Latest / Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves / 203: Michael Puplampu - How Athletes Train Their Inner Voice For Life After Sport

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203: Michael Puplampu - How Athletes Train Their Inner Voice For Life After Sport · Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: There are a lot of people who are falling in love with AI tools simply because it speaks so positively to you, no matter what you say.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: You could have the worst idea in the world and it'll say, Ryan, this is this is world-changing.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody's doing this.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you don't you don't care if it's true or not, but what it sounds like when somebody just speaks so positively is the reason why, I mean, some people have gone as far as wanting to have relationships with AI.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's all because that's just how it makes them feel.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: And generally, people and people around you and all their stuff, you don't get that same 100% positivity all the time.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you beyond the game?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ryan Gonçalves.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I became a professional footballer at 16 and eventually had to answer that myself.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is Career Cloud with Athletes from Second Wind Academy, a show about career transition.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: This season I'm sitting down with athletes still competing, athletes years out, and sports psychologists, coaches and practitioners who guide them.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We get into the decision, the identity, and the practical work of building what comes next.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Athletes hit this earlier than most people.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what they learn works for anybody.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode, a story, and where it goes from there.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be inspired by the stories of others.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Michael, welcome to the show.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Good to have you on here today.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am definitely intrigued about where our conversation's going to go, if anything, because you asked me before we started recording who it was for and what it's about.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that resonated really well for both of us.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking forward then to sort of bringing your perspective onto your journey through being an elite athlete, navigating the stop-start nature to an extent of both your career and sport.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say in that way.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Clever time.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then into sort of really what followed.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So for those who don't know who you are, haven't met you as yet, please just give us a brief overview as to who you are and what you're up to nowadays.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Hi everyone.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: My name's Michael Paplampu, former international triple jumper, a two-time British champion.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm in a in a phase of life where I'm coaching, I'm speaking, and I'm mentoring.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's good.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when you talk about coaching, is that coaching on track in that perspective, or is it more of the performance sphere off the track?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: It started, I suppose, well, originally I think I've it's something I've naturally done all the way through my life.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I've always taken lessons and feel a passion to try and distill those lessons to something that can be for everyone.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I formally started coaching in athletics about 2024.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then that sort of ignited the rest of it as if I've taken on this path as a career now.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is this a moment where I could take something else I naturally do in, you know, coaching others?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where the mentorship really came in is that through coaching people through these things outside of sport, where can I add value?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so I started coaching more formally, but under the term of mentorship.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of giving back and the mentorship, it sounds like it started almost accidentally, if anything.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Having a lot of uh challenges throughout your career naturally builds a mentor in you, or I think enhanced what was already probably some of my natural mentorship because you find that you've got experiences and information that you know at the beginning of your journey you would have benefited from.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: You see somebody in a similar position, particularly something like an injury, and you know so much of what must be going through their mind.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we all have the an individual, you know, voice and narrative, and I'll I'll no doubt talk about the voices in your head at some point.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: But there was that point where I said, I remember what I was saying to myself.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: And at the time I didn't realize how important what I was saying to myself was.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: But now when I look back, I go that moment where I was saying this to myself was a key moment in how I got through that challenge.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I usually then started to spot the signs, having been through it so many times myself, of when somebody was maybe in a similar position, some of the changes to their, to their energy, their character, their something would say, ah, that person's having that kind of conversation in their head.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: And it makes sense because they've just had that experience.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I found myself naturally able and willing to speak to those moments beyond some of the, and as I grew in in the number of injuries had, I also gained knowledge of, you know, the physical side of performance and the rehabilitation.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: But initially, what I was offering was more a conversation with that conversation you were having in your head.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's quite cool.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sorry to pick a probably bland word there, I would say it's quite cool, but it's a bit where you said, I remember, you remember what I was saying to myself at that moment.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there's lots of people who come on here and they'll certainly talk about things that are helpful and unhelpful.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already interested now.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think back to some of those moments, you remember saying the helpful things, but also the unhelpful things.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I certainly do because ultimately it, and I think this is what another thing, a life of sport, but also my life in general has taught me is you're gonna go through so many seasons and phases and and and changes in your life.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that's already enough to deal with.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: But in and amongst that, depending on where you are in life and the people you have around you, you're gonna have so many other voices that influence how you see your situation, your perspective.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, easiest example is in athletics, if you're not winning, you're not good.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's something that you get from your own ambition, but you also get from the crowds, you get from the sponsors, you get from the selectors.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a really big narrative.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you're in a position where you can't do that, you fail to do that, you're often not just hearing your own voice of what you feel about it, but you're also hearing real and sometimes imagined versions of what all those other people who also see that thing is important might say about it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: And in all of that, you lose what you're really saying about it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: It becomes background noise unless you train yourself the same way as an athlete train their body to be able to feel their body, know their body, understand what their body is telling them that might be different to what somebody else's body is telling them, or to be able to resist what their body is telling them better than the next person can resist what their body is telling them.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: You have to have a clear signal as to what that voice is.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so, in and around that, the biggest thing, and I think maybe I've sorry, veered off the point of your question, but it was getting a clear signal for what that voice was.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: So even in the moments where I was criticizing myself, I didn't have to guess why that critical thought or negative thought was happening because it wasn't surrounded by context that I wasn't aware of.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: Why does the crowd say I'm bad because I lost?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: Why does my coach say I'm bad because I lost?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: Why does a fellow athlete say I'm bad because I lost?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so you spend time guessing and filling in the narratives of why that one thing means so much.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you do at that moment?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I can hear this in sport, I can hear it out of sport.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I probably went to this morning whilst I'm working with a client and on a business problem.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The thoughts come into my head.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: How do you close that gap between what you think has been said, what you know that's been said, how you're feeling?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Talk me through that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: The the simplest way you made the point of where I am in my life right now, that this is something I learned in athletics.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I realized that it was so present everywhere.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Whenever somebody is doing something that brings them a sense of challenge, and living is sometimes a challenge.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: So it's everywhere.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: Every time you're going through that kind of challenge, those voices will show up.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: And those voices are usually the determining factor of how you feel and how you move through any challenge.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: So there are two things that I think are really important to being able to navigate that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Number one is to have the other voice.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: If you think about when you've been in any challenge, let's say somebody's picking on you, most of us maybe experienced sometimes being bullied in some way.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: You come to a moment maybe where the aggressor makes you feel a certain way that you can't speak.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: You may not be able to say what you want to say back.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: Because in some ways, there are thoughts you have that believe what that aggressor is saying, what the bully is saying.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: So most of us then also maybe have experienced a time where somebody else has jumped in and said the thing that protects us that's not even physical, but it just changes the way you're thinking in that situation.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: Because you hear somebody else say, No, I'm not useless.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: No, I'm not terrible, no, I'm not a failure.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: And when you hear those voices, those are some of the ways in which you start to see what you need to practice.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so ultimately, you have to practice, you have to train the way you speak to yourself.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because you won't always be able to predict or control your natural reaction, but you will always say something.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: So there's gonna be a natural reaction to what you say.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: What you train is the response.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: What you train is not leaving the conversation there.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: But that's always difficult because then people say, Oh, so you just mean positive affirmation.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: Because largely positive affirmation is wrapping paper for a, you know, to hold a to hold a building together, right?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to train is the response, and you go, how well, how do I do that?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's a conversation.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: You have to be able to engage in dialogue with that voice in your head.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: You have to be able to be the person that, just like your friend, would have said, no, he's not useless.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: He's great, he's fantastic, he's one of my best friends.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: You have to be able to say that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: You have to know that for yourself and have the conversation that says, Well, actually, that thing I can see where that comes from.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: I can see why that that thought, that voice has said that.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: However, there is another narrative behind this story.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because we're all looking at the same event, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: I lost the race.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes it's I showed up to the race.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that point there is hearing that other voice, be it helpful or unhelpful, so something that's unhelpful come towards you, an aggressor, a bully, or something those lines, is trying to take the time to find that helpful voice, the opposite to that one.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So get the full try and get that full perspective.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because what comes next is is training yourself to how to respond to that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what I thought was really powerful is the learned in athletics, but applicable in life beyond track field, any sport.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that in itself kind of resonates for me.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have to, whilst I want to keep going down there, that learned in athletics, I want to go into there now.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want to understand what you've learned in athletics and and how that came about.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I go where I always start with individuals, which is what was sport like for you growing up?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that just allows people to get a reference point to think, yeah, that was me, or that's what I was like as a kid as well.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and then typically keep listening to say, now what happened?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So talk to me, Michael.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: Life in sports started just being an energetic kid, an energetic kid who loved to play.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: And with an imagination to make any kind of playground the most amazing thing in my world.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: It just meant that I was always looking for a challenge to how could I make this experience more enjoyable?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: And usually it was do it from climbing up there, or do it by building this thing, or do it by running around or getting there this fast.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that energy definitely transpired into school where it wasn't ever that I was, you know, uh misbehaved as a child, as a kid.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but when I would finish my work, the next thing I'd want to do is get up and go play.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: So teachers saw I had lots of energy, and so they started to send me on little errands to break that energy up.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then they realized I was doing all the errands too fast.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: They said, go photocopy this.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd be to the photocopier in it that's in a completely different building and back before they knew it.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so then they started to say, this kid's got something.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just energy.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so naturally, sports days and things like that, I started to also show up, win, and be able to win at many things.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: That was basically how I got into sport.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then through that, I got scouted to go and join an athletics club as a sprinter.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's where my career began.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: And also, as we'll probably come to at some point, where the biggest lessons around this were probably learned was in my first race as an athlete.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so it's interesting then.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even realise people got scouted into athletics.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a football thing, a rugby thing, or whatever.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's quite interesting in itself.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: But so when did you so you went in to do it as a sprinter?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: At what age was this?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: 12.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, well, tell us then, because you you you left me there on the cliffhanger.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was that first race like?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: So, I'm 12 years old, like I said, standing on the start line of my first race for a professional club.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: And the first thing is when you when you're scouting and somebody's telling you you're great, it's you're looking forward to it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: You have got all the positivity and excitement, and of course, and your arms fast.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: But I get here and on the start line, I'm looking to my left and my right, and these boys look more like men to me.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like they're all taller than me, they got hair under their armpits, they're they're muscly, and I'm thinking, damn, is this athletics?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm already nervous, but at the same time, I'm confident because I know I'm fast.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: But then the gun goes, and I take off.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like I realize then that I'm really running scared.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: I am running so hard that I feel like at some point halfway through the race, I start to hear the crowd cheering, and I'm thinking, oh gosh, that must mean they're they're catching me.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm thinking, don't stop, don't stop, get to the line.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: I crossed the finish line, and I'd won.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I was like, ah, wow, all those nerves, it was a relief, that's for nothing.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: I go to shake the hands of uh my opponents, look left, look right, there's no one there.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was a false start, and I had a relief.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, because it's my first race, I hear more guns and I think that just means run faster.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: It was at the moment that I realized the crowd weren't cheering, they were laughing.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so I had one of those moments where all of a sudden all I wanted was for the world to swallow me up.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: I started thinking, oh gosh, this was such a mistake.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm such an idiot, I'm so embarrassed, I should never have come here.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: And just as I was spiralling, my my team manager Terry, she ran out, turned me away from the crowd, and that's when she told me she was like, Michael, it was a false start.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: I realised what happened.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: She goes, Don't worry.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: Just go back and do exactly what you just did again.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I looked at her like she was crazy.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: I said, You want me to go and do that again?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't this enough?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: But I realized now that Terry had seen something that I just couldn't see yet.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because where I was focused on the mistakes, the failure, the embarrassment, the crowd laughing, all she saw was a really fast kid.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: So she walked me back past down this crowd.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: I go, the race goes again, on your marks, set, bang.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: And this time, you know, I I kind of pause because I'm like, I'm I'm not doing this again.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I make everyone's running.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then I realized a subtle change.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: The first time I was definitely running out of fear.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: The second time, I was running out of a sense of determination.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was a new feeling.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I started to come back, came back, I caught them, I passed them, and I won the race again.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it was that moment where then the crowd went from laughing to really cheering.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just that that moment I realized that when my internal dialogue changed, and I didn't stop myself from running again, aided by Terry, the whole crowd, their internal dialogue changed.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: So much changed in that moment because of one decision I made.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: But that also taught me everything I was going to need to know about my career in athletics and the ways that I was gonna have to face challenge, overcome challenge, and change the narrative of that story.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a I mean, that's a great story.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And definitely now looking back, you can you can see the you can hear the lessons that we learn.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: But also, it's kind of funny.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that I would have been in that crowd.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, I I've got to say, I'd have been holding back the laughter and cheering, just trying to get back and start again.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: But um that that is quite funny.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for you then coming into athletics, at that point, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or at those points, you're starting to recognize you got something.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: When did you realize you were good?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: When did you realize you were good?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be honest, I always knew I was good.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: There was always that belief.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because, like I said, how I played as a kid, nothing was ever, if it was in my imagination, it almost halfway felt real.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: So there was never a sense of this may not happen, this could not happen, I may not be.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: But I think when I when I really realized that I, you know, had potential in this sport to do something great was probably probably after my first couple of injuries, where I realized that there was also a desire behind it, and I started to learn what what it took to be an athlete.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: And when I leaned into that and said, actually, I think I I'm built for this.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: If if these are the challenges, I've got this.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so that that realization through again, through an adversity of injury, was the thing that said, alright, I'm made for this, I'm built for this, I want this.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: And the talent that I've already had is now something that people are saying, if you could because you can do this, if you can do this, you've got some real potential in this war.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think you needed the adversity to realize that you wanted it?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think the adversity always points you towards your why.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: Because your why is usually the thing that's gonna get you through those moments.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think the more I interacted with it, the deeper I understood myself and my um ambitions and some of the sources behind that ambition.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's that's the reason I don't think I needed it, but I think it showed it to me in a different way, in a way that was probably the first realization, even though I didn't know it back then, that this is why it's so applicable even outside of sport.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: How how old are you roughly then when these injuries started giving you this clarity around your ambition?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Say again?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: 13.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: The very next year after that.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: The injuries started straight away.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Straight away.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: I had uh a condition called Osgrid Slatters, which is just a growth on your knee.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: I know it well.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you know the pain, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: I do, I do, yeah.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: So that really hampered all my training, all my competing for the next next couple of years, actually.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So as you were going through this injuries, even at that point, did you where did you dream?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where where were your dreams taking you in terms of what you might achieve in sport?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great question, actually.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm honest, I'll say it's probably hard to remember exactly what it was at the time because I think a little bit of youthful ignorance just kind of brushed it off.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I think now when I look back, it inspired me because I I enjoyed the story.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: If you think of a movie that you like, it would be a pretty boring movie if there were no challenges.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: If you're watching a classic hero's journey, if there's no adversity, they don't face any challenges, they don't, they don't lose every now and again.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think I, again, with the imagination, just saw every comeback as part of the story.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: Everything that added weight to all the reasons I couldn't, and then overcoming of them to show all the reasons I can was a narrative and a story that I also enjoyed.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I think some of the challenges I secretly enjoyed, and again, you go back to my childhood, I would climb on something that was particularly dangerous or hard to climb.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: I would, I would look to have the thing that other people couldn't do or wouldn't dare to do.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I've always liked the sense of danger and adversity that comes with something because I think that's part of what um motivates me to want to challenge it.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I think in those I liked or I engaged with the story that was being built.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I think that's how that's how I got here.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: So talk to me about that those markings in the career.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So How things started to move you forward and what you had to do because going through this age, you're still at school, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, and I'm interested, what was the shift like for you from you know, from let's say GCC age moving into those early years?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: What what what what was going through your sporting career at that point?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then also academically, what was happening?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: So in my career, this was the probably the the turning point to me being the the athlete that people will will know is I uh so after a couple of years of those those injuries, my speed just went.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: I still had springs, so I was a long jumper at this point.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember trying to qualify for the English Schools Championships for two years, and on the the last day uh of that second year, I missed out by a centimetre.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I knew they weren't gonna pick me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: But just again, in that moment where I was I was down, it was actually the same manager Terry that came up to me and said, uh, sorry you didn't make it for the for the long jump, but somebody's pulled out of the triple jump.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: So would you mind filling in?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, What's the triple jump?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I had a little crash course with the triple jump, and then in that first competition, qualified for English schools, and that's where I go, Oh, well, maybe this is what I'm good at.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: This is this is the thing that I've just burst onto the scene and as an unknown name has qualified for English schools, whereas two years of long jump and I couldn't do it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: So that that was the beginning of what would end up being the professional career.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um so again, same same kind of narratives of adversity going through these these particular moments, but academically, um again, I was I was fortunate enough, probably because of my upbringing, to be quite academically, well, I would say gifted, but also I think that came from the same thing.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: Everything in school became a challenge, and so I think I actually just enjoyed the challenge of being able to learn something, being able to win it a test, to get a high mark in a test.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so that was a natural fuel, fuel again.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: But it was certainly the part of time because of how life was and how school life was, that my focus on academics probably started to wane.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, no, actually, if I'm gonna take a career path, this thing that I'm doing that's giving me so much is certainly where my focus is is drawing to.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's when I knew I was really gonna want to take this, you know, as far as I could.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as you were pushing through, I'm I'm interested then you you you're breaking onto the scene.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm trying to picture where you wanted to get to and what decisions you had to make from a career perspective.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Were you there, judging by timing, thinking, this is me full-time, I'm leaving school, this is where I'm heading.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or was there a need for there to be this dual career and some sort of balance that had to be found?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, balance was always kind of enforced because, again, from the background I came from my parents both being Ghanaian and having moved to this country, they certainly didn't understand the pursuit of a career in sports.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so a lot of the support sometimes was was conditional on, you know, keeping my academics up.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: But also, I think it also meant that I was always pursuing more than one thing.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I think at that point I had a balance that said, Well, well, I could at this point do anything I want in life.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: It was almost the time where I was starting to decide what I wanted to do in life, and that's where the the questions came up.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but thankfully I had I had options.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: There were a few things I would enjoy doing, there were a few things I was good at.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: So it just meant that at that point I hadn't put much pressure on on where I was gonna go.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_03: I just knew that anything I was doing, I was trying to be the best.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it drove you forward.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it drove you.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And kept moving you forward.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where to?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a goal?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have this, you know, at this point, had a goal started to come clear for you?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: The short answer is no.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because I was imagining that anything was possible.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so it wasn't something specific.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think why do you think anything was possible?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why clearly, well, no, I won't say clearly.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say that's not true, right?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anything depends how far we want to take this and take well completely.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is possible.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It depends which timeline you're in, and da-da-da.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I bring it back and I'm curious about this.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, at 12 at 13, I can brush it off as youthful exuberance.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, I'm going to the moon, I'm doing it all.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here you're stepping into realities of competition.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're starting to see what that looks like.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or you you know what that looks like now.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: You things are getting international for you.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yet you didn't have a dream.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how far did your dream go?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or indeed, forget the word dream.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: What goals did you set, did you start to set for yourself to achieve?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are too many stories of bankruptcies, mental health issues, and unfortunately two.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's time for every year.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: It might be a retirement, injury, or they need to juggle your careers between sport and a job.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: As a former English professional footballer, I have somehow managed to transition from sport into banking, strategy innovation, and now life coach to a practitioner and founder of the Second Wind Academy.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to help those around me find their career technical.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Find me on Insta or through my new Facebook group, Second Wind Academy, where I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: The first time I actually set a goal, I mean the first thing, like the dream is being Olympic champion, but I think that was just because that was the thing, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think at that point I'd set myself to become Olympic champion.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: I was more inspired by seeing someone run a race, seeing someone run faster than you know a particular record.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: So it was those things that I was more inspired by because being Olympic champion to me was just a word, a phrase.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: What I saw, I was inspired by was what people were doing, the the things people were doing that people couldn't do before.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: So it was only when I became um a triple jumper that I started to engage in more conversations about being professional, going on as a senior, where I might go to university to consider it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then I said, all right, well, if I'm gonna make those choices, I need to know what I'm pursuing.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's when I said, Well, well, how good could I be?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: Could I be Olympic champion?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I go, Yeah, I think I could.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: I believe I can.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: So that helps in the decision making to go, right, then then this is what we're going for.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Now it's not just fun and games, and that's when I had to start peeling off some of the other things I was doing.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because I then I had to say, well, what's it gonna take to be an athlete and be an Olympic champion?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you have to focus on this.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: This has to be your everyday.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I said, all right, well, I have to consider what life looks like and feels like as I start to peel off some of these other things and focus.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: And again, that was a gauge for me to say, do I really want this?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Is this something I really am driven towards?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Am I gonna give it everything?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: And the answer became yes, yes, yes.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: Then I said, then then that's why I believe I can.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: So it wasn't just a dream.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: I had to really see myself and going, am I capable of this?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: Will I enjoy this journey as much of it as I won't know?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Have I enjoyed the journey to this point?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: And then I go, yes, I have.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: The the tick boxes go off, and I go, all right, then that means we want this.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: And this is what we're focused on doing.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Let's take it all the way, become Olympic champion.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look back now and you think, what does it make you feel when you think that?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you look back now and you say, Oh, what I believed in at that point.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it it's funny, the way I would have answered this would have depended, it would have changed a few times in the last two years for sure.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: But now the the overriding thing that I feel is, damn, I'm so glad that's who I was as a kid.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because now when I realize exactly how little I knew, how little I knew about what I was gonna face by taking on that decision, I'm glad that he was not encumbered by those sorts of fears, doubts, and anxieties, and that he had that freedom to go, anything is possible.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's the fuel that I still live on today.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: And for someone who didn't know all of this and didn't didn't even know why that would be a good thing, it's just something he had.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: He was willing to pursue that enough that me at this age that may not take that same chance with all that I know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I absolutely would, but people may not take that same chance.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to be grateful for that version of you back then that went, yeah, sure, why not?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: Anything's possible.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: So now, now where I I would say I don't necessarily understand everything that I was thinking and feeling, but certainly what I feel now is just a deep sense of gratitude for who that boy was, how we got here.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Took the chance, was prepared, went through it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what not necessarily prepared, was prepared to take a chance.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Being prepared or not, didn't matter.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: You just kind of go through it.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm interested in uh look, the the the key bits for me are really some of those lessons that you learnt whilst last being an athlete and and how that helps you do what you do today and help others.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I kind of want to jump to the point and asking the question, when did you start to I want to know what the highs were because I want to know when you started to realize this isn't gonna continue anymore.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, in some ways I don't think I've ever fully got to the point where I think this isn't gonna continue.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: But winning.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: Winning is the drug.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: When you when you win, but this is this is where it gets, I guess, interesting because when you win, the quality of that drug and what it feels like to win is based on what it's taken for you to get there.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: If we think about like the dopamine response system, when you get that rush of dopamine, it absolutely enforces the behaviors that led to that hit.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: So if they're low-quality behaviors, that's where you get people, you know, addicted to the wrong things and chasing cheap kind of thrills.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: But when you know you look back and you've gone, I worked hard.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: That was tough.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: There are points I should have given up, could have given up.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: I really challenged myself here.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: I had these breakthroughs, I celebrated these moments.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I got here.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Then you have that fuel and energy to go and do all that kind of gritty, hard, horrible stuff all over again.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: And you see that the value in that journey was everything you did to get there, sometimes even more than the result and that final accolade itself.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the thing that repeats and compounds.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: So for me, that's the thing that I got hooked on.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like I said, at the beginning, it was it was the that same story going through the adversity, and that just life and life as an athlete is a lot of the times your capacity for adversity because training is a whole lesson in facing adversity every single day.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Adversity every single day.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me more.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Again, I mean, you think of the life of an athlete, and most people will see the glories and the talent on show and the the the show itself of an athlete's work.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: But few people know what that athlete does in between those moments of a great display, and fewer people would be able to handle it, experience it, survive it, whatever, whatever you want to call it, enjoy it even.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there, you've just you've just sort of landed on the bit I was I was wanting to get into.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Did do you do you feel that your experiences in adversity and the setbacks and the injuries they've helped you to enjoy that battle?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: And and it worked hand in hand.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoying the battle is why I enjoyed going through the injuries because in that moment it's just another challenge.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, what don't I know?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what the injury is.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: I find out what the injury is.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: What does that injury mean?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: How do I how do I recover from this injury?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: How do I recover faster from this injury than than everyone else?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: Everything became that same sense of winning.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so it certainly just meant that, and I think this is the key to being able to lean into challenge and why training as an athlete sets you up so much, is because then you don't see the challenge necessarily as positive or negative because it requires the same characteristic.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you enjoy what you do or whether what you do is hard, everybody faces the challenge of getting to that level of their craft that means that it's not easy.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: It is hard because if it wasn't hard as cliche as it is, everybody would do it or be able to do it.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: But you find the joy in that hard because you don't, things don't get easier as you get better.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: You actually just get better at the hard stuff.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: So if you don't enjoy hard stuff, anything you're aspiring to, when you face challenges which are inevitable, if you haven't practiced doing hard things for the sake of it for a reason that actually drives you through it, you will face that hard thing and go, I don't know what to do here.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what's gonna go, if I don't know what to do, I can't move forward.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then most people, if they've never practiced it, then stop at that and they miss again the next opportunity to practice.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: How do you practice doing hard things?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going out looking for hard things?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: Essentially, yeah.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and you'll always know what that is because you know, hard things don't necessarily have to be physical and strenuous.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: Something that's very hard for me is walking into a crowd of people.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: Social situations sometimes are a challenge.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: So even in my athletic career, sometimes where I was facing a challenge physically or in training, I would go and practice something else that I found hard, even if it was maybe socializing more or socializing in places where I don't know everybody.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's the same, it's the same brain, it's the same mind that goes and goes, all right, that's hard.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's a different kind of hard.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: But actually, the the voices in my head and the narratives about that hard thing are very similar.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not good at this.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna look silly.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: I find this hard.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: People are watching me or gonna decide how good I am, or somebody said I'm bad at this thing.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: Those will appear whether you are running on a track and you've got a a last rep of a 300 to do, or if you have to give a presentation.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think you alluded to that by saying you were having some of those feelings this morning.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I go, Well, you probably face some of the same questions an athlete would when they're at the last rep.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: The stimulus is different, but what goes on in your mind is largely the same.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: So for you, well, I'll ask you then, to what extent, I was asking before, when did you start to realize your career was gonna take a different shift?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: When did you when did that when did that hit you and what did you do?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that depends what kind of which shift you're talking about.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Are you talking about the positive shift or I mean about the athletic shift?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: On the way out, I'm talking about the shift that that we that we know is gonna have, well, at some point we accept is gonna hit us in some way.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: How did that hit you?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_03: So it hit me in two ways.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um the first time was actually when I started to experience body dysmorphia.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: And that What does that mean?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: It was in short, and you know, I'm not a medical professional, but it was a a disconnect between what I was seeing in my body and what I was feeling or believing about my body.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it's also a space where most people would hear me say that and be like, what's he talking about?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: He's he was an athlete, he's in great shape.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: But ultimately, and this is one of the challenges and probably one of the things I learned later, much, much later in my career, is that I was always measuring my body by three numbers.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: That performance decided everything I thought about my body.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so sometimes I would look at my body, and I'd even get, you know, you're out and I get compliments about my physique.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I couldn't even receive those compliments because all I saw my body as was a failure because it didn't jump that distance, didn't achieve that thing, it didn't win that competition.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: And ultimately it was my body that was there to do it, and my body wasn't able to produce it.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the training either hasn't worked or it hasn't translated.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I started to see my body as something that I was almost disappointed or ashamed of.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: And that was the first time that I realized that ah, this balance of it being worth it and it fueling me through challenge, through injury, through setback, was starting to have a slightly different effect.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: So that was probably wave one, but it didn't last too long or it didn't impact me.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: It was a slow burner.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: And the second time was where that shift had had changed.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: So now, even though, and this is the difference between stories and narratives, right?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Everything was true about my body not being able to do those things.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: However, I didn't take the narrative of I lost, so my body's a loser.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: I started to look and go, but this body has done so much more for me than just triple jump.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: Such a positive outlook.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, damn, the dream's ending.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and okay, look, I know we're reflecting, we're looking back.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: At the moment, it is but were you already at a point where you were hearing the the other perspective on that, on the, you know, you talk about the power of that inner voice.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: You were you already there, were you already finding that gratitude?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or did you have a moment of I'm done?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: I had many moments of I've done.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: I had many moments of I'm done.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because again, those are those aren't the things that you can always control.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: It comes, it's a thought, it floods you, it's a feeling, and you just know.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I always place a comma on those moments.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Even if I have to wait a long time for that sentence to finish, something inside me always believes this is a comma moment, not a full stop moment.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I may not know what comes after that comma, but my life has taught me that most of these moments that I would have thought were full stop moments were comma moments.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: So let me give this the chance to be a comma moment too.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I wait.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I wait.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where I go through the probably the three steps that, amongst all of this, of how I've distilled everything, is understand, challenge, innovate.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that's probably the core.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes before you can understand, you just have to be able to accept it.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: That comma is acceptance.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's happened.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: I feel this way, I've thought this thing, but I'm not gonna decide what that means and put a full stop there yet.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: So once I could accept that these feelings would happen, and it's it was a it was a reflection of then when I understand it, I don't understand it as I now don't believe in myself.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: I now don't think I'm good enough, even though those are the the doubtful voices that come.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I go, this means that I still really care about this.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: This means this is something that is still deep in me that I I I want to still do because otherwise I wouldn't feel this way.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that's sometimes the first button of the ladder to then go, all right, then how can I elevate from this?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be there are folks listening to the watching.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listening, I'm watching, and I'm thinking, I hear it.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do I do that?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got an athlete who is listening to this.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you've got someone who's just not getting the promotions that they want to get to get them into that next role, and they're just thinking, I get it, I I hear, I hear what Michael's saying, but how how do I how do I start that?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: How do I turn it?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: How do I find my comma?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: How do I rub out the full stop that I put on there this morning and put a comma on it?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know what?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: You you in some ways you've absolutely just answered their question.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: Go and try it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: When in a moment where you're you're feeling good, let's say, you sit down and you go, what's a thought?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: It could be it could be the smallest thing.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: Start small.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: What's the smallest thought I've had of that nature?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think my shoes look good today.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: Start there and go, well, if I was to accept that same thing, this is what my shoes are, that's what they look like.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: But what might I be able to say that just is still equally true, but makes me feel slightly differently about it?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you go, well, it could be as simple as, but at least I have shoes.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then if you focus on having shoes, you go, well, I could imagine my shoes being the way I want them to look or like they are now, but I could also imagine having shoes and not having shoes.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I just choose to focus on I have shoes, right?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's just a small example.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: But you practice, just like an athlete trains their body.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, when I was 12, I couldn't triple jump as far as I can now because I had to go and practice.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I couldn't just sit there and go, Brian, how am I going to be a triple jumper?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: You've got to go and try this.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: Find out where you have some spaces to improve.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: But also an easy reference point.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: We all have friends.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: We all have people we talk to.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: We all know how, or we have somebody in our lives that when they speak to us and speak about us, the way they make us feel about ourselves is different, even to sometimes how we make ourselves feel.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, go and model that.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: Ask yourself, why is it when Ryan says something about me, when he says he believes in me, why do I, why do I actually feel that sense of belief?
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: And go, all right, well, the last thought I had that was negative, why don't I just say what Ryan says?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: Let me just intentionally, once I hear that, put a comment, even if I've put a full stop, let me go back, like you said, rub it out, put a comment there, and let me say what Ryan said.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: Now, how does that make me feel?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because what you then start to do is hear your own voice saying it.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm somebody who records a lot of my thoughts, I record the audio.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that A, I can look back and without judgment and without changing it and go, oh no, but I meant this, I just hear myself and it feels a lot like thinking.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: But also it shows me what I say naturally.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: When I'm not trying to script it, when I'm when I'm just letting my thoughts flow.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: So people journal and they write their thoughts.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I will also encourage people to record so you can hear your own voice.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_03: Because then that starts to become training.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you start to hear yourself and go, oh, I like when I said that.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: I feel good when I said that.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: When we're thinking, it's hard to go back and remember what you were thinking, especially if it's half an hour of thought.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: But if you've recorded it, you can go back and revisit it.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: Or even sometimes what I do now is I'll put my thoughts through uh an AI generator to get highlights.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: I really have a highlight of my own thought.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: But when I hear myself back, I go, ah, I'm hearing myself say something, and now I can see that I can say it.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: And now I know what it feels like when I say it.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a practice.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of it, what you're what you are talking about is practicing it, practicing with small things, hearing, feeling, feeling what you feel, voicing that.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like you say, taking about taking away what seems certain, putting a comma so that there is a second phase.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is about second wind.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: I should have said second wind, but is recognizing that there is another phase that follows, and removing what is finite, especially if it's unhelpful, if it's not moving you towards, I guess, that that uh a positive outcome is work hard to change that, but it takes practice.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I like the I even like the part about doing the voice note, doing the recording, putting that through an AI machine and tell and saying, hey, tell me, where can I add a comma?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I need to do this?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Help me explain.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Give me 10 ways where a comma can fit.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_03: AI is one of those things that really emphasizes my point.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: There are a lot of people who are falling in love with AI tools simply because it speaks so positively to you, no matter what you say.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: You could have the worst idea in the world and it'll say, Ryan, this is this is world-changing.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody's doing this.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you don't, you don't care if it's true or not.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: But what it sounds like when somebody just speaks so positively is the reason why, I mean, some people have gone as far as wanting to have relationships with AI.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's all because that's just how it makes them feel.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_03: And generally, people and people around you and all their stuff, you don't get that same 100% positivity all the time.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_03: You also don't get it from yourself.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I think AI is also something that can that can teach you, and I and I don't mean to use it to just fabricate your life and tell you you're brilliant, but it's so that you understand why a change in how you respond to yourself can make such an impact.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you look practically well well, practically, I suppose where I'm, you know, as we as we come to our time in this and in this conversation, I I suppose I'm I'm interested in helping someone with a simple tool, a simple way that they can begin this practice to help them, like you said right at the start, which I think is really powerful about those lessons that you learn, powerful about the lessons that you learnt as an athlete are helping you in real life.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think through this conversation, I'm seeing a lot of the parallels and how these things can be applied.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: So for those listening and watching now who are like, I I want to, I want to do that, what what advice would you give to them to start to, I guess, hear what they're saying and be able to respond to that?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: So the first step is accept.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: How do you do that?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_03: Just write down some thoughts as you have them through the day, write down a thought you have, record a thought you have, and then just listen back.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_03: If the first step, just get used to hearing your own thoughts and being comfortable with what they are.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: And as you as you do it more, you'll be more comfortable to be less refined, less edited.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_03: The closer you can get to what you're genuinely thinking without judgment.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it's got to be honest.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's got to be courageous.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta, you've got to really want to go, right, what what what's my actually thinking?
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: Not what would I tell somebody I'm thinking, what would I try and say I'm thinking, what am I actually thinking?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Just be honest and be courageous in like, even if it doesn't sound very good, even if I'm I'm secretly already judging myself being like, that's such a bad thing to say.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Write it down, record it.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: And the most important thing is this is not an exercise of judging what you said.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's just for it to be there.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: Get used to accepting your thoughts as they are.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's the beginning of a relationship.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so you're at the beginnings of ultimately what you'll get to is having an intimate relationship with your thoughts.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_03: But at the beginning, just hear yourself out.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: Hear what you have to say.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: Spend a week doing it, spend a day doing it.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_03: But just that first part, record your thoughts and then just reread them, re-experience them, and then eventually you'll start to ask yourself, what do I think about what I thought?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: What do I like about what I've thought?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: Find what you like in what you thought, especially if it's something that's a new thought to you.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I would say that's that's the starting point.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: You accept the thoughts and then you start to move towards understanding them.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_03: But if you're really wanting to just begin, spend time with yourself, record your thoughts, listen back to them without judgment, and get to be more intimate with your own thoughts.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Michael, thank you.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for bringing your perspective.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: I will say, I'll to use your words, thanks for bringing another voice to this narrative on I think finding clarity in our in our careers, but finding clarity in life and being able to move forward.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm a great believer in the lessons we learned through sport that can help us in the rest of our life.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you've really exemplified that today.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for taking the time out.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to know, we're gonna have people who are gonna want to get in touch to follow your story.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the best place to find you?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: The two best places at the moment is either on Instagram at titanium underscore mics, um, or connect with me on LinkedIn, uh Michael Paplanpu, and I'm also Michael Paplanpu on Facebook.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: Please reach out, folks.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_03: Michael, thanks once again.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_03: No problem, it's a pleasure.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to this week's episode.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Reshaping a career is a team sport.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it alone.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you want help working out your next step, it's all at secondwindadvisory.com forward slash academy.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: Book a conversation with me there, and the link is also in the show notes.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple more things.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Send this episode to the person you thought of while you were listening.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's how this show reaches the people who need it.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Ryan Gonçalves, take it easy, and I'll see you next time.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, before I do go, I want to drop a short thanks to Claire at Betty Brook Design, Nancy at Stabby Podcast Solutions, and Therese at copying content by loader.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Without them, this show would never have got together.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.