The Focused Mind Podcast

Chris Madden is a Counselling Psychotherapist based in Leeds. He helps clients explore and navigate new insights and perspectives to bring about a better way of relating to themselves, others or situations they may find challenging. He works with clients from all walks of life and has significant specific experience of working therapeutically with clients from the music, live events and other crea...

Simon Freeman is the Editor and writer for Like the Wind magazine. It is a long-form magazine, printed every quarter 'for runners, by runners' including notable figures from the sport including Dick Beardsley, to interviews with Lance Armstrong, and Courtney Dauwalter, amongst many others covering 'why we run' rather than how to run. Digging into people's motivations, experiences, and how running...

Something different for episode 18. Former guest, athlete, and coach, Steve Hobbs (The Milestone Pursuit) from episode 6 returns to reflect on his 10th London marathon, and his views on the elite finishers in the men's and women's race as well as the problems the marathon faces as a spectator sport. We delve into what it takes to finish well in a marathon, from a psychological perspective and cont...

David Tilbury-Davis has helped triathletes achieve more than 3 World titles, 12 National titles, 4 Ironman Regional Championship titles, numerous wins, Ironman & 70.3 Worlds qualifications, Course Records & many many Personal Bests. David has worked with Olympic, Commonwealth Games, Professional, and Age Group athletes alike. He has also coached professionals in Triathlon, Mountain Biking,...

Dr Duncan Simpson is a British Sport Psychologist and the head of Mental Conditioning and the Director of Personal Development at the IMG Academy in Florida, USA. What that means is he oversees the mental well-being and performance needs of all student-athletes at this huge sporting institution. Formerly at Barry University as both an Academic and practitioner, he is vastly experienced in supporti...

Ian Morgan is a 52-year-old Ultra Marathoner, who came to the sport later in life, having been a Cross Country runner in his youth. He's made a name for himself in the Masters World of marathon and ultra running. A lot of this is down to his fitness improvements from being 103kg at 38; to a now a lean 75kg, giving up his former corporate life after life changing events in his native New Zealand (t...

Grace Lynch is a high-level distance runner from Ireland. She competed in her debut Marathon in Berlin 2021, posting a time of 2:40:06, and has since raced the Berlin half marathon in April 2022 in 73.50. Originally from South Kerry, Grace has progressed her running career from her initial years in her local running club and now trains with a high-level group based in Dublin. As a Sport and Exerci...

Dr.  Justin Ross  is a clinical  psychologist  specializing in health and wellness  psychology , human performance, and sport  psychology based in Denver, Colorado. A 2:57 marathoner, triathlete, and Human Performance expert. Dr. Ross is a clinical psychologist, 2:57 marathoner, triathlete, and cofounder of Mind-Body Health, an integrative health psychology and counse...

Ben Rosario is the Hoka NAZ Elite Head Coach & Exec Director Ben Rosario has led the NAZ since he formed it in 2017. A Hoka-sponsored team of elite men and women who live and train at altitude in Flagstaff, Arizona. Since the team’s formation, over 10 of their athletes have had top 10 finishes in World major marathons (as well as a plethora of top-end results in cross country and other major r...

Chris Ward is a high-end Amateur Ultramarathon runner, originally from Nottingham, now resident in Manchester. In 2019 he was a client of mine and we spent most of the year preparing him for his target A race of the Spartathlon in Greece. A 253Km road and trail event that starts in Athens and finishes in the town of Sparta. Through a combination of very deliberate run training and extensive Sport...

Dr Noel Brick is a lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Ulster University. Along with Runner's World writer Scott Douglas, he is the author of the brilliant 'Genius of Athletes,' a book published this year that takes the psychological strategies and skills used by elite endurance athletes passed to you to learn and implement for success in any big endeavour. Originally from Kerry, his dulc...

Sheryl Garrett is a writer. Over the past 30 years, she has been editor of The Face, the Observer magazine, and written for newspapers and magazines worldwide. Having started at the NME before moving to listings magazine City Limits, Sheryl wrote two books. Bliss to be alive, a collection of works by the late Gavin Hills, and one of the definitive books on the acid house scene, Adventures in Wonde...

Geoff Thomas is a former footballer, who won nine caps for England and captained Crystal Palace in the 1990 FA Cup Final against Manchester United. In June 2003, a year after retirement, Geoff was diagnosed with leukaemia, from which he recovered and only 2 years later raised over £150,000 for Leukaemia Research by cycling each of the 21 stages of the 2005 Tour de France a few days ahead...

Steve Hobbs IS the Milestone Pursuit. That is the name of his business, podcast, and coaching method. Steve is a former MD of a media company, and skilled at working one to one with individuals and diverse groups of people to achieve personal and challenging milestones. Steve is adept at delving deep to help people set their goals (i.e. their milestones) and deliver step-by-step plans to achieve t...

Colin Richards is a London-based Sex & Relationship therapist with over 15 years of professional practice. He helps people transform their relationships and sex lives covering anything from relationship conflict, sexual frustration, complacency, or helping people with a high or low libido and more. He has helped over 6000 people and takes a humanistic approach covering the biological, psycholo...

In the past 2 years, I've interviewed Pete twice along his journey and been impressed by both his drive and determination and his optimistically framed mindset in the face of slim odds. He has successfully pivoted his thinking, actions, and behaviours from the success of the business and sporting world to help others, raise awareness, and competing in events to help the charity. We spoke during an...

Sara Symington is a former GB Olympic cyclist (2000 and 2004 games). After the Athens games she retired and worked as a policewoman and as a performance advisor for UK Sport. We met after the 2012 Olympic games when I worked as her psych for the GB Olympic Archery team where she had taken her first Performance Director role. In 2015 she left to work in the same position for England Netball. As PD...

Peter Bromka is an Oregon based marathoner (with a PB 2:19:40) with the Bowerman Track elite group; an independent consultant, Dad and exponent of long-form writing (https://www.peterbromka.com/ and for Runners World). In the build-up to his second attempt at a US Olympic qualifying time at the 2019 Boston Marathon, I was keen to understand Peter's mindset and psychological strategies and what mak...

The Focused Mind Podcast is presented by Sport Psychologist Stu Holliday. This interview explores the psychology of human performance to understand the mindset and strategies that make up the psychological aspect of people's mastery of their skill, discipline, or domain. Ed Caesar is the author of the books Two Hours and 'The Moth and The Mountain.' In this episode he discusses his writing, t...