#21 - Dr. Greg Wells on The Power of Challenge
Today’s guest is Dr. Greg Wells And this Episode is An Excerpt from His Titan Talk
Most people go after big, meaningful goals (new business, race, book, major change) but then get stuck in a chronic stress/threat response that blocks learning, recovery, and performance. This episode shows how to pivot from threat → challenge using physiology so growth becomes possible again.
In today’s presentation clip Dr. Greg Wells explores how to use the science of stress and recovery to take on big, scary goals without burning out. He explains the difference between the sympathetic “gas pedal” and parasympathetic “brake,” and why high performers must be able to switch between them on demand. Greg tells the story of Felix Baumgartner’s panic attacks before the Red Bull Stratos jump to show how breathwork + self-talk + gradual exposure rewires the brain for challenge. Then he maps out a simple three-step sequence anyone can use to grow faster, think better, and perform at a world-class level.
You will learn how the body can’t tell the difference between a sabre-tooth tiger and an urgent email; how cortisol and chronic sympathetic activation literally stop new neural branches from forming (so stress blocks learning); how to flip perception from “this is a threat” to “this is a challenge”; how breath, language, and micro-exposure pull you back into parasympathetic recovery; and how elite sport has shifted from “crush them every day” to “train hard, recover harder” to create sustainable high performance.
You will discover that high performance isn’t about doing more—it’s about controlling state. When you can deliberately toggle between perform (sympathetic) and recover (parasympathetic), you can take on bigger challenges without paying a health tax.
Most ambitious people launch into a challenge and then get derailed by anxiety, poor sleep, brain fog, or overtraining. Greg’s protocol shows you how to stay in the growth trajectory—keep learning, keep adapting, keep creating—rather than sliding into the trauma trajectory.
Key take aways:
Pivot from threat to challenge—language matters.
Control nervous system: gas (sympathetic), brake (parasympathetic).
Breathe long, slow, deep before you act.
Recover daily so learning can happen.
Reconnect to the mission, not the fear.
“We desperately need to make this pivot—from threat to challenge.”
Today’s Presenter - Dr. Greg Wells
Dr. Greg Wells is a scientist, human physiologist, keynote speaker, and bestselling author who helps people and organizations achieve healthy high performance. He’s worked with Olympic and World-Champion athletes, business leaders, and academic performers, and has spent 25+ years translating cutting-edge physiology into practical strategies for sleep, focus, movement, and recovery.
Greg doesn’t just talk about physiology — he stress-tests it in real adventures (cycling across Africa, Arctic marathons, mountain climbs) and then reverse-engineers what worked into simple systems. His Healthy High Performance model links Body → Mind → Life so flow isn’t a one-off moment, it’s a state you can access again and again to create better work, better health, and better leadership.
Follow Dr. Wells on Instagram & Linked In.
Check out his website.
Explore his books.
This podcast contains advice and information relating to health and wellness. It should be used to supplement rather than replace the advice of your doctor or another trained health professional. If you know or suspect that you have a health problem, seek your physician’s advice before embarking on any medical program or treatment. All efforts have been made to assure the accuracy of the information contained in this podcast / interview / article as of the date of publication. The author and publisher disclaim liability for any medical or other outcomes that may occur as a result of applying the methods suggested in this material.
