The Performance Margin 

In every high-performance environment - whether it’s the cockpit, the boardroom, or the running track - feedback is the currency of improvement. Yet too often, feedback is misunderstood. It’s treated as criticism, or worse, ignored completely. The truth is that feedback isn’t about judgement; it’s about adaptation . It’s the mechanism that allows humans to refine skill, improve focus, and make better decisions under pressure. That’s why I developed the Focus Feedback Cycle -

Stress has a bad reputation. We hear the word and immediately think of overwhelm, fatigue, or burnout. But in both sport and business, stress is not the enemy - it’s the stimulus for growth . What determines whether we thrive or crumble under pressure isn’t how much stress we face, but how well we manage, recover, and adapt from it. That principle sits at the heart of the Performance Reservoir Model , a simple yet powerful framework that explains how humans convert stress in

We, as humans, are creatures of habit. It’s a mindset embedded within us from our days as hunter gatherers (and probably well before that). Habits and routines are good for us, as we operate more efficiently on ‘autopilot’, with our prefrontal cortex not having to work overtime making every single decision we make on a daily basis. It also keeps us safe. Being predictable, always collecting the same tried and tested wild fungi that didn’t kill us, taking the same hunting rout

Change is the only constant - in sport, aviation, and life. Yet most people treat it as something to survive, not something to train for. Just like physical conditioning builds strength, mental conditioning builds adaptability. That’s where the ADAPT Framework comes in - a simple, evidence-based method for building resilience through small, sustainable steps. A - Assess Before you can change your response, you need to understand it. Notice where your resistance comes from:

As humans, we know a remarkably large amount of what’s going on around us. We see everything, hear everything, taste everything, smell everything and feel everything. So why don’t we observe everything? Think back to the last time you went to a supermarket. If you went in for some apples, you’re probably fully aware of how much the apples were, how many they had, and which type had any special offers on them. But what about the peaches? Did they have any? Or oranges? It is l

While flying recently, I was handling the aircraft on an instrument approach in for a touch and go. I was wearing the oxygen mask, as we had practiced the smoke and fumes drill, and I hadn’t landed wearing the mask for a while. It was a good training opportunity, however in itself it provided a bit of a distraction. Additionally, the weather was quite poor, and the cloud base was close to the minima for the approach. On reflection, it was one of those approaches where the hol

Everywhere you look, there is a lot more focus on sleep than there has been over the past decade. Previously people would wear the badge of ‘don’t mind me, I’m just operating on 3 hours sleep’ with pride, but the narrative has now changed. It is now widely accepted that between 7 and 9 hours of sleep is what most adults need. But where has this research come from, what is the benefit of getting sleep and (most importantly) what can a lack of sleep look like in our day to day

On 1st June 2009, Air France Flight 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. During the flight, the Airbus 330-200 flew through some weather and ice crystals began forming in the three pitot tubes. These measure the differential between static air pressure and the dynamic, to provide airspeed readings to the cockpit. As these became blocked with ice build-up, there was a disparity between measurements from the three tubes, which disconnected the aircraft’s autopilot and a

In most walks of life, people find themselves in high pressure situations. This often builds over time, with increasing workload, or responsibilities, at home or at work. Pressure builds and people’s fight, flight or freeze (also known as the acute stress response ) kicks in. Some crumble under the stress, some thrive and use it to motivate them. However, the aviation domain is one where pressure does not always build consistently. The Yerkes-Dodson Law, also referred to as t

I’m not always making errors; despite whatever picture these articles may appear to paint. But I am open about them, as I genuinely believe that’s the only way to prevent their re-occurrence. That being said, the latest slip came just last week. While deployed, we have air conditioning carts to keep the aircraft cool before we start engines. As it was being moved to our other aircraft, my captain (in the left-hand seat) was telling me to check out on the right that the cart w

Sitting in a Grob 115A cockpit, at the hold on an empty airfield I ran through the pre-take-off checklist. It was my first time taking a passenger flying, after completing RAF flying training and finishing off the final elements of my civilian licence. I was eager to get airborne, and although there was no pressure to get going, I did feel the pressure of the responsibility of someone else’s life who didn’t have a clue how the aircraft worked. I’d only ever flown next to an i