Excellent article. It explains a lot about why I "burned out" physically and mentally at the tender age of 45. I was a lot like the Marilyn Clark example they described. At the time, I understood the concepts they discuss, but I found it nearly impossible to put them to work for me in a practical way. I think that was because, rather than treating those concepts as "techniques" to be adopted or applied, what was required was a complete change in my approach to my work and life, a "paradigm shift" to use the now-well-known phrase. Unfortunately, I didn't think of myself as a performance athlete at the time, and therefore was not successful in finding a coach to help me figure out how to make my life work. I decided to step away from it all and took a sabbatical. Since November I have been working with Jacques Dallaire out of Charlotte, NC, (who has a firm similar to LGE, and who has worked with a large number of drivers over the years, including the great Senna in the 80's and Castroneves currently) on how to get the most out of my life in and out of the car. I felt I needed the help since I was coming to the racing game quite late in life and had a lot of catching up to do (to get to the same level of success--and excitement
--as the rest of Juicy Nation). His techniques for creating the Ideal Performance State ("Zone") on command are especially effective. His approach is similar in a lot of ways to the ones described in this article. Adopting this way of thinking is already helping significantly in my driving and my life. We'll see where it goes.