I’ve been in China for a week now, in my host province: Guizhou, where I’ll be staying for another three weeks. As always, I can only feel grateful for the way I’m treated here.

The days here, between training sessions and quiet moments, leave room for thought. That’s why many of the ideas I write about tend to be born in this part of the world. I’m also convinced that the drastic—almost total—reduction in carbohydrates and ultra-processed food (though I’m not a big fan of it even back home) helps keep the mind lighter, more alert.

When people talk about high performance, most tend to define it by what the athlete does during training: how much they work, how many hours they put in, how many calories they burn, what kind of winning mindset they have…

But I prefer to look at the athlete when they’re not training. At the person who lives between sessions. Because I believe that’s where a deeper layer of performance lies—both athletic and human.

A true high-performance athlete isn’t just someone who trains a lot or trains well with the aim of performing in competition. They’re someone whose whole life revolves around training and competing. Their free time isn’t really “free”; it’s time devoted to recovery, preparation, sharpening body and mind for what comes next. Rest isn’t an escape—it’s part of the plan.

We often mistake high performance for doing a lot, or for doing everything with intensity. But I believe the essence lies elsewhere: high performance is born when everything else in life is structured in service of performing well at the right moment. That’s the difference.

No, elite athletes aren’t who they are because they “do more” than the average worker—a comparison I often hear from people who don’t understand this world (and who lack the ability to grasp it). They are who they are because the rest of their life is almost strategically designed to allow them to give their best when it matters most.

That’s why I believe there are also high-performance people, even outside of sport. Not because they’re constantly busy, but because their whole life is oriented toward doing what they do with excellence. People who commit to each action—not out of anxiety, but out of a deep desire for their next decision, their next gesture, to rise to the occasion.

From here, I salute all those who have chosen to commit their “self” to whatever they want to do better.