By Dr. Darren Burke

A little over a year ago I began working with three founders building a rapidly growing Nordic spa. From the outside, everything looked successful. Customers were coming. Reviews were strong. The business had momentum. However, inside, progress had stalled.

 

Meetings were tense. Decisions were delayed. Small disagreements became large ones. Conversations that should have taken fifteen minutes would stretch past an hour. The business itself was not the problem. The founders were capable, intelligent, and deeply committed to what they were building. Yet week after week, the company struggled to move forward.

 

Eventually one of them said something simple but revealing: “We know what to do. We just can’t seem to do it.” That sentence summarizes what I have come to think of as the follow-through problem.

 

Where I First Noticed It

Before working with founders and athletes, I was a university professor. I assumed the students who struggled academically lacked preparation or ability. The reality was different.

 

The students who struggled were rarely the least intelligent. They were the ones who reacted the most strongly to feedback. A difficult exam, a critical comment, or a disappointing grade did not simply inform them. It destabilized them. They avoided office hours. They delayed assignments. They overthought simple tasks. Their performance declined not because they could not do the work, but because their emotional response to evaluation interfered with execution.

 

At the time, I thought this was a student problem. It is not. It’s a human performance problem.

 

In research settings we control variables. We design conditions so people can succeed consistently. That is necessary for science. It’s not how the real world works.

 

Real performance happens in environments filled with uncertainty, time pressure, public visibility, and imperfect information. No athlete performs inside a laboratory. No founder makes decisions with complete data. No professional operates without criticism.

 

I slowly realized performance outside the lab depended less on knowledge and more on regulation. Specifically, the ability to function while uncomfortable. This is the part rarely measured.

 

What Actually Stops Progress

Across students, athletes, and founders I see the same pattern repeatedly. People do not stop because they lack skill. They stop because of how they respond to feedback.

 

Feedback triggers doubt. Doubt triggers hesitation. Hesitation delays action. Delay compounds problems. Eventually the individual believes the problem is competence when the real issue is avoidance.

 

The founders I mentioned earlier were not disagreeing about strategy. They were reacting to stress. Each conversation felt higher stakes than it actually was. Decisions carried emotional weight, and that weight slowed the business.

 

Once we addressed how they processed conflict and uncertainty, progress accelerated quickly. The business moved forward, and eventually the two original founders successfully exited to their partner. We later formed a new venture together, not because the business idea changed, but because their ability to operate under pressure improved.

 

The skills they needed were not financial or operational. They were behavioral.

 

Working with athletes reinforced this lesson. Elite performers are not distinguished primarily by motivation. Many people are motivated. What separates them is their relationship with discomfort. They can execute while uncertain. They can act after mistakes. They can accept coaching without defensiveness.

 

Most importantly, they return to the task quickly. Poor performers dwell. High performers reset.

 

The difference seems small but compounds over time. A person who loses one hour to frustration after an error loses fifty hours in a year. A person who resets in five minutes keeps moving. Over seasons or careers, the gap becomes enormous.

 

We often talk about confidence as if it precedes action. In practice, confidence usually follows action.

 

People wait to feel ready before they begin. High performers begin before they feel ready and allow repetition to create stability. This is why routines matter so much. Consistent behavior reduces the emotional cost of starting. Instead of deciding whether to act, the individual simply follows the next step. Performance becomes a process rather than a judgment.

 

When most people fail, they interpret it as information about themselves.

 

High performers interpret it as information about the task. That distinction changes everything. If failure reflects identity, people protect themselves. If failure reflects process, people adjust. Over time I have come to believe talent is far less important than commonly assumed. Ability matters, but only after a person stays engaged long enough for ability to matter.

 

The rare skill is not intelligence or even work ethic. It’s the capacity to continue operating when the outcome is uncertain and feedback is imperfect.

 

The Real Trainable Skill

Performance is not built on game day, presentation day, or launch day. It’s built in repeated moments when action feels slightly uncomfortable. Most individuals already know what they should do. The challenge is doing it consistently while managing internal reactions to pressure, criticism, and uncertainty.

 

That ability can be trained. Not by motivation, but by practice: shorter feedback loops, regular routines, and learning to resume action quickly after mistakes. I didn’t understand this when I was teaching. I thought performance was mainly preparation and information.

 

The founders I worked with didn’t need new strategy. They needed a better relationship with stress. Once that changed, their business moved forward, and so did they. I have seen the same pattern in classrooms, locker rooms, and boardrooms. High performers rarely succeed because they never struggle. They succeed because they keep acting while they do.

 

Author Bio

Dr. Darren Burke is a scientist and entrepreneur based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work focuses on performance, decision making, and translating research into real world application across sport and business. He is the co-founder of Headstrong and works with athletes, founders, and professionals on performance and preparation.

Website: https://drdarrenburke.com
Performance platform: https://getheadstrongnow.com
Background and work: https://getheadstrongnow.com/blogs/headstrong-news/darren-burke-halifax-headstrong-brain-performance

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada