The Hundredth of a Second: Aaron Brown on the discipline, rituals and teamwork

Few athletes understand the value of a hundredth of a second better than Aaron Brown. A four-time Olympian, Olympic medallist across gold, silver and bronze, World Champion, and one of the few Canadians ever to break both 10 seconds in the 100 metres and 20 seconds in the 200 metres, Brown has spent more than a decade competing against the fastest people on earth.

What makes Brown fascinating is not simply his explosive kinetic speed or ability to unleash extraordinary power on a dime. It’s his relentless pursuit of improvement. In a sport where victory and defeat are separated by margins invisible to the human eye, he has built his career on discipline, structure and routines, embracing repetition long after the excitement has faded.

For business leaders, Brown’s story is not really about speed. It is about what creates it

The unseen race: Winning through marginal gains.

Most people imagine sprinting as raw acceleration and natural talent. Brown sees something very different. As he explains, "There's so many details that the untrained eye would miss. Sometimes it's my coach teaching a body mechanic opportunity. Sometimes it's my physio team. If my hip is a little off, that could be the difference between running 10.05 and 9.99." 

What stands out is Brown's religious belief that breakthroughs rarely come from dramatic change. They come from tiny adjustments repeated consistently. As he puts it, "The best way to make a change is small things, small little tweaks, until you get to that right recipe." 

His thinking mirrors the timeless ‘aggregation of marginal gains’ philosophy popularized by British Cycling legend Sir Dave Brailsford, where dozens of one percent improvements combined to create Olympic dominance.

Businesses often chase the big transformation while overlooking execution. Competitive edge is usually created through hundreds of small practical improvements, coaching conversations, customer interactions, and decisions that compound over time.

When motivation disappears, discipline takes the baton.

Brown doesn't hesitate when asked about discipline. He is unequivocal: "Discipline is everything." Discipline is not intensity. It is the willingness to repeat the same behaviours long after they stop being exciting. He describes it as "being okay with the boring and doing the same thing over and over until you get it correct." 

One of Brown's most potent observations is that change often feels worse before it feels better. He acknowledges, "Sometimes a new movement that's actually going to lead to you running faster feels slow initially." 

That uncomfortable transition is where many people lose momentum. The new behaviour feels awkward; progress becomes invisible and motivation fades. Brown's answer to the hurdle is rooted in trust: "Trust and discipline comes into play. Being able to practice it even when it feels wrong." 

Brown’s thinking echoes the central finding of Jim Collins and Morten Hansen’s book Great by Choice: high-performing organizations achieve extraordinary outcomes not through bursts of inspiration, but through relentless consistency.

Keeping your eyes down the track.

The best athletes spend much of their careers working toward goals that may be years away. Brown begins preparing in November for championship races that won't occur until the following September. Demoralizing. So, how does he stay engaged when results are invisible? "I keep my eye on the prize."  Rather than waiting for distant results to provide motivation, Brown makes the future personal.

Brown shares the mindset that sustains him: "I just want my future self to thank my previous self for all the hard work, all the dedication, and all the discipline." That mindset transforms daily effort. Every workout becomes a deposit into a future performance.

Business transformations work the same way. Culture change, digital adoption, leadership development, and innovation investments often produce little visible progress for months. The organizations that succeed are the ones willing to build starting blocks before the spotlight arrives.

The rituals that put performance on autopilot.

One of Brown’s most important performance tools has nothing to do with sprinting mechanics. It’s his ability to use deliberate rituals to regulate his mental state and make race day feel familiar. As he explains, “I have different playlists that have different effects on my performance and my mood.” The soundtrack changes as the race approaches, energizing music before departure, calmer music during transportation, and different songs depending on the weather, his mood and the mental state he needs to create. The objective is not excitement. It is control.

Brown also watches shows before major competitions. Reflecting on why, he says, “I like the fact that my mind was on watching the show and not stressing over the race that’s coming up.” 

Research featured in Psychology Today and The Wall Street Journal helps explain why this works: familiar rituals can quiet the brain’s threat-detection systems and reduce performance anxiety. For Brown, music settles the mind; routine prepares the body. Together, they allow him to enter the starting blocks without carrying the full weight of the moment.

As Brown settles into the blocks, everything becomes quiet and predictable: three deep breaths, specific taps on his legs, right hand down, left hand down, eyes forward, deep breath. Why? Brown explains that “it’s just familiarity.” The routine never changes, whether he is racing at a local meet or the Olympic Games. He describes its purpose clearly: “I’m putting my body on autopilot to do what it’s been trained to do.”

Preparation should remove uncertainty, not create it. Under pressure, elite businesses do not magically rise to the occasion. They rely on familiar systems, rehearsed behaviours and intentional routines that allow them to perform when the starting gun fires.

Why Canada's relay team wins more than it should.

Perhaps Brown's most profound lesson comes from Canada's relay team. On paper, other countries like the U.S. and Jamaica often have faster athletes. Yet Canada repeatedly wins. As he emphasizes, "I really think it's camaraderie."  Years of competing together have created trust, role clarity, repetition, and deep understanding of each teammate's strengths.

Brown urges business teams to "learn each other's strengths and weaknesses and put each other in the position to be at their best." In a relay, the fastest collection of runners does not always win; the team that moves the baton best often does.

Business is no different. That's also what research in MIT Sloan Management Review on collective intelligence consistently finds. The best teams are rarely collections of the best individuals. They are groups that work exceptionally well together.

The real finish line.

Brown’s career shows that a hundredth of a second is rarely found in a single dramatic breakthrough. It is accumulated through uncomfortable adjustments, trusted teammates and thousands of decisions made far from the bright lights and cameras.

Elite performance is rarely about chasing perfection. It's about creating a structure that allows you to consistently become the best version of yourself, one small step, one training session, and one race at a time.

The question is this: What hundredth of a second are you leaving on the track because you haven't yet committed to the discipline of finding it?

Dr. Lance Mortlock is the author of Outside In, Inside Out – Unleashing the Power of Business Strategy in Times of Market Uncertainty, EY Canada Managing Partner, Industrials & Energy, Strategist & Adjunct Associate Professor.