Most high performers are running on a nervous system that hasn't been given permission to recover. You feel fine. You're productive. And underneath it, you're running hotter than you know.

Jack McMillan was an elite footballer who kept choking under pressure not from lack of talent, but from a nervous system he'd never learned to regulate. What he found, reluctantly, through yoga and breathwork, changed everything. Not just how he performed. How he lived.

Now co-founder of Optima Performance, Jack works at the intersection of breath, physiology, and human performance  with elite athletes, football managers, and corporate teams of 400 people who all share the same problem: they know how to push, but not how to recover.

In this conversation we get into the mechanics and the meaning. Why dysfunctional breathing quietly drives overthinking, poor sleep, and tunnel vision under pressure. How a single shift from mouth to nasal breathing can lower your heart rate before you've said a word. And why the pause the one most high performers skip might be the most underrated performance tool available.

Jack also walks us through his breathing gears model for difficult conversations, the Reset Breath practice you can do in two minutes before sleep, and why the best athletes he's worked with are the ones who leave their ego at the door.

This one is practical. And if you run on stress, it might also be uncomfortable in the best possible way.

Reachout to Jack vias his website or LinkedIn 

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