For a recording of Kevin and Maya reading the article, click HERE.
Have you ever noticed how some days you feel unstoppable, and other days, even the simplest tasks seem impossible? That’s your state at work. Whether you’re a leader, athlete, or entrepreneur, your state is the foundation of your performance and directly influences how you interpret the world around you, your actions, and ultimately, your results in life.
Imagine watching someone perform at their absolute best—a dancer captivating an audience at the opera house, a basketball player sinking a free throw in the final seconds of a championship game, or a colleague delivering a speech that lifts the team’s spirits. What makes these moments exceptional isn’t talent alone; at these levels, talent is a given. The differentiator is their mastery of state—the sum of their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual conditions—allowing them to meet the moment with clarity, focus, and presence.
Whether it’s an athlete in the zone, an entrepreneur staying up all night with a new idea, or a leader making sharp decisions under pressure, peak performers all share one thing in common: the ability to shift into an optimal state. It’s the state where you’re focused, creative, and connected to your intuition. And the best part? You don’t have to be an elite performer to access this state—it’s available to anyone willing to learn how to tap into it.
In this article, we’ll dive into each of the four dimensions—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual—and explore how they influence your performance. By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how to master your state and the practical tools you can use to optimize it, starting today.
To consistently perform at your best, it’s essential to understand the four dimensions that make up your overall state. Mastering your state means bringing your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions into alignment. These four components don’t operate in isolation—they are deeply interconnected. When one dimension is out of sync, it can affect your entire state. For instance, consider how different you feel after a good night’s sleep versus running on just a few hours of rest. Sleep, a component in your physical dimension, directly affects your focus, which exists in your mental dimension. When you’re well-rested, tasks flow more easily, and you’re better equipped to handle whatever comes your way.
Let’s explore each dimension in greater detail.
The physical dimension encompasses your body's energy levels, health, and physiological readiness to perform. It includes factors like nutrition, sleep quality, fitness, and overall well-being. A strong physical state provides the foundation for all other dimensions - just as a good night's sleep can make a daunting problem feel more manageable, and proper conditioning enables athletes to execute complex strategies effectively. People with a robust physical dimension tend to maintain consistent energy levels, recover quickly from exertion, and sustain healthy habits.
Self-Assessment: On a scale of 1-10, how energized and physically capable do I feel right now, with 1 being exhausted and 10 being fully energized? What would move my number up?
When your physical state is optimized, you have the energy and stamina to tackle challenges effectively.
The emotional dimension refers to your ability to maintain composure and manage your feelings in challenging situations, such as difficult conversations or high-stress environments. It’s about processing emotions effectively and recovering quickly from stress or adversity. People with a strong emotional dimension tend to maintain composure, adapt quickly, and be more resilient under pressure.
Self-Assessment: On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being overwhelmed, anxious, or scattered and 10 being calm, present, and balanced, where would I place myself?
When your emotions are balanced, you’re better able to maintain focus and mental clarity.
The mental dimension refers to your cognitive abilities, including focus, clarity of thought, decision-making capacity, and ability to process information effectively. It encompasses concentration, memory, problem-solving skills, and mental resilience. A strong mental state allows for sharp focus, creative problem-solving, and the ability to handle complex tasks with ease. People with a fit mental dimension often exhibit clear thinking, adaptability, and the ability to concentrate even in distracting environments.
Self-Assessment: Imagine a target with the center bullseye representing complete focus. On a scale from 1 (outer rings, highly distracted) to 10 (center bullseye, fully focused), where am I?
When your mental state is strong, you think clearly, make sound decisions, and effectively manage complex tasks.
The spiritual dimension is all about feeling connected to your purpose, values, and something greater than yourself. Even if you haven’t yet defined a specific purpose or higher power, the spiritual dimension can simply reflect your core values, a sense of authenticity, or inner peace. It’s a sense of alignment with who you are at your core and what’s most meaningful to you. People with a strong spiritual dimension often experience a sense of inner ease and alignment, which builds intrinsic motivation to achieve meaningful goals.
Self-Assessment: On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being disconnected or unmotivated and 10 being in alignment with my purpose, where would I place myself?
When your spiritual state is strong, it provides a guiding compass for your actions and decisions.
The good news? Once you recognize your current state, you can shift it. By bringing these four dimensions into alignment, you can move into an optimal state known as “coherence”. Research shows that when we enter a state of coherence, our physiological systems function more efficiently (nervous, immune, hormonal), our emotional stability and resilience increases, we experience greater mental clarity and cognitive function, and it’s easier to access what’s most important to us.
A simple and highly effective way to enter a coherent state is through practicing the Quick Coherence Technique. This technique is practiced by Fortune 500 companies, hospitals, military personnel, and school systems around the world, and it can take less than a minute. It’s an excellent starting point for enhancing your capacity to bounce back from challenging and stressful circumstances.
Here are the two simple steps:
Step 1 - Focus your attention in the area of your heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual.
Step 2 - As you continue heart-focused breathing, make a sincere attempt to experience a renewing feeling, like appreciation or care for something or someone in your life.
The bottom line: When we’re coherent, our bodies and brains work better, we feel better, and we perform better. So, when you’re feeling “off,” take a moment to pause, breathe, and return to your heart center. Remember, you have the power to perform at your best, no matter the circumstances.
Another way to shift state is by having better conversations with ourselves.
Our internal dialogue shapes our perceptions, emotions, and actions. It's a powerful tool for shifting our state, acting like a control panel for our mind. By dialing in our self-talk, we can quickly recalibrate our mental and emotional state to perform at our best.
How can we have a better conversation with ourselves? Imagine what we'd say to a friend we want to succeed. We'd likely be encouraging, positive, and focused on growth. Yet the conversations we have with ourselves are often much more brutal. We may say things like:
Sound familiar? These harsh internal criticisms, while damaging to performance, often come from protective parts of ourselves doing their best to keep us safe. We'd never expect a friend to excel under such negativity, yet we often subject ourselves to this self-talk without thinking twice about it. The impact on our state and performance can be profound, especially over time. Instead of pushing these parts away, we can be curious about their intentions, gently guiding them toward a more supportive role.
Our self-talk significantly impacts our state. Treat yourself with the same kindness and encouragement you'd offer a trusted friend. By reframing your inner narrative, you can unlock your potential and shift your state toward success.
For instance, instead of predicting an outcome you can't control ("I won't get this job") or forcing artificial optimism ("I will get this job"), you can shift to something both true and empowering: "I've prepared what I can and now my job is simply to show up as my authentic self." This reframe works because it focuses on what you can control while staying grounded in reality.
As a young competitive golfer, I worked with a sports psychologist who noticed I could hit the ball far but struggled with accuracy. While on the range, he asked about my pre-shot focus. "Hitting it in the fairway... and not hitting it out of bounds," I replied. He challenged me to be more specific: "Look beyond the fairway. What tree aligns with your ideal ball path? Which branch? Which leaf? What if you aimed for that?"
This lesson stays with me: Telling yourself "don't" rarely works – our brain can't process negatives effectively. Instead, choosing a specific, positive focus directs both our attention and our performance. Even when I missed that precise leaf, I was more likely to keep the ball in play than when I focused on avoiding trouble. This principle applies beyond golf: the more specific and positive our self-talk, the better we perform.
Great athletes often have a "next play" mentality, training their minds to focus on the next opportunity. Asking ourselves better questions is a way of doing this. By being more specific in our self-talk, we can improve our state, focus, and ultimately our performance.
Great performers aren’t born—they cultivate state mastery. Whether you’re managing a career and family or leading a team, the ability to shift your state will empower you to perform at your best. Techniques like the Quick Coherence® Technique, positive self-talk, and aligning actions with values make a profound impact.
Remember, the goal isn’t to eliminate challenges but to navigate them with ease. When we master our state, we create space for more resilience, joy, and clarity, whether we’re in a boardroom, on a sports field, or at home. State mastery isn’t just for elite performers; it’s a skill we can all develop to enrich every area of our lives.
In our work with leaders and CEOs, as executive and performance coaches, a recurring theme is the importance of understanding one’s roots. We have found it to be vital for optimal leadership.
One of the most common questions we hear from leaders is “What kind of leader do I want to be?” To answer that question, we must first understand this leader as a whole human. A leadership style is rooted in one’s authenticity. Because this doesn’t require the leader to perform or to be someone they’re not. It comes down to recognizing one’s unique strengths and amplifying them, as well as becoming aware of one’s weaknesses.
Sabrina comes from a line of hardworking women in China. One of her earliest influences was her grandmother, who was a seamstress who supported her entire family by selling hats to her neighbors. Her mother was an entrepreneur who successfully created a brick-and-mortar business named “Sabrina’s Country Store” in Chengdu, China. She learned from a young age that women are intelligent, resourceful, and bold.
Kevin grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. His father, a strength and conditioning coach and his mother, a prevention specialist, taught him the importance of living in moderation and asking good questions. Before his first job interview, his mother suggested that he ask people, “What is it like to work for the boss?” This question has yielded some of his most valuable insights into how organizations work, and it continues to serve as a reminder that often, when working with individuals or teams, courage is saying the thing you don’t think you can say.
As we move away from our families of origin, we start to find homes in chosen places. These roots may be friends, ideas, newfound favorite locations, values, philosophies, and so on. We can spend as much time as possible in these current roots and still feel nourished. These current roots remind us of ourselves.
Since an individual human has roots, so does a business. When a business is rooted, it has a strong set of cultural values that proliferates in everything that it does. As the business expands, its roots expand to its products, employees, processes, leaders, and so on.
When you see companies with a strong set of roots, it makes their presence scalable and memorable. Think of companies like Stripe, which is well known for its ability to build the best products and retain the highest caliber employees. They take effort into implementing their operating principles down to their customer service representatives, whom Sabrina recently had the pleasure of working with. It was easy and secure to speak to support in less than two minutes. Not only did they know exactly how to help on the phone, they quickly followed up with links in an instructional email after the call. It was clear to Sabrina that Stripe showed the same level of excellence in their product design as well as the way they train their customer support.
It’s worth noting: Any organization can claim that customer service matters. That’s the easy part. Identifying an action plan and deploying it well takes a lot of consistent tending. After all, Enron’s core values were: Respect, Integrity, Communication, and Excellence.
When customers, like those at Stripe, have the experience you say they will have, consistently across time, then your organization’s roots are running deep.
What does it look like when your personal and business roots fortify one another?
Sometimes, high-performing clients will ask if it’s okay to bring a “personal” dilemma into coaching. This usually happens when they realize that their personal life is interfering with their professional performance, or vice versa. The short answer here is, “Of course.”
As coaches, we welcome opportunities to get into these connecting root structures – all that subsurface magic. Humans are complex, and one leader’s definition of “work-life balance” can vary dramatically to the next. A few years ago, Forbes offered an edit: A work-life “blend”, from Ultimate Software, that we think fits much better.
When there is symbiosis between personal and professional roots – when they are able to coexist in harmony – leaders flourish. One of Kevin’s clients, Rachel McClusky, founder of Recharge Wellness Co., nourishes the personal root of care for others alongside the professional root of focus on the client experience. She started seeking client feedback about retreat locations and began hosting them in locations customers requested – not necessarily those she envisioned – and they started selling out in minutes.
The most effective leaders think deeply about who they want to be. Answering this question isn’t possible without first going back into your roots.
We all have roots that shape us – personally and professionally. When these root systems are mutually reinforcing, then we get the healthiest, most capable version of ourselves.
When we understand our values and the roots that they come from, then we are in a much better position to lead ourselves, our team, and our organization.
When our values at home and at work communicate with each other, they strengthen one another and we enable ourselves to lead most authentically and effectively.
Imagine you get an email today from someone you don’t know. They introduce themselves as an “objective third party,” and they’ve been hired to shadow you for a week. They will watch you organize your to-do lists, engage in conversations, troubleshoot issues, and prioritize people and tasks.
At the end of the week, after they’ve collected all this data, they’ll submit a report to you on your values. More specifically, they’ll make educated guesses about what matters most to you, personally and professionally.
What would you like that report to say, ideally?
More realistically, what do you think it’s going to say?
Let’s imagine a mantra of yours is “Family First,'' yet this report reveals you postpone or cancel family events for work opportunities frequently. A stronger root structure in this example might look like prioritizing family, or perhaps owning that business is first.
The Right Question Institute (RQI) is an organization devoted to helping individuals and teams ask better questions. The RQI argues, like Paul Graham in his piece “The Lesson To Unlearn”, that too often, folks spend their precious time and energy answering questions that other people have asked.
If more organizations (and schools) encouraged people to develop their own question first, individuals would be more motivated to pursue answers, and more likely to arrive at better ones when they do.
It’s with this caveat that we offer here a list of questions intended to provoke greater awareness about your roots. Use them as a starting point – and feel free to riff, or develop your own questions as the spirit moves you.
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