How to Condition Your Mind for Peak Performance
A simple 4 minute system to show up confident and powerful every day.
It’s Friday, 6.37 am and I’m only now starting to write this issue.
I’ll probably need to break and come back later to finish it (you know it, getting the kids ready for school!)
In addition to exercising this morning, I did something special. I did an “innercise”. It’s what I’ve learned to boost confidence and performance after talking to Collin Henderson, a performance and mindset coach (more on him later).
This innercise consisted of four parts:
Breathwork (take deep breaths)
Gratitude (list three things and appreciate)
Power affirmation (speak my strengths and wins)
Visualization (see myself crushing the day)
The best part? This just takes 4 minutes. What’s wild is that our minds are so important but we don’t do anything to condition it.
Now, let’s talk about Collin.
He is a high-performance mindset coach, former Division I athlete, former sales rep (his dad called him the catheter king at one point), father of five, and founder of Master Your Mindset. With seven books, thousands of coaching hours, and a client list that includes Fortune 500 executives, elite athletes, and top sales teams, Collin helps people rewire their thinking, unlock confidence, and perform at their peak—on stage, in business, and in life (and he also looks a bit like Justin Timberlake 😅).
On the outside, it looks pristine, but turns out he suffered from mental blocks all his life, from caring super deeply about what other people thought of him, to a stutter created by the pressure he puts on himself. Collin spoke openly and shared everything, even his most vulnerable moments when his dad passed away.
For that, I’m truly grateful. (Some guests are not so forth coming just so you know.)
I was really excited to interview him and ask him about his greatest lessons to help us influence ourselves, but really, I wanted to ask him about the bracelet he removed from his father’s wrist after he passed - there were six words on it that served as his daily reminder.) Aren’t you curious too? I know you are.
To summarize the entire experience, this is what I learned:
How you show up daily is a consequence of what you say to yourself daily.
Change your self-talk, change your life.
Remember the 4 minute innercise I mentioned earlier? Turns out it’s connected to the six words on the bracelet (Collin reminded me of the 2007 ditty: 4 minutes to save the world).
I Have. I Am. I Will.
It’s a mantra Collin uses that’s stuck with me. He calls it the HAW method:
“I Have” reminds you to ground yourself in gratitude. Not just the big stuff, but the tiny wins too—the breath in your lungs, the people in your corner, the fact that you're still in the game. It's your anchor when things feel chaotic.
“I Am” is all about identity. Who are you becoming? How do you see yourself when no one’s watching? This part rewires that inner voice—so instead of spiraling into “I’m not enough,” you start feeding your brain with the truth: I’m capable. I’ve done hard things before. I belong here.
And “I Will”? That’s your declaration. It’s where you set your intention and visualize exactly how you want to move through your day. It’s not vague either. It’s vivid. It’s “I will speak with clarity in that pitch,” or “I will show up calm and focused,” or “I will be proud of how I handled today.”
And what makes it even more meaningful? Collin told this story—after his dad passed away, he was holding his hand in the hospital, and on his dad’s wrist was a bracelet with those exact words: I Have. I Am. I Will. (Collin made it for one of his dad’s baseball teams)
Collin took it off his dad’s wrist, put it on his own, and it’s been on his wrist ever since.
Not as a slogan. As a legacy.
That hit me. Hard.
But as James Clear says “You don’t rise to your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”
Having an intention is cool, but this is THE system to make sure we develop a habit to train our mind for legendary.
In addition to the daily innercise in the morning, he has a pattern interrupt which he also wears on his arm: 2437
24: Kobe Bryant (also a father of 5, but perished suddenly in a helicopter crash)
37: Steven Gleason (his college team mate who was diagnosed with ALS and have started a foundation to help others with ALS. Steven was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for civilian service)
These two numbers 24 37 serves as an interrupt tool if he falls into despair or face something challenging in the day: I have my life. I have my kids. I have my health. Get up, get inspired, get going.
That’s powerful, because it’s an emotional kick in the gut (I got an emotional kick 💔 last week as well…will share more after this)
Because as much as we want things to me smooth sailing, we know that shit will hit the fan. We will get into negative thoughts because it’s just the way humans are programmed.
The simple system is this:
Daily innercise (4 minute mental workout)
Pattern interrupt tool (A physical and emotional reminder to snap out of it)
Will you adopt this system?
I sure hope you do. If we don’t condition our mind for legendary, we will never live it in reality.
This week, for our influence psychology lesson:
The Rhyme-as-Reason Effect
Alright, here’s a quirky one—our brains actually believe rhyming statements are more accurate than non-rhyming ones, even if they say the exact same thing.
It’s called the Rhyme-as-Reason Effect, and it shows how form can beat logic when it comes to persuasion.
Why? From a neuroscience perspective, it’s the concept of cognitive fluency—the idea that the easier something is to process mentally, the more positively we evaluate it.
Rhymes are:
Easier to encode in memory
Easier to retrieve
Easier to repeat
This ease of processing lights up reward circuits in the brain (especially in the prefrontal cortex) and reduces cognitive load. Because your brain is working less, it assumes:
“If this feels easy and smooth… it must be right.”
In a 2000 study, participants rated rhyming phrases as significantly more truthful than their non-rhyming versions even when the meaning is the same.(Study here)
So what does this mean for you?
If you want to get your idea across, persuade someone to adopt and take action, try using a rhyme as the idea.
BTW, here are some of Collin’s quotes from the podcast episode:
“The issues are in the tissues.”
“Innersize before you exercise.”
“Shift your attention to your intention.”
“If it’s built fast, it won’t last. If it’s built slow, it will grow.”
Hmmm… sense a theme?
Howie Chan
Creator of Influence Anyone
Follow me on LinkedIn
Don’t miss:
The Influence Anyone Podcast
Collin and I get emotional and raw in this podcast episode. We get into the best ways to “innercise” and build an anti-fragile brain.
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, the web or wherever you get your podcasts.