Dear Wholegrain Wisdom Community,
We’re continuing this new chapter in long-form video conversations, exploring the real mechanics of human performance — not the surface-level hacks, but the deep biological and spiritual architecture that shapes how we think, act, and create.
Today’s episode is with someone I’ve long admired: Sarah Turner, a scientist, educator and one of the most grounded voices in the world of quantum biology. If you’ve ever wondered why your energy feels chaotic on some days and powerful on others, or why your brain seems to “work against you” even when you’re doing everything right, this conversation is a masterclass in understanding the signals your body is listening to — long before you make a single conscious choice.
With Sarah, we explore the invisible forces that create consistency, clarity and emotional stability in high performers — not through striving harder, but through understanding the physics and biology of being human.
This is the story of how your lifestyle becomes your operating system and why most founders unknowingly build one that sabotages their own potential.
Key Highlights from Our Conversation:
Your Brain Isn’t Failing You — Your Environment Is
One of the most powerful insights from Sarah is that your brain doesn’t wake up neutral. It wakes up reading your environment — the light you’re exposed to, the timing of your food, the electrical charge in your cells, the tone of your nervous system. Before you plan your day, your biology has already decided whether you’re in expansion or survival.
Most founders try to “push through” these signals. But as Sarah explains, if your physiology is sending danger signals, no mindset strategy will override it.
Your biology always wins.
Why Modern Light Makes Us Sick
Sarah breaks down how artificial lighting — the kind we spend most of our lives under — confuses our circadian clocks, disrupts hormone communication, and reduces mitochondrial efficiency. When your cells lose coherence, your thoughts lose coherence.
It’s not psychological.
It’s photonic.
And once you understand it, you can change everything about how you function.
Mitochondria: The Missing Link in Founder Performance
We talk about the tiny power plants inside your cells — mitochondria — and how they’re not just producing energy… they’re sensing your reality.
They interpret light, movement, hydration, temperature, and electromagnetic fields. They act like your internal intelligence system.
When they’re charged, you’re clear and creative.
When they’re depleted, you spiral into brain fog, reactivity and doubt.
Why the Fastest Path to High Performance Is Slowing Down the Noise
Sarah shares why true performance emerges when you create internal and external coherence. That doesn’t mean meditating in a cave, it means aligning your biology with the environmental cues it was designed for.
Light in the morning.
Movement throughout the day.
Hydration rhythms.
Time in nature.
Not as “healthy habits”, but as biological calibration points.
When your body receives the right signals, your strategic mind clicks back online.
The Return of Ancient Wisdom (and Why Modern Science Is Finally Catching Up)
In one of my favorite parts of the interview, Sarah describes how ancient cultures intuitively understood concepts — like solar cycles, energy fields, water memory — that modern science is now rediscovering through quantum biology.
Just like the old Stoics, Taoists, or shamans who aligned themselves with nature’s laws, founders today must rediscover how to operate within the rhythms that our nervous systems evolved for.
Otherwise, we burn out trying to run a 2025 life with Paleolithic hardware.
How This Conversation Links to Previous Deep Dives of WGW
This conversation with Sarah builds directly on everything we've explored about quantum biology and circadian rhythms—when your light exposure, movement patterns, and environmental inputs align with your biology's expectations, your mitochondria function optimally and your nervous system can finally distinguish between real danger and imagined threat.
The connection to our fascia and trauma storage work is crucial here: chronic circadian disruption doesn't just drain your batteries, it creates the physiological conditions that lock trauma patterns into your tissues. When your cells are constantly reading "danger" from environmental chaos—artificial light, irregular eating, electromagnetic pollution—your fascia responds by creating protective tension that blocks both physical movement and energetic flow.
From my research on the gut-brain axis and cellular intelligence: peak performance requires listening to signals your body receives long before conscious thought kicks in. The mitochondria Sarah describes aren't just energy producers—they're quantum sensors reading your environment and sending intelligence reports upstream. When founders ignore these biological signals and push through with willpower alone, they're essentially running their company while silencing their best intelligence system.
This is why the "quantum founder" operates differently: they understand that aligning with natural rhythms isn't about becoming "soft" or less driven—it's about upgrading their operating system to run at full capacity instead of in constant emergency mode. When your biology receives coherent signals—morning light, natural movement, proper rest—your strategic mind comes back online and you can access the full bandwidth of intelligence your system offers, not just the 40 bits per second your conscious mind can process.