From the Coach: Every Pedal Stroke Counts
In the world of leadership, the pressure is always on for the next big win—the "earth-shattering improvement" that everyone will talk about. We often convince ourselves that meaningful change must be a massive, visible event. But what if the secret to elite performance isn't found in a single, heroic leap, but in the relentless accumulation of tiny advantages?
This is the core philosophy behind the "aggregation of marginal gains," a principle famously used by Dave Brailsford to transform British cycling. Faced with the monumental task of winning the Tour de France, his team didn't search for a silver bullet. Instead, they broke down everything they could think of and improved each component by just 1 percent. Underestimating the power of these small, daily decisions is a common pitfall, but mastering them is the key to building unstoppable, long-term momentum. Let's explore how you can start applying this powerful principle right now.
Your Weekly Performance Upgrade: Three Actions to Build Momentum
By focusing on small adjustments to your mindset, your physical environment, and your productivity systems, you can begin compounding your own 1% improvements today.
The Mind (Performance Psychology)
The Problem: We have a natural tendency to chase peak performance and celebrate brilliant wins, while completely ignoring the corrosive impact of small, recurring mental errors and simple mistakes.
The Solution: Embrace the principle of "improvement by subtraction." As Japanese television manufacturers discovered in the 1970s, a relentless focus on removing waste and eliminating mistakes is a more reliable path to superior results than simply trying to be more brilliant. By focusing on avoiding tiny losses and doing less of what doesn't work, you raise your average performance. This concept is detailed in James Surowiecki's article, "Better All the Time."
Your Action: This week, identify and eliminate one recurring, non-essential task or distraction from your workflow.
The Machine (Integrated Physiology)
The Problem: We know what the healthy choices are—drink more water, get up from the desk, eat better—but we struggle to make them consistently in the moment.
The Solution: Use the power of "Design for Default." Your environment is a "choice architect," subtly nudging your behavior. As explained in the book Nudge, you can consciously design your surroundings to make good behaviors easier and bad behaviors harder. Keeping a water bottle on your desk makes hydration the default. Placing floss next to your toothbrush makes that habit nearly automatic.
Your Action: Today, make one change to your physical environment to make a healthy choice the easiest option.
The System (AI & Productivity)
The Problem: Even the most experienced professionals can skip fundamental steps in critical processes, often without realizing it, leading to inconsistent and suboptimal results.
The Solution: Focus on doing more of what already works. The Keystone ICU Project dramatically cut infection rates and saved over 1,500 lives not with a new discovery, but with a simple 5-step checklist. As detailed in The Checklist Manifesto, this proved that mastering the fundamentals consistently is far more powerful than endlessly searching for new, complex solutions. "Everybody already knows that" is very different from "Everybody already does that." Your role as a leader is to close the gap between knowing and doing.
Your Action: Choose one critical daily task and create a simple 3-5 step checklist to ensure you never miss a fundamental step.
The 1% Difference: How Tiny Gains Win the Tour de France
The most successful runs in sports, business, and life are rarely the result of a single moment of genius. Instead, they are the product of countless small, seemingly insignificant choices that compound over time. The truth is that most significant achievements are not stand-alone events, but the sum of all the moments we choose to be just a little bit better
🎙️ Prefer to listen? Here's a short audio summary of the main topic in this issue:
In 2010, when Dave Brailsford took over Great Britain's professional cycling team, Team Sky, no British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France. His strategy was deceptively simple: the "aggregation of marginal gains." The goal was to break down every single aspect of riding a bike and then improve it by just 1 percent. This philosophy, detailed by James Clear, went far beyond the obvious.
Of course, they optimized rider nutrition, training programs, and the ergonomics of the bike seat. But they didn't stop there. They found the perfect pillow to optimize sleep, tested massage gels for faster recovery, and taught riders the most effective way to wash their hands to avoid illness.
This is the difference between good and elite. Good leaders optimize the obvious—the strategy, the sales plan. Elite leaders understand that victory is found in the margins everyone else dismisses as trivial. They hunt for the 1% advantage in communication, meeting hygiene, and even their own recovery.
Brailsford believed this would position them to win the Tour de France in five years. He was wrong. They won it in just three. In 2012, Sir Bradley Wiggins won the Tour, and that same year, the British cycling team dominated the Olympics, winning 70 percent of the available gold medals.
Now, let's bring this back to your team. The physics of momentum are the same in the boardroom as they are on the road. This principle has a dark side: a 1 percent decline—a poor choice, a skipped step—seems harmless, but it also compounds. Imagine two lines on a graph starting at the same point. One angles up by 1% each day, the other down. For weeks, they look nearly identical. But after a year, the gap between them is staggering. That gap is the space between success and obsolescence. As the author Jim Rohn said:
"Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day."
You don't need an earth-shattering breakthrough. You need to focus on getting 1 percent better in the small moments that make up your day. The most important question you can ask is: Where are the 1 percent improvements in my life?
Go Deeper: Watch & Listen
In this week's short video, I break down The Power of 1% in 5 minutes, giving you a visual framework to apply immediately.
Ready to go deeper? Here are the next opportunities to build your system:
Flowstate TRAINING (Free Webinar) | Next Date: October 21: Join our free training to learn the foundational principles of achieving peak performance.
Flowstate ACCELERATOR (1-Day Workshop) | London: November 28: Apply for our 1-day intensive co-creation lab. Join a select group of 10 leaders to solve your biggest professional challenge.
The FLOWSTATE SYSTEM | Starts January 1, 2026: Join the waitlist for our flagship 12-week online journey to install a lifelong operating system for peak performance. Perfect for leaders seeking sustainable, long-term change.