By Drew Campbell, CISSN, Founder of GPNi®

A Word From the Founder on curiosity, confidence and changing your mind.

After more than 30 years in sports nutrition, I have more experience than when I began. I also have a much clearer view of how many questions deserve a careful answer.

Early in a career, confidence can mean having an answer quickly. With time, I have come to value a different kind of confidence: being able to slow down, ask what is missing and change direction when the evidence requires it.

The first question is rarely enough

Someone may ask, “Does this supplement work?” The useful questions begin underneath it. Work for what outcome? In which population? At what dose and duration? Compared with what? Is the product tested and appropriate for the person’s sport, health, diet and budget?

The quality of the answer depends on the quality of that second layer of questions.

Experience should create pattern recognition—not certainty

Experience helps us recognise familiar problems. That is valuable, but it can also tempt us to fit a new situation into an old pattern too quickly. I try to use experience as a hypothesis, not a verdict.

What looks like a supplement question may be a sleep, energy-intake, training-load, medical or expectation problem. The obvious intervention is not always the important one.

Science rewards people who can update

Sports nutrition has changed substantially during my career. Research methods have improved. Questions have become more specific. Some ideas have gained support; others have weakened or become more conditional.

Changing a recommendation in response to better evidence is not inconsistency. It is the behaviour we should expect from a science-based professional. The danger is attaching identity so tightly to a position that new information feels like a personal threat.

Ask who built the information

When I review a course, product claim or confident online statement, I want to know who created it. What are their relevant qualifications and experience? Are sources visible? Are limitations acknowledged? Is the person close enough to the research or practice to understand the complexity?

Authority should be examined, not simply announced. That principle shaped GPNi’s use of an expert advisory network and its connection with ISSN researchers and practitioners.

Ask what the learner can do

I also ask what an educational programme requires from the learner. Can they explain why a recommendation fits? Can they identify missing information? Can they write clearly? Can they recognise when a case requires referral?

A long content library can still produce passive learning. Quality is better judged by the thinking and work the programme develops.

Questions protect trust

In industry, questions about dose, quality, evidence, claims and consumer fit may slow a decision. They also prevent expensive mistakes and exaggerated promises. In professional practice, questions protect the person receiving advice. In research, questions improve design and interpretation.

Five questions I keep returning to

• What problem are we actually trying to solve?
• What evidence would change this decision?
• What important context is missing?
• What are we tempted to claim beyond the data?
• Who else should be part of this conversation?

I do not ask these questions because nothing can be known. I ask because careful questions help us know more accurately—and act more responsibly.

Expertise is not the point at which questions stop. It is the point at which the questions become better.

Use a decision pause

Before approving a strong claim or recommendation, create a deliberate pause. Write the decision, the strongest supporting evidence, the most important missing fact and the consequence if the assumption is wrong. Then identify who has the expertise to challenge it.

This does not mean every decision becomes slow. Repeating the process builds a faster internal checklist. It helps separate justified confidence from the pressure to sound certain—a distinction that matters in education, practice and industry.