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Anna Hemmings: How a Six-Time World Champion Performs Under Pressure · The BEYOND Podcast

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  You've practised for something for your whole life. What is going through your head just before you
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  have to go and compete? What I've trained myself to do in that moment is to just to be clear, to be
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  calm, and by focusing on our breathing, it brings us into the present moment. Hi, I'm Anna Hemmings.
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  I am a high performance and resilience specialist. I'm an inspirational speaker, a leadership and
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  high performance coach. My background is from the world of sport. I'm a six-time world champion. I'm
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  a two-time Olympian. I'm passionate about high
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  performance. I've heard you speaking about controlling the controllables before. So what is that?
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  Example might be, I don't know, the economy and the cost of living crisis. and w I can't control any
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  of that, but what I can do is control how I respond. Change is happening. I can't control change,
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  but I can control who I go and reach out to for support. And when we focus on the uncontrollables,
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  it makes us feel anxious, it makes us feel worried. We put electrodes on the brain and you can
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  actually see certain parts of the
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  brain light up when you visualise. And so we know that new neural circuits are being formed when
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  you visualise. We can change the way we think to help us. It's not easy. The lens that we see
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  things through really influences the action that we take. You're an Olympian. You're a world
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  champion many times over. Not everyone can intro themselves this way, which is exactly why you're
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  here. Because
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  to be at the top of your game, right at the top, it's more than talent, right? It's a lot more. And
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  what I would like this episode to impart to people and where I'm heading with this is I w I would
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  like to see what it is inside your brain, your heart, your mindset that has allowed you to achieve
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  so much in your life. Yeah. So
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  accolades aside, titles aside, focusing on what you can bring you know, to to to to the audience
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  for someone who doesn't know you, doesn't know of all these things that you've achieved. um Why
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  should they watch? Why should they watch and listen? I I guess uh so. I have some lived experience
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  when it comes to high performance, achieving it and sustaining it.
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  As I mentioned, I you know, was at the highest level of my sport for 15 or so years and I won
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  you know, six world titles, European titles along the way. My journey, like any journey that is that
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  l that spans that length of time, wasn't without its challenges, a, d adversity, setback. I needed to
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  develop a winning mindset. I needed to build my resilience in order
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  to thrive in the face of high pressure environments and those those challenges and setbacks that I
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  faced. So yeah, I learned some invaluable lessons along the way which I love sharing with people.
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  And and now since I retired from my sport, I've spent the last 15 years um building my
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  credibility and my credentials as a high performance and leadership specialist and bringing um that
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  combination of lived high performance experience in
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  sport combined with the science of performance, the psychology of performance, and bringing that to
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  leaders and teams in the corporate world. Okay. So, as I mentioned earlier, so many Olympians are
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  talented and they've got all these wonderful things that, you know they've had their life of
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  practice. They've got wonderful genetics that they've got, but is there a particular thing that you
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  need? We've spoken about a lot of– you n you mentioned resilience. Is there a particular something
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  that you all share in common or is it that you get
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  to the top in various different ways? O I think that yes, that that we– d people get to the top in
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  different ways. Lots of different ways of skinning a cat, right? and But I believe that mindset is
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  crucial. Your mindset determines your success and that's something that we build and we develop and
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  we we learn how to develop the right mindset. And I think that's what separates, you talk about
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  talented, or the
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  good from from the exceptional. When we sit on the start line at the World Championships, at the
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  Olympic Games, everyone's trained hard, you, know everyone's got a certain amount of talent, but
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  talent only gets you so far. And it's what happens up here on race day that makes a difference. It's
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  what happens up here that's allowed you to get to that point, to deal with the challenges, the
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  setbacks, the pressure, and everything that happens to get to that point. And it's what happens up
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  here in the mind. Yeah. So, it's what happens in your mind.
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  So I'd like to step back a little bit. So um when you were growing up and your mind was developing
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  and you started to try sports and things, how did how did things click in place that you got to do
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  something, the kayaking, that actually met your talents, that met your needs at the time, that all
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  of it, how did it come together that in that
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  moment your childhood, your upbringing, your destin– all came together? What What was it about
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  that? Were you the driving force in that or was it more luck and circumstance? It's a good
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  question. I stumbled upon my kayak club and the sport of kayaking because it's not a sport that
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  everyone's going, "Mum, mum, please." It's not– just going for kayaking um but I was uh a kid who did lots of
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  different sports and I loved sport. And my mum picked up this leaflet one summer holiday, come and try
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  kayaking. I think she was just trying to get us out of the house and keep us busy in the summer
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  holidays. So, it was kind of luck. um But you know she was really sporty. She knew we were into it. So,
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  we went along. We tried the sport. We loved it. And so, it was bit of a coincidence that there was
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  this club, this kayak club, that was down the road from where we lived. The River Thames was
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  beautiful. It was a summer's day. you, know We did it for a week. It was beautiful sunshine. We're
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  paddling on the river. you, know The scene was great. um It wasn't always
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  like that. It was [unclear: tough?] and cold and wet and miserable. But you know that beginning, that got us drawn
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  in. My brother and I went along together. um And it happened to be a club that was one of the best
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  in the country at the time and it was a great environment. It was social as well as really
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  competitive, which really you, know played to my competitive nature, and and it was– we turned up and
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  it was about making these boats go faster. we, you know We're having fun. We're splashing about. We're
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  falling in. We're swimming in the Thames. you, know So it was a real combination of
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  fun but competition, excellence and you know sporting prowess at the club, you, know so it was a
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  real mixture of things that really ticked a lot of boxes for me. Yeah. It sounds like you were in
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  the right environment at the right time, and it can I say that it ignited a competitive spirit, like
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  the the the enjoyment and want of competing, because not everyone likes to compete and it's quite
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  scary. And did was that something that really excited you and it clicked and connected with that
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  part? Yeah, I mean I'd I'd al I'd
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  competed before in other sports and so it wasn't something– competition wasn't new to me and I loved
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  competition. Like some people, like you say, are afraid of it. um But I was just like, well I just want to
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  get on the start line and race. I just want to show you how fast I can go. I wasn't afraid of losing.
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  I just wanted to t see if I could do it, if I could win, if, I who I could beat, how fast I could
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  go. So, yeah. So, it it was– and and the club was like that. It was very competitive and it was all
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  about– and obviously not from, you know I was nine when I started, so it wasn't like on day one we
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  were racing,
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  but it was pretty quickly going in that direction. um So yeah, it was perfect for me. Can I just
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  touch on something you said? You said you weren't afraid of losing. You weren't. Oh, later on
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  in my career, yes, I was, you, know later on. But in the beginning, when you're a kid, it's like, yeah,
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  just go and race and it doesn't matter, right? You just go and do it. Uh Maybe other kids had a
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  different attitude, but I think I always wanted to just see what I could do
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  and see if I could win, and if I c didn't, then I'll try again next time. I think it's already at
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  that young stage you're already developing the right traits, I would say, and because I would say
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  that it is unusual that you just, you know it's it's it's fun, let's compete, and yes, I'll you know if
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  I lose I lose, but it's it's something that excited you, because I think competition does scare, even
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  even with little children. I think it is you know it's daunting. Yeah, I agree. I see it in my
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  own kids. They get scared of competing and
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  they're afraid of what people are going to say and what we're going to think and I'm going to humiliate
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  myself and what if I come last. you know And I guess what I've noticed is the difference between
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  focusing on the negatives that could happen and worrying about what if I don't win and what if I
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  lose and what will that mean and what will people say, whereas I was like, what if I win? Well you
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  know I believed, I I knew I was c you know good at sport, and what if I win? That'd be quite exciting.
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  So it was a it was a different– I
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  hear that. lens. Yes. And I've had I've interviewed a lot of people and lots of really successful
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  people and I am finding actually the pattern. It doesn't matter whether you're very corporate or
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  completely in a different direction or you come from music or arts or whatever it might be. But
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  ultra successful people in their field do have this common trait of looking at the world in a way
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  that serves their
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  craft, their skill, to be the strongest and best that it can be. It feeds into that. It's so connected
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  that it's one thing. And it's when you look at people like this, you sort of think, well, I'm not
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  surprised, because your life, the way you think is wired, it's fundamentally wired to achievement in
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  in what it is that you're doing. Yeah. I I think it I think it is, it it's a way of thinking, and I
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  think it demonstrates that we can change the way we think to
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  help us. It's not easy. um and But the lens that we see things through really influences the action
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  that we take. Yeah. I I'm– Yeah, it's extremely powerful. I had a really difficult week with things
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  happening. But actually, if you think, I had a really difficult week, I'm going to feel sorry for
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  myself, that's not going to help you. If you think, I've had a difficult week, I've managed to work
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  through the things that I've had to work through, they've made me, my team,
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  everyone better, stronger, whatever, more successful in in all these fields, then it's just a
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  completely different perspective and then you're wired more for that success verus versus going
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  into a more victim, pull back, hide mentality. Exactly Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It it it either
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  propels you forwards or it brings you back, right? You know I've I've had a difficult week and and I
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  got through it. And now I know that next time when I have a [unclear: good?] difficult week, I can get
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  through it again because I've been there before and I've got those skills. And that just builds us up
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  for next time because that's life. It's going to happen. Why then are some people, and even people close to me, we all know someone that they tend to fall into the mode of like, it's bad, things are bad, like they just have that outlook. It's almost, it sounds horrible to say, but it is a bit of a victim mentality. Why does
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  that even exist? And why do they do that? I don't know. What do you think? Isn't it? Like, it is just– I find it
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  hard. Um. But I I don't know. I. I w I wonder if it's the way our brain has been wired from a very
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  young age. Perhaps because of the people we've been around, perhaps the you know teachers at school,
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  friends, family, parents. you know If we've got parents who have got that kind of wiring and
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  that kind of that voice
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  that you're hearing all the time, then naturally you know we're going to pick it up. Or if we're with
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  school teachers who are constantly negative and pessimistic, we learn it we learn these behaviours.
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  I So, I think that's where it comes from. um And so it doesn't mean that it's impossible to change,
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  makes it harder if that's where you've been, the way you've been wired from a young age, but we can
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  change it. w Our brains are neuroplastic and we can learn to catch it and to notice that
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  negativity. Is this thought serving me? Is this helping me? No, it's not. So, let's change it. Let's
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  challenge it and then let's change it. It takes practice and you got to continually work at it. But
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  we can change the way we think to serve us better. Because there will be people watching that do
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  fall into the bit of, you know that that they find things are very hard and they stuck in a loop.
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  They're just stuck in a constant loop and the the negativity reinforces more negativity and it's
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  hard to break that. um
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  What would you say to someone that's suffering with that? Would you just say the first thing is
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  awareness, I guess, of you doing it, and what what would they– d how do you break it? I think that I
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  might question how it's serving them as well, because it might be serving them to be in that mode.
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  Um I wonder, is it helpful to them? Does it allow them to not have to take chances, to take risks, to
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  step into the comfort zone, to face fear, you know and so maybe it
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  serves them a little bit. um Maybe they get more attention from it, or I don't know, but I might
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  question that first. But then yes, it would be what I just described. It's about awareness, noticing
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  that this is my thought pattern and is it helping me here, is it serving me? If I'm trying to
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  achieve X and Y, is this thought process helping me get there, and if it's not, then what do I need
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  to change it to? Yeah, okay, so I'm going to get right into your mind
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  now in a in a in a pressure moment. So, you're on the starting line, medals on the line, world watching,
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  you've practised for something for your whole life, you know you've practised for this moment. um
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  What is going through your head literally just before you have to go and compete in these serious
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  events? What was it? So w when you're actually on the start line and waiting for the gun
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  to go, there's nothing else left to do. Well, so in that moment you're trying not to think too much and you're just trying to stay focused
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  on– I am probably focused on my breath at that moment. I'm focused on um listening for the gun. I'm–
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  there's not– I'm trying to quieten all that chatter because it's not helpful in that moment. So
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  what I've trained myself to do in that moment is to just for it to be clear, to be c calm, and and by
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  focusing on our breathing, it brings us into the present moment.
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  Because what we don't want to be is in the future, worrying about what's going to happen next or the
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  finish or what if I'm going to win or not win or what are they going to say, or you know or or competitors
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  and how fast they're going to be. a Any of that stuff is so totally unhelpful in that moment. And what I
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  need to do is be present. And I don't need to be in the past either, thinking about what I did or didn't
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  do or what I should have done or w whether the training was good or bad. it y Yes, it might be useful
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  to to recall that I'm in great shape and then I'm strong and then my training has been brilliant
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  and all of that, but that's done. On the start line, that that stuff is– I've done that when I'm
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  warming up. I've done that in the morning and the day before. In that very moment, I need to be
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  grounded in the present moment and focusing on my breath, on my body, on the feel of the paddle in
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  my hands, listening for the start gun. That's where I need to be in that moment. Okay. Powerful. But
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  yes, it makes it makes sense if you're just worrying about what someone else is doing next to you
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  and hear the gun go off and then you–
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  Yeah, that that does make sense in such a high pressure moment. Um So you spoke as a child, you weren't
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  really afraid, you wanted to compete. um So you never really– w is it that you didn't think about the
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  outcome of it? You didn't think what does not winning mean, or how– what was it that actually, besides
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  having fun, what was it that allowed you to s to move away from fear towards doing the things and competing?
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  Yeah. So when I say you know I I wasn't afraid of losing, that wasn't true all through my career. um
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  you know Absolutely. There were times when I was afraid I wouldn't win and afraid of losing. um you
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  know Just when you're a nine, 10-year-old kid, that was– you know and you're carefree and it's just
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  like, let's just go and do this. Let's go and race, see what happens. But later on, for sure, there was fear.
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  And and I think often it comes from worrying about the outcome. That's That's the thing that causes
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  the biggest
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  fear, is that what if I lose or what if I don't win or what if it doesn't work out how I should? you
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  know What if I mess up? It's all those fears about what– often mo more about what you don't want to
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  happen is what causes the fear. Um And so I learned, particularly– you know I worked with a sports
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  psychologist from the age of 16 and I learned those strategies about, one, the outcome is
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  out of my control. So there's no point focusing on the
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  outcome. And two, it just makes me feel anxious thinking. abou And also, I'm and three, I'm focused on
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  what I don't want to happen rather than what I do want to happen. And when I look back to, like I
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  said earlier, wi when I was a you know young 10-year-old, I was focused on what if I win. You know I
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  was focused on what I wanted to happen and that's what made me excited. I wasn't the kid who was
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  focused on what if I lose and I get humiliated and what if I come last? and That's what makes me
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  anxious. I was focused on what I wanted to happen
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  and so that's exciting for me. And so, that so one, I need to focus on what I want to happen, so yes,
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  the outcome of of winning, but actually in the end, yes, outcome's exciting and that's what motivates
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  us, but ultimately whether it's a positive or a negative outcome, I don't really want to be focused on
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  the outcome at all because I can't control it. What I can control is the process, and I can control
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  how I achieve that outcome that I want. to. So that's the [unclear: post/process?].
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  This is why it's so incredible to get into the mind of a world champion, of an Olympian, and you've
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  pivoted and you're doing really well in your career and you're a mum. You've got so you've got so
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  many things going on. um Because that again is unusual. There are a lot of people that are watching
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  now that are in unhappy marriages. You know What if I leave? It's going to be a disaster. What if I
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  get judged? What if there's– in jobs that they dislike that are making them really unhappy. Oh my gosh,
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  will I be able to get another job? Am I going to be able to earn the same amount? Um What–
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  many reasons, many things going on and again very much focused on all of the bad things that can go
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  wrong and that fear paralysing them completely. So you it seems like you have inherently got this
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  positive outlook on life. um But a lot of people again don't have that. I So I have to say that I– d
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  yes, I'm d I'm naturally a positive, optimistic person, but I did learn about
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  process versus outcome. That's something that I learned that you know from my sports psychologist,
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  that we need to focus on what we want to happen. The brain doesn't know the difference between when
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  you when you when you talk about a negative. Like if you if I say to you now, you know um don't think
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  of a pink elephant. Right? you You've got a big pink elephant in your head, right? And so if I say
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  don't think about losing, I'm focused on losing. And so
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  that's not helpful to me because that makes me feel anxious. That makes me feel worried, afraid. I don't
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  want to race now. So I need to focus on what I want to happen. That's what helps us take those steps
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  forward. You know Like you say, the the the job that I'm uh in unhappy about and I'm worried about
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  if I don't– if I stay, what will happen, and this and that. But actually, what is it that I do want?
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  What is the life that I want? What is the outcome? What is the job? What what is the the s the
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  situation that I'm striving for? And then what's the process that helps me get there? And it's the
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  process– once we've
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  ident– we have to be focused on the outcome sometimes because we've got to be clear on where we're going
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  and what we're trying to achieve. But once I've got that clarity, then what's the process that's
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  going to help me get there? That's what I want to focus on, because then we're taking away the fear,
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  because it's like now I'm in control and now I've got a plan and this is what I want to achieve
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  and these are the steps I need to take to do it. So let's focus on that. Like when I'm in the race,
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  there's no point in thinking about I want to win, I want to win. I can't control
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  that. But what I can control is focusing on my race plan and the strategy that's going to help me to
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  win. That's what's going to help me. that's And then the outcome takes care of itself. That's really
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  powerful. And I feel for people watching, they have to bear in mind that you know you you got to a
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  certain point with your talent, with your hard work, all of it. And then when you got to that point,
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  you were then given– because you went to that level, you were given the sports psychologist
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  who is– s yeah. Right. Well, actually, I wasn't just given that. That was someone my mum went to seek. Right?
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  Yeah. So that wasn't something that you just– like, provided to you. This was something we went out–
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  going my– well, in fact it was my mum who was like, what what else can we do to help you be better? It
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  Wasn't like I was struggling, wasn't like I was you know necessarily mentally weak. It was more a
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  case of what else do we need to reach the highest level. Interesting. So– It wasn't just– Interesting. So your mum
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  did that.
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  it was landed on my plate. It was something that– you know this was part of the process. If I'm
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  going to reach this level, what are the things that I need to help me get there? So we're going out,
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  being proactive, looking for that support. That's incredible. So it's it's amazing that your mum had
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  that you know that foresight to think, actually, let's leave no stone unt stone unturned, and actually
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  this mental element, your brain, has to be part of the equation um for you to succeed. Yeah. And
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  what's interesting is that this was back in the '90s, late 90– mid– am I going to say mid '90s?
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  I can't even remember how old I am now. Um But um let's not talk about dates. But anyway, '90s,
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  when– today sport psychology is common. It's massive. Yeah. It's massive. That's why I thought you
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  got handed one, because I think– Yes. Now now they do. Um Athletes today, that you know it's part of the
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  support team. that's you know every Every elite athlete, not every single one, but a majority of
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  elite athletes will work with the sports psychologist at some point in their career. Some might
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  not like it, don't want to do it, but a lot will have been exposed to that. But back in the '90s,
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  this wasn't a thing. And so this was quite unusual, actually. um But it was about thinking about what
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  else can we do to be better. Hmm. Okay. So let's talk about that, because I've heard you speaking
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  about controlling the controllables before.
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  So what is that? What does that mean for practical life? Yeah, I mean I I I kind of alluded to it
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  already, I think, with the the outcome and the and the process. And you know this is about– um l let's
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  let's think of an example in the workplace where you know I th I there's lots of people now who are
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  talking about we've got to go into the office um four days a week, and you know Covid happened and
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  everyone worked from home and everyone loved it and it was easy and and we got
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  used to it, and now companies are forcing the fact that we have to go into the office. Well, like y
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  we can whinge about that and complain about it and I don't want to do it and it means that I c can't
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  pick up my kids now and this and that, and yeah, and I g I get all of that, but ultimately this is the
• 24:46
  way it is and I can't control it. They've may– your company may have you know put– enforced
• 24:52
  this new rule. I can't change it. I can't control it. I've got to accept it. And what we can con
• 24:58
  what we can do is choose
• 25:00
  our response to that. And I can choose to either be frustrated about it and angry about it and
• 25:06
  annoyed and moan about it and whinge about it, and that makes me feel you know not good, or I can
• 25:11
  choose my response. I can choose my attitude. I can choose to have a different perspective on it.
• 25:18
  Or you know or it you know another example might be, um I don't know, the economy and the cost of
• 25:24
  living crisis. and w I can't control any of that, but what I can do is control how I respond. Change is happening. I can't control change, but I
• 25:30
  can control who I go and reach out to for support. I can control my attitude. I can control you
• 25:37
  know my strategy. It it So it's all about what can I control, rather than focusing all the things
• 25:44
  that I can't control, the things that stress me that are out of my control, like on my way here, the
• 25:51
  traffic or the the train, or you know and I can't control some of that stuff. So what can I do? I
• 25:58
  can control
• 26:00
  communicating with you. I can control what's my next step. And that and when we focus on the
• 26:05
  uncontrollables, it makes us feel anxious. it makes It drains our energy, makes us feel worried. But
• 26:11
  when we focus on what we the things we do have control in, that's empowering. Do you know what? I
• 26:17
  had um I I've actually had an anxiety expert in and we were speaking about anxiety a lot. And I
• 26:22
  really wish that I had had him in– anxiety Josh– with you at the same time, because I would love to
• 26:28
  hear the the perspectives on
• 26:30
  anxiety, because yeah, controlling the controllables is for sure something that will bring your
• 26:35
  anxiety levels down, because there is also a school of thought that you just sort of let anxiety
• 26:40
  just be anxiety and you're not afraid of anxiety, which is also a powerful thing, in that I'm not
• 26:45
  afraid to get anxious. I'm just going to allow myself to get anxious. But actually your way of doing it,
• 26:51
  it ties in so well to a lot of the stuff that that he's talking about in how to manage anxiety, but
• 26:56
  through these really– it's it's what you said
• 27:00
  earlier, the word process, like that things have a process. Control the process. Get on top of your
• 27:05
  process. Control the controllables. That that resonates with me. I I feel like that's a a nice way
• 27:11
  to be empowered, I suppose, to– get it on top of it. Yeah, I think that um there's a there's a
• 27:18
  case for let's just let the anxiety– let's recognise it. Let's acknowledge it. Let's sit with it. Let's
• 27:24
  be with it. And you know I say, take for example, you're on the journey. You're travelling
• 27:30
  to the airport to go on holiday and there's a massive traffic jam. That's really stressful, isn't it?
• 27:35
  Like, I'm going to miss my plane and we're not going to get there in time and I've got to buy a new flight
• 27:41
  and and there's all this anxiety. So I'm not saying that let's focus on the controllables, what I
• 27:47
  can do right now, takes away that anxiety instantly, because it doesn't, because the reality is– so I'm
• 27:52
  sat in the traffic in the taxi on the way to the airport and yeah, there's traffic. What can I do? Nothing.
• 27:58
  Nothing. Nothing. I can't do
• 28:00
  anything. What can I do though, is control my breathing maybe, or I can recognise that I'm sat here
• 28:06
  and I'm feeling anxious and I am worried and I can acknowledge that and I can sit with it. and and
• 28:11
  you know But I what can I control is I can control the fact that– I can control my breathing in this
• 28:17
  moment, and I can that can help regulate my nervous system and help calm me down a little bit,
• 28:23
  because I can't change anything else right now. The traffic is what it is and we may get there or we
• 28:29
  may
• 28:30
  not. But what I can control is my breathing. That's one thing I can always control. And now I'm
• 28:36
  managing my nervous system, which is helping to m manage my anxiety a little bit. So that's a that's
• 28:42
  a powerful way of dealing with something. I'm not saying that control the controllables is manages everyone's
• 28:49
  anxiety. It doesn't. Um And sometimes we have to acknowledge it and sit with it. Yeah, that's– but I feel
• 28:56
  like having some kind of agency over something– Is powerful.
• 29:00
  Yes. But again, it might not always be the right thing to do, because I'm the sort of person that if
• 29:04
  something's happening, I I'm an action person. I have to take an action. I see something happening,
• 29:10
  I'll w I'll want to put out the fire. But also sometimes it is better to sit back and maybe not
• 29:14
  rush to do something, because it might not be the right thing and you might just have to sit with it.
• 29:19
  and sit with it. Well, and that's why the breathing is powerful, right? Because the breathing, when– if
• 29:25
  we're an action person, and I am too, the tendency is to go right, wh what can I do? Take
• 29:30
  action. Do this. Do that. m Make sudden moves. And actually, when our brain is– when we're in panic
• 29:35
  mode, stress mode, we don't think clearly. That f prefrontal cortex shuts down and we c don't have
• 29:42
  any more rational, strategic thinking in that moment. And so when we breathe and we control the
• 29:47
  nervous system and we calm it down, that prefrontal cortex comes back online and we can think more
• 29:54
  clearly and strategically again. Rather than being hijacked by the amygdala, which is like emotional
• 30:00
  hijacking, we respond emotionally, which al isn't always the best response. And so much better if we
• 30:06
  can, regardless– if I want to take action, I just breathe first and get calm, get in control and then
• 30:12
  make a decision about what action I need to take. That's really good advice. That really is. Visualisation.
• 30:20
  This particular one, I'm not even sure. I I don't really know that much about visualisation. I don't
• 30:26
  know. I've heard about it. I've heard that
• 30:30
  it works for some people. I'm not sure how it actually works, if you know what I mean. I don't know
• 30:35
  if– if audience– how much they know about it, but f the first question is does it actually work, and
• 30:41
  the second follow-on is if it does actually work, how do you do it in a way to make it work? That's
• 30:47
  good. Really, really simple. Good questions. Yeah, so um so visualisation, there's been a lot of
• 30:54
  studies around that, and again something I learned from a sports psychologist, and yes it
• 31:00
  does work and yes there are studies to prove that. I actually, um following my sporting career, I
• 31:06
  did some training in neurofeedback, and where we a they actually– we put um electrodes on the brain
• 31:12
  and you can actually see certain parts of the brain light up when you visualise, and so we know
• 31:18
  that new neural circuits are being formed when you visualise. So I you know mentioned earlier the
• 31:24
  brain is plastic, neuroplastic, and so we are i we can constantly build these neural
• 31:30
  circuits in the brain. We can change the way we think. we Can change our brain processes. And so
• 31:35
  the um the visualisation works by– it you can do v process visualisation or outcome visualisation.
• 31:41
  So outcome, focusing on the outcome I want to achieve, or the process that takes me to get there.
• 31:46
  So in my case, a race, I'm either focusing on I've crossed the finish line, I'm standing on the
• 31:51
  podium, I'm– I've got the gold medal around my neck, that would be the outcome. Or I can focus on the
• 31:56
  process, which is the race plan and the strategy
• 32:00
  that gets me there. Um so you know Or a a a client, uh someone in an in the business world going to
• 32:05
  do a pitch, a business pitch, and so I can focus on the handshake, got the got the client or got the
• 32:11
  job or we won the tender or whatever, you know and I'm seeing the– c we're celebrating, and that's the
• 32:16
  outcome. Or I can focus on the process, which is me delivering the presentation, delivering the
• 32:22
  pitch to the client and seeing ha seeing myself you know speak articulately and confidently. So I'm
• 32:28
  either doing a
• 32:30
  process or an outcome visualisation. And what it does is– that the brain doesn't know the difference
• 32:35
  between a vividly imagined experience and a real life experience. And that's the powerful thing,
• 32:41
  because when you keep rehearsing these simulations in your brain, in your mind, and bring it to life
• 32:47
  in your mind's eye, eventually your brain is like– it believes that this has already happened. And
• 32:53
  that's why it's really powerful, because then when we get to that scenario, if I've never done a
• 32:59
  pitch
• 33:00
  before, it's difficult for me to say to someone, you know well, just believe in yourself. you know You'll
• 33:05
  be fine. You've done it before. But what if I haven't done it before? We often get confidence from
• 33:11
  past experiences. So what we can use visualisation for is to trick your brain into believing that
• 33:16
  you've done it before, because it's seen it happen so many times. So that when we get there, we feel
• 33:21
  like we've already been there and done it and it's like, "Oh, this is cool. I know what to do. Been
• 33:27
  here, done this, know the outcome. It's great."
• 33:30
  And so that that's where it brings us confidence and it brings us um a belief. And it's also
• 33:35
  navigating the uncertainty of it. If it's something new, what can be scary is the fact that I've
• 33:40
  never done it before and I don't know what it looks like and feels like and I don't know what's
• 33:45
  going to be the outcome. and And that uncertainty can be disarming. And so visualisation is really
• 33:50
  powerful for helping us to enter into situations we've not do we've not tried before. Um But it it
• 33:56
  does work. We know it works from from the research under
• 34:00
  neuroscience. um And it's powerful. Okay. So which is more important, or do you do both? The outcome-based
• 34:07
  visualisation or the process-based visualisation? Both. Um So we have to– do well well, I did
• 34:15
  both as an athlete. I did both all the time. um And the outcome visualisation is powerful because
• 34:22
  that got me excited, right? That was like, I'm seeing myself on on the top of the podium as the world
• 34:28
  champion,
• 34:30
  and and what we need to do, and it's powerful– part of the um important part of the visualisation
• 34:35
  process is to bring it to life using all of your senses. So, I'm s I'm imagining myself standing on
• 34:41
  the top of the podium. I've got a big smile on my face. I'm I'm imagining the f the feeling of joy,
• 34:47
  the pride. I'm imagining my mum's smile and you know her feeling of pride, and my coach's big grin
• 34:53
  on his face, and and and I'm I'm listening to the national anthem, and and it's all in colour and it's
• 34:58
  in HD
• 35:00
  and I'm really bringing it to life. What I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what I'm hearing, and then
• 35:05
  it's really vivid and then it's really sinking in. The brain doesn't know the difference. Um And
• 35:10
  then it's it's you're really um embedding it in the mind's eye. So so that has to be really
• 35:15
  powerful. and But that's also exciting, right? To see that what we do want to happen, because what's
• 35:20
  really scary is b when we fear, we create images in our mind subconsciously of what we don't want to
• 35:25
  happen. That creates fear and anxiety. So it's very exciting and
• 35:30
  motivating to see something and it's like, oh, maybe I can do that. I've just seen myself do it.
• 35:35
  Maybe it ca maybe it can happen in real life. And so it's really powerful to do the outcome. But the
• 35:41
  process visualisation for me as an athlete is what allowed me to get to the start line and not have
• 35:46
  to think. You know The very first thing you asked me about was not, you know what am I thinking
• 35:52
  about? Well, I've I've already planned it all and I've trained myself to get to this point and to
• 35:57
  just go, because I've prepared it.
• 36:00
  I've prepared my mind and body to– you hear about athletes entering into the zone, being in
• 36:06
  flow and being on autopilot, and that happened for me because of the mental rehearsal, that visualisation
• 36:13
  that I did number hundreds of times in advance, so that I know when I sit on that start line I don't
• 36:19
  need to think. When I hear the gun go, my body will take over and I've rehearsed it, every single
• 36:25
  stroke of this race. I've had um situations
• 36:30
  where visualisations happened by accident, that I you know even as a kid, I remember, I just this it
• 36:35
  just came to me you know before the sports day that I just knew I was going to do well in this running
• 36:40
  race. I love running and I just had a vision of myself doing really well and getting a medal and
• 36:45
  all that sort of thing, and I came second in the race. I ran it really, really well. It wasn't my
• 36:50
  race. It wasn't my distance, this particular race, but I you know I was I surprised myself. It was a
• 36:55
  little vision, but then at the same time, sometimes I'll have a vision of,
• 37:00
  oh yes, I haven't been sick for a while. I'm probably going to get sick, and then I'm ill a week later
• 37:05
  with tonsillitis or something like that. I think, oh no, don't think it, because it might happen. So
• 37:10
  there's that, which proves the case to me sometimes, and I haven't done it in sort of a really
• 37:15
  controlled way. I am going to try what you're saying. But then there's also the other side of things,
• 37:20
  which is more the the bad rap that visualisation can get. And you'll see these social media
• 37:25
  influencers posting with a Porsche and, oh yeah, all you need to do is
• 37:30
  just you know think about your Porsche and you'll get a Porsche, and follow me. I mean, I know it
• 37:34
  sounds a bit silly, but they sort of maybe sometimes also taking something that can work. You're
• 37:39
  saying it's powerful. It's worked. It's been proven in science that it's worked. But diminishing it
• 37:44
  in that way and trivialising it to the point where, like, oh yes, just think of a BMW or s of whatever,
• 37:49
  Porsche, Ferrari, and then you're just going to get the Ferrari or the– Yeah, exactly. More
• 37:54
  of it. Yeah. Yeah it doesn't matter like that. I know There's a lot of um talk
• 38:00
  about manifesting, and that's a slightly different thing, and I'm not familiar really with the
• 38:06
  ins and outs of manifesting, but I think it's a slightly different thing, and I'm not sure how proven
• 38:12
  that is. Um There are some overlaps with visualisation because you're imagining what you want to
• 38:18
  happen, maybe, and visualise the Porsche and it's going to arrive. if I don't know how that happens. Um
• 38:24
  But yeah, so I should caveat all of what I've just said with the fact that I then put in
• 38:30
  hours and hours and hours of training to make it happen. I think we need to– Yeah. So it visualisation doesn't happen
• 38:36
  without action. What it's what the visualisation is doing is is helping you to perform under
• 38:42
  pressure in the moment. It's giving you motivation to take action. It's giving you the belief that
• 38:48
  I can achieve this because I've seen it and I know it can happen. It's given you the belief in the
• 38:54
  moment when I go to deliver– have a difficult conversation with a with a colleague,
• 39:00
  that I can get through this conversation because I've rehearsed it and I know that I can deliver it
• 39:06
  because I've planned it in my mind, and I know how, when they respond angrily and defensively, I know I'm
• 39:12
  going to be able to stay calm because I've rehearsed that. But it's not about, I just do that and it's
• 39:18
  magic. I did 20 hours of training each week, hours of it, and 100% every day.
• 39:24
  And I also focused on my recovery and what I ate and all of these other
• 39:30
  things that allowed me to deliver that performance. Can we talk about that? So, you need action. Yeah. We can
• 39:35
  think of it almost as a bit of daydreaming, because that's what daydreaming
• 39:41
  is, right? We're imagining something. We're just [unclear: peering?] off into the into the distance in our mind.
• 39:47
  But you know vision without any action is daydreaming, and you know it this this these outcomes aren't
• 39:53
  going to happen without taking some kind of action. But what the p what it what the visualisation
• 39:59
  might
• 40:00
  also do is, and this has been shown, is that it it's driving into the subconscious to help draw into
• 40:06
  your life the people and the resources to make it happen. So, we're starting to then look for, okay,
• 40:12
  so I'm imagining that outcome, and then because I'm regularly imagining it, I'm starting to think, oh,
• 40:18
  maybe I do need a sports psychologist that will help me achieve that. Ah, nutritionist. Oh, maybe
• 40:25
  I need someone who's going to help me eat the right foods and refuel my body
• 40:30
  after training and make sure I can sustain my uh energy for two and a half hours in a race. Oh, I need
• 40:35
  the nutritionist. But I have to take action. Yeah, to be fair, you did say that the visualisation is
• 40:41
  split into this outcome visualisation and then the process. And the process is the the work, the
• 40:47
  training every day. What's happening in training today? How's that going to look? And so, you did to be
• 40:52
  fair, you did um touch on that, but let's g let's go to the team, because that's a huge thing,
• 40:58
  the team. It's working
• 41:00
  together with people, that you can't possibly get to these summits on your own, and and it started
• 41:06
  you know it started obviously with your parents. They're looking after you and they they're putting
• 41:12
  you in the right environment. So that was already your team, and then that team advanced, and then
• 41:18
  the sports psychologist came on, and then, you like you say, you've got the people to look
• 41:23
  after, you know, massage or whatever it might be, and the nutrition side of it. um Do you agree that
• 41:30
  real success actually does dictate and and need to have a team around you? Absolutely. Yeah. No one
• 41:38
  gets to the top on their own. Doesn't matter who you are. And I you know won five of my six World
• 41:45
  Championships in a single kayak. But I did not get to the start line, let alone win medals, without a
• 41:52
  team of people around me. Um So yeah, I you know in the beginning it was my coach and training
• 42:00
  partners at the club, my family, and then I made the Great Britain team, and then I got to work with
• 42:05
  sports scientists, sports psychologist, physio, nutritionist, [unclear: masseur?], all of those people, all
• 42:11
  bringing their expertise, and what's really key is that you know we be we were aligned in in the
• 42:17
  goal. you know Winning the World Championships was no longer my goal. It becomes our goal, or you
• 42:22
  know part of the Great Britain team, and we've got a c a collective goal, and that's what's key, is
• 42:28
  that we're all aligned,
• 42:30
  trying to achieve the same thing, and recognising that we've got to draw on these different expertise.
• 42:36
  We can't just work in isolation. And even in teams, in business, in life, w no one deals
• 42:41
  with challenges– with corporates, that– you know I do a lot of stuff on team development. Because in
• 42:47
  businesses, because you cannot reach the highest levels of business with one leader on his own. You
• 42:53
  need teams of people with different expertise, different viewpoints. I I didn't used to have that
• 43:00
  of mindset at all when I started off. I was very much an independent worker, and I uh took a lot of
• 43:05
  pride from the fact that I could get things done on my own. And that was my USP, that if you give
• 43:10
  it to me, I'm going to do it. But it's like, I'm going to do it by myself because I'm self-sufficient. I
• 43:16
  don't need that help. And with that attitude, there was no way I was going to get to running a business
• 43:22
  and have a team and everything. So, I ha I've had to change. I've had to let go of things. I've had
• 43:27
  to also acknowledge, uh and I
• 43:30
  have learned it, believe me, I've learned, that I'm just not as good at certain things as other people
• 43:36
  are. They are so much better at these things. But this is what I can do. This is what I'm good at.
• 43:43
  Let me stay here, and then, you know so that I've had to change so much in that way. But that wasn't a
• 43:50
  default position. Did you have to change, or did you w did you have that understanding pretty early
• 43:56
  on about team? I I So, I've
• 44:00
  before I answer that question, I've been in the same position, you know with you following my career
• 44:04
  in sport, setting up my own business, and I did fall into that trap initially until I went– yeah,
• 44:09
  because you start off, when I'm building a business as a speaker and I'm being a I'm a
• 44:13
  training consultant and delivering t team development coaching, and when you start out in business
• 44:18
  you're doing the invoicing and you're doing the sales and you're doing the marketing, you're
• 44:22
  building your website and and you're doing the delivery of the actual work and you're doing
• 44:27
  everything, and then you start to get busy,
• 44:30
  and then it took me a while to bring on a PA, and then when I did I was like, oh my God, why have I
• 44:35
  taken so long to do this? I knew I'd you know th I should have had this on board from the beginning.
• 44:41
  I know about sport and teamwork, but it's easy to think, oh, or you know it's a cost thing, I haven't
• 44:46
  got enough money to do that, but actually she's far more effective at doing all that stuff than I
• 44:52
  am. My time is much better spent doing the delivery, which is what I love and what I'm good at. And
• 44:57
  that and that's what teams are for,
• 45:00
  right? I've got people who do you know who design my my slides, or who are helping me with my social
• 45:05
  media, or who are doing my finance and my accounts and the admin and my contracts, all that stuff, because
• 45:11
  that's their expertise, and that's what teams are about, right? It's about having people with
• 45:17
  different expertise and drawing on all those expertise, because we've all got different strengths,
• 45:23
  and let's harness our strengths rather than trying to do things that we either hate, that drain us
• 45:28
  of energy, and
• 45:30
  boredom. And let's focus on the things that we're great at, and let's delegate out that work to
• 45:35
  other people. And so that is something that I l I learned from sport, and took me a stumbling to
• 45:40
  get to in in my business, because I was like, oh, let's think about what I did in the t in the sporting
• 45:45
  world. But it's an easy trap to fall into. Really easy. Easy. So you were speaking about strengths
• 45:52
  there, but I do want to talk uh and and spend some time here actually on limiting beliefs. And again,
• 45:57
  people watching are going to be
• 46:00
  relating to this. We all have these things that we say to ourselves that hold us back from achieving,
• 46:04
  but I'm not really good at this. I'm not really good at that. Whatever that voice is. I mean, I've got–
• 46:09
  I yeah, I don't like my voice that sometimes speaks to me. I think it's quite rude actually, the
• 46:14
  things it says. But you know we have our limiting beliefs and they come at us. They really do. It's
• 46:18
  like a– you know and sometimes they really come at you with like a barrage, like a tsunami or
• 46:23
  whatever. And um And we all have to deal with them. So, are limiting beliefs something that you deal
• 46:28
  with or have dealt
• 46:30
  with? And is it easier now for you than maybe at the start? So, everyone has limiting beliefs. Uh
• 46:36
  Olympian, world champion, doesn't matter who you are, we've all had a limiting– or ha and probably
• 46:42
  continue to have some limiting beliefs, and and yes, I had to work on them, and and I think that we
• 46:48
  should all learn to try and identify what some of those are, because they can hold us back. And you
• 46:54
  know they come from experiences that we've had, or they might come from parents,
• 47:00
  teachers, coaches who repeatedly tell you things. You know It's like the kid in school who gets told
• 47:06
  they're not academic and keeps getting told you're not very academic, not very academic, and then you
• 47:12
  do bad in a couple of exams and then, oh, now that's a belief that I've got. Um So for me, for example,
• 47:18
  I had a belief that I wasn't good at the sprint finish. I did marathon kayak racing, two and a half
• 47:24
  hour race. um And I believed that I wasn't good on the– s so often it it it's a little bit
• 47:30
  akin to cycling, road cycling, where you might often be in a pack and then there'll be a sprint to
• 47:36
  the finish. Um Not always the case, but sometimes it would be the case that there'd be f three or
• 47:42
  four of us, two of us, but there would be– I was i in races where it was a sprint finish. And in my
• 47:47
  earlier days, I lost regularly on the sprint finish. So I developed a belief that I wasn't good at
• 47:54
  sprint finish, and it al also came from the belief– uh uh came from, one, from experience,
• 48:00
  and two, from coaches in my early years as a paddler, as a kayaker, telling me that I was not going to be
• 48:05
  big enough or strong enough to be a great kayaker, and that particularly so the Olympic discipline
• 48:10
  in in kayaking is sprint racing, is 500 metres. And I was told I was too small, not big
• 48:16
  enough, not strong enough. um Sprinters were bigger and stronger, and I wasn't built like that. And
• 48:22
  so I would be good at marathon racing, I could have endurance, but I was never going to be strong on
• 48:27
  the sprint. So when it came to sprint finish,
• 48:30
  I've got it in my head that I'm not a sprinter. I'm not good at sprinting. That must have hugely
• 48:35
  impacted you to hear that from the co– you're you're the people that you're looking up to at that
• 48:40
  point. Yeah, um yeah that was a pretty early um rejection. It's a knock. Yeah. That I was told, and I w in fact I was
• 48:45
  actually told maybe you might want to go do something else, because I can see that you're really
• 48:49
  passionate about this. You're turning up for training a lot. You're really you know into it. um And
• 48:54
  I can see that you've got your sights set really high, but not sure you're going to make it because
• 49:00
  you're not built right. So yeah, that was an early– That's enough to crush– yeah, that can crush your
• 49:06
  dreams right there. So wh why didn't it it crush your dreams? like, what? Yeah. Um Because, um yeah,
• 49:12
  again, my– I went home and told my mum and she was like, yeah, whatever. Just you go prove him
• 49:17
  wrong. Really? Yeah. So, it was– yeah. So my mum had a big influence on my career. Um and And I was
• 49:21
  passionate about the sport and I loved it, and I didn't want to believe that, and I didn't want– and I
• 49:26
  d I I wanted to do the sport. I wanted to believe that
• 49:30
  I could be great. And I chose to reframe that, really, and think about, well, what can I do to overcome
• 49:36
  this? What's the solution I rather than focusing on the problem? I can't change my height, but I
• 49:43
  can get stronger. I can I might not be strong enough now. Not strong enough yet, but I can get
• 49:49
  stronger in the future. Right? well Maybe and and eventually I did so much weight training. I
• 49:56
  Eventually I was the strongest girl in the British team
• 50:00
  in the gym. That was my mission. I was like, I will be strong, and so I became strong. Um. If that's
• 50:06
  what you're telling me is stopping me, then I will overcome that. So I just reframed it into, well,
• 50:12
  what do I need to do to overcome this? Um But back to the limiting belief. um So that that was in my
• 50:18
  head and that became quite deeply rooted, that I'm not good at sprint finishing, and then I had the
• 50:24
  evidence to prove it. So I had to overcome that, because the first two uh w times I
• 50:30
  I in the World Championships I got second, silver medal, and both of them I lost on a sprint finish. Um
• 50:35
  And so I needed to change that belief because it was holding me back. It was powerful. Yeah. Wow. So
• 50:42
  it was a real thing. The mind work, you, know the working on the psychology of it, is huge. Yeah.
• 50:49
  Yeah. It's massive. I, And people, everyone in every walk of life will have limiting
• 50:55
  beliefs about I'm not good enough at this, or I'm um I don't know–
• 51:00
  yeah, all sorts of beliefs that uh uh I'm I'm not a salesperson, I'm not very good at– I don't
• 51:05
  know, all sorts of beliefs that people have um about themselves and they hold us back. Yeah. But
• 51:11
  Yeah. I think what's cool about the way that you addressed that is you took the different elements.
• 51:17
  So, you've got the endurance side and then you knew you had to work on the strength side and you you
• 51:22
  basically chose, you and your mum chose, not to pay attention to that because you saw those as two
• 51:28
  necessary halves of where
• 51:30
  you need to go. You know Yes, you need the endurance, but you do need the strength. So, you're going to
• 51:35
  actually dismiss that and work on the strength because actually that takes you towards the goal and
• 51:41
  the goal is still the goal. So you invested time, energy, everything, resources into developing
• 51:47
  what you knew would make you better. It was a informed. yeah. Yes. Exactly. But I think in terms of
• 51:53
  the belief, what's helpful is to is to question it really, You know whatever the belief is that we
• 51:59
  might
• 52:00
  hold. It's about, you know I'm never– I'm I'm not a leadership type, you know or I'm uh never going to
• 52:05
  be the owner of a business, I'm not an entrepreneur, or I'm not that kind of person who can lead
• 52:11
  teams, or you know whatever it might be that's limiting. It's to question, is that true? And quite
• 52:18
  often it's not true. So it's about– or it may be true, but so then the question is, is it helpful?
• 52:24
  Is this belief helpful to me? Probably not. Mostly, limiting beliefs are
• 52:30
  helpful and my belief that I'm not good at sprint finishes is not helpful to me because I have to
• 52:36
  do them if I want to win World Championships. And so, is it true? If it's not, then you know how can I
• 52:42
  change it, or what would be a more helpful belief? or And if it's not helpful, well then what would be,
• 52:48
  again, what would be a more helpful belief? So the more helpful belief for me was, I'm not good at
• 52:54
  sprint finishes yet, or I'm becoming better at sprint finishes, or I'm going to
• 53:00
  be stronger and therefore get better at sprint finishes. So you know what it I whichever way around
• 53:05
  you want to place it, but it's about reframing it for something that's more– that will serve you better,
• 53:11
  and then you start to build the evidence, because I can't go from I'm not good at sprint finishes to
• 53:16
  I'm great at sprint finishes because I'm not going to believe that. Yeah. Because the evidence suggests
• 53:23
  that I'm not. Yeah. Because I have– But I guess if you unpick it, I probably– I had won the
• 53:28
  occasional race
• 53:30
  on a sprint finish, small races against certain people, hadn't won the big ones. But so to say that I
• 53:35
  never win and I'm not good at is not 100% accurate, because there were some evidence
• 53:41
  there was some evidence that I might have won sometimes. So, it's about re reframing it and choosing
• 53:47
  a different belief that you're going to believe in, because I'm brilliant at sprint sprint finishes isn't
• 53:53
  the one I'm going to believe right now. I do believe that now because I did go on to win sprint
• 54:00
  finishes at the marathons. In fact, I won three in of my six world titles on a sprint finish. So, I
• 54:06
  did eventually believe that, but it wasn't the belief that I held instantly when I wanted to change
• 54:12
  it. It's one that developed over time. Okay, let's look at the other side of this, so and and and
• 54:20
  twist it a little bit. So, we've got limiting beliefs and I would also talk about limiting actions,
• 54:26
  which is things that we do, actions that we
• 54:30
  take that actually sabotage us quite often. You know For example, when I started my my ha my first
• 54:35
  job ever, I was very enthusiastic. I couldn't believe first of all that I was hired and I had an
• 54:40
  actual job. So, I was so excited. But I was very f fast at everything, very quick, very like, yeah, I'll
• 54:46
  do it, do it do it do it do it done, done. done. And um And in the work that I was doing, I was a
• 54:50
  system tester. There were documents that you had to read, you know, and they were quite detailed
• 54:56
  documents and I would just sort of scan them and then
• 55:00
  still try and do what I had to do. And my boss at the time then took me aside and went, "Hang on a
• 55:07
  minute. You must read this thoroughly and probably not once, probably not twice, but at least three
• 55:15
  times before you take an action." And that just has always stayed with me. Always. I took it I took
• 55:23
  it personally. I was upset, but I took it extremely seriously. And I took it
• 55:30
  in a way that I really wanted to never do that again because it hurt me that I had done it so
• 55:36
  quickly and that I didn't do the best job that I could. But it had a profound impact on me in that
• 55:43
  when I I know this about myself. When I'm too quick with things, I'm going to drop the ball. And I
• 55:50
  have to always manage myself to just– it's a thing you were saying, breathe, to actually stop and
• 55:57
  pause and to work slower. It almost
• 56:00
  goes against your your nature. And this is why I say the limiting actions. There might be things
• 56:06
  that you automatically might do that actually don't serve you in certain settings. So you have to
• 56:13
  keep an eye on those and you have to take that criticism really well, really on board, and change
• 56:19
  and work on it because it's not going to help you. But it's the things that take you to your goal
• 56:26
  and the things that improve you. Limiting actions then
• 56:30
  becoming positive actions because you're limiting the limiting actions and you're having a positive
• 56:37
  outcome. Does that make any sense? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah I think that um people do sabotage their own
• 56:46
  success sometimes and they do it out of uh fear of failure. Um. So for example, I you know worked
• 56:53
  with clients who will um avoid, will procrastinate, for example, on preparing for
• 57:00
  a presentation, let's say, and they avoid and they avoid doing it because they're afraid of the
• 57:06
  failure, and therefore if I don't prepare for it fully or if I avoid it, then I've
• 57:12
  kind of got an excuse for when it doesn't go well, because I didn't really prepare properly and I
• 57:18
  didn't really know what I needed to say. And so it's easier, and so now I'm afraid it's going to happen
• 57:25
  and if it does happen then I kind of know why and and that's okay,
• 57:30
  because I didn't really learn you know what my presentation– I didn't prepare my slides properly. And
• 57:37
  um so I'm kind of making it a little bit easier to fail and so I'm self-sabotaging with those
• 57:43
  actions. So, you're absolutely right. We do do that. And it's about recognising, why am I doing this
• 57:50
  behaviour? What is it that's causing me to do this? What is it that I'm afraid of that's causing me
• 57:58
  to behave in this way?
• 58:00
  Yeah. And it's I think also, because we spoke about the limiting beliefs, the ones that we want to t
• 58:06
  challenge and the ones that we're not we don't have time for those. And then there's the ones where
• 58:13
  the the things that do limit us, we do want time for those. and We want to change them. So it's like
• 58:19
  it there's just so much work we need to do on ourselves. It's a minefield. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah it is.
• 58:27
  And I and I think that's you know
• 58:30
  something that I learned from my experience with sport psychology, was that you know so much of
• 58:36
  the way my brain operates now is because I trained it for so long. You know It feels a little bit
• 58:43
  more natural that I focus on the positive, I reframe things, I you know see the opportunities, all
• 58:49
  these wonderful things, but I don't think I was born like that. But I did so much work training it
• 58:56
  all the time that now it feels a little bit
• 59:00
  more natural. But it it takes time. It doesn't just– uh we are more wired to folk to think
• 59:04
  negatively. Our brain is designed like that because of our ancestral days where we were faced with
• 59:09
  danger all the time. We needed to look for danger. We needed to think about, could the lion be
• 59:14
  around the corner? Oh, there's probably danger around that corner. I shouldn't go here. I shouldn't,
• 59:19
  d because there was so much danger. We needed to be in that negative, pessimistic mode because it
• 59:24
  helped serve us and keep us safe. But now we're not in that situation. We don't need that. And so
• 59:30
  we actually need twice as much positivity and re positive reinforcement than we do the negative.
• 59:35
  You know So for every negative, we need three positives to help shape change the pattern. And we
• 59:41
  need to work on it. It doesn't just happen. We need to train the brain. Just like I did the
• 59:46
  physical training, I did the mental training. Wow. Train the brain. I love it. I love it a lot.
• 59:53
  There's a one big subject we we haven't even touched on and that's recovery. So we've done all
• 59:59
  these things,
• 1:00:00
  high pressure environment, on the line, racing, pivoting in your career, challenges, everything. What about, how seriously do you take recovery, period? It's essential. And I discovered um through my
• 1:00:12
  sporting career and through an illness that I had that recovery is a strategy for high performance. A
• 1:00:23
  strategy. Yes. Yeah. Why? Because uh but think about it as an athlete,
• 1:00:30
  you can do only a certain amount of hours of training ev eventually. like When you're at the highest
• 1:00:35
  level and you're doing two or three sessions a day, you can't just double that again to get better.
• 1:00:41
  It Doesn't work like that. You you c You reach a limit in terms of volume that you can cope with.
• 1:00:46
  So what can you do to m to get better? Well, you can maximise the intensity that you give in each of
• 1:00:51
  those training sessions. You can– and you do that by building recovery into the day. So you know I
• 1:00:57
  do my training in the morning. I then
• 1:01:00
  have to go home and make sure I eat properly to refuel so that I recover quickly. You know I might
• 1:01:05
  be getting a massage in the afternoon to help my muscles recover. I'm sleeping and getting optimal
• 1:01:10
  sleep at the end of the day so that my body can repair and the muscles can regrow and after the
• 1:01:15
  weight training. So recovery is part of the strategy for high performance. If I want to perform
• 1:01:21
  better on the water, I need to recover better when I'm off the water. And it's the same thing in my
• 1:01:26
  working life today. And it's things that I coach people
• 1:01:30
  on when I want them to be– helping them to be more resilient. You know Think about the workplace.
• 1:01:35
  It's constant go go go, frantic, back-to-back meetings, fast-paced, rushing from this to
• 1:01:41
  this, one project to the next. And people barely stop to pause for breath, let alone lunch, you know
• 1:01:47
  and to stop and and take 10 minutes to refuel or to just switch the mind off and the brain off.
• 1:01:52
  And ultimately, w we've probably all experienced this where you're reading a document, the document
• 1:01:58
  you're talking about,
• 1:02:00
  and and you read– you have to read the same paragraph three times over. We've all done that, right?
• 1:02:05
  And it's taking a long time to get through the document because either we're stressed or we're
• 1:02:10
  tired or the brain is busy. We can't focus. And so we think, "Oh, we haven't got time to stop and pause
• 1:02:15
  and take 10 minutes out to go and get some fresh air and a glass of water or cup of tea." We think
• 1:02:21
  we don't have time. But actually, we're wasting time by taking three attempts at reading the
• 1:02:26
  paragraph because we haven't stopped. And so actually we're
• 1:02:30
  more efficient and more effective when we pause and when we give the mind and the body time to
• 1:02:34
  recharge and to shut down. Yeah. I watched something actually the other day. w It was a speech, I
• 1:02:40
  think, by some psychologist and he was talking about stress, and actually it was about a glass
• 1:02:45
  with water and he was saying, you know how heavy is this glass? I don't know if you've seen this.
• 1:02:49
  Like, how heavy is it? And you know the students in the lecture hall were all trying to guess how
• 1:02:54
  heavy it is and he was holding it up, and then he was saying, really, it's it's not about how heavy it
• 1:03:00
  is, it's about how long I'm holding it for, you know because the longer you hold it the heavier it
• 1:03:04
  becomes, in like, to you. So if you land up holding it for one day, what's going to happen to your arm?
• 1:03:10
  So you have to let it go and have that break. It's like an interval and then recuperate. But I know
• 1:03:15
  for a fact, like even people that I work with and family, they do not take recovery seriously. They
• 1:03:20
  don't even think– there's no concept of thinking in that way of, I need to really put the nutrients in,
• 1:03:25
  and they need to be– s you know these nutrients, we need to test to make
• 1:03:30
  sure we're okay, and we need to– you know the the quality of sleep, you know people hear about it, but
• 1:03:35
  they don't– I don't know why. and Unless you're of you know a professional athlete, or with a lot of
• 1:03:40
  the people, you know successful people, they take it really, really seriously. But I would say a lot
• 1:03:46
  of people in general just don't don't care. It's not a thing, I think. It's counterintuitive though,
• 1:03:52
  isn't it? To think that, oh, if I stop, when you've got a really busy day and you've got tons to get
• 1:03:57
  through and you've got a deadline
• 1:04:00
  of 5:00 or tomorrow morning or whatever it is, I've got too much to do. I can't possibly stop because
• 1:04:05
  I've got to get all this done. Yeah. So, it doesn't make sense n r rationally to stop and go, right, I'm just
• 1:04:11
  going to take 10 minutes and I'm just going to go walk around the block. It's impossible. Or I'm you know I'm just going to
• 1:04:17
  go and you know do 10 minutes of meditation and mindfulness, um when I've got this pile of things
• 1:04:22
  to get through and I've got all this and someone's expecting me to deliver this report by 5:00
• 1:04:28
  today. I can't stop
• 1:04:30
  for 10 minutes and do a mindfulness on the Calm app. Yeah. Doesn't feel like the right thing to do, or
• 1:04:37
  the– the uh but ultimately this isn't about just feeling better. This isn't about well-being and
• 1:04:45
  looking after ourselves. It is that as well. But if we just want to think about performance, like I
• 1:04:52
  said, you know when when you're wasting time by being slow, and actually when you stop and take
• 1:05:00
  time out, you come back more energised, more efficient, more effective. You make better decisions. You
• 1:05:06
  have more clarity when we pause and we give our minds a break. So ultimately, if you're in a high
• 1:05:13
  pressure job and, I don't know, you're on a trading floor and you need to make quick decisions
• 1:05:19
  and be able to you know take this and this and and put it together and and make a call on
• 1:05:24
  something, you can't have your brain frazzled. You need to have it you
• 1:05:30
  need it to to be calm and clear. And that frantic fast pace shuts down that clarity. It prevents us
• 1:05:35
  from having new ideas emerge. You know Like, I I don't know about you, but when I do exercise, and I'm
• 1:05:41
  sure there'll be people listening who do this, Uh when I go for a run, that's sometimes when I get my
• 1:05:47
  best ideas. Do you ever have that? Or people talk about when they're in the shower or you know when
• 1:05:53
  you're on holiday. or you know The best ideas don't come to us in the middle of that frantic fast-paced
• 1:06:00
  day. though Those brilliant ideas never come. Then when we've got problems to solve, you know there's
• 1:06:06
  this challenge that I'm facing with my team or we co can't see the strategy and the solution for
• 1:06:11
  this, when you step away from the noise and the frantic fast pace, that's when you start to process
• 1:06:17
  it and it starts to become clear. And or Or even just, like at the end of the day, if you want to talk
• 1:06:23
  about well-being, then you know lots of people don't sleep well, right? Lots of people have trouble with
• 1:06:30
  sleep and it's usually stress related. But what often happens is you get to the end of the day and,
• 1:06:35
  you know say it's 11:00 at night and you're trying to go to sleep and your mind's whizzing.
• 1:06:41
  The The thoughts are just racing and either I can't fall asleep or I'm so tired that I pass out
• 1:06:46
  real quick and then 2:00 in the morning, ping, wide awake and the thoughts are racing again.
• 1:06:52
  And what's often happening is that throughout the day, you're not giving yourself any chance to stop
• 1:06:58
  and pause and let your mind
• 1:07:00
  percolate and think and just wonder. And so it gets to the end of the day and the phone's put away,
• 1:07:05
  the lights are switched off, the TV's off, the computer's away, all of this, all– it's quiet. And your
• 1:07:11
  brain goes, "Brilliant, it's quiet. Now I can finally think." Wow. Because you didn't give it any time during
• 1:07:18
  the day to stop and think. And I was guilty of that. And I used to be– you know when I f started in
• 1:07:23
  this new b in my new career after sport, I was like, "Right, I need to learn about coaching and
• 1:07:30
  leadership and this and that." And I would literally go from my desk and I'd walk to the gym, but on
• 1:07:35
  the way to the gym, I'm listening to a podcast about– or I listen to an audiobook to learn and to
• 1:07:41
  do more, and and what can I– I need to absorb more and I need to do more training and this. And it
• 1:07:46
  was just constant. Mm. I never gave myself a chance to pause and I had to come back to the fact that
• 1:07:51
  these are the lessons I learned in sport. Recovery. And recovery was essential, and I had an illness that took
• 1:07:57
  me out of my sport for two years
• 1:08:00
  that taught me about this, and I had to come back to that and recognise that we have to give the
• 1:08:06
  brain chance, for one, for our well-being, but two, also for our performance. It's funny how life
• 1:08:13
  teaches us the lessons we have to learn, isn't it? Yeah. Really does. Anna, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you
• 1:08:20
  for sharing your elite mindset with us. Pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
• 1:08:28
  Thank you.