Unashamedly Superhuman

Have you ever wondered how far you could go if you stopped holding yourself back? In Unashamedly Superhuman, Jim Steele argues that what separates extraordinary performers from the rest of us isn’t talent or genetic luck—it’s the ability to consciously harness our inner power. His claim is that everyone already possesses superhuman potential within their mindset, physiology, and focus, and that we can learn to activate these elements deliberately rather than waiting for them by accident.

Steele contends that being “superhuman” isn’t about mythical powers or impossible feats; it’s about learning how to combine high performance and well-being so that thriving doesn’t come at the cost of exhaustion. Drawing from neuroscience, elite sports training, and his own two-year odyssey preparing for an IRONMAN® triathlon, Steele reframes success as an internal process: the art of managing energy, mindset, and physiological resources to perform better, think smarter, and feel stronger. He calls this practical mastery being “Unashamedly Superhuman.”

The Power of Better, Smarter, Stronger

The book is divided into three main sections—Better, Smarter, and Stronger—each targeting a key pillar of performance. “Better” explores how to adapt more in order to endure less, building on concepts from psychologist Jordan Peterson and Darwin’s notion of the survival of the most adaptable. “Smarter” dives into the power of mindset, detailing how stress can become fuel for flow states. “Stronger” focuses on physiology, showing readers how simple habits and recovery practices activate biochemical systems that sustain both energy and resilience.

Steele structures his approach around performance “hacks,” actionable techniques validated by neuroscience and tested through his IRONMAN® training—breathwork, cognitive reframing, mindful focus, and cold exposure among them. Instead of superstitious formulas, his argument is clear: strategy is the true magic.

Performance Without Burnout

At the heart of Steele’s experiment lies a paradox familiar to modern professionals: how can we pursue demanding goals while maintaining health and happiness? Having spent 25 years coaching corporate leaders obsessed with productivity, he noticed that burnout was often treated as an acceptable price of success. That’s what he set out to challenge. His hypothesis was that well-being is not opposed to performance—it fuels it. To test this, he committed to completing the IRONMAN® triathlon while feeling stronger at the end than at the beginning. The result was not just finishing the 140-mile race injury-free but discovering how psychological reframing and physiological training amplify endurance.

Through models like Performance = Potential – Interference and frameworks such as “The Edge Model,” Steele teaches how to identify mental noise, physical fatigue, or emotional blockages that reduce effectiveness. The key, he shows, is removing interference—stressors we can affect or accept—and channeling energy into adaptive responses that sustain performance under pressure.

From Magic to Strategy

Early in the book, Steele recounts standing backstage watching a world-famous magician, realizing that miracles on stage were merely well-rehearsed strategies. This analogy becomes a metaphor for the entire text: superhuman outcomes are achieved not through mystical powers but through repeatable, evidence-based systems. Whether we’re facing athletic, emotional, or professional challenges, the formula is the same—strategy replaces luck.

He integrates insights from neuroscientists Dr. Andrew Huberman (Stanford University), performance psychologist Michael Gervais, and author Steven Kotler’s Flow Research Collective to demonstrate how the mind and body function in tandem. Dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline aren’t random—they regulate motivation, focus, and recovery. By learning how to leverage these internal chemistries intentionally, anyone can build reliable access to flow states—the peak moment where action and awareness merge.

The Practical Superhuman

Steele challenges readers to run their own experiments. No abstract motivation speeches—each technique is grounded in testable action. Holding your breath to activate calm, alternating cold and warm showers to raise stress thresholds, and practicing gratitude to balance energy—all are examples of rewiring your nervous system for optimum performance. As Steele writes, “There’s no magic… just damn good strategy.”

Ultimately, becoming Unashamedly Superhuman isn’t about perfection. It’s about acknowledging that we all have better, smarter, stronger parts waiting to be unlocked. Steele insists that true power comes from integrating effort and recovery, ambition and mindfulness, to create a sustainable model of success. His message to both athletes and executives alike: stop merely enduring life—adapt to it, master yourself, and embrace what you truly can become.

In his chapter “Accept the Adventure,” Steele argues that resilience doesn’t come from gritting your teeth through difficulty—it comes from adaptability. Drawing on Darwin’s principle that survival favors those who adjust best, he shows that endurance without adaptation is nothing more than suffering. His formula, Performance = Potential – Interference, becomes the thread through which readers learn to overcome friction and regain forward momentum.

Accept, Affect, or Let Go

Steele asks readers to list all interferences that drain their energy—from fatigue and stress to poor support networks or toxic colleagues. Then, he introduces a liberating filter: “If you can’t accept it, affect it. But if you can’t affect it, accept it.” The exercise mirrors cognitive behavioral therapy’s practice of separating controllable and uncontrollable inputs. By focusing energy only on what’s influenceable, you cut unnecessary emotional expenditure. A memorable anecdote about a frustrated Hong Kong facilities manager demonstrates the concept’s practicality—once she shifted from resentment to action, her work relationships transformed.

Adventure Mindset

Steele reframes change itself as an adventure—a cognitive shift that turns uncertainty into excitement. Using the Kübler-Ross Change Curve®, he pinpoints “acceptance” as the turning point from denial to growth. When you stop labeling hardships as problems and instead view them as adventures, the emotional chemistry changes: dopamine and curiosity replace cortisol and fear. This small linguistic shift—“challenge” becomes “adventure”—redefines how stressors impact your physiological experience.

Adapt More, Endure Less

Steele illustrates adaptation with vivid imagery. Two humans share identical conditions: submerged in an ice bath. One suffers while the other smiles. The difference isn’t physical—it’s cognitive. The former endures, the latter adapts. The adaptive mindset doesn’t force resistance against the cold but reframes discomfort as data, as opportunity. This concept mirrors stoic philosophy (see Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way), teaching that reframing changes the internal experience more than the external reality.

Reframing as a Habit

The performance hack “Conscious Cognitive Reframe” asks you to define daily challenges as adventures. Instead of dreading tight deadlines or presentations, observe them through the excitement of risk, learning, and growth. Such reframing not only enhances endurance but also engages curiosity—activating dopamine circuits that maintain both motivation and well-being. Over time, reframing becomes your default lens, turning ordinary stress into fuel.

For Steele, adaptation is life’s most sustainable strategy. You don’t need to be the strongest or most gifted—you simply have to accept the adventure, direct your energy to what you can influence, and redefine struggle as the path of discovery. When you adapt more, you endure less; when you endure less, you perform more.

Steele dives into neuroscience to explain motivation. Beneath your conscious thoughts lies the ventral striatum—your brain’s “seeking system.” When activated, it releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for curiosity and drive. The trick isn’t to wait for motivation to strike; it’s to consciously switch on this system by aligning your vision with your identity.

The DOT Technique

UK tech executive Phil Jones (Brother) taught Steele a deceptively simple method: define your “DOT”—your direction of travel. It’s less about rigid goals and more about positioning yourself toward mastery. When Jones described his own DOT as “to master subject matter and achieve mastery of self,” he wasn’t defining an endpoint, but rather a perpetual path of growth. Steele calls this anti-fragile ambition: setbacks become upgrades, not breakdowns.

Identity Activation

The seeking system responds most powerfully when vision meets belief. Steele’s anecdote of helping a marathon trainee shift identity from “I’m no athlete” to “I am a marathon runner” demonstrates this beautifully. Once the client adopted the identity of a runner—buying gear, training, reading magazines—his brain began searching for cues and resources that reinforced it. This self-fulfilling neurological loop mirrors James Clear’s Atomic Habits: behaviors follow identity, not the other way around.

The Power of Declaration

Steele applied this principle himself when he began IRONMAN® training; declaring “I am an IRONMAN® competitor” felt delusional at first. Yet stating truth in advance triggered his seeking system, rewiring his brain to act according to his new self-definition. Within weeks, his behaviors naturally aligned—training, nutrition, mindset. The seeking system thrives on clarity, not confidence; it needs direction more than proof.

When you harness the seeking system, your mind becomes a radar for possibility. “Tell the truth early,” Steele advises. Identify with who you want to become, not who you’ve been. Once your beliefs and behaviors match that future self, you’ll find that the impossible begins to feel inevitable.

Persistence isn’t about raw willpower—it’s about chemistry. In “Persist Persist Persist,” Steele explains that endurance depends on managing two key neurotransmitters: dopamine and adrenaline. Understanding their interplay turns motivation into momentum and burnout into resilience.

The Dopamine–Adrenaline Dance

Adrenaline powers effort. It’s what propels you through hard work, but too much triggers the “quit reflex,” a biological circuit that shuts down cognition when stress overloads the system. Dopamine, however, neutralizes excess adrenaline. It’s released when we experience progress—tiny wins, recognition, or moments of gratitude—and acts as fuel for sustained focus. The key, Steele notes, is to self-dose dopamine throughout the process, not just at the finish line.

Self-Reward and Thin Slicing

Borrowing from special forces training, Steele introduces “thin slicing recognition”—rewarding yourself for incremental effort. By acknowledging micro-wins, you keep your motivation chemically replenished. Instead of waiting for major achievements to feel good, you affirm each small step forward. This approach mirrors the “micro-progress” model of high-performance coaching studied by Dr. Andrew Huberman, who links satisfaction during struggle to long-term grit.

Gratitude as Neurochemical Armor

Surprisingly, gratitude emerges as a physiological energy source. Steele discovered this during his IRONMAN® race, when six hours into cycling he found that simply feeling thankful for being able to test his limits generated strength. Gratitude releases serotonin and oxytocin—the compounds that counterbalance adrenaline. This chemistry cultivates peace within effort, allowing persistence without depletion.

Persistence, then, isn’t brute force—it’s biochemical sophistication. When you learn to combine adrenaline’s drive with dopamine’s reward and serotonin’s calm, you transform endurance into joy. Steele’s formula: fuel progress with appreciation. “The toughest challenges,” he writes, “aren’t beaten—they are harmonized.”

Steele’s exploration of flow represents the book’s beating heart—the superhuman performance state where action and awareness merge seamlessly. Drawing on Steven Kotler’s research at the Flow Research Collective and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s foundational work (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience), Steele illustrates how breaking concentration triggers entry into this state where time dilates, self-consciousness fades, and everything feels effortless.

The Science of Flow

Five chemicals drive flow: dopamine for desire, norepinephrine for focus, endorphins for pain relief, anandamide for creativity, and serotonin for satisfaction. These create a neurochemical cocktail responsible for what Steele calls “the most productive state on Earth.” Flow amplifies output, learning, and creativity by fivefold (as McKinsey research confirms). It’s intrinsic motivation at its peak.

Triggers and Balance

To provoke flow, Steele outlines external triggers—novelty, complexity, unpredictability, and high stakes—and internal triggers such as clear goals, immediate feedback, and the right challenge-to-skill ratio. The principle of “stretch but don’t snap” defines the sweet spot: too easy, and boredom blocks engagement; too hard, and anxiety knocks you out of flow. This parallels the Yerkes-Dodson law in psychology, which finds peak performance occurs under moderate arousal.

IRONMAN® in the Zone

Steele’s IRONMAN® experience reads like a case study in flow application. From the swim’s rhythmic breathing to the bike’s focus on cadence and the run’s gratitude-fueled endurance, his day-long immersion exemplified full flow alignment. Each trigger—risk, novelty, physical complexity, purpose, and autonomy—was present. Even his tracking app added tension and feedback, reinforcing concentration. The lesson is practical: design environments that insert these triggers deliberately.

For Steele, flow isn’t mystical—it’s mechanical. Focus precedes flow; clarity builds chemistry. When we learn to control our attention and environment, flow happens not by chance but by design. “You don’t chase flow,” he writes, “you prepare for it.”

In the section “Iceman Cometh,” Steele uncovers how physiology becomes the gateway to strength. His fascination with Dutch adventurer Wim Hof—the man who swims under ice and runs marathons barefoot—leads him to the science of breath control and cold exposure. The lesson: resilience is biological, and we can train it.

Breathwork as Power

Most of us breathe unconsciously, but our diaphragm is the only muscle we can control to alter mental states. Steele’s daily practice of 30 circular breaths (inspired by Hof’s Tummo breathing) teaches the body to tolerate higher stress safely. By intentionally over-oxygenating then holding on empty lungs, you simulate adrenaline in controlled doses. This “stress inoculation” trains the nervous system to remain calm under pressure—what elite military performers call falling to the level of conditioning.

Cold Exposure and Adaptation

Cold showers earn their reputation here. Steele explains that immersion triggers adrenaline immediately and dopamine gradually, sustaining motivation for hours. The physiological data from European studies confirm a 2.5x dopamine increase lasting up to three hours. The payoff is physical vitality and mental composure—precisely what high performers need in turbulent environments.

Practical Protocol

Steele’s daily regimen—three rounds of breathing followed by one to two minutes of cold exposure—creates measurable change. Over weeks, the body’s stress threshold rises, inflammation drops, and energy stabilizes. Instead of fighting stress, you collaborate with it. This concept again echoes his central philosophy: adapt more to endure less.

For Steele, the genius of the Iceman isn’t extremity—it’s accessibility. You needn’t climb Everest in shorts; you only need to train your biology to thrive in discomfort. Every controlled breath and calculated chill is a reminder that superhuman strength is not supernatural—it’s physiological.