"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 outlined a compelling argument as to why EQ matters more than IQ. In this bitesize episode, Daniel...

"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 delightful Kevin Clifton while I take a short break, but we will be back with some big plans and...

"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 happens. Hours of meticulous preparation allows top performers like Wales rugby legend Sam Warburton...

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 nutritionist. He has worked as a consultant with England Football, France Football (2018 World Cup...

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 Decathlon Gold in 1976 as Bruce Jenner - and whose house in LA I visited to record the full length...

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 deep depression, those experiences eventually shaped her future. My book Champion Thinking: How To...

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 Losing Yourself - is now on general release. Drawing on some of my favourite interviews over the...

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 Richardson-Walsh who were part of the team that made history by becoming the first British women's...

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 book Champion Thinking: How To Find Success Without Losing Yourself - is now on general release....

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 To Find Success Without Losing Yourself is now on general release. Drawing on some of my...

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 seconds inside the 60-hour cut-off. This isn't her first superhuman rodeo though, in 2019 Jasmin won...

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 what it supposedly says about them as a person, that they don't enjoy what they do for its own...

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 based on ACT, which I am a huge fan of. She's an experienced meditator too, having completed the...

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, which I am a huge fan of. She's an experienced meditator too, having completed the ten day vipassana...

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 has taught the language of emotions to his children - an extremely valuable exercise that we use...

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 question - if it can disappear, just how real is it? My book Champion Thinking: How To Find Success...

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 degrees. In this episode, Alex and I also talk about those moments when we are 'self-conscious', which...

“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 interviews over the last five years, I want to challenge our ideas about 'success', and where...

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 outlook has been dubbed "Adkinism". It's about gratitude, positivity and making the most of the...

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 both Merton and Lambeth councils, Head of Education at Channel 4, a director of the Bank of...

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 talks about sitting with uncomfortable feelings, puncturing ego - as well as the growing issue of...

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 the absence of that deep-rooted sense of 'me' be so rich? What are some of the implications of...

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 especially true when it comes to influencing how other people behave. Champion Thinking: How To...

"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 one’ and living happily ever after. But, one look at divorce rates shows that this doesn’t seem...