Field Notes
The science, and the protocol.
Short reads on what actually changes the quality of a decision — and small protocols you can run this week, wherever you are. The full version happens in Furnas.
Contents · Eight notes
One idea, the research behind it, and one thing to try.
Read them in order, or follow the theme closest to what you are carrying.
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You did not reach the top by being wrong often. That is exactly the trap.
Pressure rarely produces one bad call. It produces a slow drift of slightly worse ones — and a sharp mind defends every one. How to cross-examine your own.
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You can’t think your way to clarity in a stressed body. The body gets there first.
Why the reset starts with breath, not strategy — and the five-minute practice that, in a Stanford trial, lifted mood more than mindfulness meditation.
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Your best decision will not happen at your desk.
Walking widens your thinking. A walk in nature quietens the loop a stuck decision runs. What two Stanford studies found — and a protocol to put them to work.
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Your next decision is only as good as the room you make it in.
The more senior you get, the smaller that room becomes. What research on group intelligence says about who you decide with — and why we cap it at eight.
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The place that made the problem cannot solve it.
Why distance is a method, not a luxury — what four days in the wild did to creative problem-solving, and a 48-hour protocol you can run yourself.
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A retreat sends you home relaxed. A mastermind sends you home with notes. Neither sends you home certain.
Why the plans that survive Monday morning are the ones you own — what goal research says about commitment, and a one-page memo to make yours hold.
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The most unhurried table you will ever sit at.
On cozido das Furnas — six hours in the volcanic ground, no chef, no flame — and what a slow meal teaches a room about honest conversation.
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The sound of water is not background.
What a 2021 review of the research found about natural sound and health, why sound closes every day in Furnas, and a ten-minute listening protocol.
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October 2026 · Fully bookedLimited places each year
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