SportMind

Overcoming The Top-10 Mental Obstacles In Sport - https://go.sportmind.io/Mastery
The SportMind Portal - https://go.sportmind.io/Portal
The Daily SportMind Book: https://www.sportminddaily.com/
The Squash Playbook - https://www.squashplaybook.com/ ⚫️💨

Three Olympic Games, three finals in the same event. Sixth, then fifth, then fourth. She got closer every single time, and the medal never came. In Rio, she missed it by a fingertip. So here's the question that makes this whole episode: What do you do when the thing you gave 20 years of your life to never arrives?

My guest today is Hannah Miley MBE, a Scottish swimming icon, double Commonwealth champion, world and European champion, European record holder, and the most decorated Scottish woman her sport has ever seen.

Three Olympics, 15 plus years at the very top. But the medal that was meant to fix everything, it never landed. And when she finally stood on a Commonwealth podium two years later, silver around her neck, she told me it didn't fill the hole she thought it would. That's where this one gets honest. In this episode, we get into the good stuff.

Why she says the worst thing you can do when you race is to think. The strange pre-race ritual she swears by. Breathing out hot colors, breathing in cool ones, flat on her back on the floor. What it's like being coached by your own dad for your entire career. Why she's now on a mission to change how sport talks about women's health, and the two words she'd give her younger self that still get her: You're good enough.

If you've ever tied your whole worth to a result, a ranking, a medal, a number on a scoreboard, this one is gonna land. Grab a cuppa. Let's get into it.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smiley8889/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Overcoming The Top-10 Mental Obstacles In Sport - https://go.sportmind.io/Mastery
The SportMind Portal - https://go.sportmind.io/Portal
The Daily SportMind Book: https://www.sportminddaily.com/
The Squash Playbook - https://www.squashplaybook.com/ ⚫️💨

Here's something that properly messed with my head. You can train your mind, your breathing, your self-talk, all the stuff I bang on about every week, and you can still walk on court, feel the pressure, and freeze, and it might have nothing to do with your mindset. It might be your eyes. Yes, your eyes.

My guest today is Dr. Aakash Shah, a board-certified neurodevelopmental and sports vision optometrist. Yeah, that's quite a mouthful. UCLA, a doctorate in optometry, adjunct professor, the lot. He works with everyone from kids chasing their first scholarship to pro quarterbacks and baseball players.

But here's the bit that got me. Akash was born with a lazy eye, no depth perception, and every single doctor told him the same thing. That's just how you are. Live with it. He didn't. Six years of training later, he did ten times the vision in that eye and got his depth perception back. The man rebuilt his own eyes, and now he does it for athletes. In this one, we get nerdy. Why eighty to ninety percent of your game is actually your vision. Why elite players really do see the ball in slow motion, and why it's not magic.

The one-eye drill that can calm your nerves mid-match. And he walks me through a free eight-minute neural warmup you can do before you play. I'm doing it live on the call, head wobbling all over the place and getting it wrong. If you've ever trained like a world beater and then shrunk on the big day, this might be the missing piece. Grab a pen. Let's get into it.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drshah_neurovision/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Overcoming The Top-10 Mental Obstacles In Sport - https://go.sportmind.io/Mastery
The SportMind Portal - https://go.sportmind.io/Portal
The Daily SportMind Book: https://www.sportminddaily.com/
The Squash Playbook - https://www.squashplaybook.com/ ⚫️💨

She got expelled from school at age four. Too much energy, uncontrollable, a school that didn't know what to do with her, and a mom who gave her a hug and told her she was awesome. Anyway, 43 years later, Holly Budge has Skydived Everest, summited it on foot, raced a thousand kilometers across Mongolia on semi-wild horses,

and works with over 6,000 female wildlife rangers across Africa. She has done things that most people wouldn't even dare to dream about. But here's what I want you to borrow from her today. Holly doesn't call herself an athlete. She calls herself an adventurer,

And that distinction matters more than you think because when you stop chasing the outcome and fall in love with the experience, something shifts, the pressure changes, joy comes back, and ironically, you perform better. There's a reason the winner of that Mongolia horse race sat at the finish line for two days

wishing he was still out on that step. We get into the mirror step. Her technique for silencing the inner critic when the environment is trying to break you. The difference between fear and risk and why you can outplay one but must respect the other. How she normalized jumping out of planes until it felt like brushing her teeth.

And what that teaches us about pressure

also what Post Expedition Blues has to teach every single athlete about identity and what happens when the big goal is suddenly gone? She says it best herself. My body is screaming, no, but my mind is whispering. Yes. Athletes. This one's for you. This is Holly Budge.

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/hollybudge/
https://www.instagram.com/howmanyelephants/
https://www.instagram.com/worldfemalerangerweek/
https://www.instagram.com/wildlifepositivetravel/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Overcoming The Top-10 Mental Obstacles In Sport - https://go.sportmind.io/Mastery
The SportMind Portal - https://go.sportmind.io/Portal
The Daily SportMind Book: https://www.sportminddaily.com/
The Squash Playbook - https://www.squashplaybook.com/ ⚫️💨

If you've ever chased a result so hard that it slipped right through your fingers, if you've ever worked relentlessly only to feel strangely empty when you finally achieve the thing you thought would change everything. If you've ever wondered why some people stay grounded, focused, and fulfilled while striving at the highest level, then today's episode is gonna hit you right between the eyes in the best possible way because today.

We are joined by someone who has reshaped how the modern world understands excellence. Brad Stulberg is one of the most influential voices in performance, mental health and human development. His books, the Practice of Groundedness and Master of Change, are staples for elite athletes, leaders, creatives, world class coaches, and anyone who wants to live with more steadiness and purpose.

His writing appears in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and just about every publication that cares about high performance. Done well.

He co-hosts the outstanding podcast excellence actually alongside Steve Magnus and Clay Skipper. And now with his new book, the Way of Excellence Bride is reclaiming What Excellence Truly means. Not hustle culture, not optimization, addiction, not endless metrics, but a deeply human relationship with your craft.

In this episode, we explore the paradox of high performance, why caring deeply and letting go produces your best work. The true definition of excellence, a relationship, not a result. Why gumption, sticktuitiveness is rarer and more important than talent. How to raise your floor under pressure. Not just your ceiling.

Why arrival is an illusion, and satisfaction is found in the struggle itself. How athletes, parents, and coaches can find meaning in the long game and the beautiful truth that the things we work on also work on us. Brad brings research, philosophy, storytelling, and decades of experience working with world class performers.

This is one of those conversations that leaves you thinking differently about your sport. Your ambition, your identity, and your life. So if you're striving for something big, if you're trying to become the kind of person who gives their craft everything without losing themselves, if you wanna understand excellence in a way that actually makes you stronger, steadier, and more fulfilled, then you're in the right place.

Let's dive in. Here is my conversation with the brilliant Brad Stulberg.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradstulberg/
The Way of Excellence: https://wayofexcellencebook.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Overcoming The Top-10 Mental Obstacles In Sport - https://go.sportmind.io/Mastery
The SportMind Portal - https://go.sportmind.io/Portal
The Daily SportMind Book: https://www.sportminddaily.com/
The Squash Playbook - https://www.squashplaybook.com/ ⚫️💨

In today's episode, I sit down with one of the most accomplished and intellectually fascinating athletes in modern volleyball, Carli Lloyd. Carli isn't just an Olympic bronze medalist from the Rio Games, a world-class setter with 15 professional seasons under her belt, or an NCAA player of the year who led the University of California Berkeley to their first ever national final.

She's also a deep thinker, a storyteller, and a master of the inner game. And this conversation goes way beyond her resume. We dive into the mental side of being a setter, the emotional thermostat of the team, and how she learned to stay calm, lead, and make decisions under relentless pressure. Carli opens up about perfectionism, her battles with self-talk, the belief that she wasn't good enough and the moment a sports psychologist told her she needed to change her inner narrative or it would break her.

She shares how tools like journaling, breath work, mindfulness, and years of psychological re-patterning helped her transform as an athlete as well as a human being. And how these tools now guide the next generation of female volleyball players. She mentors. We go deep into the Rio Olympics,

the heartbreak of losing the semifinal. The emotional weight of playing for bronze, and the surprising truth about what an Olympic medal can't fix. We talked about acceptance, control, identity, the danger of outcome, obsession, and why optimism is a trainable skill that can completely shift a young athlete's trajectory.

And for me, the real magic in this episode is how honest, grounded, and generous Carli is. She peels back the layers on leadership flow, state fear. Trust, comparison, motherhood, and what it really means to express and not just impress if you're an athlete, a coach, a parent, or simply someone who wants to understand what high performance looks like from the inside out.

This is one of those episodes you'll come back to again and again. Let's dive in with the wonderful Carli Lloyd.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlilloyd3/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.