The purpose of this newsletter: Unlocking Your Full Potential

How Embracing an Athlete’s Mindset in Training, Nutrition, and Rest Can Transform Your Work, Well-being, and Life—even if You’re Not an Athlete

This newsletter is inspired by an old Harvard Business Review article, The Making of a Corporate Athlete by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, and has an ambitious goal: to make its readers’ lives better, stronger, happier, and more fulfilled.

How?

Fifteen years ago, I was still in my thirties. I trained a couple of times a week, didn’t pay much attention to what or how much I ate, had a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, and partied with friends on weekends without worrying about what or how much I was consuming. I worked late into the night and came home exhausted. Often, after a dinner out where I unloaded stress with food and wine among colleagues or clients.

Business was going well—I was an entrepreneur back then. But I wanted more; I didn’t feel satisfied. I had the grand ambition of changing the world, but I didn’t know how or in what direction. I’d only discover that years later. I felt I was doing a lot, yet not enough, and the more I pushed forward, the less fulfilled I felt. I read and studied a lot to improve myself and learn new things, but I often felt tired, unmotivated. Despite my outward dynamism, inside, I felt sluggish.

When I first read The Making of a Corporate Athlete, I was fascinated. I had always seen sports or games as leisure, not part of my work. Sleeping felt like a waste of time, not a way to enhance my work. Training was a way to release stress, not to recharge. Sure, I knew that being exhausted would make me less effective, but working hard meant achieving great results. No pain, no gain. And if I had to skip a run or pull an all-nighter, so be it. Work came first; fun came second.

The problem is that, in most modern companies, this is the mantra: work hard, get results. Maximize your hours, outwork others, and you’ll achieve more.

It’s as if the mind is separated from the body. Unless we work in a factory, it seems like only our brain powers our work. But the brain isn’t detached from the body. And if, for decades, it’s been unthinkable for athletes to train their bodies without perfectly planning rest and working on their mental resilience, why do we, who rely on our minds more than anyone else, not concern ourselves with rest and physical health?

Moreover, while athletes typically have a peak season and an off-season for recovery, for us office or studio brains, our “off-season” is a mere two or three weeks of vacation a year. We push our brains from morning to night, then seek relaxation by endlessly scrolling through Instagram photos or catching up on the day’s news.

We’ve known for thousands of years that ASICS Animae Sana In Corpore Sano (Sound Body in a Sound Mind) is a lifestyle—long before it was the name of a popular running shoe brand. Yet, we ignore this wisdom, too focused on squeezing every ounce out of our minds to remember that its health and energy largely depend on the rest of the body.

Achieving high performance is much easier if we stop thinking that it’s solely or primarily tied to cognitive ability.

The approach suggested by this newsletter is to consider ourselves all as athletes—corporate athletes—and, like professional athletes, to treat training, diet, and rest not as leisure activities, but as an integral part of our work. The foundation of our performance and happiness.

Let’s be clear: if you’re an executive, manager, or employee, you can still be successful even if you smoke, drink, or exercise only occasionally or not at all. You can focus solely on your professional skills, ignoring everything else. But by reading this newsletter, you’ll discover that you may never reach your full potential and, more importantly, that you’re wearing yourself out more than necessary, risking a high price in the long run with your physical and mental health.

This is not intended to be a medical newsletter, nor an information channel on nutrition, fitness, or meditation for athletes. It’s a synthesis of what I’ve learned from trying to apply the corporate athlete approach for over 10 years across three continents.

I won’t do it alone, because I want different perspectives and voices, united by a single great purpose: to improve people’s lives, making them stronger, more alive, happier, optimistic, and confident.

Who is this for?

It’s for everyone who thinks, “I’d like to do it, but I don’t have time.”

It’s for those who want to achieve more but feel slow to gain traction.

It’s for those who set goals at the start of the year and suddenly find themselves at the end of the year.

It’s for everyone who’s worked with me (or not yet) and, when asked, “What do you want to achieve in the next five years? How do you see yourself?” hesitated, only to realize they didn’t have clear goals, except perhaps to earn more.

It’s for ambitious people who struggle to put their plans into action.

It’s for those who often wonder about the meaning of what they’re doing and find it hard to find an answer.

It’s for those who feel underappreciated or undervalued.

It’s for lovers of life who want to enjoy every second but struggle to do so.

Why a newsletter?

Writing a newsletter is a way for me to thank everyone who has taught me something over the years—a gesture of gratitude after fifteen years of study, mistakes, and progress toward becoming the best version of myself. A continuous and regenerative process. I’ve also finally discovered my “ikigai”—my reason for being—which is to help improve people’s lives. A newsletter, along with my work, is a simple, direct, and widely accessible means to do so.

The newsletter is a versatile tool: it allows for an in-depth exploration of a topic, offering insights that a social post or short article can hardly convey. Reading itself is a life-enhancing practice, as it provides space for pause, introspection, and learning. For me, writing is a way to keep learning; as I organize my thoughts, I also grow, experimenting with new ways to communicate and share.

Happy reading!