PSYCH UP Get Grit, Toughen Up, Rewild your mind

by Mark Mathieson

You want to get more out of yourself. You want to know how to take your performance to the next level. You want to uncover secrets to elite performance. You’re in the right place, but the path ahead is not what you think.

Mark Mathieson outlines the nine key lessons that enable you to reconnect with your life to take advantage of the hidden, wild systems all around you. Mark will show you how to master these skills to develop grit and passion to re-wild your existence in a way that leads to sustainable high performance.

Lesson 1: Develop Your Situational Awareness

Lesson 2: Define Your Own Adventure

Lesson 3: Place Your Flag

Lesson 4: Bust Your Boundaries

Lesson 5: Get Out of Your Mind

Lesson 6: Pick Your Team

Lesson 7: Don’t Be a Cardboard Cut-Out

Lesson 8: Embrace Failure

Lesson 9: Don't Fight the (Eco)System

Mark Mathieson is a psychologist with an expertise in building resilience and elite performance for athletes and military forces. He has worked with the Australian Institute of Sport and served 21 years in the Australian Army and is a Lieutenant Colonel.

Genres: Audiobook, Self Help, Psychology, Nonfiction

Audiobook

Published September 8, 2021

Reviews

[Shubham Kumar]

The core premise of the book Psych Up revolves around eco-psychology and how the most high-performing systems are ecologically robust. Mathieson offers a brilliant framework that breaks down how humans—as wild creatures meant to evolve alongside diverse ecosystems—can apply these systemic laws to find sustainable high performance.

This is a great book that challenges the standard Western narrative of endless grinding. Here are my key takeaways from each lesson:

Lesson 1: Situational Awareness
Mathieson argues that we must direct and broaden our awareness to read both internal and external systems. He suggests to learn managing our focus to spot hidden opportunities others miss. He ties this to the concept of flow (where time appears to slow down) and suggests building situational awareness by actively observing surroundings, like taking a walk in a crowded street.

Lesson 2: Dynamic & Organic Planning
Instead of rigid planning, organic and adaptive design tools maximize efficiency. Drawing on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and "Mission Command" (defining an intent and empowering others to execute it), Mathieson warns against the constant urgency to keep the scoreboard ticking, which inevitably leads to burnout.

Lesson 3: Place Your Flag
Your "flag" is a metaphorical anchor—an identity, a home, or a set of core values. Since the cells in our body replace themselves over 10 years and our brains constantly rewire through neuroplasticity, we are literally made of the places we inhabit. This lesson is a strong reminder for us to define our geographical or psychological "place" so we always have somewhere to reground ourselves when we need to unwind.

Lesson 4: Bust Your Boundaries
We have an incredible cognitive and emotional capacity to manage pain and discomfort without medication, something soldiers use to push past physical boundaries. Resilience is built through a mix of physical training, diet, a clear sense of purpose, and "systems thinking"—understanding how individual actions affect nested systems and the broader community.

Lesson 5: Get Out of Your Mind
Tapping into the Japanese martial arts concept of "no mind," this chapter is all about achieving a state of flow. Mathieson suggests engaging in focus-heavy, immersive activities like target shooting, free diving, or archery to get out of our own head.

Lesson 6 & 7: Pick Your Team & Be 3-Dimensional
Because humans are social mammals, empathy and social connection are non-negotiable for high performance. Mathieson introduces the idea of a "ConOps" (Concept of Operations)—a clear purpose for our life that prevents us from becoming a two-dimensional "cardboard cutout." Sustainable high performance requires renewable energy. Elite performances are sustainable and repeatable in so much as they are regenerative, i.e., if they are not continuously drawing out personal and systemic resources from within us. For most of humanity, this means having a sense of meaning and purpose that is worthwhile and morally and ethically good.

Lesson 8: Redefine Success
My favorite takeaway: Perfection must include imperfection (a nod to Eastern philosophy). The Western obsession with chasing short-term goals to break records by fractions of a second often ruins elite athletes when they are forced to retire. Instead, plan for an 80% solution: aim for 80% success, 80% of the time, and expect 20% negative feedback to allow room to grow. Strengths are double-edged swords.

Lesson 9 & Conclusion: Read the River
Humans are just one factor on Planet Earth. If the system crumbles around us, high performance means nothing. Mathieson challenges readers to develop a pattern-recognition mindset: look out your window every morning, observe the weather, watch the animals, and learn to "read the river" to see where natural energy flows, see where humans interrupt these flows and what the implications are over the short, medium and longer term.

Final Verdict:
Mark reminds us that we have always been a wild creature of the ecosystem who have evolved alongside wild and biologically diverse ecosystem. But ironically, this approach—pattern recognition and deep social connection—goes entirely against the grain of the modern "hustle culture." It’s far harder to execute than just putting your head down and grinding, but infinitely more rewarding.

Highly recommend the book for anyone looking to build genuine, sustainable resilience.

[Jo]

Expected a bit more from this but I didn't do all the "homework"...