Prime (noun)
the state or time of greatest vigour or success in a person’s life.

Hi, I’m Jason. This is where I share openly about the challenges, insights and lessons from my own journey. My hope is that these thoughts spark reflections that help you navigate your own path to living better and leading better. 

Jason Leavy
Founder

Prime Perspective:
Reflections on Leadership and Growth

"Easy has a cost.”

- James Clear

I’m willing to bet that 99% of subscribers to this email have an investment strategy or financial plan that is based on acceptance of one fundamental principle - that it’s worth tolerating a degree of short-term pain for long-term gain. 

Yet my provocation is that when it comes to the rest of your life, that strategy is frequently abandoned in favour of the easy path right in front of you.

If that strikes a chord, I want you to understand that the investments you make now in your mind and body may result in initial discomfort, but the compound effect further down the line is huge. 

By contrast, those seemingly easy options that don’t appear to have any negative consequences can end up having a major hidden cost.

My old professor at INSEAD cut to the heart of the matter with his observation that people will always talk about wanting to change, but in reality many prefer to live with the “pain of the familiar”. Science can help us understand that reality. 

Why Your Brain is to Blame

Here's what neuroscience reveals: that beautiful, complex beast that is your brain comprises only approximately 2% of your body weight, yet it consumes approximately 20% of your total energy. Because of this massive energy requirement, it has evolved sophisticated systems to conserve resources wherever possible.

You build neural pathways through establishing patterns of behaviour - think of these as like well-worn tracks through the forest. Your brain will always want to deviate towards them because they require minimal energy to navigate.

We all have a tendency to operate on ‘autopilot’ at times and that’s encouraged by the brain as it conserves energy - choosing what you already know feels effortless because our brain can cruise along familiar routes without expending much energy.

But here's the problem: that comfortable neural pathway might be leading you somewhere you don't want to go.

How I Hit A Dead-end

Let’s go back 18 months - this was how my life looked on a superficial level:

• Global COO of an agency, working with brands such as Google and Apple

• Working out 5-6 times a week

• Surrounded by an amazing wife, family and friends  

All golden, right? Let’s peel back the layers of the onion and see what was really going on:

• Stuck in a role where my values and ethics felt compromised and I was going through the motions

• Stuck in a physical rut, doing the same old routines and making little tangible progress

• Stuck in a cycle of poor food choices and too much drinking 

For too long, I stayed in that holding pattern, despite the pain, because it felt safer, more predictable and less risky than stepping into the unknown. 

But that ‘easy’ choice was making everything harder: I felt drained, I felt weak and ultimately I felt lost.

It was my wife Cheryl who finally forced me to confront the unknown as she knew the situation was taking too big a toll on me - mentally, physically and emotionally. 

She offered unwavering support, but that also took the form of a challenge - a challenge to step off the easy path and to jump into the unknown. 

When with her support I finally made the hard choice, the irony is that everything became easier. Not simple (definitely not simple!) but easier. I was essentially choosing between two types of discomfort: the sharp, temporary discomfort of change, or the chronic, grinding discomfort of stasis and misalignment. 

Like all of us, I’m still a work in progress, but what I can tell you is that as I write this:

• I’m in a role where I can be my true self - where my values and ethics are the foundation of everything I do and where I’m loving the fact I’m learning every day

• I’ve switched up my entire training routine, with the result that at 53, I’m in my best shape in years (mentally and physically)

• I’ve overhauled my diet and swapped out the late nights in Soho House for early morning walks in nature

I’m not writing this as a humble brag, but simply to prove to you that when I say it’s possible to change, I’m talking from a place of knowledge and experience.

More importantly, I also now understand the science behind why I was stuck and want to share that with you in the hope that knowledge unlocks new perspectives for you.

Why You Should Embrace Discomfort

Defaulting to the same old ‘routes’ means you are quite literally getting stuck in your ways - your cognitive health will suffer and eventually decline because of that lack of stimulation and growth, which has implications for your mental and physical wellbeing… none of them good.

By contrast, when you consider doing something challenging - having that difficult conversation, learning a new skill, immersing in a new experience - your brain sends discomfort signals. 

Most people interpret this as a warning to stop, that something doesn’t feel right. Those signals definitely acted like warning lights that made me hit the brakes in the past.

But neuroscience tells us something different: that discomfort can actually be evidence that new neural pathways are trying to form. Your brain’s resistance to change is not because it’s a bad move, it’s because it doesn’t want to expend the energy required to forge those new pathways. 

Once you understand this, you can completely reframe those uncomfortable feelings. Instead of avoiding them, you can lean into them as positive signals that change is actually happening. 

Discomfort isn't the enemy, it's proof that neuroplasticity is at work.

You can Grow Your Brain

Creating new neural pathways is like hacking through dense undergrowth with a machete. It's slow, exhausting work that requires sustained effort and energy.

But the new pathways you're creating are literally growing your brain. When you push through the discomfort of learning something challenging, you're promoting what scientists call neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells. We talk about the importance of a growth mindset, but this is literally that - in binary terms, your brain physically grows when you choose the harder path.

As Brant Cortright, Ph.D., an authority on holistic brain health, notes: “Your rate of neurogenesis is key to feeling good or bad, vibrant and rejuvenated or stagnant and depressed.”

This is because your brain health is key to health in every area - physical, mental and emotional.

The other important thing I’ve learned here is that the discomfort of cutting new paths is temporary. The discomfort of staying on the wrong path compounds permanently.

The neural pathways you choose to build through ‘hard’ choices are actually creating easier futures.

The Compound Effect of your Daily Routine

Think about your brain like your investment portfolio. You've already proven your ability to embrace short-term discomfort for long-term gain in your financial decisions - delaying immediate gratification, choosing proven strategies over get-rich-quick schemes, understanding that compound growth requires patience and consistency.

Your neural pathways work the same way. Your brain is always working, the question is how you direct that energy - toward the person you want to become, or letting it flow down the same old channels, even though they may be leading you down dead ends?

Easy has a cost. And that cost compounds every single day. 

Developing new capabilities is hard, but trust me, being left behind is harder.