A New Way of Being

My guest this week is a titan in the world of British sport – Eve Muirhead, who of course won curling gold for Team GB at the last winter Olympics. Curling is that sport that absolutely grips the attention when the winter Olympics is on – and then doesn’t get quite the same level of coverage the rest of the time. This episode is really about understanding that gold medal winners – or successful pe...

Human beings are animals, and as such we have typical mammalian impulses, like being tribal and territorial. These base impulses can get us in trouble, but in this bitesize episode Shane Parrish shares a brilliant way to embrace the power of self-imposed rules to stop you from doing or saying something you will later regret. The advice in this episode is brilliant, and references the brilliant aut...

Do you know what attachment style you are? Whether you are secure, anxious, avoidant or a bit of a mix – your attachment style developed in childhood as a result of your relationships with your parents and primary caregivers, which then likely shapes what type of relationships you have for the rest of your life. That is, unless you can become aware of an insecure attachment style, and work to heal...

“All of humanity's problems, stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal This bitesize episode is with Steve Magness, best-selling author of Do Hard Things. It's all about developing genuine resilience, but the beauty of this conversation is in recognising that one of the best ways of truly 'toughening up' is to sit still without distractions. To embrace simply being...

Jason Fox is a former Special Forces soldier, an adventurer, TV personality and author. This is Foxy's second appearance on the show, and in this conversation he shares what he perceives as the four life cycles we all go through, including periods of chaos and calm. How can we embrace and thrive in the former, while maximising our recovery in the latter? Expect to find out about how to find hidden...

There are few skills as important to develop as acceptance. Psychological flexibility – which is described as our ability to make contact with the present moment fully and without defence, is all about acceptance. When we feel uncomfortable – our thoughts typically try and drag us away from the source of apparent discomfort. But discomfort is a part of life, particularly if we want to live life to...

Rates of burnout are higher than ever before, and continue to head in the wrong direction. We have more inputs in a week than many people had in a lifetime 100 years ago. We have prehistoric brains in a futuristic world. So what's the answer? Professor Cal Newport argues that we need to embrace slow productivity. Instead of getting lost in busy-ness, and 'pseudo-productivity', we need to slow down...

If you want to get along with other people, and therefore be able to get ahead, being able to communicate clearly is a fundamental skill. In this age of chatbots and remote work, one thing that cannot be outsourced to machines are decent communication skills. And yet, so many people in so many industries speak in a language and jargom that makes it difficult to actually understand what they are sa...

Enough is an underrated word. If more people recognised we are all innately 'enough', then the world would likely look very different. Becky Hall is the author of 'The Art of Enough', and she explains the relationship between being enough, having enough and doing enough. The sense of not being enough is so prevalent and drives so many fear-based behaviours we see in the world. In reconnecting with...

A New Way of Being is about recognising that we are all innately enough. Most of us don’t always feel that way, but it’s an illusion largely created by identifying with the outdated voice in our heads. And so much stuff out there, including much of the so-called high performance culture, comes from a place of inadequacy. If we are not enough as we are, of course we will expand vast amount of energ...

"If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships - then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far." That is one of Daniel Goleman’s quotes about emotional intelligence, which was also the title of his best-selling book – which outlin...

"Letting go is one of the most efficacious tools by which to reach spiritual goals." - David Hawkins This conversation is about the power of letting go of outcomes, identity and attachments. It is paradoxically incredibly hard, and easy, at the same time. Letting go allows us to free ourselves from the burdens of the past and live fully in the present moment. This is a re-released episode with the...

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." - Arthur Ashe So many of the elite performers I have spoken to over the last six years have exuded confidence. But what makes them so confident in their abilities? The answer — preparation! Once the building blocks are in place, you can let go and surrender to what happens. That's when magic happ...

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...