A New Way of Being

How to ensure you are getting the right nutrition to fuel yourself for performance, health, mood and overall wellbeing. James Collins is recognised as a leading Sport & Exercise Nutritionist. In elite sport he has worked with Team GB Olympic teams and athletes over three Olympic Games. He joined Arsenal Football Club in 2010, where he spent seven seasons as the club’s first performance nutriti...

You cannot fill an inner void with accomplishments and approval. The reality is, many 'high performers' are driven by a desire to compensate for emotional wounds. This isn’t to cast judgement on so called "successful" people – it is just to suggest that putting them on a pedestal is simplistic and frequently overlooks deeper truths. This week's bitesize guest is Caitlyn Jenner - who won Olympic De...

To evolve is to survive. Former England cricketer turned TMS pundit Ebony Rainford-Brent suffered a huge personal tragedy when she was just five, her oldest brother died after being a victim of knife crime. Ebony also grew up without much material wealth, and aged 19, she suffered a serious back injury which meant she could barely walk and faced never playing sport again. Despite sinking into a de...

You’re always going to be you, therefore it’s better to accept yourself as you are than to try to be something you’re not. In this episode, which was recorded live at the Hay festival, Nigel Owens shares the vital lessons he learnt about self-acceptance, after coming close to taking his own life because of an inability to accept his sexuality. My book Champion Thinking: How To Find Success Without...

It can be so easy to let resentments build and sweep things under the carpet, to avoid having the difficult conversation because you know it will be uncomfortable. But – sweeping issues under the carpet is not a recipe for harmony, whether in business, families, relationships of teams. Issues and feelings need to be faced and processed. Two people who are well aware of this are Kate and Helen Rich...

Best-selling author James Kerr goes deep into the heart of the world's most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business. The 15 lessons are Character, Adapt, Purpose, Responsibility, Learn, Whanau, Expectations, Preparation, Pressure, Authenticity, Sacrifice, Language, Ritual, Whakapapa, and Legacy. My b...

I was fortunate enough to be invited onto the Healing Place podcast recently with MIta Mistry - author, therapist and columnist - to talk about my book Champion Thinking: How To Find Success Without Losing Yourself. I really enjoyed speaking with Mita - and so am sharing our conversation here. The Healing Place Podcast: https://shows.acast.com/healing-place-with-mita-mistry Champion Thinking: How...

How to juggle family, career and record breaking ultra running, while remaining utterly down to earth, with ultrarunning legend Jasmin Paris. Jasmin has become the first ever woman to finish the notorious Barkley Marathons race in America, made up of five punishing 20-mile loops around the Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. Paris’s finishing time was 59 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds – 99 seco...

It's not about the end goal, it's about enjoying the steps along the way. I had the pleasure of catching up with Sir Chris Hoy recently, and it reminded me that he is one of those relatively rare high performers who retain humility and stay truly grounded while enjoying huge success, as he did in winning gold medals at three Olympic Games. So many people put so much stock in the outcome alone, and...

A radically new approach to dealing with stress and pressure using scientifically proven techniques from ACT. This is part 2 of my conversation all about how to stop struggling in life, to skillfully become more comfortable being uncomfortable, and find more ease and innate resilience. My guest is Jenna Ashford, former elite hockey player turned psychologist and performance coach. Jenna's work is...

A radically new approach to dealing with stress and pressure using scientifically proven techniques from ACT. This episode is all about how to stop struggling in life, to skillfully become more comfortable being uncomfortable, and find more ease and innate resilience. My guest is Jenna Ashford, former elite hockey player turned psychologist and performance coach. Jenna's work is based on ACT, whic...

What are you like at sitting with difficult emotions - like fear, sadness or anger? Let's be honest, it's not fun. But our ability to sit with discomfort is so important, although most of us tend to distract ourselves where possible, which is much easier these days with the digital distraction devices in our pockets. Clarke Carlisle explains how he has learned to sit with his emotions, and how he...

Jonny Wilkinson, Damon Hill, Frankie Dettori, Goldie Sayers and Jos Buttler share their experiences of flow. This follows on from the last episode in which Alex and I discussed how to get more moments of flow into your everyday life at will. Do listen back to that one if you haven't already - or if you need a reminder. During flow, times distorts and our sense of self disappears, which begs the qu...

Flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow is when we feel and perform at our best, and while it frequently has something of a mystical quality to it, we are all familiar with it to various degre...

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. If we can refrain from making negative judgments about our daily life events, we can liberate ourselves from a significant amount of unnecessary psychological suffering. With Stoic author Ryan Holiday My book Champion Thinking: How To Find Success Without Losing Yourself - is now on general release. Drawing on some of my favourite in...

Having a positive and empathetic outlook can make a big difference to yourself and those around you. One man who knows this is legendary former Southampton manager Nigel Adkins. He secured back-to-back promotions from League One up into the Premier League, lifting the club 51 places in the process. Nigel is clearly one of football's most likeable characters, and his uplifting and distinctive outlo...

How can you make a difference in life, alongside other people? That is a question long pondered by Dame Commander Heather Rabbatts, who has a quite remarkable CV despite underachieving at school. She was the first woman to be appointed a director of the FA and she was also chief executive of Millwall football club, she’s also been a barrister, a BBC governor, the youngest ever chief executive of b...

Booze, sex, social media - what's your poison? Taking the time to consider when we have an unhealthy relationship with 'people, places, things and situations' is an extremely valuable process to go through. Former England and Arsenal footballer Tony Adams set up the Sporting Chance clinic, and is an expert at the process people gripped by addiction of any kind can go through to find freedom. He ta...

Why fulfilment is about releasing our attachment to becoming and recognising Being When we become a champion, we simultaneously become a 'somebody'. In this conversation, recorded on The Non-Duality Podcast with Nic Higham, we explore some of the questionable assumptions lying behind what is a widespread belief. How can 'success' and self-aggrandisation be frequently unfulfilling and empty, while...

Words can be extremely powerful tools, if used skillfully. Dave Alred, one of the most in-demand performance coaches in the world even goes so far as to say "language is the post powerful drug known to man". However, he argues that most people are not aware of this and as a result don't see the sort of results that could be possible if only they were able to adopt a few simple principles. This is...

"If I accept the fact that my relationships are here to make me conscious, instead of happy, then my relationships become a wonderful self mastery tool that keeps realigning me with my higher purpose for living."– Eckhart Tolle This is one of my favourite quotes, although it isn’t necessarily in line with how most people view relationships. We tend to be conditioned with an idea about meeting ‘the...

How important is humility in creating a 'winning' culture? Here to explain is James Kerr, author of the fantastic best-selling book Legacy. It is all about the key ingredients that have gone together to create the most successful team in sporting history – the New Zealand All Blacks. Champion Thinking: How To Find Success Without Losing Yourself - is now on general release. Drawing on some of my f...

"I don't mind what happens. This is the essence of inner freedom" - Jiddu Krishnamurti Acceptance is being in alignment with the present moment. When we do mind what happens, we have judged the situation – 'this should not be happening' – and are now reacting to it from that perspective. We really only have two options when it comes to  what is . We can either be aligned with it or against it. And...

"Can you connect with people without having to airbrush your flaws?" When we come from a place of fear, we seek to hide our flaws and insecurities, which restricts our ability to connect authentically. When we fear rejection, a deep-seated sense of shame may be lurking, and when we then choose to project those feelings of shame outwards - by criticising, belittling and judging others - it is simpl...

You are not your thoughts... you are aware of your thoughts. This is such a valuable and important recognition. Most people identify who they are through their thoughts about themselves. What they do, what they believe, which tribe they belong to. But thoughts are just pointers. As the saying goes, 'the finger pointing to the moon, is not the moon'. A key distinction is to recognise the difference...