The performance stress cascade does not build randomly. It follows a specific neurological sequence, an error signal that gets handed to an amplifying circuit instead of a regulatory one, attentional resources pulled backward instead of forward, and stress hormones that degrade the exact cognitive flexibility needed to course-correct. By the time the third mistake arrives it feels inevitable, and physiologically speaking, at that point it nearly is. This episode is about understanding the structure of the cascade well enough to interrupt it at the only moment that is actually easy, the first one.

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