In a surreal moment with myself after running through a product discussion with some friends, who are soon launching a start-up, I reflected on the fact that I’ve been weight training for 38 years. I’ve loved my relationship with the weight room, which will forever be a part of my life. Over the years, I have gained strength training advice from legends like Louie Simmons. But today it hit me. While putting laundry away, I came across a shirt with a famous Louie quote and immediately thought about its significance beyond the gym. Louie’s wisdom reaches way beyond barbells and power racks. This is one of his most famous quotes: “Weak things break.” While most people think of the gym, I now see how it also applies to leadership, organizations, and systems.
· Weak teams fracture under pressure.
· Weak leadership collapses into chaos.
· Weak programming breeds mediocrity, not mastery.
Training for anything does not happen in one event; yet somehow, some people think that taking a class is enough to acquire the skills needed to level up. Unfortunately, taking a class is an awareness event, unless there is a mechanism built in to make it sticky. Building immersive environments where people do more than manage adversity but withstand and transcend it is a challenge. If you are a professional trainer, the question is not how many classes you teach, but what is your plan for the follow-through? It doesn’t matter what the environment is: a weight room, a boardroom, or a briefing room. In life, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to the level of your preparation.
The Biology of Breaking: Why Weakness Isn’t Just Physical
Organizations and people face the same fate as tendons under stress: if they are not prepared for the load, they will snap. Neuroscientist Dr. Bruce McEwen coined the term “allostatic load” to describe the cumulative wear and tear on the body and brain resulting from chronic stress. Systems without resilience capacity, whether neural or organizational, burn out (McEwen, 1998). Tendons, like people and systems, can withstand tremendous amounts of tension if adequately trained to do so. I’ve learned the hard lessons of strength training: development is not linear, and it’s not always about the reps and routines in the gym. Strength training requires you to dial in the interconnected factors of progression, such as technique, bracing, rest and recovery, nutrition, cumulative stress load, and one other extremely important factor: how we program the mind. Like Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
Mental Programming: Dr. Shad Helmstetter’s Model
I was fortunate enough to learn from Dr. Shad Helmstetter, a self-talkand internal programming pioneer. He argues that most people operate with unconscious scripts given to them by parents, teachers, or traumatic events. In his model, consistent, affirmative, constructive language rewires neural pathways and reshapes performance (Helmstetter, 2017). To strengthen organizations, we must reprogram their culture—one conversation, one narrative, and one belief system at a time.
· Negative self-talk breaks people.
· Negative organizational narratives break teams.
This is why leadership development cannot be an isolated event or something done once a year. Leaders must continually reframe how people think, speak, and lead under pressure, a task that is especially challenging in cultures where blame, favoritism, and negative thinking prevail.
MAGNUS OVEA: A Blueprint for Capacity Building
At the National Command & Staff College, we understand that the operational challenges organizations face far exceed the landscape of classroom training. This is why we’ve embedded the MAGNUS OVEA Theory into a platform to guide professionals in repetitively mastering the mind, body, and mission of their organizations and people.
Integrating neuroscience, leadership, and systems theory into a holistic operating framework is the mental equivalent of physical strength cycles. As Louie Simmons utilized conjugate training to prepare strength athletes for world records, we employ MAGNUS OVEA to prepare professionals for life’s most complex challenges: critical incidents, moral dilemmas, and adaptive crises.
Strength is Built—Not Bought
There have been times in recent history when the world has rewarded shallow leadership: charisma over character, visibility over values. However, as we’ve seen time and again in history, it’s not the flashy leader who saves the day; it’s those who have prepared for the weight of the moment and prevailed because of their operational readiness.
· Leadership isn’t a personality trait. It’s a capacity.
· Mental toughness isn’t a buzzword. It’s a practice.
· Systems don’t break because they’re bad, but they do break when they’re not ready for the load.
Today’s Challenge
If you want to stop the cycle of reactive leadership and start building enduring strength, please connect. Discussing theories and leadership is one thing, but building capacity requires more than just theory to succeed. Finally, in strengthening the connectivity of an ecosystem, we must be more like what the African proverb reminds us: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Remember, weak things break. Ask yourself, how strong is your mind? How strong is your system? How strong are your leaders? When all things become stronger, they bend, adapt, and overcome.
References
English Language. African proverb. Retrieved 5/6/25 from https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/606293/where-does-this-proverb-come-from-if-you-want-to-go-fast-go-alone-if-you-wan
Goodreads. Henry Ford quote. Retrieved 5/6/25 from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/978-whether-you-think-you-can-or-you-think-you-can-t–you-re
Helmstetter, S. (2017). What to say when you talk to yourself. Gallery Books.
Javidi, M., & Ellis, B. (2024). The Theory of MAGNUS OVEA: A general theory of human performance & wellbeing. Holly Springs, NC: Readiness Network.
McEwen, B. S. (1998). Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840(1), 33–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09546.x