The Time Under Tension Secret: Why Pressure Creates Diamonds

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What if I told you that the single factor separating the leaders from the losers, conquerors from complainers, and badasses from the bitches isn’t talent, luck, or connections—but your willingness to voluntarily place yourself under pressure when everyone else seeks comfort?

Picture this, it’s the summer of 2001.

The dojang was silent because most people were enjoying the sand, surf and sun of Santa Monica.

But not Barrett and I, the dojang was filled with the sound of heavy breathing and feet sliding across worn mats.

Barrett and I had been drilling for our second-degree black belt test for nearly two years, at least three additional sessions per week beyond our regular training.

While other students went home after class, we stayed. While others took weekends off, we showed up. While others made excuses about being tired or having other commitments, we subjected ourselves to voluntary suffering that would make most people quit within a week.

Day after day, we pushed each other through techniques until our bodies screamed and our minds begged for mercy. We corrected every minor detail, refined every movement, and drilled combinations until they became as natural as breathing.

The pressure was relentless—not because anyone was forcing us, but because we had chosen to demand more from ourselves than our comfort zones wanted to give.

When test day finally arrived, something remarkable happened. The examination that had terrified us for months felt almost… easy.

Not because the techniques had become simpler, but because we had systematically conditioned ourselves to perform under pressure far greater than anything the test could throw at us.

Some spectators later said it was one of the best demonstrations they had witnessed in years.

But here’s what they didn’t see: the hundreds of hours of voluntary discomfort that made those two hours of excellence possible. They saw the diamond, not the pressure that created it.

That experience taught me the most valuable lesson of my life—a principle that would later help me excel in a 35-year construction career, help build a few businesses, travel to nearly 40 countries, and create the kind of life most people only dream about.

The secret wasn’t natural talent, superior intelligence, or lucky breaks. It was my willingness to seek out “time under tension” when everyone else was seeking ease.

The Modern Comfort Epidemic

Walk through any office building, scroll through social media, or listen to conversations at your local coffee shop, and you’ll encounter the same pattern: people desperately trying to eliminate discomfort from their lives while simultaneously wondering why they’re not achieving the results they want.

We live in the most comfortable era in human history.

• Climate-controlled environments protect us from weather.
• Food delivery apps eliminate the inconvenience of cooking.
• Entertainment streams directly to our devices to prevent even moments of boredom.
• Online shopping means we never have to endure crowded stores or long lines.

This comfort revolution has created an unexpected side effect: we’ve become allergic to the very experiences that build strength, resilience, and capability.

Most people now interpret any form of difficulty as a problem to be solved rather than a tool for development.

But here’s the counterintuitive truth that separates the 1% from everyone else: voluntary discomfort is the ultimate competitive advantage.

While others run from pressure, champions run toward it.

While the masses seek the path of least resistance, masters deliberately choose the path of most resistance.

This isn’t masochism—it’s strategic.

Every significant achievement in human history has required someone to endure sustained pressure over extended periods.

• Building businesses requires years of uncertainty and financial stress.
• Mastering skills demands thousands of hours of practice past the point where it stops being fun.
• Creating extraordinary relationships means having difficult conversations that most people avoid.

The winners understand something the losers don’t: you can’t simultaneously avoid pressure and achieve anything meaningful.

Pressure isn’t the obstacle to success—it’s the mechanism through which success is created.

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Level 1 — The Recognition: Understanding Your Pressure Patterns

Your first mission involves developing the ability to recognize when you’re avoiding beneficial pressure versus eliminating unnecessary stress.

Not all discomfort is valuable, but all growth requires some form of voluntary tension.

The Pressure Audit:

For one week, track every moment when you choose the easier path over the harder but potentially more beneficial one:

• Taking the elevator instead of stairs when you have time
• Avoiding difficult conversations that could improve relationships
• Choosing entertainment over skill development during free time
• Postponing challenging projects in favor of busy work
• Seeking social media validation instead of doing meaningful work

Most people are shocked to discover how automatically they avoid beneficial pressure.

We’ve become so accustomed to choosing comfort that we don’t even realize we’re making these micro-decisions dozens of times per day.

During my construction years, I noticed a clear pattern: the electricians who consistently got the best assignments and highest recommendations were those who volunteered for the jobs others avoided.

Underground work in tight spaces? They raised their hands.

Complex troubleshooting that might take all day? They stepped forward.

Working in extreme weather conditions? They showed up ready.

These weren’t necessarily the most skilled workers—they were the ones most willing to embrace discomfort as the price of growth and opportunity.

The Comfort Zone Mapping Exercise:

Identify three areas of your life where you’ve been unconsciously choosing comfort over growth:

1. Physical: Where are you avoiding beneficial physical challenge?
2. Mental: What intellectually demanding activities are you postponing?
3. Emotional: Which difficult but important conversations are you avoiding?

For each area, rate your current comfort level (1-10) and identify one specific action that would move you toward beneficial pressure.

Your Level 1 Milestone: You catch yourself automatically asking “What’s the harder but more beneficial choice here?” instead of reflexively choosing whatever feels easiest.

Level 2 — The Volunteer: Seeking Strategic Pressure

Once you can recognize avoidance patterns, the next level involves systematically seeking out beneficial pressure before life forces it upon you.

This is where most people fail—they understand the concept intellectually but lack the practical framework for implementation.

The Three Types of Strategic Pressure:

Physical Time Under Tension: This is where martial arts training becomes invaluable, not because you’ll need to fight (though that capability has its benefits), but because it provides daily practice in performing under pressure.

When you’re grappling with someone who’s trying to submit you, when you’re holding a difficult stance until your muscles burn, when you’re sparring with someone better than you—you’re training your nervous system to function under stress.

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But you don’t need martial arts to access this principle.

Any physical activity that pushes you past your comfort zone works: climbing stairs instead of elevators, walking instead of driving when possible, doing bodyweight exercises until failure, or simply choosing the more physically demanding option whenever you have a choice.

Mental Time Under Tension: This involves deliberately engaging with intellectually challenging material that makes your brain work harder than it wants to.

Reading complex books instead of scrolling social media.

Learning new skills that require sustained concentration.

Solving problems that don’t have obvious solutions.

Having conversations with people smarter than you about topics you don’t fully understand.

Most people’s mental muscles have atrophied from years of consuming easily digestible content. They’ve trained their brains to expect constant stimulation and immediate gratification.

Rebuilding the capacity for sustained mental effort requires the same approach as physical fitness: progressive overload over time.

Emotional Time Under Tension: This is often the most challenging because it involves deliberately engaging with situations that create psychological discomfort.

Having honest conversations about problems in relationships. Speaking up in meetings when you disagree with the majority opinion. Pursuing goals that matter to you despite potential criticism or failure.

Emotional resilience, like physical strength, is built through progressive exposure to stress.

You start with manageable challenges and gradually increase the intensity as your capacity grows.

The Weekly Pressure Protocol:

Design your week to include systematic exposure to all three types of beneficial pressure:

• Monday: Physical challenge (workout, martial arts, demanding physical task)
• Wednesday: Mental challenge (complex reading, skill practice, problem-solving)
• Friday: Emotional challenge (difficult conversation, vulnerable expression, scary opportunity)

The key is consistency over intensity.

Small, regular doses of voluntary pressure create more lasting change than occasional extreme challenges.

Your Level 2 Milestone: You find yourself looking forward to challenging situations because you’ve trained yourself to see them as opportunities for growth rather than threats to avoid.

Level 3 — The Systematizer: Building Pressure Into Your Life Design

The highest level involves creating systems that automatically expose you to beneficial pressure without requiring constant willpower or decision-making.

This is where champions separate themselves from everyone else—they’ve built pressure into the structure of their lives.

The Progressive Overload Principle:

Borrowed from strength training, this principle involves gradually increasing the demands you place on yourself over time. Just as lifting the same weight forever won’t build additional strength, facing the same challenges forever won’t build additional resilience.

Every month, identify one area where you can increase the beneficial pressure:

• Add complexity to your workout routine
• Take on more challenging projects at work
• Engage with more difficult reading material
• Have deeper conversations in your relationships
• Set goals that stretch your current capabilities

The Antifragile Design Framework:

Instead of just surviving pressure, design your life to actually benefit from stress and volatility. This means creating systems that get stronger when challenged rather than weaker:

Redundancy: Build multiple sources of income, skills, and relationships so that challenges in one area strengthen others rather than threatening your entire foundation.

Optionality: Maintain exposure to positive opportunities while limiting exposure to catastrophic risks. This allows you to benefit from uncertainty rather than just endure it.

Small Failures: Regularly expose yourself to low-stakes failures that teach valuable lessons without devastating consequences. This builds immunity to larger setbacks.

The Compound Pressure Strategy:

The most powerful approach involves stacking different types of pressure to create compound benefits:

Physical + Mental: Train martial arts or complex movement patterns that require both physical endurance and mental focus.

Mental + Emotional: Pursue learning opportunities that challenge both your intellectual capacity and emotional comfort zone.

Physical + Emotional: Engage in physical challenges that also require mental toughness and vulnerability.

When you combine different types of pressure, the adaptation effect multiplies rather than just adding together.

Your Level 3 Milestone: Your default response to new challenges is excitement rather than anxiety because you’ve trained yourself to recognize pressure as the raw material for growth.

Level 4 — The Master: Pressure as Competitive Advantage

True mastery involves reaching the point where your capacity to handle pressure becomes your primary competitive advantage.

At this level, you actively seek out the challenges others avoid because you know they contain the greatest opportunities.

The Pressure Differential Strategy:

In any competitive environment, opportunities flow toward those most willing and able to handle pressure.

While others avoid difficult clients, complex projects, or uncertain situations, you move toward them systematically.

This creates what I call “pressure arbitrage”—you extract value from situations others find too stressful to handle effectively.

The construction industry taught me this principle repeatedly: the highest-paying, most secure positions went to people who could perform reliably under conditions that broke everyone else.

The Voluntary Hardship Practice:

Regularly impose challenges on yourself that serve no purpose other than building resilience:

• Take cold showers to build discomfort tolerance
• Fast periodically to practice delayed gratification
• Walk or bike instead of driving to maintain physical conditioning
• Read difficult books to keep your mental muscles strong
• Have honest conversations to maintain emotional courage

These practices might seem pointless, but they serve a crucial function: they maintain your capacity to handle pressure when it matters most.

The Teaching Through Pressure Approach:

The ultimate test of mastery is your ability to help others develop their own pressure tolerance. When you can guide someone else through voluntary discomfort and help them discover their expanded capabilities, you’ve truly internalized these principles.

This might involve mentoring colleagues through challenging projects, training partners in martial arts, or simply modeling the behavior of someone who embraces rather than avoids beneficial pressure.

Your Level 4 Milestone: Others start seeking you out specifically for high-pressure situations because they know you’ll not only handle them effectively but actually seem to thrive under conditions that overwhelm most people.

Putting It On the Mat

This week, I challenge you to begin building your pressure tolerance through systematic, voluntary exposure to beneficial discomfort.

Your 7-Day Time Under Tension Challenge:

Day 1-2 (Assessment): Identify the three areas where you most automatically choose comfort over growth. Rate your current tolerance for pressure in physical, mental, and emotional domains.

Day 3-4 (Selection): Choose one specific type of beneficial pressure to focus on this week. Start with the area that feels most manageable but still challenging.

Day 5-7 (Implementation): Create one daily practice that exposes you to your chosen type of pressure. This should be uncomfortable but not overwhelming—about a 6-7 out of 10 difficulty level.

The Monthly Pressure Building Protocol:

Each month, systematically increase your capacity in one domain:

• Month 1: Physical pressure tolerance through exercise, martial arts, or challenging physical tasks
• Month 2: Mental pressure tolerance through complex learning, problem-solving, or intellectual challenges
• Month 3: Emotional pressure tolerance through difficult conversations, vulnerable expression, or scary opportunities
• Month 4: Combined pressure tolerance by stacking multiple types of challenge simultaneously

Your Weekly Pressure Check-in:

Every Sunday, spend 15 minutes reflecting on:

1. What pressure did I voluntarily seek out this week that I would have avoided before?
2. How did my response to stress and challenge differ from my past patterns?
3. What evidence am I building that I’m becoming more resilient and capable?

Remember: The goal isn’t to become someone who enjoys suffering—it’s to become someone who can handle necessary discomfort in service of meaningful goals.

Every champion, master, and exceptional performer throughout history has understood this principle.

The martial arts mat will always be there, ready to teach you that you’re stronger than your fears and more capable than your comfort zone suggests.

But the real training happens in every moment when you choose the harder path because you know it leads somewhere worth going.

Your willingness to seek out time under tension—when everyone else seeks ease—determines whether you’ll spend your life hoping for opportunities or having them seek you out because they know you can handle whatever comes next.

The pressure is waiting.

The question is whether you’ll run from it or embrace it as the tool that transforms ordinary people into extraordinary performers.