Performance Intelligence

Performance Intelligence Building leadership capacity through diagnostics, coaching and behavioural reinforcement.

Performance Intelligence builds leadership capacity for senior executives and high-performing teams. Founded by Andrew May - exercise physiologist, mental skills coach and leadership advisor - we work at the intersection of physical performance, psychological fitness and operational systems to create sustainable high performance. Our clients include ASX-listed organisations, elite sporting teams a

nd the Australian Defence Force. We build embedded capability through diagnostics, leader-led coaching and behavioural reinforcement. Products include the PQ Index, Leadership Capacity Index, Human Performance Assessment and PQ Academy.

Not every exhausted leader is burnt out. Sometimes the issue is depletion, inadequate recovery or a mismatch between the...
03/09/2026

Not every exhausted leader is burnt out.

Sometimes the issue is depletion, inadequate recovery or a mismatch between the demands being carried and the capacity available to meet them.

High performers can be particularly good at disguising this because they keep performing. They continue leading teams, making decisions and delivering results while concentration, energy and recovery gradually decline.

Andrew May knows the pattern from personal experience.

In his latest article, Andrew explores the early warning signs of depletion, why high tolerance for workload shouldn’t be confused with sustainable capacity and why recovery needs to be built into the way we operate rather than saved for holidays.

Read: The Dangerous Thing About Depletion Is How Normal It Starts to Feel.
https://performanceintelligence.com/signs-of-depletion-high-performers/

When pressure hits, what helps you pause long enough to choose your response?Mental Agility is not about avoiding pressu...
01/09/2026

When pressure hits, what helps you pause long enough to choose your response?

Mental Agility is not about avoiding pressure. It is about noticing your reaction early enough to respond deliberately.

One simple practice is to pause, breathe in, allow the breath out to last a little longer, then decide what the situation requires from you.

That brief interruption can create space between the pressure you experience and the response you choose.

https://performanceintelligence.com/mental-agility-skill-nobody-taught-you/

Recovery is not the opposite of performance. It is the mechanism of performance. Without it, effort becomes progressivel...
01/09/2026

Recovery is not the opposite of performance. It is the mechanism of performance.

Without it, effort becomes progressively less efficient, decision quality degrades, and the system eventually forces a stop that is disruptive rather than planned.

The Recovery Rocket is a five-tier framework that addresses recovery at every level: from a major annual break down to the micro-practices embedded in every working day.

Most leaders who score their recovery find they are achieving twelve to eighteen points against a weekly target of thirty. That gap explains much of the performance inconsistency and decision fatigue leaders experience but rarely attribute to under-recovery.

Read the full resource: https://performanceintelligence.com/strategic-recovery/

://performanceintelligence.com/strategic-recovery/

Six weeks. One cohort. Real change. ⚡We just wrapped the Mental Agility course with the Performance Edge group and the ...
01/09/2026

Six weeks. One cohort. Real change. ⚡

We just wrapped the Mental Agility course with the Performance Edge group and the engagement from this team has been incredible.

Over six weeks leaders went deep on:

🧠 Understanding the brain under pressure
💪 Optimum physiology and physical foundations of performance
🪞 Personal identity and how it shapes responses to feedback
🌊 Emotional regulation and staying effective when it counts
📈 Learning effectiveness and making new behaviours stick
🛡️ Hardiness and sustained psychological resilience

The feedback has been strong. But more importantly, people are thinking and operating differently. That's what Mental Agility is designed to do.

Not awareness. Behaviour change. ✅

Proud of this group. The real work starts now. Click the link below 🙌

https://performanceintelligence.com/performance-intelligence-academy/mental-agility/

Under pressure, our default is often to work harder or repeat the response that has worked before. Mental Agility begins...
31/08/2026

Under pressure, our default is often to work harder or repeat the response that has worked before. Mental Agility begins by interrupting that pattern.

Before responding, ask:
What has changed?
What matters most now?
What response would be most useful?

These questions help you adjust to the situation without becoming reactive or losing your judgement and standards.

That is what makes Mental Agility trainable. It is not simply understanding adaptability. It is practicing a different response when conditions change.

Read the blog or join our Performance Pulse newsletter for more insights like these.
https://performanceintelligence.com/mental-agility-skill-nobody-taught-you/

Change readiness comes up in almost every leadership conversation we have lately. Organisations are introducing new syst...
27/08/2026

Change readiness comes up in almost every leadership conversation we have lately.

Organisations are introducing new systems, redesigning roles and adopting AI. Leaders are expected to adapt quickly while continuing to make sound decisions and carry their people through the change.

Mental Agility is a trainable part of psychological capacity. It helps leaders update their thinking, regulate their response and remain effective when conditions change.

Andrew May’s latest article explores the six-part learning pathway developed with clinical psychologist and mental performance coach Jacqui Louder.

Read the blog.
https://performanceintelligence.com/mental-agility-skill-nobody-taught-you/

New blog: What Is an Operating Rhythm (And Why Most Executives Don't Have One) Ask a senior leader to describe their Ope...
26/08/2026

New blog: What Is an Operating Rhythm (And Why Most Executives Don't Have One)

Ask a senior leader to describe their Operating Rhythm and most of them will describe their calendar. That's not an Operating Rhythm. That's a schedule that happened to them.

In this piece, Andrew May explains what an Operating Rhythm actually is (and why it's not time management), the five nested cycles that make it work, the biological reason humans can't sustain linear output, and how to build one that holds.

Read it here: https://performanceintelligence.com/what-is-operating-rhythm-leadership/

Most leaders can show you exactly where the pressure lives in their week. Meetings, deadlines, decisions, travel and del...
25/08/2026

Most leaders can show you exactly where the pressure lives in their week. Meetings, deadlines, decisions, travel and delivery are all there in the calendar.

What is often much harder to find is where capacity is deliberately rebuilt.

Recovery left to spare time rarely happens because there is rarely spare time. Strategic recovery means deciding what restores you and putting it into the operating rhythm before everything else fills the space.

Look at your calendar this week. Where are you building the capacity required for the load you're asking yourself to carry?

Andrew explores this further in his latest article. Read via the link.
https://performanceintelligence.com/leadership-capacity-burnout/

Burnout is real, but we have allowed one word to cover a much bigger performance problem. For many leaders, the problem ...
24/08/2026

Burnout is real, but we have allowed one word to cover a much bigger performance problem.

For many leaders, the problem starts upstream. The load keeps increasing while the capacity and recovery systems required to sustain it don't.

Leadership capacity isn't simply physical. It is psychological, operational and relational too, and together these dimensions influence how effectively we absorb pressure, respond to it and recover enough to do it again.

The question isn't how much more you can take. It's whether you're deliberately building the capacity your performance requires.

Andrew explores the distinction in his latest article. Read via the link.

Staying calm under pressure is the wrong goal. Nerves aren't proof you're unprepared, and experience doesn't make them d...
16/08/2026

Staying calm under pressure is the wrong goal. Nerves aren't proof you're unprepared, and experience doesn't make them disappear. In his latest blog, Performance Intelligence founder Andrew May breaks down what actually changes with experience: not the absence of nerves, but what you do the moment they show up.

Drawing on a conversation with broadcaster Christian O'Connell, who once had to shift from a panic attack to hosting a live radio show in the space of minutes, Andrew sets out how any leader can notice the state they're in under real pressure, choose the one the moment needs, and deliberately shift towards it.

Read the full blog via the link.
https://performanceintelligence.com/shift-state-under-pressure/

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