sending the message: “We want your brain, but we don’t care about your health, your growth, or your character.” That message won’t cut it in today’s competitive talent market. What’s More Risky: Investing in Your HIPOs or Playing Wait-and-See? You already know the answer. The real risk is the cost of doing nothing. You can either proactively build future-ready leaders who are healthy, strategic, and mentally bulletproof… Or sit back, cross your fingers, and hope they don’t crack, quit, or coast. Your choice. But if you’re serious about performance, loyalty, and long-term leadership success, you might consider nurturing the next generation of resilient, high-performing leaders beyond the narrowly defined, purely job related skills. Don’t forget: It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey! BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:
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In business, sport, and life, there are only three real levers to pull when you're in transition: Learn, Earn, and Turn. I use them every time I step into a new interim leadership role, and recently, I realized something powerful: this model doesn't just apply to companies, it applies in your personal life, too.  LEARN: The Outside-In Advantage
The first month in any new organization is like landing on a foreign planet. You don’t walk in with a hammer looking for nails. You listen, observe, and go beyond surface-level reports. You look for the hidden currents; what people aren’t saying, what gets swept under the rug or are hidden in plain sight - the forest through the trees, and where the friction lies between teams, tech, or targets. This isn’t passive. It’s active listening paired with curiosity. And guess what? The same applies to your personal growth. Whether in business or endurance sport, most of us are too close to our routines to see what’s outdated, inefficient, or just plain wrong. You need to zoom out to level up. Keep questioning what you are doing. Learn from friends, colleagues, books and online videos. Get a coach to get an outside perspective. EARN: Quick Wins Build Long-Term Trust Month two is where I shift into gear. I’m still learning, but now I’m applying it. I go after low-hanging fruit, the quick, smart, meaningful wins. Surfacing hidden truths and highlighting process inefficiencies that have grown over time, but weren't being questioned anymore as "they had always been done that way." These aren't cosmetic fixes, they’re evidence. Evidence that change is possible. Evidence that I understand the system. In a corporate setting, it might be a process improvement or cross-industry best practice. In life, it might be changing your morning routine or adjusting your swim stroke. When you implement something small that works, you start to trust the process. Consistency is key to materialize the growth. Earn your self-respect by keeping to it. Make the change ! Without that, the next step falls flat. TURN: Lead the Way Forward—Together Now comes the pivot. This is when you go from outsider to change leader. But here’s the trick: you don’t dictate the turn, you co-create it. You share the patterns you’ve seen, tie them back to people within the organization, and help them connect the dots. They need to see their own fingerprints on the new direction. You don’t just turn the wheel, you help others grip it with you. In sport, this might look like finally embracing structured training, listening to your coach, or leaving behind old habits that no longer serve you. It’s not about reinventing everything; it’s about turning towards something better, together. This is also why it is important to educate your athlete so they can see and believe why they change their habits. You can not force them as a coach, they need to be willing to join you on that journey. Why This Model Applies to YOU (Yes, You) Here’s the punchline: until recently, I didn’t see that I needed to apply this to myself. My blind spot? Assuming that personal evolution was automatic. It’s not. In an era of AI, rapid tech shifts, and aging knees (let’s be honest), we all need to continually learn, earn, and turn. The minute we stop learning, we start falling behind. The minute we stop earning trust with others, or with ourselves, we lose our edge. And if we never turn, we stay stuck in habits that no longer match our ambitions. Executive Athletes, Take Note If you're an executive triathlete reading this, the metaphor writes itself. You’ve been training for years. You know how to suffer. You’ve got the Garmin- Strava - TriDot log to prove it. But what if your plan is stale? What if your "strengths" are now your blind spots? A coach isn’t there to tear you down. They’re there to learn your rhythm, earn your trust with a few smart tweaks, and then help you turn toward your next breakthrough. That takes humility. It takes openness. And it takes a mindset that’s more about growth than ego. So ask yourself:
Because if you're not doing all three, you’re standing still. Don’t forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey! BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:
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How to Stay Lean Without Losing Your Edge Let’s face it—executive life is demanding. Meetings, deadlines, travel, and decision fatigue hit hard and fast before most people have their second coffee. But staying lean? That doesn’t require a sabbatical or a personal chef. It requires systems, not willpower. These 10 daily habits are how high-performing execs stay lean, focused, and ready for anything.  1. No Alcohol
Elite executives either cut it out completely or reserve it for rare, intentional moments. Why? Because alcohol is a triple threat: it spikes appetite, adds empty calories, and delays fat loss. Want to stay sharp and lean? Keep the champagne for the truly special deals. 2. 10,000+ Steps a Day Lean execs engineer movement into their day. Walking meetings, stairs over elevators, parking far away, walking around the office while on speaker, … these are micro-habits that add up. 10K steps isn’t a number; it’s a mindset. Your day is your gym. 3. Endurance Training is Foundational Want to build staying power? Prioritize endurance. Think early morning fasted cardio runs, bike sessions during virtual calls and webinars, or treadmill walks with a podcast. Zone 2 training is gold - low stress & high return. You’re not training to collapse on the finish line; you’re training to outlast the chaos. 4. Weightlifting is Critical for Durability Muscle is your metabolic engine and your injury insurance. Resistance training 2–3x per week builds not just strength, but resilience. No time for the gym? Knock out bodyweight exercises during the day at the office: squats, push-ups, lunges or use resistance bands and work on your core strengthening while watching TV at night. Strength isn’t vanity, it’s strategy. 5. Sleep: The Silent Performance Enhancer Lean execs treat sleep like a board meeting, with priority and purpose. Aim for 7–8 hours a night, ideally in 90-minute cycles. Quality sleep reduces cravings, boosts recovery, regulates hormones, and sharpens your mood and focus. Ignore sleep, and your performance will tank over time. 6. They Keep Themselves Honest You can’t optimize what you don’t track. Always wear your sports watch or OURA ring, weigh in regularly and log your steps. Lean execs know their numbers as if it were there body balance sheet and PNL. This isn’t about six-packs. It’s about self-leadership. What gets measured gets managed. 7. Real Food Dominates Their Plates Forget fads. The lean lifestyle is built on eggs, steak, chicken, fruit, and vegetables. Protein and fiber are the anchors. Processed food? Enjoy it—but rarely. Your taste buds can be retrained to crave clarity over convenience. If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, neither should your metabolism. 8. Breathing Excellence Powers Performance High performers don’t just manage time, they manage breath. During training, techniques like LRC (Locomotor Respiratory Coupling) enhance endurance. At work? Box breathing and nasal breathing calm stress, boost clarity, and drop cortisol. Breathe better. Lead better. 9. Embrace Discipline Motivation is fickle. Discipline is freedom. These execs don’t wait to “feel like it”—they show up regardless. They train when tired, eat clean when stressed, and follow the plan when it’s inconvenient. As Aristotle said: “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” 10. It’s Part of Their Identity This isn’t about hacks. It’s about habits embedded in who they are. Every action is a vote for the person they want to become. And when they slip? They reset, not retreat. It’s about standards—and surrounding yourself with the kind of people who raise yours. Don’t forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey! BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:
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Coach Glenn* Founder and Head Coach GR&AT Endurance Training * Ironman Certified Coach 
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