What if the real competitive edge in your company isn’t another strategy shift—but your human sustainability as a leader?
You’re expected to perform like a high-level athlete: stay sharp, set direction, handle pressure, and keep your team moving—often while AI disruption speeds everything up. But here’s the catch: if your internal system is running at red line, your decision-making, culture, and results eventually pay the price. In this episode, Jim Schleckser talks with Pearce Cucchissi, a former Army Ranger turned executive performance coach, about how leaders build the stamina, clarity, and resilience to thrive long-term—without burning out or becoming the bottleneck themselves.
By listening, you’ll gain:
- A fresh way to think about leadership as human sustainability—how to keep your mind and body durable enough for the pace you’re running.
- Tools to identify “people bottlenecks” on your team, including what’s really behind wrong-person/wrong-seat issues.
- A practical, data-informed approach (like psychometric assessments) to reduce stress deltas, improve fit, and increase longevity for you and your leaders—especially during growth or acquisitions.
Press play to learn Pearce’s battle-tested methods for building human sustainability into your leadership—so you can win the long game with more energy, focus, and staying power.
Why Human Sustainability Is the Real CEO Advantage
00:00–02:10 — Jim kicks off the CEO Project podcast and sets the stage: this show is about practical ideas to help CEOs grow and optimize their companies.
02:10–05:00 — Jim introduces the “business athlete” concept and why it instantly clicks for leaders: CEOs are competitive, need strong bodies and minds, and have to track progress while pulling the team forward.
05:00–08:20 — Guest intro: Pearce Cucchissi, former Army Ranger and founder of Built To Evolve, brings special-operations-level performance thinking into executive teams, blending neuroscience, psychology, and physiology.
08:20–12:10 — Pearce explains his Ranger background and how special operations training translates to the boardroom: mission focus, readiness, and operating under pressure without excuses.
12:10–16:40 — The big pivot: Pearce shares “operator syndrome,” the long-term effects of living in fight-or-flight. He connects it directly to CEOs and athletes who normalize stress until they forget what “normal” even feels like—making human sustainability a survival skill, not a luxury.
People Bottlenecks, Stress Deltas, and Building Business Athletes
16:40–21:30 — Pearce tells the turning-point story: a PE-backed CEO starts having panic attacks in front of the board and thinks he has to step down. Pearce sees the same burnout pattern he saw in military teammates and elite athletes—again highlighting why human sustainability matters at the top.
21:30–26:40 — Scaling the solution: Pearce explains why he moved toward data and psychometrics. With 5,000–23,000 employees, you can’t coach everyone personally—so tools help identify who’s misaligned, overstressed, or in the wrong role.
26:40–32:00 — He digs into Culture Index and the “delta” between how someone is wired and how they’re currently operating. A big delta = stress, disengagement, and performance drag. Shrinking that delta boosts results and human sustainability over time.
32:00–38:10 — “Wrong person, wrong seat” isn’t always what it looks like. Sometimes it’s mismatched accountabilities, missing support, or a role that needs redesign. Other times it’s truly a bad fit—and no amount of pressure will rewire someone’s core traits.
38:10–45:30 — Pearce and Jim connect this to bottlenecks: Jim looks for the kink in the business hose; Pearce looks for the human kink—visionaries needing integrators, talent clusters driving turnover, and leaders who must model human sustainability so culture can spread. Pearce closes with a major win story and explains why coaching only works when the person wants it.
About Pearce Cucchissi
Pearce is a former military special operator who brings battlefield-tested strategic thinking and elite team dynamics to the boardroom. As the founder of Built to Evolve, he helps executives and teams unlock peak performance through a cutting-edge blend of neuroscience, psychology, and physiology. His mission is to create business athletes, leaders with the stamina, clarity, and resilience to thrive under pressure and deliver maximum positive impact.
Pearce has worked with top-tier organizations including Citibank, The Las Vegas Raiders, and Charter Communications. Today, he advises executives within Private Equity-backed portfolio companies, where the stakes are high and the mental toll is real. His coaching style is direct, data-driven, and deeply human, balancing performance optimization with personal well-being to ensure leaders are built to evolve, not burn out.