“I only loved doing well. I never really allowed myself to enjoy it. Enjoyment came through performance and feeling like I contributed to the team. If I didn’t perform well I felt a huge sense of emptiness. I felt insecure. I felt pretty damn fragile a lot of the time.” My guest this week is Nick Compton, former first class cricketer and England’s opening batsman. Nick had an excellent first class cricket career, making 194 appearances and clocking up 12,168 runs. He represented England in 16 Test matches, scoring back to back centuries against New Zealand, and was part of the dynamic duo with Alistair Cook that famously beat India on their own patch for the first time in 28 years.  The cricket and football fans among you will no doubt recognise his surname, the entire Compton family has huge sporting pedigree. His Grandfather Denis is sporting royalty, famously playing both cricket AND football for England and Arsenal, was one of the finest cricketers to ever walk the planet, and has a stand at Lord's named after him. Nick and I became mates at Durham University back in 2002 where we lived on the same corridor and despite not having been in touch for ages, I was delighted that he accepted my invitation to come on the podcast. He has had an exceptional career and been in the limelight for much of his life. More recently he has been spending more time behind the camera lens rather than in front of it, so I wanted to hear about his burgeoning professional photography career too and future plans. Nick and I talk about what it takes to reach the top of elite sport, we talk about peak performance, mindset and visualisation, we talk about growing up in the shadow of greatness. He also generously shares the difficulties that he’s facing as he transitions out of sport, when his identity and self-worth have been so tightly wound around this one profession for so long. I’m very grateful to Nick for not holding back and rendering himself somewhat vulnerable by revealing the various challenges he’s faced with his mental health over two decades. I know that he would have it no other way, but it always makes for a better episode when high-profile guests bring their authentic selves to the table. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Links: IG: @nick.compton Twitter: @thecompdog https://nickcompton.com/ YouTube Highlight Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WueTSNtXJlE&t=1s Home of the podcast: Coaching & Speaker Profile: www.michaelxcampion.com LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion IG: @michaelxcampion