Transcript: “I am going to try something different this week. Welcome to Voice NoteFriday. I am going to try and keep this super bite-sized. So I have already recorded this once. I went to 10 minutes. That is not what I’m trying to do here. I want seriously short, sharp. This is what I’ve been thinking.
This is what I’ve been reading. This is what I’ve been doing. And then a lesson from sport. Because ultimately, that’s the thing that I’m passionate about is allthose lessons from elite sport that you can apply to your own life. I truly believe that you can.
I am on a crusade to tell as many people as possible and help them in somany ways. Become better at performing well. Okay, so let’s get straight intoit. Now, firstly, at the start of this week, I wrote a piece on Substack aboutAustralian rugby and everyone wants a piece of the player, but who’s looking after the person? So give you a really quickrecap of that. Australian rugby and its players are in a dispute over revenue,image rights and insurance. Both sides have legitimate commercial interestshere. But it made me think about the difference between valuing an athletecommercially and looking after them as a person.
And if you have followed me or subscribed to me for a while, you know, I bangon about this a lot. I often think that there is a disconnect between all of thosethings and the person. The athlete is still a person and who actually looksafter them, who protects them and their mental health and their mental fitness. Inprofessional sports teams, you have your S&C, you have your manager, youhave your publicist, you have your person who, you know, the coaches, youhave all of these, but who at the end of the day is the person who looks
after the, you know, mental welfare of that athlete and joins all those dots andmakes sure that they’re not just firing on all cylinders per performance, but isactually, you know, doing okay. I think we’ve become exceptionally good atunderstanding an athlete’s commercial value, especially in this age of, youknow,
the opportunities are huge, but it almost makes it, it’s almost a negative.There’s so, so many opportunities, like who owns that? Who should takeresponsibility for it? And who, you know, who’s looking after the athlete? Arewe... As equally good at understanding their needs. And kind of off the backof that,
I’m going to move to the fact that I this week launched my one-to-one athletementoring. And it’s really for that because I’m deeply passionate about thefact that in an athlete’s career, um, They have their identity. There areopportunities within that sport.
But when they start to come out of that or they suddenly find that due toinjury that their career ends, like what comes next and whether they’re wellenough prepared for that. I spoke to a female, professional female rugbyplayer just this week who was telling me she doesn’t know how to write a CV.
That to me is a travesty. We should do better than that. So that’s one of thereasons I’ve launched my athlete mentoring program. I think there’s a realneed for somebody who can look beyond the athlete’s performance and helpthem navigate everything else that comes with a career in professionalsports.
And I’m also working with people outside sport because I firmly believe youdon’t have to be an athlete to benefit from the principles of highperformance. So I have launched one-to-one high performance coaching aswell. So yeah, take a look at that. Let me know. DM me. I’ve also had somereally exciting conversations this week.
I’m sorry, cough. I’m talking to some people about other potential podcasts,webinars and other collaborations that I’m really excited about. And it’s aweird one because I keep getting to this point where I think I’m going in acertain direction and suddenly other stuff happens. And I think, you know...
It’s weird and it’s kind of magical and it’s almost like the universe is saying,no, you need to be going in this direction. So I’m just following these doorsthat are opening. I’m going through them. So I’m hoping in the next fewweeks I will be able to show you what I’ve been working on.
And I’m really excited because I’m now collaborating with someone who Ithink is amazing and he’s pretty well known over here in the UK. I’m reallyexcited about that. He’s an absolute wealth of amazing, profound insights,thoughts, ideas. He’s really cool. So I’m really excited about that. Thismorning, I published a piece on Lewis Moody.
After listening to the High Performance podcast. It’s a piece that’sparticularly close to my heart. And I actually thought long and hard aboutwriting it because I wanted to make sure I approached it in the right way.Because I’m always very wary of, I guess it’s name dropping. I mean, I workedwith Lewis.
I had the great privilege of working with him. He was an absolute gent. But Ireally hate ever feeling that I’m creating content by piggybacking offsomething someone else has earned. So I think what he says deserves to beheard. I think more people should hear from him. But there were also somereally interesting observations
about life inside professional sport that really stayed with me and I thoughtabout a lot. If you read the piece, you’ll know that I listened to the podcastwhile I was driving to one of my kids’ sports fixtures and I thought a lot andvery deeply.
So I hope that I’ve struck the right chord and I’ve walked that line and thatbalance well. And moving on to rugby. Well, so England rugby. So there arelots of reports over here about the England environment and SteveBorthwick’s management, who I also worked with for many years.
There’s been a lot of talk about players not being able to speak openly. And itraises questions, I think, about the difference between demanding highstandards and creating an environment where people feel unable to challengedecisions. Equally, just because it’s in the press doesn’t make it true.
Having said that, it’s very rare that there’s no smoke without fire. So I’mavidly watching this one. I’m really interested to see where this goes. I think itwas Eddie Jones when he was head coach to England that similar things weresaid about him, which is also fascinating because obviously Steve workedunder Eddie for many years.
I’m really intrigued by this one. I am going to watch this space avidly. So that Ido keep this bite size and I’m not rambling on forever, as a little thank you forlistening to my first Voice Note Friday, I thought I’d do something thathopefully is a little thank you.
If there’s an article in the dressing room that you’d really like to read, but it’sbehind the paywall because the dressing room is my paywall. Parts. Send mea message and I think I can release certain articles, can’t I? So I think I can doit personally for you. Just DM me. We’ll see what we can do.
I do want to say thank you for listening to my rambles. Then this is the bit thatI want to make important and the regular feature is about the Friday lesson.Okay. So In professional sport, reviewing performance is essential. No weekgoes by without it. Yet in everyday life, we rarely stop to review our own week.
Like no one ever does it, right? So in professional sport, if you don’t finish amatch and immediately forget about it, you review. I can’t even. So speak, youreview what happened, what worked, what didn’t and what needs to changebefore the next one.
And everyday life, we often get to Friday, breathe a sigh of relief and go,thank God the week’s over. And then you don’t start thinking about next weekuntil Sunday. And then you get the fear and you think, oh, my God, I’ve got somuch to do.
And OK, we can cut that out because you can try this on today on Friday. Youneed to work out what went well this week, what didn’t go as well as as you’dhoped. How did you feel throughout the week? That’s really, really, reallyimportant.
Make note of that and write it down so you can look back at these reviewsand what’s one thing you could do differently next week. Don’t give yourself amillion things that you should do differently next week because it is deeplyoverwhelming. Just give yourself the most important thing. So you don’t haveto change everything next week.
Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is take what you’ve learned fromthis one and make a single adjustment. Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough.That’s it for me. Let me know what you thought about this. Is this a thing Ishould carry on doing? I’d love for you to tell me.
But otherwise, have a lovely weekend and I will be back next Friday.”
