The Mental Game with Sam Brief

Episode 92 of The Mental Game features renowned sport and performance psychologist Dr. Paul McCarthy. Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Dr. McCarthy is a world-renowned psychologist and senior lecturer with over 25 years experience with athletes, coaches, and teams, including a role as the inaugural resident sport psychologist at St Andrews, the “home of golf.” In the midst of a FIFA World Cup full of d...

Episode 91 of The Mental Game features a powerful, captivating conversation with two-time Olympic silver medalist Ryan Cochran-Siegle . Cochran-Siegle is one of the great American alpine ski racers of his generation. He won silver in the super-G at both the 2022 Beijing Olympics and the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. His Beijing performance marked the first Olympic super-G medal by an American man in...

Episode 90 of The Mental Game features a riveting conversation with veteran sportswriter Rustin Dodd of The Athletic. Dodd is a senior writer for The Athletic’s Peak vertical, covering sports leadership, personal development, and success. His stories have a sharp mental game focus, ranging from how an NFL kicker deals with nerves ahead of the Super Bowl to how a college basketball coach catalogs a...

Episode 89 of The Mental Game features another Team USA flag football superstar: Deliah Autry-Jones. A three-time gold medalist with the U.S. National Flag Football Team, Autry-Jones has dominated a sport that’s seen explosive growth, with flag football set to debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. She’s been playing competitively since high school in Tampa and has been a leader on the national t...

Episode 88 of The Mental Game brings on Amber Clark-Robinson, one of the nation’s top flag football stars, coaches, and ambassadors. Why should you listen? Flag football is set to debut on the Olympic stage in 2028, and U.S. National Team Captain Clark-Robinson offers an look at the mindset required to compete and shine in one of the world’s fastest-growing sports of all-time. As a young girl in G...

Episode 87 of The Mental Game features Troy Moles, Ph. D., CMPC, HSPP — the Director of Counseling & Sport Psychology for Indiana University Athletics. Why should you listen? Fresh off Indiana’s historic football National Championship, Moles is uniquely positioned to tell you what truly lies behind the “championship culture” you often hear discussed in the media. Embedded inside an athletic de...

Episode 86 of The Mental Game features Dylan Beard — an American hurdler whose rise is one of track and field’s most compelling breakout stories of the decade. A Baltimore native, Beard didn’t even start track and field until his sophomore year of high school. He fell in love with hurdling almost instantly, climbing the ranks quickly enough to run collegiately, most notably at Howard University. A...

Episode 85 of The Mental Game features Dr. Jordan “Dr. J” Collins, a former college track star who turned his own life-changing experience with therapy into a career helping athletes thrive. Now an athletics mental health counselor at Loyola University Chicago, Dr. J works with student-athletes across every sport, blending tools like mindfulness, CBT and sport psychology to sharpen performance and...

Episode 84 of The Mental Game introduces the inaugural edition of Walk The Talk — conversations on the move. Today, we’re walking in the Chicago sun along Lake Michigan with Tre Demps. Demps was an All-Big Ten player at Northwestern University, then played professionally for five years in Italy, Belgium and Greece. After retiring in 2022 due to hip arthritis, Demps took up dual careers in broadcas...

Episode 83 of The Mental Game features Dr. Lennie Waite , a PhD, Olympian and sports psychologist. Dr. Waite has experienced the mental game of sports on both sides: as an elite athlete and as a psychologist. Born in Scotland, Waite came to the U.S. in the mid-2000s to attend Rice University in Houston, where she ran track and set school records in the mile, 1500m and 3000m steeplechase. She then...

Episode 82 of The Mental Game brings back former All-Pro NFL cornerback Jerry Azumah, his second appearance on The Mental Game. If you missed Part I with Azumah, click here to listen now . Azumah played seven seasons for the Chicago Bears, earning a Pro Bowl and All-Pro selection in 2003. His NFL career came on the heels of a super successful four years at the University of New Hampshire. Under th...

Episode 81 of The Mental Game brings aboard World Champion mountain biker and mental performance coach Sonya Looney. As one of the top mountain bikers on Earth, Looney won four USA National Championships and a world title in 2015. In ultra-endurance events, she raced for up to 24 hours at a time in locations ranging from the Himalayan Mountains to the Sahara Desert, where she not only pushed her o...

Episode 80 of The Mental Game brings aboard former All-Pro NFL cornerback Jerry Azumah. Azumah played seven seasons for the Chicago Bears, earning a Pro Bowl and All-Pro selection in 2003. His NFL career came on the heels of a super successful four years at the University of New Hampshire. Under then-head coach Chip Kelly, Azumah starred as a running back, winning the Walter Payton Award as the to...

Episode 79 of The Mental Game features two-time Olympic track sprint cyclist, Sam Dakin of New Zealand. Not only is Dakin one of New Zealand’s top athletes, but he’s also among the nation’s foremost mental health advocates. As he deals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Dakin has taken an active role in helping both himself — through therapy and active coping strategies — and others, by spearhead...

Episode 78 of The Mental Game features one of the world’s foremost experts on sleep, circadian rhythm and performance: Dr. Alan Kubey. Dr. Kubey previously worked as a sleep consultant for NASA. He was recently contracted to advise the University of California, Berkeley basketball programs as they traversed the country in their first season as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Cal’s...

Episode 77 of The Mental Game brings on one of the most mentally locked-in coaches in college basketball: Allison Guth of Loyola Chicago . Guth has been a coach in college hoops since 2004, when she left a corporate job at Coca-Cola to dive into a coaching career that has taken her to Missouri, DePaul, Yale, Northwestern and now Loyola Chicago. Guth values the mental game as much as any coach in t...

Episode 76 of The Mental Game features one of the world’s top marathon runners: CJ Albertson. Albertson, 31, is fresh off his best marathon performance to date: a scorching time of 2:08:17 at the Chicago Marathon, where he was the top American finisher. He also bested all other U.S. runners at the 2024 Boston Marathon and will look to do so at the upcoming New York City Marathon on November 3. Alb...

Episode 75 of The Mental Game brings award-winning sports psychologist, author and motivational speaker: Dr. Harold Shinitzky. Dr. Shinitzky has joined The Mental Game before to discuss his previous works like “A Champion’s Mindset.” Now, he’s joining to break down his latest book: “Me, Myself, and I: A Narcissist's Mindset: A Self-Help Handbook for Victims-Survivors of a Narcissist.” Dr. Shinitzk...

Episode 74 of The Mental Game features Julie Kliegman, author of Mind Game : An Inside Look at the Mental Health Playbook of Elite Athletes . Fueled by interviews with Olympians like Chloe Kim and McKayla Maroney, NBA players Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan, and so many more, Mind Game illustrates the complete story of how elite athletes navigate mental performance and mental illness—and what non-ath...

Episode 73 of The Mental Game features the first-ever Director of Meditation Training in major college sports: Chad McGehee of the University of Wisconsin.   Now in his fourth year at UW, McGehee trains student-athletes, coaches and teams on meditation, giving Wisconsin’s teams a mental edge few programs possess. He also collaborates with researchers and scientists on ground-breaking research, whi...

Episode 72 of The Mental Game brings on a guest that will blow your mind. Andy Donaldson is among the most impressive open-water swimmers in history. Last year, Donaldson set the Guinness World Record for fastest time completing the Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge, which consists of seven of the most challenging open water channel swims on Earth, including: The Cook Strait between New Zealand...

Episode 71 of The Mental Game features the second episode of our series highlighting the Mental Game of Pickleball. Pickleball is a sensation. It’s America’s fastest-growing sport, and it’s gone international. 48.3 million U.S. adults have played it in the last year, and organizations like the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) have heightened the sport to the professional level. In picklebal...

Episode 70 of The Mental Game features Walt Norley, the founder, chairman and CEO of OnBalance. Why Norley on The Mental Game? Norley is a former NCAA Division I quarterback — who was initially recruited to Ohio State by then-assistant coach Nick Saban. His football career was riddled by injury, and he’s since immersed himself in an uber-successful business career. Norley, like millions, has manag...

Episode 69 of The Mental Game brings aboard Ryan Lidge, seven-year professional baseball catcher and now a mental performance coach with ZoneCoach. Why Lidge on The Mental Game? In a way, Lidge is a lifelong mental performance coach. During his time playing at Notre Dame, in the New York Yankees organization and with the Chicago Dogs, Lidge was constantly a leader, locking himself and his teammate...

Episode 68 of The Mental Game marks the beginning of our series highlighting the Mental Game of Pickleball. Pickleball is America’s fastest-growing sport.  48.3 million U.S. adults have played it in the last year, and organizations like the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) have heightened the sport to the professional level. In our first pickleball-focused episode, one of the sport’s young...