Embodied Intelligence 101
World-making with keystone projects, mental gear-shifting and habits that compound your capability
The 4 Main Aims of Intelligence
Forget just getting better at learning and logic puzzles. Modern neuroscience suggests true intelligence is about adaptive agility — your brain’s ability to navigate uncertainty, solve novel problems and learn efficiently without burning out.
My new model, called the Trident G Theory, proposes that our brains work best in a ‘sweet spot’ (called the Ψ (Psi) Band) between rigid focus and chaotic mind-wandering. The goal of getting smarter, then, isn’t to maximise one thing, but to expand your mental operating range and spend more time in that sweet spot.
Based on this, here are the four main aims of improving your intelligence:
1. Widen Your Challenge Zone
When your brain is functioning well it has a built-in difficulty thermostat. When a task is too easy, you get bored. When it's too hard, you get overwhelmed and anxious. Intelligent people aren’t just smart — they have a wider comfort zone for healthy challenge. This can be thought of as more space for flow.
The Goal: To ratchet up your tolerance for complexity and uncertainty, while also consolidating what you’ve already solved, so you can handle bigger, more novel problems without freezing or fracturing.
How to improve it: Consistently engage in tasks that are just beyond your current edge of competence, and then absorb the lessons learned. It’s the mental equivalent of progressive overload in weightlifting.
2. Master the Art of Mental Gear-Shifting
Deep thinking requires two complementary modes: a focused, efficient mode for executing what you know, and a flexible, exploratory mode for dreaming up new ideas and solutions. Getting stuck in one gear is a limitation.
The Goal: To seamlessly switch between focused execution ("Control") and creative exploration ("Creative"), and to know when to switch.
How to improve it: Practice deliberate transitions. Schedule dedicated, distraction-free time for deep work (Control), and protected, open-ended time for brainstorming, curiosity-driven learning and play (Creative). See below for what each mode feels like from the inside.
3. Leverage Your Body and Your People
Your intelligence isn’t just in your head. It’s embodied and social. Your physical state (stress, energy, focus) directly impacts your cognition. In fact your body and heart have their own ‘sweet spot’ which you can measure using heart rate. And borrowing from the knowledge of others is the ultimate cognitive shortcut.
The Goal: To use your body to synergise with your mind and to build on the knowledge and support of your culture and community instead of starting from scratch.
How to improve it:
Body: Use breathwork, mindfulness, or exercise to manage stress and improve focus and flexibility.
People / network: Actively seek out mentors, build networks, and draw on proven strategies in ‘knowledge communities.’ Don't reinvent the wheel. And look for inspiration from colleagues and leaders.
4. Build a Latticework of Reusable Knowledge
True crystallised intelligence (Gc) isn't about accumulating facts or vocabulary. It’s about building connected mental models and skills — a "latticework" of understanding and competence — that you can apply flexibly to new situations. This turns isolated insights into lasting, transferable intelligence.
The Goal: To constantly compress your learning into structured, reusable concepts and skills that you can deploy automatically.
How to improve it: After a learning or creative session, take time to consolidate. Create a summary, a diagram, or a simple rule. Ask yourself: "What is the core principle here? How can I explain this simply? Where else could this apply?" Practice it, apply it in different contexts.
In short, getting smarter isn't about having a faster processor. It's about upgrading your entire ‘operating system’ to be more adaptable, resilient, and efficient. It’s about expanding your range, shifting gears smoothly, using all available resources, and building knowledge that lasts.
But how do you actually do that? The following six habits are your practical playbook for putting this theory.
Six Smart Habits to Engineer Intelligent Growth
True intelligence isn't just about thinking better day-to-day. It's about harnessing phase transitions — focusing on specific, high-leverage achievements that permanently raise your ceiling and widen your capabilities. These "bottleneck achievements" act as competence ratchets, shifting your brain's entire operating system to a higher level.
The habits below are designed to help you identify and execute these projects, expanding your Ψ-band and building a latticework of reusable intelligence.
1) Identify and Execute "Keystone Projects"
The Principle: Your career and cognitive growth are often bottlenecked by a few asymmetric achievements. A keystone project is one that, once completed, doesn't just add success — it reconfigures your opportunities, identity, and capacity. It forces a major upward ratchet of your "difficulty thermostat" (F*), expanding your resilient range and becoming a foundational node in your knowledge map.
Example keystone projects:
New job
Salary renegotiation
High-visibility project success
Publication in high-impact media
Executing an important deal or sale
High-value certification
Grant / funding win
Partnership handshake
Hosting a successful event or exhibition
Winning a high-visibility, reputational competition
Suggested next steps:
Identify: Ask: "What single achievement, if done in the next 6-12 months, would make a dozen other things easier or irrelevant?" This is a candidate.
Execute: Manage it with daily Create → Compress cycles. Dedicate one session to open exploration and generation (Creative mode) and another to focused refinement and execution (Control mode).
Deliver: The goal is a concrete, public artefact — a paper, a launched product, a proven model. This "ship" act is the competence signal that locks in the gain.
Consolidate: After delivering, run a dedicated "Compression" session to distil the learned principles into templates and systems (Gf → Gc) and start using these to the point of automation.
2) Regulate Your Inputs to Guard Mental Energy
The Principle: Your cognitive state is an embodied resource. Scattered attention drains it; intentional focus builds it. Use breathwork and movement as a lever to reset your allostatic state and modulate your focus between tasks.
Try this: Protect two daily focus blocks for deep work. Use 60–120 seconds of paced, diaphragmatic breathing between blocks to reset. Treat social/media feeds as a planned recovery tool, not a distraction or default state.
3) Apply 80/20 Focus to Widen Your Bandwidth
The Principle: Expanding your safe operating range requires efficiently targeting high-impact actions. This conserves metabolic resources and prevents burnout, allowing you to take on bigger challenges.
Try this: Each Monday, list your top 10 actions. Circle the two that would have the greatest impact on expanding your opportunities this week. Do those first.
4) Consolidate Wins into Reusable Systems (Gf→Gc)
The Principle: True intelligence is built by compressing successful explorations into crystallised knowledge — templates, systems, and checklists. This frees up mental energy for your next creative leap.
Try this: Compression sessions: Spend 10-30 minutes turning the day’s or week's progress into one reusable asset: a template, a decision checklist, a standardised workflow which you then implement on a regular basis.
5) Automate Maintenance to Protect Creative Energy
The Principle: Routine tasks pull you into a reactive, subcritical state ("Autopilot shaft"). Batching them protects your precious cognitive resources for the near-critical, high-value work that grows/evolves your abilities.
Try this: Contain routine admin and chores into one daily block and one longer weekly batch. Same time, same place, minimal decisions.
6) Integrated Brain Training
The Principle: Pairing focused cognitive training with fitness training directly trains your attentional, working memory, problem solving, decision-making and critical evaluation ability, as well as gear-shifting capacity, recovery, and embodied resilience that supports your entire system.
Check out programs here that build cognitive training into your other daily ‘workouts’ for wellbeing and performance.
Gear-Shifting: How Control vs Creative Modes Feel
Exploit / Focused execution
Attention: narrow, stable beam; low urge to tab-switch; priorities feel obvious.
Body: steady heart, even breathing (often slower/deeper), shoulders relaxed but ready; posture still.
Tempo: speech measured; movements economical; time feels “paced.”
Mood: quietly confident, purposeful; low novelty-seeking.
Tell-tales: you finish steps cleanly; easy to “ship” something small.
Best use: Control mode work — editing, grading, coding the known plan, finishing.
Shift into it: exhale-lengthened breathing (e.g., 4-sec in / 6-sec out), dim visual clutter, single clear next step, short checklist.
Explore / Flexible search
Attention: wide, scanning; ideas pop; urge to sample new tabs/sources.
Body: slightly faster breath (higher in chest), bigger pupils, light muscle tone, a “lean-forward” feel.
Tempo: quicker speech; more micro-movements; time feels faster.
Mood: curious, playful, novelty-seeking; tolerant of ambiguity.
Tell-tales: you generate options, connections, and hypotheses.
Best use: Creative mode — brainstorming, mapping, trying variants, experimentation, play
Shift into it: quick walk or a minute of brisk nasal breaths, bright light, upbeat music, fresh stimulus.
‘Overcooked’ explore
Attention: jumpy; can’t land; ideas don’t gel into actions.
Body: jitter, shallow breath, jaw/neck tension; agitated.
Mood: edgy restlessness, FOMO; novelty for novelty’s sake.
Cost: lots of motion, little progress; error-prone pivots.
Cool it: 60–120s slow nasal breathing, write one single question to answer, switch to a small Control task you can deliver in 5–10 minutes.
Under-aroused exploit (too cool / flat)
Attention: dull; hard to start; excessive perfectionism or avoidance.
Body: heavy limbs, sighing; slouching; sleepy eyes.
Mood: bored, detached; low curiosity.
Cost: procrastination; “warming up” takes forever.
Warm it: stand, shake out, 30–60s fast nasal inhales with relaxed exhales (hypoxic breathing), expose to daylight, set a 5-minute starter timer on a micro-deliverable.
How to start
Aim 1: Set Your Challenge. Define your keystone project. This is how you ratchet up your challenge thermostat.
Aim 2: Master Gear-Shifting. Work with daily Create/Compress cycles. This practices the switch between Creative and Control modes.
Aim 4: Build a Latticework. Lock in gains with end of cycle Compression. This is how you turn insights (Gf) into reusable systems (Gc).
Aim 3: Leverage Body & Networks. Protect your brain-and-body hour and use it identify which high-leverage actions might involve consulting your people.
This is the practical path to expanding your intelligent mind: simple, consistent tactics that widen your range, smooth your transitions, and build lasting capability and success.
Why this discipline matters more than ever: An economic view
The next few years will bring net job growth with heavy churn — millions of roles created and millions displaced — while nearly two in five core skills are expected to change. Employers say skills gaps are the #1 barrier, and they’re prioritising upskilling— with “analytic thinking,” “resilience, flexibility & agility” and creative thinking among the most valued capabilities. Crucially, the top talent draw isn’t just pay; it is health and well-being support, which tells you the winning strategy is not to grind harder but to grow smarter — expanding your adaptive intelligence while protecting your body budget so you can steer your own path in a high-volatility economy.
The Future of Jobs Report 2025. (n.d.). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/