1005 Sarah Deane: Your Brain Has One Bank Account

Plus, Why AI Needs Humans Who Can Still Think Critically and Creatively

Every founder has felt it: An inspired idea at 9 a.m., great in the 10:30 a.m. meeting, and by 2 p.m. wondering what on earth you’re doing. 

Sarah Deane has a name for that slide and a number for it. Your brain runs one bank account, and when you show up to perform without the energy in it, you borrow, from stress, adrenaline or autopilot. That’s a loan shark. The interest arrives later as a reactive moment, a poor decision, a skipped workout, a strained relationship, and it compounds until there is nothing left to borrow. Most of us only notice when the borrowing stops.

Sarah Deane is a researcher, educator and founder advancing the science of human energy. A former AI engineer with a master’s in computer science and artificial intelligence, she led the worldwide employee workplace experience program at HP for 320,000 people, teaches at Stanford Continuing Studies, has written for Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal and SHRM, and spoken at SXSW and Gartner. Her first company built data models for hard-to-measure human outcomes; in 2017 it started asking what a person needs to perform and feel their best through a day, and followed the data through ancient wisdom traditions and modern science, hundreds of people and years of iteration, until human capacity could be measured. In 2021 she founded MEvolution to do only that. Today she shares the model, the math, and what it means for founders, their teams, and the AI everyone is racing to adopt.

Today we meet an entrepreneur who quantified something the rest of us just feel. Sustainable performance, Sarah says, is capability times culture times capacity to execute: knowing how, being allowed to, and having the cognitive and energetic resources to access the brain systems the job needs. Capacity sits on a continuum with over 100 interrelated patterns pushing it up or down, and about 80 percent is the threshold where you have enough reserves to stay steady under pressure. Sarah sees three kinds of founder: the one steamrolling to success and quietly burning out, the one who is successful on paper and feels something missing, and the one who is winning and intact. The difference is not talent. It’s whether the account is being paid into.

We talk about why the wrong hire is worse than no hire, especially the first few, and how MEvolution’s EMQ assessment places a person on the continuum, names the patterns that would give them more capacity, and matches that to what a role will demand. We get into the research showing a 4x lift in profit and performance when leaders are positively energized, why Gallup has just recorded more American workers struggling than thriving for the first time, and why AI demands precisely the resource people are running lowest on: quality of thinking. Sarah’s question for every leader racing to deploy it: are we scared of AI, or are we saying we don’t trust the humans making the choices? And she shares her own practice: net capacity equals energy gains minus energy drains, misaligned expectations are the biggest drain, accept reality first, know your core values, and keep your own time every night, dishes or no dishes.

More about Sarah Deane at www.JoinTheMEvolution.com

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More about Sarah at JoinTheMEvolution

Sarah Deane is a researcher, educator, author, and founder advancing the science of human energy and performance. As CEO of MEvolution, she develops evidence-based systems that combine behavioral and cognitive science with artificial intelligence to help individuals and organizations measure, master, and sustain peak human capacity. A former HP global leader in employee workplace experience, serving over 320,000 employees worldwide, Sarah holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, authored The Wellness Formula, and teaches at Stanford University Continuing Studies as well as guest lecturing at Stanford School of Medicine and Stanford Graduate School of Business. A three-time Human Resources Today MVP Award winner and Reworked Contributing Author of the Year, her work has been featured in Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Thrive Global, Reworked, and SHRM, and she regularly speaks at conferences including SXSW, HRWest, and Gartner.

Wings listeners get 20% off The Energy Explorer Pass.  Use code WINGS by 13 December 2026 and gain access to three months of on-demand classes, experiments, and practices to build and sustain your capacity through energy management, exploring skills from managing shoulds and expectations and letting go of what you can’t control to living your values, reducing rumination, and creating stronger communication and positive relational energy—all designed to support sustained performance, well-being, creativity, and stronger relationships.

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