Are You Ready For What’s To Come?
Are You Ready For What’s To Come?
PLUS: The Morning Routine That Changed A Neuroscientist’s Life
May 17, 2026
📍 IN DUBAI THIS WEEK
I’m in Dubai all week with Kevin O’Connor, our Elite Performance Advisor and former Special Forces Team Leader. A significant number of subscribers are based on the region and we know how challenging the current climate is.
Both of us believe in the power of community. So if you're navigating something difficult right now, we're offering an informal, no-strings coffee and conversation to any subscriber who needs it.
Drop me a line at jason@primeperformancelabs.com and we'll do our best to make it work.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”
\- Ernest Hemingway
I'm writing this on a Friday evening, somewhere over Europe, on my way to Dubai. (A quick shout-out to Emirates for installing Starlink - this is the future.)
The UAE was home for 17 years and will always have a special place in my heart, so my writing this week is subjective, no doubt. But the lessons it contains are universal.
I'm a student of life. So when I first moved there in 1999, my instinctive curiosity meant I took the time to understand the land and the people. Their history. What shaped them.
That's why, when conflict broke out in the Gulf two months ago, I dismissed the lurid media reports declaring the UAE was finished. I know it is a country that has been forged by adversity - from tribes defined by mastering the harshest of terrains, through to navigating the geo-political challenges of the region.
Oil has provided a modern catalyst, of course. But you only have to look at Venezuela to see that it is not the panacea some would claim it to be. The UAE is not an oil story. It's a leadership story.
And that's what I want to talk to you about this week. About the crucible moments you’ll experience in life and leadership - and how you make them define you rather than destroy you.
THE SCIENCE
Under acute stress, the brain triggers a cascade: cortisol and adrenaline flood the system, the amygdala (your threat detector) takes over, and the prefrontal cortex (your decision-making and judgement centre) goes partially offline.
That’s not you being weak or failing, it’s what our brains and bodies are designed to do as a coping mechanism. This response evolved to protect us from an imminent physical threat. The problem is that your brain reacts exactly the same way when it’s a perceived threat such as a volatile operating environment.
As a leader, that’s hugely compromising to your performance - mood swings, temporary paralysis followed by impulsive decision-making. We’ve all been there at some point.
The important fact here? Your stress response is a trainable skill.
Dr Steven Southwick, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale, spent 25 years studying how people respond to extreme adversity. The biggest takeaway for you is that our brains are sculpted by experience. Controlled, progressive exposure to high-pressure situations - what exercise physiologists call stress inoculation - doesn't just prepare you for adversity. It physically rewires your neural pathways, raising your threshold and sharpening your response.
In contrast to popular myth, you are not born with a fixed capacity for pressure. That capacity can be built.
THE PROOF
Our Elite Performance Advisor, Kevin O'Connor, is a former Team Leader in the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, the most covert unit in UK Special Forces, specialising in surveillance and counter-surveillance.
He has seen at close quarters what separates those who hold up under extreme pressure from those who don't.
The reality is that those soldiers who had sailed through the early stages of their career, giving every impression of being the strongest, the most capable, the most talented - were consistently the ones who fell apart when the pressure hit differently.
The SRR makes very different demands - suddenly your physical skills and mental resilience aren’t enough, as you’re being asked to learn new skills under intense pressure. Driving drills that require situational awareness. Observation skills that require detailed memorization at speed.
It triggers a different kind of stress response and the ones who coped best were those who had already experienced setbacks and hardship. Experiencing adversity hadn't weakened them, it had trained them.
THE APPLICATION
The instinct of most leaders is to deal with pressure when it lands. Contain it. Get through it. Return to normal as quickly as possible.
That's the wrong instinct.
A boxer doesn’t go into a fight without a training camp.
An SF team doesn’t just rock up to a mission without a plan.
You wouldn’t go to a meeting with your investors or biggest client without prepping.
You need to train for the tough times before they're here.
That means being intentional about seeking out adversity - pushing yourself into situations that stretch your current threshold, whether that is physical, mental or emotional (they all bleed into each other anyway).
Explore the environments where you're not entirely comfortable. Every time you do, you are deliberately building the stress response that Southwick's research describes. You are raising your threshold.
The second shift is in how you interpret pressure when it does arrive. Dr Alia Crum's research at Stanford shows that leaders who frame stress as a threat - something to survive - perform measurably worse than those who frame it as a challenge - something to rise to. Same situation. Different responses. That reframe is your choice.
The third is one that’s easy for you to overlook. Train your team as well. Give them stretch projects. Put them in rooms where they're slightly out of their depth. Reframe setbacks as learning experiences. Create an environment where difficulty is expected, explored, and worked through together. That’s high performance in action.
One final word.
Stasis is the most dangerous place a leader can be, in role and in life. If you’re not seeking out growth, you’re just treading water. And you’re not prepared for the waves to come.
Progress is always possible. If you’re willing to put the work in, I guarantee you the team at Prime Performance Labs will prove that.
🔥 LIVE BETTER, LEAD BETTER
The best content I researched this week:
1. Former Amazon VP Ethan Evans was fired twice before he realised he was letting anger and fear rule him. His short article on productive conflict is a great example of how you can train your stress response. “Learning to be personally warm and professionally firm will change your life,” he explains.
2. Change of any kind is tough, which is why you need to listen to these 49 seconds of wisdom from ultra endurance athlete and podcaster Rich Roll.
3. And when a leading neuroscientist shares the morning routine that changed her life, it’s definitely worth five minutes of your time.
Share this with a fellow leader - we’re stronger together.
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