Tanks, Transfers, and Timing: Scuba Lessons for Life

In technical scuba diving, the deeper you go, the more complex your gas strategy needs to be. Too much oxygen too deep and you go into seizures, too little too shallow and your motor functions collapse with no power to switch gasses. You can’t just carry one tank and hope for the best. You need stage tanks. Transfer gas. Deco gas. You need a plan.

Let me break that down:

• Stage tanks are brought along for part of the dive. You pick them up, drop them off, or use them at specific phases. They’re not for the whole journey—they’re for stages of the journey.

• Transfer gas is what gets you deep. Its only purpose is to get you from one depth to another. It’s optimized for a range, for movement. You don’t stay there long—but without it, you’re stuck.

• Deco gas is for decompression. It’s what saves your life when you’re on your way back. It’s light on oxygen toxicity, heavy on forgiveness. It doesn’t push you—it heals you.

And in life, we all benefit from different mixtures at different times.

Some people try to carry one tank through their entire life—one identity, one mindset, one job, one approach. They dive deep, but don’t come back. Or they stay shallow forever, afraid to change gases.

If you want to go deep in anything—business, relationships, mastery—you need a more sophisticated gas plan.

• You need stage tanks—temporary roles, tools, or resources you drop in and out of as needed. You don’t marry your first strategy forever. You carry it to a depth, then leave it behind.

• You need transfer gas—skills or habits that get you through transitions. Moving cities, switching careers, letting go of something that used to work but doesn’t anymore. That’s transfer gas. It keeps you alive during change.

• And you need deco gas—space, recovery, routines that help you decompress. Life has pressure. Without a plan to off-gas that stress, you’re courting a slow, invisible breakdown.

Technical divers don’t just survive complexity—they plan for it. Every tank has a label. Every gas has a purpose. Every depth has a strategy.

Going deeper may have danger, but it is not dangerous if you’re prepared.

But staying too long on the wrong gas? Ignoring the need to switch tanks? Pushing through without planning your return?

That’s how people get bent. That’s how they lose themselves at depth.

The better your life gets, the more complex your oxygen strategy needs to be. And the more intentional your switches have to become.