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HIPOs

5/20/2025

 
Podcast Version
(with NotbookLM AI)

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.
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But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud: that’s not enough anymore.
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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.
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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:
  • Sales: Knowing when to attack and when to hold. Building resilience in the “NO”, to get to the yes. Mental Endurance and delayed gratification is based on consistent effort and investment.
  • Finance: Budgeting energy like capital. Monitoring KPI’s across a Sports Balanced Scorecard and following the details in training, provides an appreciation for the process and value of the drivers.
  • Operations: Precision planning and execution. Meticulous planning and execution is a critical skill in the endurance journey. Planning for the exceptions, building in agile responses to roadblocks changes the mindset of strict plans into leveraged excellence.
  • Leadership: Adjusting to changing conditions with grace. Having your perspective on the finish line, whilst keeping your grind in the now. Focusing on the details in every aspect and working with fellow athletes/HIPO’s, coaches, mentors. Improving communication and transparency, listening and learning, showing up even when it hurts.

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:
  • Integrate 1-on-1 wellness check-ins with executive coaching for your HIPOs.
  • Don’t just subsidize gym memberships. Pay for programs with purpose.
  • Track burnout like you track churn, because both cost you your best people.

Share this blog/newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues who are also pursuing a sportier and healthier lifestyle!
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    Coach Glenn

    * Founder and Head Coach GR&AT Endurance Training * Ironman Certified Coach
    * TriDot Coach

    * Ironman Kona Finisher 2022
    * Ironman AWA GOLD 2022
    * Winner 50+ age group
    ​XC Challenge Copenhagen

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