Sneak Peek
On TIGNUM’s B-LD KITCHEN Hub, our world-class Performance Specialists share their latest insights on human performance and discuss real-life experiences and best practices with industry leaders.
Here is a limited selection for you to explore:
You are unique and so is your Sustainable Human Performance
In many ways, our individuality is both in and out of our control. By being curious about what works and doesn't work for you and taking ownership of your bio-individuality, you can positively impact your Personal Readiness.
Have you ever felt you were odd because what works for someone else doesn’t work for you? Whether it’s a nutritional strategy, an exercise regime, tips on leadership style, or managing your team, what works for one person often doesn't work for others.
We see people get super fit with one type of workout routine and falsely believe that if it worked for them, it must be good for everyone. Similarly, this same thing happens with personal growth, leadership, and so many other things. The problem is, we are all unique, and one size never fits all. Propagating this misconception even more, when we collect data on a group, the myth is that the average describes everyone in that group. As Harvard professor Todd Ross describes in his book The End of Average, not one person actually fits the average.
Many factors influence our individuality. First, we have our genetic makeup (our DNA coding) and our epigenetic factors (which genes are turned on). And then there are all of the things that impact our billions of experiences that make up our life (culture, family, society, social media, education, etc.).
In many ways, our individuality is both in and out of our control.
Performing at your best is about knowing your individual needs
Recently, I (Laura) was working with a female tennis player who was experiencing repeated low-grade injuries that were taking much longer to return to play than expected to heal. Her mood was constantly up and down, she found it difficult to make decisions in key moments, and she would report times of low energy, diminished motivation, and a sense of ‘brain fog’.
On the surface, the player appeared to be doing all the right things regarding her training and recovery balance. She appeared to be eating all the right foods and was naturally frustrated with the constant injuries stopping her from playing.
The performance team was perplexed, but through an insatiable curiosity, we kept trying to figure out why this was happening. What could be hindering recovery and causing all of these nagging injuries?
After turning over every stone, we noticed the player only having episodic menstrual cycles, which made us look at her hormone profile. Interestingly, two key hormones, estrogen and progesterone, were not at the levels they should be. Again we asked, "Why?" Knowing that what an athlete eats can influence their hormone profile, we assessed her energy expenditure and energy consumption. The findings were fascinating – she was at a 1,000-calorie deficit both during her training and competition days. In sports, this is known as Relative Energy Deficiency (RED-S). After addressing her energy balance through increasing how much and how often she ate, she started to feel more energized. As her hormone profile normalized, her mood, cognitive ability, motivation, and injury status all improved over time. Finally, she was experiencing the performance she deserved.
For us, there were many learnings. It took a lot of digging to understand her individual issues and needs, but, once again, we were reminded about just how different we all are. This experience reminded us of how crucial the sex hormones, male and female, are to our performance, both physically and cognitively. Interestingly, “normal” hormones levels can differ from person to person and differ within daily and monthly cycles.
Sex hormones are an aspect of human performance that is often overlooked, especially in the corporate world. Estrogen promotes the growth and repair of our neurons. Progesterone is involved in calming the nervous system and promoting deep sleep phases. Testosterone is key for motivation and energy, as well as bone health and muscle repair. Sometimes, when you are doing everything right (according to what is working for others), but you aren't feeling the energy and performance you want, it may be time to go deeper.
Take ownership of your performance by being curious
Is there a perfect audit to discover your own unique bio-individuality? Probably not, but increasing your awareness and asking more questions is a great way to help understand your own physiology. Looking at your performance from all angles can require experts from many different fields, but ultimately, what feels right to you is critical.
At TIGNUM, we are embarking on a journey to better understand the impact of sex hormones on the brain and physiology. Our experience shows the huge impact they have on our personal readiness, and ultimately, on our Sustainable Human Performance.
If you are feeling below optimal in any area of your performance, these questions can help initiate an individuality audit:
Is this my normal?
Are there patterns (daily, weekly, monthly, annual) to how I feel?
Why is this happening?
Where can I seek more information that will help me understand this?
By being curious about what works and doesn't work for you and taking ownership of your bio-individuality, you can positively impact your personal readiness.
So, is our individuality in our control? Yes, it is. Our habits play a big role in how that is expressed. Taking ownership is key if we are to fully step into our potential. Our hormones are a prime example of this. Over the coming months, we will continue to explore how our habits influence hormones in relation to our human performance. Stay tuned.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Penhaul // Chief Innovation Officer
As TIGNUM’s Chief Innovation Officer, Laura explores the latest science and innovation to support the performance of our clients. As a double world record holder from leading a team to row across the Pacific Ocean, combined with 15 years experience working in Olympic and Paralympic sports as a Physiotherapist, Laura is passionate about supporting teams and individuals to achieve their personal best.
ABOUT TIGNUM
TIGNUM is the major performance building block for business professionals, designed around a skill- and data-based approach that respects the individuality, focuses on the brain, evolves constantly, and creates lasting impact. Its international team comes from a wide range of fields, including human behavior, elite athletics, special forces, performance medicine, executive coaching, change consultants, and more.
Leveraging Hormonal Changes Across Life's Cycles to Sustain High Performance with Dr. Emma Ross
Dr. Emma Ross (Co-Founder and Co-CEO, The Well HQ) advocates a better understanding of how hormones impact our performance. In this episode, she shares how important it is for us to know and expertly navigate through our individual hormonal rhythms.
Dr. Emma Ross, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, The Well HQ
“The body literacy piece is so important in our mid-life as women because it’s critical for helping us understand what we can do; what works and what doesn’t.”
As a lifelong athlete, mother, and highly-respected sports scientist, Dr. Emma Ross has made it her mission to tackle the taboos that exist not only within sports, but business and society, around women’s health, menstrual cycles, mental health and the impact hormones have on our ability to perform at our best. In this conversation with Scott Peltin, Dr. Ross discusses:
How our hormones ebb and flow and how this affects our mental and physical performance at different phases of our hormone cycles
Why understanding our individual rhythms is key to creating an optimal performance state
Why breaking the taboos around the natural female life cycle is imperative to creating psychological safety and effective leadership environments
Bio-individual awareness is critical for every human. Have a listen to discover how you can manage your mindset, movement, nutrition, and recovery strategies during your unique phases to maximize your impact.
ABOUT TIGNUM THOUGHTCAST
TIGNUM ThoughtCast is a series of short interviews in which TIGNUM co-founder Scott Peltin sits down with friends, clients, and human performance experts to explore the application of Sustainable Human Performance.
Growing on the go
Too often we think the limiting factor to our personal growth is time. In reality, the more experiences we encounter, the more opportunities we have to learn.
Time is a precious commodity – and I think we all feel at one point or another that we don’t have enough time. This is especially true in our busy business world, where we’re pulled in many directions every day. We’re asked to put out fires that have sparked overnight, then pulled in many unexpected directions while managing our normal workload, and then we’re working hard to innovate and create the new ideas of tomorrow. This can cause us to feel guilty for not having enough time for our own personal growth. At best, we may try to squeeze in a podcast or read the latest journal article, but often this only adds to an already overwhelmed brain. So, how do we find the time to reflect and grow?
Reflection turns our days into lessons
Recently, a client shared with me a unique way to effortlessly squeeze in some reflection time so he could ‘grow on the go’. Instead of always feeling the compulsion for taking in more information, could he experience growth by simply reflecting on the valuable, yet often overlooked, lessons within his chaotic days? He shared with me a practice that he called ‘Red Light Reflection’. He said, “I use red lights as a trigger to switch my brain into reflection mode. This is where I quickly reflect on the successes and challenges of my day’s events, my newest learnings, and the feelings I am experiencing. During my 50-minute commute, I can get many of these short but helpful reflection moments.”
Is a red light magical? No. But it is a trigger and a consistent, 3-minute break that we get during a commute. Where else can we find such a reminder to simply reflect? Perhaps during our morning coffee, or taking our dog for a walk. Maybe it’s waiting in line for a meal, or sitting while waiting for an appointment. So often we get dragged back to our iPhone, that computer in our pocket that keeps us handcuffed to work, and we overlook these short, yet powerful, moments where we can reflect and grow.
It only takes a moment to grow
Too often we think the limiting factor to our personal growth is time. In reality, the more experiences we encounter, the more opportunities we have to learn. This, of course, requires that we capture that special moment before life’s clutter invades our reflection space.
In a world of volatility, it’s often in these quiet moments of reflection that we most consistently give ourselves the necessary time and space to develop our mindset skills, challenge our biases, refine our character, and reframe the dramas of the day. It’s in these moments that we effectively ‘grow on the go’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Males // Managing Director, Americas and APAC
As TIGNUM's Managing Director of the Americas and APAC, Chris is an experienced Sustainable Human Performance coach to many CEO’s, C-suite executives, and professional athletes. In 2020, Chris was inducted into the MG100 Coaches program, an organization of some the best executive coaches, leaders and business thinkers from around the world.
ABOUT TIGNUM
TIGNUM is the major performance building block for business professionals, designed around a skill- and data-based approach that respects the individuality, focuses on the brain, evolves constantly, and creates lasting impact. Its international team comes from a wide range of fields, including human behavior, elite athletics, special forces, performance medicine, executive coaching, change consultants, and more.
True turnaround mindset with Carsten Hellman
In this episode, Carsten Hellmann (President/ CEO, ALK) shares how he was able to do massive turnarounds in companies - with the same people and the same products. He doubled and tripled the value of companies by changing the belief system of the employees and providing what they needed to be at their best.
Carsten Hellmann, President / CEO, ALK
Things will always be challenging. If you want it all - an extraordinary career, good health, and a great family life - you need to be committed to balance.
In this episode, Carsten Hellmann shares how he was able to do massive turnarounds in companies - with the same people and the same products. He doubled and tripled the value of companies by changing the belief system of the employees and providing what they needed to be at their best. He asks all employees to take on responsibility for the company's success - to the point of rewarding team members who stop projects that don't work. Carsten Hellmann has an unshakable commitment to balance, knowing that for these turnarounds, he needs to be high energy, inspirational, and lead by example. He truly is a Sustainable Human Performer leading a life with an exciting career, fulfilling family life, and good health.
ABOUT TIGNUM THOUGHTCAST
TIGNUM ThoughtCast is a series of short interviews in which TIGNUM co-founder Scott Peltin sits down with friends, clients, and human performance experts to explore the application of Sustainable Human Performance.
The Invisible Fatigue
Fatigue is a funny thing. Sometimes you know exactly where it comes from, like when you've been sick, sleep-deprived, or moved furniture all day, but other times it seems to come out of nowhere.
Fatigue is a funny thing. Sometimes you know exactly where it comes from, like when you've been sick, sleep-deprived, or moved furniture all day, but other times it seems to come out of nowhere. The human body is complex, and many of the forces working on the human body are invisible. Things like changes in the seasons (weather and light cycles), your immune system fighting a bug, quarantine, or even the impact of the suffering and tragedy that is covered in the news.
At the same time, as many of you have probably experienced before, there is also fatigue lag. One night you get 8 hours of perfect sleep, yet you feel tired the next day. Another night you get 4 hours of sleep, and you feel great the next day. How could this be? One reason is that the way you feel today is actually the product of your last 3 to 7 days. Muscle tightness and soreness may be due to physical activity you did 3 days ago. That lack of energy you feel today is often due to your cumulative sleep over the past 5 to 7 days.
What causes emotional fatigue
Even more mysterious is the impact that emotional fatigue has on your energy levels and your ability to self-regulate your response to your emotions. Like all fatigue, the cause, symptoms, and remedies of emotional fatigue can be very individual. This is why it is so critical that you constantly increase your awareness and proactively build your toolbox with recovery strategies. One key thing to remember when it comes to emotional fatigue is that it isn’t the event or trigger that causes the body’s response to fatigue. It's actually your perception, your current capacity and condition, your emotional history, and even your self-image that dictate the emotional cost of that event.
Common causes of emotional fatigue can include: fear, change, hard work on a project without progress or impact, negative people, drama, the achievement of something you have worked long and hard on, a lack of team support, emotional roller-coaster experiences, losing someone close to you, situations out of your control, caregiver responsibilities (elderly parent, sick kids, friends, etc.), and many other situations. Interestingly enough, almost every person is dealing with at least one of these situations at any given moment. The problem is, in today’s highly competitive and complex world, you may be so focused on winning or driving results that you don’t even see these things around you.
The cost of being emotionally exhausted
While there are a variety of symptoms of emotional fatigue, the most common ones we see are apathy, emotional outbursts (inability to control reaction to emotions), insomnia, negative ruminating thoughts, unexplained anxiety, emotional flatness, and an excessive desire to sleep. The problem is that by the time you are experiencing any of these symptoms, or an array of other symptoms you may experience, you are already late to the game. Your emotional fatigue has not only been draining your energy, but it's also been destroying your performance.
Many people today report that they are experiencing burnout. Incorrectly, they often attribute their burnout purely to a work overload. Our experience at TIGNUM has shown us that burnout is often just the accumulation of the effects of emotional fatigue and work overload is just the final straw that breaks the camel's back.
How strategic emotional recovery keeps you strong
There are many strategies (too many to cover in one blog post) to help repay your emotional debt and be better in your future performances, but here are a few that we have found to be particularly powerful:
.01 Reconnect with your purpose. Why are you doing what you do? How do you and others benefit from you doing what you do? How do you add meaning to other people’s lives? Who are you a role model to?
.02 Serve others. Nothing rebuilds your emotional bank account more than giving to others. This not only helps you gain perspective, but it also fills you with positive emotions like kindness, gratitude, helpfulness, and love.
.03 Reflect on your successes. When you are emotionally fatigued, it is too easy to see the pain and miss the progress. When you reflect on the behaviors, actions, and choices you are making that create your success, you stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system (recovery system), you rewire your brain to the key behaviors you want to do more of, and you energize yourself to keep going.
.04 Plan for fun. In today’s busy world, we forget that most of what we do is not life or death. We also forget that, without fun, life can quickly feel like a grind. Pull out your calendar and start planning at least one thing to do each week just for pure fun. When you get this down, try planning something daily.
.05 Listen to music. Have you ever noticed, when you watch a movie, how the music can completely alter your emotional state? The producer can bring you up, take you down, make you laugh, or make you cry almost exclusively by selecting the right music. Many of our clients have found that creating several playlists of the music that creates the emotional state they seek can be a very powerful emotional recovery tool.
Emotional fatigue can often be overlooked and invisible. If you wait until you are suffering, it's too late because your performance is already compromised and you are already losing impact. Sustainable High Performers front-load their performance by building recovery strategies into every day, every week, and every month.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Peltin // Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst
As the Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst of TIGNUM, Scott has coached many top CEOs, executives, professional athletes, and others to Rule Their Impact. Scott’s unique blend of his 25 years in the Fire Service, education, and coaching experience helps him combine the art and science of Sustainable High Impact to help TIGNUM clients be better, for longer, when it counts the most.
ABOUT TIGNUM
TIGNUM is the major performance building block for business professionals, designed around a skill- and data-based approach that respects the individuality, focuses on the brain, evolves constantly, and creates lasting impact. Its international team comes from a wide range of fields, including human behavior, elite athletics, special forces, performance medicine, executive coaching, change consultants, and more.
Symptoms or causes- get to the root of human performance in business
How can companies expect better outcomes if they never address the root causes of low performance? In this conversation, TIGNUM founders Scott Peltin and Jogi Rippel dissect common misconceptions about human performance in the corporate world. Sharing stories, data, and their expertise, they leave no doubt about what it takes to create actual performance gains: make people stronger.
Jogi Rippel, Founder and Chief Executive Officer and Scott Peltin, Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst, TIGNUM
How can companies expect better outcomes if they never address the root causes of low performance? In this conversation, TIGNUM founders Scott Peltin and Jogi Rippel dissect common misconceptions about human performance in the corporate world. Sharing stories, data, and their expertise, they leave no doubt about what it takes to create actual performance gains: make people stronger.
ABOUT TIGNUM THOUGHTCAST
TIGNUM ThoughtCast is a series of short interviews in which TIGNUM co-founder Scott Peltin sits down with friends, clients, and human performance experts to explore the application of Sustainable Human Performance.
On Oscillation
Our TIGNUM performance experts discuss the importance of integrating purposeful recovery breaks into our days and years. They share ideas on powerful micro-breaks and how even 30 seconds can change the game.
Leaders and executives do well to recognize the value of recovery- oscillation is a strategic must for high performance at work.
TIGNUM Performance Specialists Chris Males, Brian Wade, Jake Marx, and Scott Peltin
In this roundtable our TIGNUM performance experts discuss the importance of integrating purposeful recovery breaks into our days and years. They share ideas on powerful micro-breaks and how even 30 seconds can change the game. Leaders and executives do well to recognize the value of recovery. Oscillation is a strategic must for high performance at work.
Nobody takes a pit-stop at the end of a race, it happens in the race to be ready for whats coming next.
ABOUT TIGNUM
TIGNUM is the major performance building block for business professionals, designed around a skill- and data-based approach that respects the individuality, focuses on the brain, evolves constantly, and creates lasting impact. Its international team comes from a wide range of fields, including human behavior, elite athletics, special forces, performance medicine, executive coaching, change consultants, and more.
Unleashing People to do Their Life's Best Work with Debb Bubb
Dedicated people with high expectations can amplify their impact both at work and at home. It works both directions. Deb Bubb (Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, Optum) shares how becoming a better mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend made her a better leader at work.
Deb Bubb, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, Optum
"Everybody is somebody's somebody."
Deb Bubb's long track record of thought leadership in human resources, leadership, and talent development is well documented. On her journey from Intel, to IBM, to United Healthcare, to her current role as CHRO at Optum, she's made an incredible impact.
In this conversation with Scott Peltin, she shares:
Why dedicated people with high expectations can amplify their impact with Sustainable High Performance strategies.
How becoming a better mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend made her a better leader at work.
The key question many women are asking themselves as we exit the pandemic.
The new strategies she deployed to stop feeling like she is "burning the candle at both ends."
How she infuses Sustainable Human Performance into her family.
ABOUT TIGNUM THOUGHTCAST
TIGNUM ThoughtCast is a series of short interviews in which TIGNUM co-founder Scott Peltin sits down with friends, clients, and human performance experts to explore the application of Sustainable Human Performance.
The Evolution of TIGNUM: Wellness is not Sustainable Human Performance
In this special episode, TIGNUM’s Co-Founders answer some great questions from our listeners and clients about the future of work and Sustainable Human Performance and how to be personally ready for the challenges ahead.
Jogi Rippel and Scott Peltin, TIGNUM founders
"This decade, the 2020s will probably be the most challenging on humans, leaders, and executives that we've ever seen. If we're not constantly sharpening our tools, there's no way we can help our clients."
In this special episode, TIGNUM’s Co-Founders answer some great questions from our listeners and clients about the future of work and Sustainable Human Performance and how to be personally ready for the challenges ahead.
They share the beginning of their serendipitous entrepreneurial journey where they connected over the premature loss of their fathers and their shared passion for changing the paradigm around Sustainable Human Performance... All while sitting in a cold plunge (ultimate recovery) after a workout.
They share how their “never-satisfied” approach ensures that our clients can rule their impact both professionally and personally so they can meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
ABOUT TIGNUM THOUGHTCAST
TIGNUM ThoughtCast is a series of short interviews in which TIGNUM co-founder Scott Peltin sits down with friends, clients, and human performance experts to explore the application of Sustainable Human Performance.