24Feb2026
Leader’s Digest | February 2026
by: Nordic Business Forum
Welcome to the February 2026 edition of the Leader’s Digest, your monthly guide to business leadership. This time, we’ll dive deeper into the topic of peak performance.
Contents
- PDF Guide: Peak Performance Secrets from NBF 2026 Speakers
- Video: Performance that Spreads – Insights from NBF 2025 Speakers
- Newsletter tip: Consistency, Focus, and Health by James Clear
- Speaker of the Month: Angela Duckworth
- Update: Last 300+ Tickets Left for Nordic Business Forum 2026
- Inspirational Quote by April Rinne
New Leadership Insights
Peak Performance Secrets from NBF 2026 Speakers
— PDF Guide
What does peak performance actually look like behind the scenes?
Ahead of Nordic Business Forum 2026, we invited a few of our speakers to share the habits, routines, and mindsets that help them perform at their best. We received so many valuable insights from work management to recovery routines.
The guide includes the do’s and don’ts of peak performance from Shawn Kanungo, Patty McCord, Nando Parrado, Rahaf Harfoush, Michael Beckley, and Kjell A. Nordström.
Download the full PDF guide and discover how top leaders build their Human Edge.
Performance that Spreads
— Insights from NBF 2025 Speakers
In the second episode of our Behind the NBF 2025 Keynotes series, Gianpiero Petriglieri, Diana Kander, Peter Hinssen, and Jonah Berger (among others) talk about the hidden killers of high performance. Here are some of the insights that stuck with us:
✨ Define performance as art: Gianpiero Petriglieri challenges the “productive machine” mindset and suggest leaders to see performance as bringing values and fresh ideas to life.
Technology alone will not fix productivity: Peter Hinssen underlines that simply using AI and technology will not improve performance. Instead, leaders need to rethink the way they work and what they want to achieve—and start building new teams and systems from there.
❌ Kill the invaluable processes and projects: Diana Kander urges to find and stop the tasks, meetings, and projects that take more effort than the value they create.
✋ Forget pushing harder to create change: To improve your organization’s performance, Jonah Berger suggests to remove the barriers to change instead of trying to pursue and push harder.
Consistency, Focus, and Health
— Weekly Newsletter by James Clear
James Clear, best known for his bestselling book Atomic Habits, also shares great insights in his weekly 3-2-1 newsletter. Every Friday, he drops 3 ideas from himself, 2 quotes from others, and throws one question to the reader. Here are a few of his performance insights that we’ve taken from his recent newsletters:
“Compete externally and you compare. Compete internally and you improve.”
“What looks like a talent gap is often a focus gap. The “all-star” is often an average to above-average performer who spends more time working on what is important and less time on distractions. The talent is staying focused.”
“A gift you can give yourself right now: Stop what you’re doing. Close your eyes. For the next 60 seconds, just breathe.”
New Leadership Insights
Speaker of the Month: Angela Duckworth
Angela Duckworth is a psychologist, author, and founder of Character Lab. She is best known for her groundbreaking work on grit—the power of passion and perseverance in achieving long-term goals. She is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and has helped improve the performance of teams ranging from the NBA to Fortune 500 companies.
At NBF 2026, Angela will give a keynote on how to build grit to succeed in the long run.
Last 300+ Tickets Left for Nordic Business Forum 2026
It’s still 7 months to go until Nordic Business Forum 2026 and we’re over 96% sold out! That means that we’re down to the last 300+ tickets
On 16-17 September, we’ll explore how to utilize our innate resilience, courage, and discernment to make better decisions, improve performance, and strengthen collaboration. The Human Edge theme will be discussed with the help of world’s top voices such as Oprah Winfrey, Steven Bartlett, Paul Polman, and Angela Duckworth.
If you want to be part of the best business days of the year, secure your ticket for NBF 2026 before it’s too late. We hope to see you in September!
Stop and Think
“One of the most powerful and most accessible ways to reset is breath work. The average human takes 22,000 breaths a day. And it takes only 10 deep, long breaths to reset your inner rhythm.”
April Rinne
