Have you ever had this feeling?

You’ve just had a brilliant idea.
Suddenly the way forward seems clear.

And then your brain immediately chips in with comments worthy of Statler and Waldorf:

"That'll never work."
"Who am I to try this?"
"What if everyone thinks it's stupid?"
"I should probably research this for a good six months first."

Sound familiar? You're not alone.

The thing is, our brains have evolved to keep us safe, not make us happy.

The new bit at the front, where our imagination and creativity sit, is connected to the old parts of the brain that are scared that something’s going to eat us.

(Why hello there, Mister Sabre-Toothed Tiger.)

So when your new brain starts amplifying the fears coming out of your old brain, the very same mind that generated your brilliant idea starts to dismantle your confidence in pursuing it.

The ironies.

It's like having an incredibly creative business partner who's also your harshest critic, sitting in every meeting, questioning every decision.

The hidden cost of mental mess

When we talk about business challenges, we usually focus on the external stuff - trends, marketing, finding customers or clients. But what about the internal challenges?

The perfectionism that keeps you tweaking instead of launching
The impostor syndrome that makes you undersell your expertise
The overwhelm that has you bouncing between tasks instead of focusing on what matters most

For many of us trying to build something meaningful, it's our minds that can become the biggest obstacle between where we are and where we want to go.

You might have all the business skills imaginable. Twice the experience and training others can draw from.

But if your inner critic is running the show, you'll never use them to their full potential.

The smart person's trap

Here's something I've noticed about intelligent, purpose-driven people: we often have the loudest inner critics.

Maybe it's because we can see all the ways things could go wrong. Maybe it's because we hold ourselves to impossibly high standards.

Or maybe it's because we care so much about doing good work that the stakes feel enormous.

Whatever the reason, many of us end up trapped in our own heads;

overthinking every decision
procrastinating on the important stuff
pushing so hard that we burn out before we can make the impact we're capable of

And when people talk about "mindset work," it feels like it often falls into two camps: inspiration that sounds nice but doesn't create lasting change, or complex therapy that requires months or years to see results.

At this year's Summercamp, long-time member of our community Solomon Mehta-Slade will share a third option.

With training at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and in Positive Intelligence, he's spent over a decade teaching mindfulness and performance psychology.

Instead of treating mental challenges as problems to fix, he treats them as skills to build as part of the "mental fitness" movement.

The principle is simple: your mind is your greatest asset, but it can also become your greatest trap. And most of what gets in your way isn't your workload.

It's your inner world.

What mental fitness looks like

Think about physical fitness for a moment. You don't expect to run a marathon without any training.

And hopefully you don't get frustrated when you can't lift heavy weights on your first day at the gym.

You understand that building physical strength and endurance takes consistent practice over time.

Mental fitness works the same way. It's about building the ability to:

Notice when your thoughts are spiraling before they take you down with them
Respond to challenges from a place of clarity rather than reactivity
Maintain focus on what matters most, even when everything feels urgent
Bounce back from setbacks without losing momentum for weeks
Make decisions with confidence instead of endlessly second-guessing yourself

It isn't about eliminating difficult thoughts and emotions. That's impossible and not even desirable.

It's about changing your relationship with them so they inform you rather than control you.

You won't become a Zen master who never gets stressed (sorry).

But you can develop the capacity to work with stress, doubt, and challenge in a way that doesn't derail you.

Solomon Mehta-Slade — **Mental flow for founders**
Meet Sol **at this year's Summercamp**. Expect practical frameworks, inner rewiring, and a fresh relationship with that brilliant brain of yours.

Less mind mess. More mental flow.

Where to start

If this resonates with you, the good news is that mental fitness, like physical fitness, can be developed gradually. You don't need to overhaul your entire life or commit to hours of practice.

Start by simply noticing:

What triggers your inner critic most?
When do you tend to get stuck in overthinking loops?
What does stress feel like in your body before it takes over your mind?

Just developing awareness of these patterns is the first step toward being able to work with them differently.

And here's a bonus exercise from Positive Intelligence:

Rub the tips of your fingers on one hand against the tips of the other, really paying attention to the ridges of your fingerprints, for ten seconds.

It's a super easy way to interrupt that inner critic and create more space for your inner wisdom to emerge.

The most effective leaders and changemakers aren't the ones who never struggle mentally - we have evolved minds that keep us safe not make us happy, remember?

So it's about staying more centred when you're in a difficult conversation with a client, instead of getting defensive.

It's tapping into your wisdom more frequently when you're faced with a big decision, rather than getting lost in analysis paralysis.

It's pausing to extract the lessons and moving forward when a project doesn't go as planned, rather than spiralling into self-blame.

Because your brilliant mind really is your most powerful asset.

And it works best when you know how to use it skilfully.

If you're ready to develop your mental fitness, Sol will be sharing practical tools for building mental flow at our Soul Café during Summercamp in September.

Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do for your business is invest in the capacity of the person running it.