So John, these neck exercises and these devices I see on these F two guys are pretty gnarly looking. Um, in motocross, Supercross, we don’t do a lot of neck exercises. We’d love to kind of hear just, just some general knowledge about these neck exercises. Cause it looks like it’s just a very odd exercise to me.

Like how, why is it so important for us to be doing these neck exercises? Yeah. And then how are you, I mean, is this something you’re doing weekly, twice a week? I mean, it looks like everyone’s got one of these head devices on. Tell me more about it. Yeah. Well, fundamentally I think strong necks, cash checks, you know, we kind of make these guys resilient as possible for what are the brutal demands, honestly of, of, of motor sport.

And look, I think driving in general, whether you’re on a bike or whether you’re in a car, you are facing some fairly significant Gs. You know, the average head is weighing around 11 pounds and it’s quite a heavy piece of kit we’ve got there. And in a really important piece of kit, right? You know, we’re.

We’re asking drivers to make really high level finite decisions about the visual perception of what they can see. And if they’re not able to stabilize their head, especially in a corner and their eyes having to do excessive amounts of this and they’re resting their head on the halo, for instance, which some of these guys like to do, when they get especially tied, that’s gonna influence what they can see.

They balance their appropriate exception and how they drive a corner or right a corner. So we wanna make sure that visually things are doing what they need to do, which then means that the head needs to stabilize, which means this thing, this foundational piece underneath it has got to do its job. You know, these guys are taking worst case scenario taking up to at least 45, maybe 50 kilos of worth of, of force and load in a corner.

Cuz the high down force nature of these cars, right in f1, it’s. So we want to prepare the guys for the worst case scenario, but of course they need to be not just strong, but really, really good, really good endurance behind them too. So we’re building capacity alongside strength. And I guess maybe some of the videos that you’ve seen is that, yeah, we’re having these guys as frequently as we can.

Uh, not every day, but as frequently as we can. At least, you know, we’ll visit a heavy next session at least once every 10 days in the gym if they’re not doing back to back risk weekends, which of course is another consideration for, for stressing the neck as well. Yeah, and so we’re here with John Newnan.

He’s a sports, uh, or a performance coach for, geez. I mean, I’ve looked at your background, you know, start off with, you know, some skiing, some rugby, you know, now F one, F two. So really excited to hear. You know, I, I feel like a lot of times sometimes it’s great to be in a niche, but I love people that start off with dancing in different areas and then move towards a niche because I just feel like you’ve got all this information and all these unique different angles, whereas if someone starts in one niche, stays there, I don’t know.

I feel like maybe they don’t have that, that wide diversity in the background. So really excited for this podcast, John. Um, so tell me a little bit more, uh, when it comes to the beg back to, to the beginning, what, what was like your fir first client that you worked with that was considered maybe like an elite athlete?

What, what sport are we talking about and what, what was that first interaction like? Because I, I think that first time is always the best time. It’s very interesting time. Yeah. That’s great. That’s really kind of you to say. Thank you Jay. And, um, you know, happy to be on here and chatting with you as well.

And, and for me, my first entry was football. Um, I wanted to be a footballer. I was suddenly never good enough. Um, and I guess it’s the old average goes those who can’t coach and. I started actually before even working in pro sport, I was working in gyms and I was just working with people who wanted to get in better shape.

So, you know, a fair amount of experience there, but it’s, at which point I was learning deeper amounts of, let’s say physiology and biomechanics through my studies, um, my degree level sport science. And I wanted to sort of stress that knowledge or at least apply it and have the opportunity to apply it within the pro sport setting.

So, you know, working part-time, um, for free by and large as well in, in, in variety of different football clubs and academy settings, I guess is, they’re a little bit more, um, more patient with you should we say, than some of the seniors sometimes when you don’t quite have the edge on what you’re doing. Um, but eventually my first real full-time pro sport was with, um, a, a club called s Scunthorpe United Football Club.

It’s, uh, a fairly wet and windy place in the north of the uk. They were in the championship, um, at the time. Um, so the second division just underneath the Premier League. In the uk, um, doing very well, just gotten promoted that year. Uh, was fortunate to work with a really nice group of people and I was a young coach against what was quite an average, not an old or an aging group, but definitely on average.

They were older than me. And I think when you’re trying to, you know, coach up to say senior peers, that’s quite a challenging place to be, especially as a, as a young green graduate as I was. So I learned a lot of lessons. Um, and back then, you know, I think the way that hit child was viewed and running companies was a bit different.

So your initiations as a young coach into a club of of men was a little bit different. And, and possibly it’d be different today, but I learned a great deal in those formative years, really. But for me, football was gonna be the vision and the vehicle of where I wanted to go. Um, for my sins, I was a big supporter of Manchester United Football Club.

Um, but at some way in the journey, I think. When you have not exhausted the experience by any means, but you have done a fair amount of legwork on, you know, tracking field-based metrics through, um, gps, let’s say, and heart rate monitoring. And you’ve looked at, you know, uterine samples to death every single week and you’ve done endless amounts of warmups.

And at the time, at least, you know, we’re talking early two thousands footballers. At that stage, soccer players weren’t as avid in the gym as they are today. So I really wanted to sort of flex our muscles, if you forgive the pun, in that area. And, and that’s where rugby became a calling. So I slid into rugby and had a, a few wonderful years then Rugby Union before then, as you mentioned, I started to work with, uh, the British Ski Snowboard Organization.

Uh, worked with a number of disciplines in that space from alpine skiing to freestyle ski snowboard, which was really exciting. And, and I guess as you related to, it’s a very diverse kind of demographic of people as well. Going from, you know, your. Rudimentary academy to senior settings in progressive nature of sport to then suddenly you’re working with these really free-spirited off the wall adrenaline junkies who launch themselves off 25 meter kickers and do a back flip three times whilst also rotating about their axes and have to nail this landing with incredible finesse.

And they’re very cool in different people, and they don’t come through academy settings. You know, they’re just phenomenal performers at what they do. Incredibly gifted, very good at the skillset, and just kind of get talent spotted and, and, you know, evolve their way through the sport to an Olympics if that is indeed the avenue they want to go.

So it’s, um, it’s been a real whirlwind of experience. Absolutely. And now I find myself, um, in Formula two working with, uh, a group of Mercedes young drivers, and then I own my own business on the side as well. So yeah, fairly busy, but, uh, really. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. I’m sure you have more sky miles than I do, so I’m, I’m impressed with that.

I do. You could probably go on free family trips for the next three years, so that’s always a nice, well, it, it, it is a secret. Yeah. If you do want the higher classes. Absolutely. We could talk about that. So I would love to hear, um, so I’m always fascinated by, um, Just how to get the most of our athletes.

Cuz as a mental performance coach, my, for myself, um, you know, it’s interesting, you’re always working with different people and I’ve got some people that like to check boxes. Uh, I’ve got one athlete who just likes to be challenged. Um, there’s so many different, some people just need a little more explanation.

Everyone’s got their own unique way of taking in information and, and getting the most out of it. Uh, what, what have you found just in general in working with human beings? Uh, you know, taking like a step back, I’m, I’m kind of bringing us like a, a bird’s eye view above. Yeah. Uh, what, what have you learned about human behavior when it comes specifically to.

Trying to get an athlete to understand the exercises, the muscle groups you wanna activate and, and what your goal is. What have you found interesting, let’s say, uh, with interacting with humans, trying to get to an end goal? Mm-hmm. Hmm. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger for sure. You know, I believed naively that, that, that the best athletes, the best programs, um, and, and the most success came from those with, you know, the most intricate periodization strategies.

And you had to almost speak, you know, high level science to your athletes because that was what high end performance was. And it was the details. And you know, to an extent you were almost teach treating these guys sometimes as a little bit of a number as a unit because you were so through, you know, your sport science disciplines, if you will, in education.

You know, the high end knowledge wins almost. And, and then what you realize is that actually as humans we’re very messy. And we do need empathy. We need sympathy at times, and we need people to work democratically in a setting that is a team and to understand that each individual’s needs some differences and work from there.

And so, you know, eventually I realized that actually I would get a lot more mileage out of the conversations and relationships that I would have if I first worked on the idea of trustworthiness. And, and it took a long, kind of evolutionary route of figuring this out and just making errors, like I said.

But, um, you know, the more that you could tr try to start from a point of, okay, I’ve got the credibility with the knowledge and skills. I’ve done my studies, I’ve done my. I’ve got my program written, I think I can be seen as a reliable individual. I can show up regularly for this person or this group in this environment.

And I’m also doing it in an intimate way that frankly, this individual or this group needs from me in the way that I play that role. And I’m dividing all that by the self-orientation. I e I’m not doing it for my, you go or necessarily always my agenda, but I’m doing it based on the agenda and the need of the people in front of me.

I’m being, um, uh, selfless in the way that I’m showing up, so to speak. And I think once you can do that, and as the old that age goes, people don’t care how much you know until they know that you care. And if you can start from that point and you know that a human contact first, manage your expectations in the early days, then I think the door starts to creep open and, and widens over time when they go, they’ll do anything for you.

You know? And as I say, I went through, you know, In, in, in a premier league setting when you’re working with Young Academy males for instance, and you’re expecting a lot from them, a little bit of consideration back then probably would’ve gone a, a long way for me to go, actually, these guys have got a lot of demands on them even outside of this weight room right now.

They’ve got demand from a technical coach. Um, they’re also engaging with, um, a sports nutritionist over here, spot psychologist over there. They’ve got their parents, they’ve got the school and, and that’s just one example of one setting. So I think if you, if you have a little bit more empathy and an intention to look broad than what is just in front of you and what’s in, you know, your own needs, I think you can, you can go a long way and, and, and, you know, relationships and buy and do serve really well.

Yeah. And I love how you use the word empathy because I don’t know if on your journey you’ve noticed this, but um, the deeper I’ve gotten into things, you get, you start to get to a stage where, Um, leadership skills and, and not just, you know, within yourself, but also you realize that wow, some of these, uh, athletes or people I’m working with, um, they tend to need some leadership skills cuz they’re on a team and, you know, when you’re a professional athlete, sure you wanna have people supporting you, but at sometimes you have to be the leader.

And so, you know, I don’t know if you’ve found that, you know, through the word that used empathy. Um, just kind of shifting gears a little bit, have you found that, what have you found for leadership when it comes into, not just your coaching, but even with within a team setting? Because I mean, if you’re in a team setting where you’ve got, uh, I don’t know if in rugby, how, how many players are on a team in.

On the, on the field of 15 at one time, rugby union that is. Um, but you know, you could, you could be running a squad of up to 1450 people sometimes. Wow. Yeah. And so for you to actually assimilate in that program and, you know, there’s all the, there’s a pecking order, there’s also leadership skills. Um, have you, have you found that leadership has been something that you’ve developed as a skill to get the most outta your athletes?

Yeah, very much so. And I, and I think, you know, invariably if you’re ambitious in, in the career setting and you want to go from a junior to an assistant to a leader or a head of department, you do find yourself naturally taking on, you know, the, the, the role of the label that says, okay, I’m a leader ahead.

And, you know, and I got that wrong early days where I felt, okay, now I’ve got head of my title, I’m the head of the program at this rugby team here. I need to establish authority. I need to be loud, brash, the, or, you know, the authoritarian in the room. And actually the more that I’ve realized and, and I think maturity plays into this a great deal.

And, and also fatherhood actually. The longer that I’ve worked in sport, the more that I’ve realized that actually I can play more to my strengths. If I’m a bit more of a, a conscious, sometimes introvert versus a loud, brash extrovert. It’s just the way that I prefer to do business. Now, there are many examples and you spend two minutes on social media, or I think college American football gets, gets, gets wrapped with this a lot as well.

But there’s a lot of loud leadership out there that you can see visually, very, very strong, very heavy, very alpha and look in some settings. That’s fine. And, and, and by the rare occasion in team sport settings, and I’ve, I’ve done that in different, different ways, but I think again, buy and large, it comes back to the buying with the people that, that you’re looking to influence.

And how are those behaviors showing up? I mean, I, I sometimes think of it as a bit of an iceberg. You know, I think you can get incredible buy-in, uh, trust and influence with a group or individual if you’re able to create psychological safety. With a group or a person. And that just being a space that says, I respect you, you respect me.

And we are both accountable to maintaining that respect, but we also consciously nurture it and build it. So if you think about that psychological safety, that’s everything that’s underneath the iceberg. It’s the unseen stuff. It’s just, I know that person’s okay, and I know that I can, I can engage with them in this way, and therefore all the stuff above the iceberg, they’re all the, the, the scene attributes and or behaviors or characteristics that you have.

The way that, you know, consciously, you approach somebody, the words that you, uh, you use the tonality in how you say those sorts of things, the gestures that you have, how you physically got your way to make sure that that, that you are showing them that you are empathetic or you have an interest in them as a person.

Like they’re all the conscious things. And that then drives the psychological safety. So I like to think of it in that analogy really, and. I also think, and there’s a lot more spoken about it in the news of late, I’ll use the England football team as an example, as an, as an example. Football especially is going through an evolution where historically loud leadership was seen to be strong leadership.

Again, alpha strong behaviors. Now more so what’s been celebrated is a manager or leader that’s able to connect, as you say, can establish empathy. So Gar Southgate right now, for instance, who’s the head coach of the England football team, there’s, there’s endless articles and there’s a lot more people pundits alike talking about on screens, about how impressive the quiet leadership is and how this guy is going about his business and influencing people and just having really, really good relationships or the way that it’s labeled man management.

He knows how to manage and, and, and look after his people. And if you’re doing that by and large, and certainly you’re influencing certain leaders within certain groups or pockets of groups, You do tend to get, I think this kind of ripple effect where the culture then takes on this, this is how we do things around here because I’m emulating your behaviors.

You know? So absolutely love that perspective. And you know, and, and if you think about it, if you are being aggressive and now you think it, it’s interesting cuz I have had a similar experience to you where when I was newer to mental performance coaching, I felt like I had to prove myself. I had, I had to get the respect of the tribe.

And I think that the way that a lot of us perceive early on in our careers to do that and achieve that is to flex. You know, I call it the flex, you know, where it’s like, hey, you know, watch this, you know, hey, you hit that 60 foot booter jump. Well watch what I can do. You know, I used to race too. It’s like, you know, you start to realize that as you move towards mastery, you know, I always say that we go from ignorance to knowledge, to understanding and then to mastery.

And I think a lot of people, yeah, love that people. Get stuck at knowledge, right? It’s like, Hey John, you told me how to do the exercise. Don’t worry. I got this. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’ve done it three times. You don’t have it. Actually, let’s be honest, you don’t have it, and that’s okay, right? It’s okay that you don’t have it, but let’s, let’s make it more of like a journey and, you know, and, and discover like, how can I do this, uh, exercise even deeper.

Like for example, even myself, if I do the flat bench, I went in probably like two weeks ago and I said, let’s just do the flat bench, but I want you to do the flat bench. Like it was the most amazing exercise, the most grateful experience you’ve ever had in your entire life, and you’ve never been more focused.

So I actually painted this scene, and then I walked into that scene when I walked in the gym and it started the second I got out of the car, and then I walked into the gym and I started like this big crescendo, this big buildup of like, I’m going to do flat bench, you know, and I’ll tell you, one of the best workouts ever had, I’d never been so focused, never been so amped, never woke up the next day and felt so empowered.

Hmm. And so it’s interesting that you start to see that there’s these different layers and levels to performance. So we would love to hear, you know, you brought up, um, so many great things and, and the one thing that you brought up that I wanted to kind of turn back towards and expand upon a little bit is you mentioned the conscious side, and then of course we had the unconscious side, and that matches up with that, those four tiers I gave you about, you know, ignorance, knowledge, understanding, and mastery.

How do you get an athlete to go from, Maybe being newly exposed to a concept, an idea, and it could be anything. It doesn’t necessarily need to be weight related. It could be a urinalysis, it could be body chemistry or biometrics, biotics. Um, how do you get people to go from understanding things consciously, but then go into like internalizing and assimilating it subconsciously and through reps?

Mm. It, it’s one of the largest challenges. I, I think because, you know, as you pointed out before, knowledge is, is quite simple to come by. You know, we, we all, it to a point can have a lot of access to endless online publications and texts, the like. But the way that you disseminate that information and apply that information is, is very much the art of what we’re talking about here.

And I think motorsport’s a really good example because, you know, these guys are flying around a track at, you know, sub 300 kilometers an hour. Making finite decisions on an knife edge that determine whether or not they can have an overtake or they put it in the wall. And you want as much of that driving experience to be as automated as you possibly can, as instinctive as you possibly can.

Uh, and fearless of course. So to have this kind of thoughtless, fearless confidence in how they’re engaging with an activity and just in flow. I mean, if we’re talking about, you know, optimal performance and reaching optimal performance, either you’re teaching somebody to bench press or you’re teaching somebody to run, cut, sprint and beat someone on a field.

You want people to be in flow and you know when people have had flow because they come back and there’s a, there’s a, an initial or a later point of reflection and you say, how did you do that? What were you thinking about at that time? And, and if the response is, I dunno, I was just doing, I was just feeling I, I wasn’t really there, John.

I just did. And it, they’re in flow, you know? And that’s ultimately what we’re trying to achieve as the physical and or mental coaches, I think. So I’m, I’m absolutely conscious about how much, how, you know, the volume of information I want to give guys. I’m also conscious of the timing of when I want to give that information too, because if we give a technical amount of information, you know, let’s say we’re talking about, um, you know, braking, high speed corner braking is a really important skill that these guys have to learn in the car.

And if we are talking about the manuia detail of the timing of when that break needs to be applied based on a reference that they have visually on the, on the track or on the corner, the amount of steering angle, the amount of brake application with throttle application combining, and then pos positioning the corner as they go through.

There’s just so much information. You are, you are trying to micro filter endless pieces of information during a very quick moment that needs to be far automated, needs to be also visually, a lot more extrinsic rather than intrinsic as a process. So we try to use where possible analogies with that as well to enrich the learning that takes place so that they intuitively you can apply a feeling or, or, or a concept of what that is.

And you can get that point to land and or a light bulb to go off in somebody’s brain when they’re going through a learning process. So we want to give smaller amounts of information if we can. So we dissect it by using, say, more extrinsic, more external examples of teaching. We want to give a measured amount of information because the more that we have to, um, uh, consider consciously, it means we’re taking up brain space and power and time that should be used in more automated processing.

And again, the timing is that I’ll try and give more technical advice far enough away from the event where I’m, I’m most concerned about it showing up or being executed so that we have time to go back and forth, recognize, um, understanding learning. We can make some errors and we can refine the process before we get closer to the performance event.

Itself, because realistically when we’re close, as we, as we are to jumping in the car or we’re already on a track, any new information that comes into the mix is going to be unhelpful. And it’s probably going to move people closer to a conscious process rather than an unconscious, one of which, when we are thinking more consciously and we’re flying around a track and we’re already racing 19 other cars, uh, on a race rec, on a, on a race weekend, we’re going to probably trigger somebody more into, you know, increasing, let’s say state anxiety, which is incredibly unhelpful when these guys are already trying to reach an optimal, a arousal window to perform at their best and do all these skills, you know, so yeah.

It’s, um, does that make sense? Oh, absolutely. And, and I think that it’s, it’s such a wild dance because you start to realize that. We’re always looking to be better. And the, the, the irony is that we’re trying to always be better, but sometimes being better necessarily, it doesn’t necessarily mean doing more.

Mm-hmm. It actually means doing less. Um, you know, I have a pro golfer that’s competing today and I realize that we work. He’s very, very smart, very analytical. And crushes. It does a great job. But I’m like, you know what? Today we need to focus on peace. We need to have some peace in our life. And so literally, I said, all I care about is that you’re a turtle today.

You play like a turtle. You just, you’re at peace. Everything is slow, everything’s enjoyable, and you’re at peace. Just let’s just slow down. And so instead of trying to shift up a gear, we realized that maybe we’re traveling at too fast of a rate, and so we actually downshifted and are applying the brakes, which, you know, especially in motor sports or any sort of sport where there’s a little bit more of a masisi mo or like, let’s go, you know, more aggressive sport.

It does seem like the tendency and the a. Is tending towards doing more and being more intense. You know, like, uh, the one phrase that everyone loves that I can’t stand is like, you gotta grind. You know, like those videos on Instagram where you gotta grind, you know, how bad do you want it? I don’t know. I just realized I actually don’t want it that bad because I love my family and my life.

And then that’s the guy that crushes it, the guy that actually doesn’t want it that bad. Yeah. Yeah. Like how, like it’s, because if you want something, I always say the, the more you want something, the further it is away from you. Mm. Right? Mm-hmm. So it’s interesting. So desires an interesting, uh, topic as well, but, um, we’d love to hear more.

There’s so many interesting topics that we could talk about. What. Uh, and I figured I’d keep this one open-ended. What’s one of, cuz I have my favorite topic is Desire lately. Um, okay. What’s been, what’s been your hot topic lately? Like obviously there’s always growth and change. What seems to be the hot topic that you love engaging with either, uh, other professionals or your athletes?

What’s kind of trending in your mind right now? Well, I mean, to be fair, the point that you raised there is a really relevant one for us, especially now. What we are trying to consciously reach this, this sweet spot, this goldilock zone of arousal state because, you know, the, the, you tend to get a couple of, of, of characters I’ve found, especially with the motor sport and it extends beyond these two.

But you, you, you can get one option or one character who jumps in a car, doesn’t think about the nature of what they do. You know, the ABCs, the skill itself just goes out, sticks it on, on the absolute limit straight away and is fast. They’re also a little bit, you know, not necessarily reckless, but they are absolutely, um, wild with their application about their energy, their effort, and how they put it on the limit straight away.

Um, they’re thinking less then. Definitely not that fearless. Maybe they stick it in the wall sometimes, but you, you get that character. Then you get this other character, which maybe plays into the example you just gave, which is the one who is certainly far more diligent with their preparation. A lot more thoughtful about their preparation.

Um, can be a, a little bit, um, numbers driven in how they want to prepare for the performance itself. Cuz they wanna have, they derive confidence from the knowledge, the understanding, the detail they’re doing, their homework versus this other guy who’s just going, I won’t worry about that. They’re diving and they go, both have incredible skill sets and invariably what we’re trying to do really is get each one of those individuals to see, listen, where you start from is fantastic.

That is clearly your super strength. But if we play too much to that strength, I, the guy who puts caution to the wind and we give that guy no details sometimes or encourage them to have a little bit more conscious deliberate prep at times that person’s gonna play too hard into a strength and it become a weakness where they are on the limit too, too often and they’re putting it in the world or they’re just making the same mistake again and again without a little bit more of a, um, of a careful approach at times that’s required cuz it’s always measured, right?

Whereas the other guy, we’re trying to get him to prepare a little bit less. Sometimes, as you say, less is more, think less about the hard facts, the details, because we know that that will show up in a moment when you need to be a lot more empty headed and just enjoying the process, but also able to deliver the process at the speed and the accuracy that’s required.

Again, thinking about flow. So yeah, I think invariably mentally we’re consciously. You know, we’re very, very aware about the timeline of, okay, we’ve got a month to the event itself and or we’re now we’re at the event weekend is cons conscious of thinking about how we’re building these conversations and thought processes toward getting into flow.

So I would say definitely managing arousal has been, has been an increasing topic for us in the past year and certainly one that I’m having more conversations about. Oh, for sure. And, and it’s funny because the people that call. Performance anxiety is almost always number one. If not, it’s top three.

Mm-hmm. Um, you know, and even if they do call saying, Hey, I’m a little low on confidence, um, well, oftentimes you’ll trace it pr pretty quickly back to that they, they don’t have confidence because their emotions get the best of them. So you start to realize that the emotional, the sympathetic and the para parasympathetic system and the nervous system plays such an important role.

Are there any things that you do specifically that are to create a little bit more emotional management? By having a better, uh, understanding and ability to modulate one’s own nervous. Yeah, definitely. I think there are a number of, um, physical and or mental tools that, you know, we’ll utilize with different individuals based on their interest or their, as we talked about before, their buying their beliefs about certain things.

I think, you know, cold water immersion in particular is a really envo topic at the moment. Um, whether or not folks want to go back to the Wim H method or, you know, they’re just a little bit more on vogue with the idea that, you know, certainly the UK people are really shifting toward open water, sea swimming and cold exposure regularly, and I think there’s a lot more.

It’s, it’s, it’s stood the test of time, but there’s a lot more information coming forth about. The immunity value of doing those sorts of things as well. But yeah, look, nonetheless, we, you know, we’ll do a cold water immersion, um, for a couple of reasons. One, because as you mentioned there, if we can get somebody to trigger into more of a parasympathetic, more of a rest and digest mode, we’re decreasing arousal state, we are taking this stiffness and rigid rigidity that usually follows in muscles because we are tense and we’re thinking about the fight that’s gonna come at us here.

So we want to try and get people into a state where they are far more relaxed. Um, the mind is more quiet and therefore they’re able to be on task and calm and in control. But we’ll also do the, the cold water motion. Cuz usually, you know, if, certainly we’re in the Middle East, we Formula two go less to the, you know, the big events, the international flyaways like, um, Singapore and the like.

But, you know, we’ll be racing in temperatures of, of, uh, 30 degrees track temperature of 50 degrees. You know, these guys are sat right in front of an engine, so, It gets pretty heated as well. And we recognize that if we can, uh, manage that thermal regulation that’s taking place, drop somebody’s core temperature, we’re gonna have far more mental control of what’s happening as well.

Because we’re not overheating and there’s, you know, a lot of evidence to show that if we do start to overheat, it impacts things like death perception, acuity reaction time. So we’re very aware of that sort of stuff. Um, so there’s probably a physical task, a nonphysical task is, is just communicating, you know, and we’ll have out and outperformance conversations before we get in the car, before we arrive at an event where we’re looking just to unpack what’s in the brain and to try and, you know, we almost want to extract like a software engineer, we extract the information first before we then look to like it maybe be, or a dentist, would you not extract the tooth before we then clean that thing up and get some clarity there through conversation so that somebody then when you reprograming a software re reprogram and puts it back in again, you’re then at a place where you go, okay.

I’ve realigned where I need to be. I’ve kind of unscrambled this craziness that’s taken place because I’m aroused and naturally they’re gonna be because they’re in, you know, competition fight mode. Um, and we enable somebody probably to attack what’s ahead of them in a direction that’s far more befitting to we know that if we get you here you are in that perfect arousal state.

And again, it’s that sweet spot that we’re constantly looking to nudge somebody closer toward. And um, yeah, I think through the longer I’ve been certainly working with individuals as well, I still come back to the fact that success is a team. Because, you know, in team sport settings, you know, if you mentioned rugby before, you’ve got 15 guys on the field, and if one or two guys are in a bit of an off day, they’re not quite on form at the moment.

You can kind of ride that, that average with, with the rest of the team who are maybe just above average that day and it brings you back to your aggregate. Um, but certainly, you know, in motorsport you’ve got. A single guy, all the preps gone into this one guy to deliver the performance. The engineers have scrutinized the details of the car.

Um, they’ve had, you know, conversations about data. Everything’s been done fine, tooth comb, and even more so of course in f1. And you’re relying on this messy human sitting behind a wheel when it’s, it’s crazy hot temperatures and they’re in a different bed and they’re eating different foods, different time zone, maybe still to perform at their best.

And you know, there’s, there’s a lot of factors that they’re outta your control, but there are some that are in, in your control. Um, and really we’ve, we tend to learn through the conversations that we’re having as a team and, and that psychological safety mentioned before that we established that really enables people to get into the right.

Yeah, it’s so true. And you think about it, you think about the money that’s invested, especially in the sport that we’re talking about now, you know, f1 F two, um, like you said, there’s all these men. I mean, you could really, depending on the kind of frame and the story you put around it as an athlete, you could say, wow, there’s 17 men on this team, or whatever the math is.

That’s 17 families whose dad or husband or boyfriend or son has left for three, four days, uh, has maybe even traveled 20 hours. So you could really easily turn that into a pressure situation. But then at the same time, you know, you could also paint a different story. Mm-hmm. Which is, you know, um, we got a great team here to support me and I’m here for a reason.

You know, and, uh, the reason that I was given the opportunity to be here is they saw things in me and so let’s bring it, you know, and it’s interesting, um, The story that you tell things. It, it’s, it’s wild how we come up with all kinds of stories, you know, and we tend to mind read, you know, if you’ve ever Yeah.

Bumped into the cognitive distortions. They’re very fascinating. Um, one thing that, so, so many great topics talk about, um, before I talk about confidence, I wanted to make sure I asked you this question. And it relates to cold therapy because I do agree with you, um, that the Wim H method and everything you said about immunity and cold, I, I think it’s underrated and I.

That, going back to what we said earlier, that it’s so simple, right? You know, like you go in, you take a shower, it’s a cold shower, and you’re just like, I just like John. Come on. I turn the water down, it’s cold, it’s a cold shower. Like, you got anything more from me? It’s so it to me, it’s so interesting to try to sell people on things where there is some degree of simplicity to it.

Because the truth is, even with me, the best shape I’ve ever been in was during the pandemic and I was so bored. I was like, I’m gonna do, uh, I’m gonna start cooking, I’m gonna eat right. I’m gonna do all kinds of different workouts and I’m gonna do cold showers every day. And I did it for like two years and I’ll tell you, it worked for me.

So, um, it’s wild. Is there, my question to you, is this, is there a way, because I’m imagining that you’re at an event, let’s say you’re in, you know, Qatar or Saudi Arabia and, um, You’re at an event and the temperatures are through the roof. Mm-hmm. Now, obviously you could put your athlete in a cold plunge, a makeshift cold plunge or what have you, but is there any way, is, is there a way that you’re aware of where you can adjust someone’s like baseline, almost kinda like everyone has a baseline met metabolic rate.

Is there a such thing as a baseline like core temperature rate where you could over time try to lower it down so maybe people don’t have as much of an adverse effect to the heat whereas some other athlete might? Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you, you, you know, for instance with, um, and it, it is a factor definitely when we go to the Middle East and humidity has a massive impact on this as well in terms of the heat.

And now I said before, if core temperature is becoming a problem for us, we know that it’s going to a increase time of exhaustion and d decrease cognitive performance Now. One, what’s quite a popular method and, and this has been used for, for decades in team sports or, and certainly it’s used by, you know, you’ll maybe watch some of the F1 drivers Instagrams and these guys are preparing for really hot ambient environments, high humility like Singapore, and they will go and do, um, heat climatization so that when you arrive on track, you’ve got somebody that’s far more adapted to the fact that they’re going to perform in a heat environment.

I mean, you know, for the layperson, you can all relate. If you’ve been on a holiday for two weeks, maybe you’re lucky enough to be on holiday for three weeks. You’ll know, and you’ll find that usually after a period of five to seven days, you’ll start to adapt to the environment that you’re in. Your sweat rate is a little bit less, your tolerance for, for certain food starts to change a little bit as well.

Your sleeping probably a little bit better. So we wanna get these guys adapted as possible before they do land in the environment because you’re right, there’s absolutely an impact on the physiology that, that we can impact before we even get to. To a place on site. Um, and then, you know, other more subtle things when we are on site, you know, we’ve talked about the cold water immersion that is important and we’ll do that tactically within a certain window before they get in the car.

But I think also having a really, just a proactive foresight about how you are physically preparing before you get in the car. I mean, you know, for decades people have understood the value in a warmup, like a, you know, just rudimentary getting your body physically ready, whether that’s opening certain joints or hitting certain patterns and shapes before you get into a sport.

Like golf, for instance, is in, you know, incredibly important for that because the forces are on the spine racing. I think there’s a bit of a perception that there’s, you know, it’s a throwaway concept, warming up. What are you talking about? This guy’s sitting in a car and he’s turning a, turning a wheel.

You know, as I mentioned, because of the forces acting on the head, we want the neck to be online and ready to go. Because the importance and the forces around the spine, we want the trunk ready to go and the hips to be able to stabilize the trunk and everything else. And just general athleticism, you know, these guys don’t necessarily come through different sport.

I’m digressing here. They don’t necessarily come through different sports where they’re doing athletic tasks like swimming, football or golf or, you know, athletics. They got really good at their sport because more often than not, they’re in a go-kart or they’re in their mom and dad’s basement, sat on a sim on a game.

So they’re not always athletically the most gifted individuals. And we know, we know that, you know, if you want these guys to be a little bit more well-rounded, even just have good hand-eye coordination, which feeds into this peripheral, you know, quality that we have as, as we intake information, they need to be a little bit more athletic.

So, you know, doing more athletic things before they get in the car is important. However, the caveat to that is that if, if in one hand we’re trying to decrease core temperature, but on the other hand you may increase core temperature through a warmup. You’ve got conflict there. So we’ll make sure that we’re not doing, you know, um, lots of repetitive activity that does drive an increase in core or peripheral temperature.

Skipping is a no-no for us in hot countries, you know, uh, a few drivers, it’s, it’s a thing that you see. It’s on vogue. They’re all doing it and lot. There’s some, you know, value in, in, in foot, ankles, stiffness, et cetera, for smashing the pedals hard on the brakes. But if that’s, if that’s a company by an increase in core temperature, we’re not interested in that.

And we don’t do that. So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll vary what we do. Did you say skipping? Yeah, skip, like rope skipping. Jump skipping, yeah. Oh, like our, like a jump rope we call it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Technology there isn’t it? Well, well, we, yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. So it, it just has become a trend and one guy sees it and the other just says, Uh, last weekend he did good.

And he’s skipping there. I’ll skip, I mean, is that kind of where this, where does this come from? Absolutely, absolutely. I think it looked like most ports actually. I think the paddock in particular is a wash with individuals or drivers seeing another driver and going, he’s doing those sorts of things. I think I’ll emulate that because there must be some value in that, or there’s a secret there to be had and invariably there isn’t.

It’s just doing the simple things really, really, really well and understanding where you fit on that evolutionary spectrum of this is where your careers at and this is where you want to get into. So, you know, but for sure when we’re talking about heat and managing heat, yet we’re adapting people before they get on site and when we’re thinking carefully about what we’re doing to influence heat onsite as well.

Yeah, and when it, when it comes to a warmup, um, you know, one of the things that I, uh, kind of got from a rebook, a Reebok training athlete, and then also from F1 that I’ve used with some of my athletes in Formula Drift, um, and also Supercross motocross is, um, the activation. Um, you know, getting the left and the right brain to start talking to each other and just kind of wake people up.

Especially, you know, there’s some events where you might be just kind of somewhat lethargic for an hour or two, and it’s like, Hey, it’s now, it’s after all the work we’ve done, it’s time to go out and compete at your best. What, what does activation, and what does that process look like for you? Like, what are the goals?

What are you. Maybe paint a picture for me as to what your activation process looks like. Uh, for sure. I mean, we, we will do typically, so if we take the, the, the physical window itself, we, we we’re looking for 10 minutes, especially in really hot environments. If it’s a cold environment and let’s say we’re going to do testing in Europe and it’s early part of the season, it’s cold, these guys will wanna warm up.

So maybe then the jump rope comes out. But, you know, for our typical prep, we’re looking at 10 minutes and we will start with some floor based mobility and, you know, base usually on these guys, um, say competency around their pelvis or their spine. Most of these drivers have got some sort of contraindication that’s hanging around from years in a car.

You know, these spines tend to form into quite kyphotic shapes or usually there’s kind of like a history lower back pain knocking around somewhere because of a lack of mobility. Pelvis and we’re addressing those things first. So we want to get all the key joints moving and well greased so that when they’re in the car, teachers around those joints in particular are acting a little bit more ideally, that they’re, they’re more primed, they’re more turned on those and they’re doing a job to stabilize.

Um, so once we’ve gone through our initial prep, then we’ll do some form of activation, let’s say, for the muscles where again, we’re looking to try and put stability back into the pelvis. Cuz if you’re gonna make a pelvis in the spine, more mobile or more wobbly because you’ve taken tension out of it, you know that you’re gonna want to put some, some effective, uh, or positive tension back into the pelvis in the right way.

So we’re trying to get some length on, you know, things like, so uc, we’re trying to get glutes to then turn back on a little bit more. And we wanna do that in multiple directions. I’m a big fan of getting people to move in three dimensions because that’s the world that we live in. You know, walking is a three-dimensional task for our joints itself.

So, you know, we’re doing, um, ability, then we’re getting into stability movements. Um, and then once we’ve done that, then we’re doing our hard a bracing work for the neck and the environment of the trunk, where we’ll do some overcoming eyes and metrics and we’ll get the harness on and I’ll crank on guys’ heads actively, maybe we’ll do some, you know, bit of a deceleration working as well.

So there has to be some rapid stabilization of the head as you try to sort of mimic the nature of what the head will go through in the car. Um, and then after that, then we’ll usually drop core temperature if we’re in a really hot environment. So we’re raising core temperature, I guess, a touch by invariably moving around in general.

And then we wanna plummet the core temperature again. And then before these guys go and get in the car, then we’ll do some more, I guess vesta, more activation for the ice in the brain, where we’re then doing some kind of neurocognitive stimulus where they’re having to react to different balls. You know, you’ll have seen examples out there as well with, um, the battle pods that are out there, the lights and shapes that people can hit with these sorts of things.

And I think, look, the, the jury’s out a little bit with absolute. Value and accuracy and impact on some of those things, but subjectively, we can’t often just get away from the guys who say, do you know what? I feel sharper for doing that rather than not doing that. You know, in a, in a way, something that’s quite unique, I think, to the junior category world, at least in formula and Formula two, is that on a Friday, our Formula Two guys, they will have before the F1 session, you know, we’re like the warmer packs, right?

They’ll have a free practice session of, of 45 minutes. If they’re on the trajectory that, that, hopefully they all are toward f1. They may then go in the sit within some hour or so, two hours, go and sit in an F1 car and do an FP one session and be chosen if they’re lucky to go and do that session and then they come back afterward.

Literally right off the back of the FP one session F Formula two qualifying is then starting. I’ve seen an an absolute one for one relationship with the guys who have hopped out of the F1 car into the F two car and performed. Better every single time because from a neurocognitive point of view, clearly the F1 car is faster, things are moving quicker.

It’s far more complex. It’s a harder, more arousing task step into the F two car that they know, an environment of domain, a setting that they’re quite familiar with, and they’ve done it in the morning already. Suddenly everything slows down. Things are far more manageable. The task is less challenging.

There’s more threat maybe at at play. So you know, we’re seeing, even if you’re a backfield driver, generally in Formula two, I’m seeing these guys fly forward and finish somewhere in the midfield or touching in the top 10. Likewise, if you’ve got a guy who is maybe a top five, usually they stick it on poll if they come back into that form of two qualifying session.

So you know, that little override, you know, again, the layperson can probably relate to when you go and play tennis with your buddy. Like if you’re playing against someone who’s really, really, really good. You tend to be able to up your game a little bit to meet that, that mental demand, let alone physical demand.

And then when you go back to playing a lesser skilled counterpart, you have an e your, your skillset, your baseline’s been moved. You have this, this ability to co to, to compete. I think so, yeah. In, you know, in a way, in a very crude way, you, you’re trying to simulate, um, challenging motor tasks for the brain that are moving faster than the, the current state of arousal or performance to then get it, to catch up and, and make that, make that step that, that.

I mean, I literally looked at the, the time where we’re at and I stamped it into my brain because I wanna revisit this conversation because, uh, you’re onto something there. Um, and I just wonder, is this something that’s been exp did have you dived deeper in this topic? Because I, I’m literally sitting here and my mind is racing.

I mean, I, my mind is going in all different directions. Trying to think of how we can put that into, like, is there a term for this? Is there science backed up on this? Because what you just said to me is extremely powerful. Mm-hmm. And, and listen, there absolutely is. I’m, I’m gonna reach up here and, and grab something that’s, that’s relevant, but I guess useful to bring a bit of context.

And, um, we’ve, we’ve got some, uh, some strobe glasses here. And, and look, the, you know, these are, they, they, there’s a couple of different, um, I think brands that have these and, and, and we’re wearing, we’re getting the guys to wear these, these particular ones are by synaptic. Um, they’re very popular brand.

We’ve got the Quadro, so. You know, you can divide the screen in four. I’m sure maybe you’ve seen something like this. But yes, it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit like the, the concept of this, of this, um, or what’s called, referred to as pap in the literature, but post activation potentiation where you, you remove part of your visual law of vestibular, um, um, uh, view from, from what you can see.

And therefore, then you have to predict what’s going to happen from a visual point of view. So that we, we, I’ll do, you know, a series of say, you know, catch throw ball drills, whatever, and then I’ll put the glasses on where you can have different timings and different speeds where you’ll then block vision, but you still have to do the same task.

Invariably performance goes down because they’re having to, to guess and, and think, oh, the ball was there. I’ve lost sight. Now it’s, oh, it’s here. Oh, okay. And you have to sort. You know, maneuver your skills to, to deal with a challenge. I know you take ’em off and it’s like watching someone in the matrix, like they’re grabbing stuff.

Like it’s, it’s, it’s incredible. So it’s, it’s, it’s essentially that, look, I think there’s, there’s probably a train carryover, but there’s definitely an acute carryover that we do see. So that’s why we’ll do some of the visual priming stuff before they get in the car. And look, I, I think it’s, I’d like to say that I’m, I’m a pioneer.

I don’t think I am. I think this is a far more, um, common practice thing that’s done a lot more. And, and look, I think there are some examples that are definitely in basketball than other sports where guys have used these, you know, individuals are looking for the 1%. But, um, you know, in a sport where, as I mentioned before, you’re trying to make high level decisions at high speed information processing is incredibly important.

And that’s where, you know, definitely looking at your visual system and training, that is, is definitely an important than 1%. Yeah. Now I’m, I’m gonna call you out on something cool. I would say, you said that you’re not the pioneer of this device. Sure. And this act fine. Fair enough. There was someone that created salt.

There was the first guy that created salt. That was it. But what I would argue is what I have learned about you in a very short period of time is the one thing you are a pioneer in is having your own very unique special sauce where maybe there’s a pioneer for this ingredient, that ingredient, this ingredient, and the, and you’re not the pioneer for those ingredients.

Mm-hmm. However, I will tell you who you are, the pioneer of. You’re the pioneer of taking 17 ingredients, putting them in at a specific ratio so that out outcome outta the oven out at three 50 degrees after 45 minutes comes a really tasty pie. So you’re a pioneer of the pie because that’s the, that’s the one thing you definitely are, no one can take that away from me.

I’m a pioneer. I’ll take that. Yeah. You’re the pioneer of the pie. So, so that’s why I was like, I’m gonna call you out. You must have felt a little uncomfortable. I said, I’m gonna call you up. Yeah. Cheers, man. Nah, I like that. I’ve heard the quote once. It was, uh, I think it goes good artists copy book, great artists Steele and I, I’m, I’m essentially kind of, you know, you’re right here.

I’m, I’m, I’m definitely always hijacking and stealing on or, but, but making a decent recipe. Yeah. Uh, yeah, for sure. In, I, I dunno, in certain settings it works and others it probably doesn’t so well, but for sure. Yeah. No, I’ll take that. Thanks. Yeah, sure. And, and, you know, and you could also, and it was funny because as much as I was excited and stimulated by you grabbing those, uh, snappic glasses and kind of going through that, that discussion, I also realized that.

You know, and that’s where the dance that you and I do comes in is that there’s gonna be, like, I already know one athlete that would love these things. He would love it and it would work for him. I know it would work, but I also know other athletes that if they felt like, oh my God, I just failed. Or like, I, I had these on and I did worse, like I did worse, um, that would actually drop their confidence.

So you start to realize that that’s where this, that’s where this secret sauce comes in, is you being smart enough to know that, hey, this works for this guy doesn’t work for this guy. Mm-hmm. This, this works for this guy. If he’s in this and then you, then you can factor in the setting how hot it is. Maybe when it’s hot.

Someone doesn’t like the heat, like, you know, I, and then so maybe you don’t wanna do as much. Maybe instead of doing 10 minutes activation for their, their core temperature, maybe you’re doing seven. Mm-hmm. But you start to realize it is a constant. Flow and movement. And then also, who knows, maybe they had a busy week and if they had a busy week, do you need to give ’em a little bit more of a break?

So you start to realize that, uh, holistic approach, you know, specific to each athlete is really where I think you stand out. And if someone were to call up and said, well, hey, um, do you help me like lose weight and get in shape? It’s like, well, that’s not all I do. Uh, there’s a lot more to what I do than that.

And so I think it’s interesting that you have positioned yourself to be in a very unique position, and I’ll bet you that what people are fascinated by is that you probably exude a degree of confidence, which I can feel on this call with you and I talking. I think people are picking up on that cuz people can feel emotions and I think some of your athletes are probably not just addicted to your resume and the people you’ve worked with, but I’ll bet you if you can get ’em in a room and just hang out with them for a little bit, you could talk about anything they would feel your vibe, your vibe and even your body posture like you carry yourself.

Like, I don’t know. I feel like if I hired you I’d probably be, i’d, I’d probably be a top F two driver in a couple weeks. No, I’m just kidding. I’m, I’m, I’m gonna hire you for all the sales calls that I have and you, you can, you can just kinda lay down some gold first. Thanks man. I appreciate that. That’s very kind.

Yeah, sure. Uh, absolutely. So I, I would love to talk about confidence and because I think it’s an interesting subject and I think that there’s ways that you can play into that. Um, you know, you sure confidence is a, is a mindset mental thing. But I do feel that I recognize a lot of athletes that gain a lot of their confidence, uh, with their sports per sports performance coach.

So how, how, what do one, what do you think creates confidence? And two, are there things that you do specifically to help inspire and create and build confidence in the athletes you work with? I think it’s a really interesting question, and I think the longer you spend, especially around individuals, when you.

Arguably, you know, a little bit more time, a little bit more opportunity to influence how they feel, how they go about their business. You know, even the, the nuance there you mentioned about, well, we might just swap things around in the Walmart today. We might make it a bit longer, bit shorter. I think invariably, as a, as a coach, the one of the best skills that I, I think it’s because growing up I was always another thinker.

I was always very, very conscious about how I felt about things. And, and that stood me in good stead of, in the sense that I was able to kind of manage that, first of all, eventually. But, but, but evolving into I guess what’s now, you know, referred to as emotional intelligence and having a really, really good handle on where you are as a person.

So that first you can lead yourself before you start to lead others. And I think once you understand what someone is about, you know, not just their mission, their passion, their purpose, but you recognize what drives them, what inspires them, what challenges them, you start to figure out where their confidence really comes from.

Formally, you can put people through assessments, like there are psychometric assessments out there and you know, we have a tool that we like and it helps, I guess, bring a model of shared language to the table that you can start to utilize in challenging conversations. But just have a, okay, I think that does fit with this individual.

It’s not a hundred percent, but 90% of it’s there. And I think that does show up for you and you do show up like this when you’re a bit stressed or you do tend to offer that when you are a little bit more relaxed. And I think it’s just the, the subtle nuance of picking up on those things so that you understand how to trigger, say, um, that cognitive sweet spot.

And, and at times we don’t always get it right, but I think it, you invariably are able to manipulate the environment and the people and, and all of, you know, sell certain messages through other individuals if you need to get and try and get something, um, transmitted down the wireless and. And it, and it, and it can help.

And, um, I dunno if I, if I necessarily have a formula for it. I think, I think it’s more that, again, the, the, the management of the person, but recognizing your influence in that space. Um, I think, you know, more often than not, you know, these guys will, will flirt through different spaces of high anxiety to control, to high arousal, to boredom.

And it’s figuring out how to pull them out of the corners into the center almost of, of that space. And I think, as I said before, the language that you use, how, the energy that you show up with, um, and, and the autonomy that you get to these guys as well. I mean, you know, working with a spectrum of young to senior athletes, you certainly figure out the importance of autonomy at both spaces, like both ends or levels of those individuals, regardless of age and background and knowledge.

They all want autonomy and they all want challenge at the same time. I think I, I worked with a really fascinating head coach and one of the points that he always made was, you know, like we take F1 F two at this example. Just because they’ve reached a really impressive level in their sport, or they’re a really senior individual, does not mean they don’t want to be challenged anymore.

In fact, they actually want a little bit more challenge because, you know, if they’re ambitious and driven enough, they’re still looking to constantly be pushed forward. They want to improve, or whether it’s an aspect of their skill or how they show up personally. And it’s an ever-evolving journey, really.

And I think little comment that you made at the start, it’s, it’s the game. It’s, there’s not a finite start and into it. It’s just an infinite gain that we’re all a part of. You recognize how I think you can, you can play into that with, with an individual, but yeah, I think does, does that make sense? Oh, absolutely.

And you know, I love how you, there’s even something that I haven’t investigated yet called Game Theory. I know a little bit about it, but um, it’s on my list of things to do is to actually. Study game theory and, and decision making. You know, what influences a decision that is subconscious, you know, and, and I, I feel like emotional, you said emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is a big part of all this. And you know, and then you notice that also emotional intelligence ties it with leadership skills. And then, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I think I, uh, as human beings, we have an addiction to prediction because back in the day, um, you know, if I had a tribe of 17 ALS that I was leading, and I take them to the north thinking that that’s what I’m predicting is gonna be the best move.

Uh, and let’s say I predict wrong. Uh, we all, we all die. So no, no pressure, you know? Uh, yeah. Here we are. Talk about the pressure to win or score points, um, when you got 17 people that die if you choose to go north when it should have been. No. Uh, it’s a whole different thing. So you start to realize that we do have an addiction to prediction that I think is very deep in our minds.

I mean, I think it’s, it’s gotta be towards the center somehow. Maybe even more towards Olympic system or who knows where it is. But, um, I think it’s interesting that we all have this addiction to prediction. With that said, what I think is interesting, and I wanted to know if you’ve experienced this with any of your athletes, not just f F one, F two, but maybe even going back to, to any athlete really.

Um, I find it fascinating and I, I actually have kept an eye on this and I don’t know if my own predictive bias is throwing me off or if what I’m experiencing is true reality. But I feel that there are some athletes that just, and I use the word vibe. I try to, on a, on a competition day, I don’t coach, I don’t teach.

I just try to manage one thing your vibe. Mm. You know, and I try to feel out the person’s vibe so they don’t realize I kind, I probably. Staring at them at the whole time. I’m looking at the body language. I’m kind of looking even just the way they interact with fans. Yeah. I’m, you know, even just the way they’re talking to their teammates or if it’s a team owner.

Like I have one athlete I work with who’s a team owner, also a, a competitor, and I could just recognize the way that they’re moving and the way the, the vibe. And there’s been some athletes, and my question to you is this, have you been with an athlete that through possibly the lens of prediction or the vibe of prediction, there has been an influence from the past and so what that would look like would be.

Hey, we always do well in Monaco. We’ve always done well in Monaco in the past, therefore, we’re gonna do great at Monaco today. It’s like, well, well why is it you always do good in Monaco? Like, what, what is it there? There’s probably no validity really, too. And some people are like, oh, I, I’m a guy that likes, you know, tight tracks.

I tend to do well. Mm-hmm. Um, but they almost seem like they’re predicting reality. Like there’s almost a vibe or a premonition that they’re going to perform. Well. Have you been around anyone that just felt the vibe, had the prediction maybe was reflected in the past to get there and just performed at a level that maybe was a little surprising at that moment based on where they had been recently, but that prediction kicked in and that that vibe kicked in and you saw a great performance.

Absolutely. I can relate to everything you’ve just said and I think, I think you’re spot on it, especially the, the more, the better that you know somebody, especially in the competition setting and like you say, you can, you can really start to evaluate the. Not just the quality of preparation that’s gone into it, but how that individual is managing their head space leading to the penultimate point.

We’ll see that in, I think you’re right there. There’s the subtle, you know, behaviors in, in characters such as how they look when they’re speaking to somebody. Even the movement of their eyes. I’ve got it in one guy where I could just, there’s a shape of his body and I think you are in this space at the moment, and sure enough, the person will get into the car and they’ll start talking and you, and you’re listening to certain things and you go, okay, yeah, this is all matching up for me and I’m building a thesis toward, I think this is where we’re going.

And, and usually you’re not always right. You’re not, we’re not, none of us are a mystic me or anything, but you, it, it can tend to play out in the way that it does sometimes. And sometimes it’s, um, it’s, it’s a blessing but also it’s a curse because you, you’re like, ah, I feel like I could just interject and, but actually sometimes interjecting.

Is almost the wrong thing to do. If that individual is not ready to accept certain conversations or things that need to be said and or challenged, nonetheless, it’s evidence that you can acquire to. Then I try to then bring up in the aftermath, the debrief conversations that we have usually away from the fact and after everything’s being done to go, you know, this is what I saw in you.

Do you think that’s fair? That, that, that the comment I’ve made there, do you think that’s accurate? Would you say that that’s where you were as well? And if so, what do you think brought you there and how do you think we could, we could, you know, review that going forward and, and, and affect it? I think that’s just the gold of the information that invariably you need, but you can only acquire if you’re there.

And also there is definitely a, a confirmation bias I think when, when you ask an athlete, let’s say you’ve not been at an event and somebody then gives you a debrief in the download, and I have this with another athlete who’s abroad a lot, and they’ll, they’ll, they’ll debrief the information based on ultimately that I think the level of vulnerability they’re willing to go to.

Right. You’re looking at the, the balance there of, of support and or challenge and, and how much is that individual willing to be challenged in that particular moment once they’ve given you that debrief information. And then I think if, you know, you can manage to deepen the relationship and build a strong enough rapport and a bridge there, then you’re able to par back and go, I hear you and I, and I, I respect that.

But I’m gonna challenge you on this point, if I may, I think we’re missing this from this conversation at the moment, or I think I, I’ve heard, or I’ve seen, or actually I watched the video back of your, of your game. Would it be fair to say this and, and, and then just, and you’re starting to throw out some of the magic that an individual will then I think come at you with, but I think invariably, again, as a mental coach, uh, a skills coach, whatever, I think you’re constantly floating between the balance of challenge and support.

You know, with, you take the blue pill, the red pill today, and I think invariably, I always think it’s, it’s the art. It’s, it’s just a constant balance that you’re playing with, right? Where you recognize that it can’t always be figure pointing and it can’t always be arm wrapping, you know, arm around the shoulders, so to speak.

There needs to be invariably enough challenge for people to feel vulnerable enough to be honest enough to then dig deeper and, and come combat it a different way next time or, or try better next time, whatever it might be in a certain space. But, and I think, you know, going back to your previous question about confidence, I think that can derive confidence massively as well.

And again, it plays into the notion that success is a team and individuals, top individuals or what, you know, seldom performers have to share. They have to be able to disseminate information and reprogram and, and to, to be able to improve how that machine’s gonna move the next time else you probably stand to get the same, similar or same sort of results when you’re back in the pressure cooker.

Oh, oh, it’s, wow. We should be charge, you know, what we’re gonna charge for this podcast. So thank you for your payment to go through for, for those who wish we’re getting paid. I, I don’t know. I, we ba the price keeps going up, I’ll be honest with you. But, um, I really, really love, I’m absolutely enjoying this, uh, this session with you.

There. There’s just so many amazing topics, you know, and you start to realize there’s so many layers to it. And, and it’s funny, you know, you talk about like, challenge and, you know, Uh, challenge versus threat. If you look at something as a challenge, you get excited. You look at it as a threat, you activate the sympathetic nervous system.

It’s like even just that simple frame is important. You had mentioned the word balance. You think about the word balance, it’s like, It is there, there’s so many words that aren’t sexy, you know, like synaptic goggles or synaptic reflective, like, that’s sexy, that’s hot. Like, you know, like, I might even just get ’em just to be a better podcaster.

Right? So, um, you get more views, mate, for sure. Yeah. But, um, it, it’s interesting how, you know, it, it’s like a version of shiny object syndrome, right? It’s like everyone wants the latest, the greatest, right? But then it’s like you go back to the fundamentals. It’s like the fundamentals. You cannot get away from them.

I always say what you focus on expands. What’s your self-awareness? How coachable are you? Um, even just the po the one thing that you said there was so much, I’m just trying to extract and like bring back to the surface some of the great things that you just covered. Um, questions, the power of questions.

And you know what? You said that I really, really loved you in a, I think this is exactly how you said it. Um, Would it be fair for me to say, or would it be fair for me to think? I love that. I don’t know if you’ve watched, have you bumped into Alex Hermo or no? Yes. Okay. Because that, the second you said that, I just pictured Alex Hermo because I say something on my sales, I understood my sales calls that I do it.

And I try not to laugh because to me it lightens me up. And it’s funny, and he’s the one that kind of taught, taught me this is, is you say, um, so John, you know, now that we’ve gone over the program, we’ve gone over the price. Um, tell you what, I’m gonna send you a link right now. We’re gonna sound, uh, we’re, I’m gonna have you sign, uh, sign up.

Sound good. Like that like little thing, like sound good at the end. I always say that at the end because that was something he taught me. But it, you start to realize the power of that. Um, I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s, it’s like a question and it’s. You’re, you’re not demanding, you’re not telling.

Mm-hmm. You’re not activating the ego. Mm-hmm. But you’re actually asking someone for like a buy-in. You’re asking someone like asking for acceptance. I, I call it. Yeah. I like that. Oh, that’s what it is. That’s the word. Uh, I would love if, I mean, do you have any more you’d like to add to that? Because it’s such a, uh, comfortable, effective way, especially if someone works with an, uh, a new athlete or someone with a strong ego or resistance to coaching.

Mm-hmm. Is there anything else that you could add or expand upon that topic? I don’t. Sure. I think it, I think that’s it before I think it comes under the umbrella of psychological safety. You know, whether we’re talking about, you know, a sales call, which. For the person trying, you know, let’s face it, you, the person who is trying to sell is trying to drive a sale.

The objective is to sell. And whether or not that person on the either end of the call is ready or not to receive the sale, there’s a sales pitch coming your way and a point of, of, of clothes that says, are we buying today or not? And there’s, you know, in, in sales cultures, I think there is, there’s an appetite for getting somebody to close that sale now because you’ve got somebody on the call that maybe is, we’re, we’re going into sales here, but there is, let’s say you’ve got an ideal client on the call.

You’ve got somebody that might be emotionally invested. They’re certainly emotionally available right now to have a conversation about something. And our job, of course, is to help people with marketing or sales to make decisions based on the information that we give them. And therefore, the, the, the relay of that information of the exchange is making sure that one is disseminate that level that an individual can understand, they can process and they can, they can accept it’s relatable.

Hopefully you’ve given information in a way that is aligned with what their goal or their need is. So you are trying to speak to their interest or mastery, so to speak, and then you’re delivering in a way that’s sympathetic that speaks to their problem, their need, or you’re trying to fix a solution with, Hey.

So I think that, you know, the way that we’ve talked about this part of the program really would set up well for you. And actually I’ve got some examples of where I’ve got other individuals doing this or they’ve been where you are and here’s where they are now. And then once you’ve kind of delivered that information, you’re trying to draw them to.

So are there any more objections for that? You know, it’s not a thing to say, but you’re trying to figure out, are there any more objections on the table that we haven’t spoken about that may or may not feel you leaving? Like this is the absolute right program for. And then of course we’re trying to close.

Um, I was on a, a group call recently and, and they’re almost ruthless with making sure that that close comes before the call finishes. Oh, really? Yeah. And, and, and the, I guess the human in me, the empathetic person in me thinks, ah, if you’re good enough, if they like you enough, if they felt it was a value enough, they’ll come back and they’ll say yes.

And some people, people just, sometimes people just want space and time to go, let me just process that and then say, yes. Other towns, some individuals, sure, they just do need a nudge and they’re on the fence. And maybe a salmon Sinek would call it, they are a later adopter, so to speak. And they, they do need a bit more obvious facts and evidence to arrive at a point where they do make a decision.

But, um, I think as the stats go, I think 3% of people are ready to buy from you. Right. So ultimately our job through all various touchpoints before they get to a call, is to overcome a, a aversions or obstructions right to buy from you. And then you’re looking to close that sales process in the very same way that I’m delivering information to try and get somebody, as you gave the example, to bench press better, or to actually figure out that actually today that barbell press is better for you than the dumbbell press that you’ve been doing for the last eight weeks, because we think they’ll offer more value for these reasons.

Does that make sense? Are you on board with that? Are you happy with that? Do you wanna give it a try for just one set? Fantastic. Let’s, let’s go and do it. So you, I think you’re constantly nudging people down that that line of, of, you know, knocking down aversions to getting acceptance, to building relatedness and then hopefully there’s enough proof to deliver the result at the.

Yeah. And I love how this conversation naturally went in a direction I was gonna intentionally bring it, but you start to realize that all of this is seamless. You know, because here we are talking about sales that we just kind of seamlessly transition into it. But it went from a topic of buying in, getting your athlete to buy into an exercise, buy into a new device, buy into an activation, uh, process.

Mm-hmm. And so you start to realize that a lot of what you do is, is getting people to buy in because if they don’t and there’s resistance, um, that’s gonna be the toughest thing. And I, even when I coach different lessons on my end or different topics, um, I, I tend to find myself more often as my career develops, uh, asking people, you know, where is your, where, where do you feel resistance right now for this?

Like, what, where, where is, and, and instead of asking them, cuz it’s even just the way you ask a question, right? If I say, um, John, I’d like you to do X, Y, and Z. Is there any resistance to this? No. No, no, no, no, no. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, I’m gonna ask that question differently now. So you just said no three, four times.

Now I’m gonna say, John, if I told you that there’s usually resistance amongst many people when I cover this subject, where would you say the resistance for you would be to buy into this? Mm, yeah. Now all of a sudden, you’re giving me a different answer cuz now you’ve stopped for a second, and of course your chin goes up and you look up and you say, you know, There was one thing you said that I don’t know if I agree with Hello.

And so just even the way you ask questions is so interesting as whether it’s a performance coach, a mental coach, uh, a salesperson. Mm-hmm. Uh, ceo, E O C T O, it doesn’t matter. You know, it’s interesting, um, how that whole thing works. Mm-hmm. So I wanted, I wanted to ask you this cuz this is something I I didn’t know about you and I wanna move towards the business side because I, we, we, we went there and I wanted to go there and I think it’s a great topic.

Um, cuz we’re both coaches and, uh, it’s an interesting world that we live in. And, and I, you know, I know some of the coaches that do what I do and I know people have asked me for tips and advice and I, I find that people. Tend to undersell themselves and they tend to undervalue themselves and um, they price themselves accordingly.

And I would say that yeah, you could probably build a multi-million dollar business, tens of millions of dollars if you could just figure out. How to get people to charge what they are worth without allowing their self-worth to factor into it. And then you get 10%, you’d probably be a billionaire actually.

Um, why do you think, why do you think as coaches we tend to undervalue ourselves? And why do you think we have such an addiction to charging for time? Which I’d rather die. I would rather die. Even, I would even medieval death. I’m talking torture. Arms come off like I picture the train. No, not even, not even a straight off the head with a sword.

You just, you don’t wanna get tortured. No. Right. Yeah. I want to get tortured. I wouldn’t mind if there’s a good looking princess and a really cool outfit in front of me. To at least soften the mood a little bit. But I’d rather get tortured than pay than, than do the trade for time thing. Matter of fact, I used to be an eye doctor and I realized, I’m like, I am trading for time and there’s a limit to my time.

Right, right. Which means there’s a limit to my income and it doesn’t even mean that I need a lot of money. It’s just I don’t like the concept. I don’t like it. So we’d love to hear the, your two thoughts on one training time for money. Why do we as coaches get sucked into that, uh, choosing time more than, than maybe like a monthly retainer.

Mm-hmm. And then also, um, why do you think we tend to undercharge in general? Gosh, you’ve mentioned a lot of hot points, but look, I think incredibly appropriate because, um, I think the very na, the very nature of the kind of graduate steps that we go through as we go from being a junior, like let’s say a voluntary, but then to eventually a junior and assistant coach is that you’re doing a lot of yards.

There’s a lot of hard yards, there’s a lot of unseen hours. You know, even, even your, I dunno, a coach, I certainly never had an experience alone where you didn’t have a contract that says you are contracted to X number of hours, but you always just worked more. And that was just the way that it was. And it was almost like an eyebrow raise or a bit of a smirk in the room when you’re signing it and going, listen John, you know, it’s, it says 40 hours here, but we’re all doing around 60.

You know, it’s just the way that it is around here. And you’re like, okay, I dunno if you go sign it. And I guess they’re just the conditions that you, you, you agree to, but before you know it, that accepted practice becomes the norm and it becomes the baseline that you think, this is how things are done around here and this is the what sport values and people value me showing up and giving time, endless amounts of time.

I’ll also power that and say that, look, you, you definitely can’t become skilled or a masterful, you know, um, uh, operator in any space or any field. I don’t think if you’re, if you haven’t amassed enough evidence through hours of developing your craft. Absolutely. So I don’t think anyone’s saying, For a second, that hard work isn’t important and putting in the time isn’t important.

Absolutely it is. However, when it comes to the economics of considering what your time is worth in a landscape that’s a wash with, you know, other service providers, coaches, people selling the same thing that you are trying to sell, trying to stand out in a credit market is vital to your bank balance.

And if you can’t, and if you can’t, you know, articulate what your value is, which is based on, like you said, your perception of what your value stands for, you’re gonna have a problem and you’re gonna just divert to the mean like, you know, so many coaches, I used to mentor a few coaches when we had lockdown at first.

And at that point everyone, you know, was panicking. And unfortunately I’d started to do some remote stuff at the time, but not a. And everyone’s like, God, how am I gonna work online with my clients? I’ve got no equipment wall at homes. I need, I need to get some money in the door. I’ve got bills to pay. And immediately people tried to shift their models online and then had a problem, which was, we don’t know how to do this.

Nor at least to speak and entice, you know, more coaches online for me. I couldn’t agree more with you. I’m not selling. If I can avoid to time for money, I, well, one of the texts I quite like here, I, I relate to quite a lot is, um, the book called Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiosaki. You’ve probably come across it, um, and uh, actually I gave it to.

When I left my last full-time pro sport role in football, I get it. I gave it to all my assistants and said, this has changed the way that I look at at Money and finance. Now do with it what you will, but here’s a gift to you take that. The ones that read it since left quite quickly as well. And so that was quite a trend.

But you, but you quickly figure out that actually the older you get, the more that your own time and freedom becomes all the more important. Because you know, like as people have families, I’ve got three young children now, and honestly the minute my firstborn came along like a light switch, it wasn’t a conscious plan, but I went from a state of mind that was my career is my beloved asset.

Selfishly if I had a wife at that point as well. Um, and it went overnight to the point that naturally now the career is the primary family, a family asset. This is if my wife’s not gonna work, this is important. And how we do this and build this thing out is going to, you know, determine what kind of lifestyle that we have essentially.

So then you recognize that just selling time for money is a bit of a false end because there’s only so much time, and time is your most finite resource. So you have to think outside the box about leveraging what time you can into what projects may bring about certain, certain, you know, opportunities or revenues outside of just the money that I spend right now in front of you.

So I think, like the comment you made, I don’t sell hours, I don’t sell sessions. I sell packages because in a package you can layer up the value of, of, of an n of one to, okay, I’m charging this based on not just the time that you’re gonna get so mad, but on my, um, experience, the qualifications that I’ve accrued thus far.

Um, the, uh, I used to run this off this, the qualifications, the skills. The, um, results, the, the results that I’m guaranteed to get you, uh, the, the, all these software bits that I’m gonna use with you. Cuz you’re gonna have this app and you’re gonna report through this and your ability to access me 24 7, or at least promise that you’ll get a reply within 24 hours.

Your ability to pick up the phone, a lot of these and, and the preparation time that goes into building this product for you and delivering this product to you. All the unseen things that are gonna deliver success for you when we get to that hour that we spend together all the time that I show up for you and you have that conversation with me.

All those things, all those factors are determined by all this quality asset that I’ve just poured into this package for you. Hence, it’s worth this. And then I think, um, you know, if you can start from a point of view that ultimately just feel a little bit stressful as a, as a younger coach who’s just starting out online for the first time, if you can come at it from a place that says, right, how I, how do I stand up against all those factors that we just mentioned there?

If I’ve got some standout skills or qualities, or if I’ve gone out and got this distinguishable qualification, or if I have this unique experience and insight on this particular take that will enable me to do business differently and you know, get someone the result faster or less painfully, or do it more efficiently or do it less, uh, or, or cheaper potentially, then I can probably acquire a certain pocket of the niche that will speak to me based on those terms.

You know, the other thing there as well is that having a proof of concept isn’t just writing a program and selling it a hundred times online because there are endless coaches doing that. And ultimately if you’re, if you’re looking to become financially free in something, there has to be a point of difference.

That means you stand out to the masses and if that’s selling commodity products, then, then, then fine, so be it. It might also be selling premium products. I mean, for me, I probably run a model, which is commodity. There’s an aspect of things that are more cheap, but they’re certainly not intensive on my time.

But then equally, there are things at the end of the spectrum that are more premium, that invest large amounts of my time, but because of that time for money impact, I’m going to weigh up. Suddenly this is gonna cost a little bit more for that individual. And that’s, that’s the way that this, this scale falls here because I need to leverage time and money within my business.

But, um, for me, absolutely, it’s become, it’s become a mission to be less active in a lot of things and, and try to over time acquire assets or people that enable me to leverage and deliver value. Um, I like how you say leverage. You know what’s interesting too? And have you found this? I, I find this extremely fascinating.

Um, when you talk about like perceived value and how it relates to the effort that an athlete will place into a program. So for example, I’ll bet you if we did a study where we charge someone $500 per month for a program and then we charge them $5,000 per month for a program, um, same exact program. Um, and I’m wondering if you would agree with this.

I feel from my experience, the people that pay more, take it more serious, show up more often, show up, ready to do the work mm-hmm. More than they normally would. And if I had to guess, I would say it’s at least a 25% pump in the amount of effort and focus energy and attention that’s placed in because the value is there.

You know, I mean, if I’ve got a $250,000 car in my driveway, I’m gonna park it a little better. I’m gonna park it, I’m gonna clean a little bit more. But I’ve got my $6,500 Mercedes, which I do have outside. It’s not clean. Uh, I probably didn’t park it as straight as I would’ve if it were a little more expensive.

So do you feel that there’s also a function of, um, the more you charge, the more an athlete is going to take things serious? A hundred percent every single time. And, and I, and I think, look, When you do start out in business, invariably you do, you do charge to a point where you think it’s gonna be more affordable.

Some more people can say yes, and I think that’s very natural because we’ve all got bills to pay and we’ve got, we’ve got a need to bring an amount of money in the door, and frankly, it makes us feel like we’re doing some worth and, and it speaks to our motivation to keep going. But eventually you recognize that, okay, I did undercharge here and now three or six months in this individual’s got some results.

Maybe they’re a little bit high maintenance as well. And then suddenly you’re starting to question the, the value that you started at and before you know it, you’re increasingly your price as well of our a hundred percent inflation. And someone’s going, what? Hang on a minute, what do you, sorry, that’s a bit of a jump, isn’t it?

And obviously you start to reflect and, and, and I’ve made those mistakes early doors. Invariably when you start to charge a little bit more. I think what it does is it speaks to an individual who, as an objection, is thinking less actively about money and more about is this person just gonna deliver the result or not?

That’s incredibly important to me for these reasons. Um, and so I think for sure, I think if you use as, as a, you know, a dials on a wheel, if you use price as one of your points to speak to Anish or, um, get somebody to say yes, absolutely it can, it can draw in two very different characters with very different agendas about what they feel is important to them for their settings or needs.

So yeah, I think it does play a really, really important role. And equally, when I have charged a bit more and people have come on board and said, yes, they don’t tend to be that high maintenance, or if they are, you don’t mind riding the rollercoaster so much because. You’re being paid, frankly, quite a lot of money to endure that.

So, you know, um, it, it plays both ways. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so interesting. And it was funny. I, I have a story that I completely forgot about that you just, I don’t know how it triggered in my mind, but I have a, a small YouTube channel, like under, uh, a couple, but one of ’em is under, like, at the time it was probably like 1200, uh, subs.

But I get really, I’m very well ranked online for how to lower expectations. I have a really, I have a couple really good videos. One of my best is how to lower your expectations. So Nice. I get a comment on YouTube. And I was like, uh, this woman asked a question. She’s like, well, you know, could you go into more detail?

I’m like, yeah, I’ll go into more detail. Why don’t you just gimme a call? Right. I was, and it was so funny. I had no desire to sell. No. I was just like, this is some random person from God knows what country. I don’t know who they are. I don’t even know if they speak English. They’re type in English. Yeah, they probably speak English.

And so this person calls me, we start having a conversation. Now, mind you, I’m a mental performance coach for professional athletes, is what I usually go by. So different sports, but mostly predominantly, uh, motor sports. So anyways, this woman’s getting married and she’s, uh, as I’m listening to her, I’m like, wow, like I’m really good at what she’s really not good at.

I’m like, I can really help her. And then it went from me giving free advice, um, to this woman getting married. And by the way, the place she was getting married at. It was like a fortress. It was like, I mean, it had to be a half a million dollar wedding. So I just said, you know, at the time I just threw out a number and I said, you know what?

It’s gonna be two months. And I gave a number, it was several thousand dollars. It was not cheap. Um, and I said, yeah, if you want, I said, your wedding’s two weeks away, uh, two months away. I said, what makes my program unique? We talk about unique value propositions. Mm-hmm. I said, what makes my program very unique, and I don’t know anyone that does it my way, is I do voice messages that are convenient with my athletes every single day, just for a quick check-in because instead of talking to you for 45 minutes to an hour and rescheduling, I want this to be convenient, and I want you to know that I’m on demand of sorts.

Not that I have my phone on me every second, but you know, you’re gonna get a response same day, maybe even within 10 minutes or an hour. So it’s nice to have that comfort of knowing and she’s like, oh my God, that would, that’s exactly what I need. She’s like, send over the link. Send over the link, signed up.

So I went from free advice to making, uh, I don’t care, five grand. Amazing. And, uh, so it was just, it was absolutely fascinating to me. You never know where those leads are gonna go. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And you know what, I also, and, and I don’t know if you’ve paid attention to this word, this is a word, and I, I find myself getting fascinated by words and then deep diving on them.

And so I think the reason why. Thought was, she felt the vibe of confidence, but more so not confidence but conviction. And I think that there’s a difference. And I think if you’re a sales, if you’re selling anything, cuz you are always selling something. I mean, if you’re swiping, even if you’re swiping right on Tinder, you’re still selling.

Yeah. Like I to sell, you’re trying to sell the idea of someone that just swiped on you to come over your house at 1230 in the morning on a Saturday night and they’ve never even met you. Like, you know, you’re telling us too much of yourself now, Jack ke same, same, same woman for seven years. But back in the day, I will say that I did have a program for that.

I did have a script. But anyways, um, and it, and it was successful. I did, I did get some slices of pizza delivered really late night at no cost night to me. So it worked out great. Yeah, yeah. And so, but um, what’s interesting is you start to realize that conviction, yeah, the word conviction is really interesting.

So for example, if I said to you, You’re an athlete, you call me and you go, well, Jay, like, as we wrap up this call, like, do you really think you can help me? Yeah. No, I mean, honestly, I, I mean, yeah. All right. That’s one version, John. I am the guy. Do what? Wait, what? Like, that’s all, that’s a whole different thing.

It’s like you’re the guy. Absolutely. Yeah. Wait, wait, you’re the guy. Like, yeah, I’m the guy. Like, I’m the man. Like, you know, like that’s conviction. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you think about how many people they do the, they do the former version, you know, it’s chin goes down, they look to the right. Well, you know, yeah.

I mean, it, you start to realize that conviction, not just in a sales process, but also just even how you deliver a program to someone, even if it’s an athlete you worked with for a year, you know, it’s like, Hey, we’re gonna try this new, um, product, this snap the glasses and, you know, we’ll, you know, we’ll see if it works.

What. John. What’d you just say to me? Mm. We are gonna use these, and when you see what happens, oh, you wait and see. All right, dude, can we do it now? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, and so it’s not even just what you say, it’s how you say it. It’s the questions you ask, the frame, you have the energy and vibe, the physical presentation that you have.

You know, me being like this, doing a podcast with you, where if you’re listening right now, my shoulders are hunched and all that. That’s like the classic Tony Robbins thing. Mm-hmm. He’s like, well, put your shoulders back. All everyone chin up. Yeah. Great smile. How do you feel? You’re like, great. It’s true though.

It does work out. Absolutely. It’s contagious. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because you realize it goes both ways, right? Like if I’m low on confidence and I just like sent a car into a wall, I, my chin’s down. I’m slouched, I’m walking slow, my eyes are tracking left and right now, all of a sudden, if I put a, a car on the podium, it’s like I’m puffed out a little bit.

It’s like, you know, I’m taking in like, I’m only like letting out like 5% of my carbon diox and I’m try to keep as much air into me cuz I’m puffed and I’m walking and I got a little bit of a swagger. I look borderline like John Travolta. And, you know, and you start to realize it works both ways. You can, and I, you know, cause people can’t stand when you say fake it till you make it, but, but if your body is in a position that yields an emotion.

Mm-hmm. What a, what a hack that is. Absolutely. But um, absolutely as we, as we wrap things up, so just yeah. Kind of went off on that topic, but, um, wanted to ask you this question. This is the one that I keep wanting to ask you and I forget. Um, is your training through Hinsta performance or do you work for them?

Do you have your own business? I, I’m not sure where you’re at with that. I tried to figure it out. Yeah, no, that’s a good question. No, so I, yeah, I consult, uh, an amount of time to hints of performance. Um, and that’s where the Motorsport sits. So, you know, tho those guys will come through. Come to hinter and go, right, we have a demand for work.

And then they’ll attach a coach as relevant to that, to that requirement. So that’s what that does. But um, yeah, outside of that, I run my own business called Newnan Performance. And this is where the whole, you know, which that port ad thing goes. So, you know, if you will, I’m looking at the, the hint performance work that the consulting is, the out and out consulting pocket that sits there, and the other area that maybe sits into employment or passive income is, right.

What am I doing in my business to, to tickle those boxes a little bit as well. And also try and maybe look at the asset, the, the investment part of that equation as well. So you’re trying to, you sort of spread, putting your exit number of baskets, but. Again, leveraging opportunity financially that, that comes at you from different angles.

But, um, yeah, outside of Hint, so I work with a range of elite athletes and corporate individuals as well, because, you know, those guys wanna not just be physically fit and healthy, but they wanna perform in the boardroom and do so successfully for a very long time. So it’s, it’s, it’s varied, but yeah, I, I run a series of either in person or online packages to suit different, uh, performance needs, basically.

Yeah. And I thought it was really interesting as I was going through and doing my due diligence on researching you, I bumped into several times, you know, like the career driven decision making, and I was like, Ooh. Oh, okay. I like that. Yeah. What, um, tell me more about that. Like how I, I mean, are you doing like physical training?

Are you, like, is that like a hybrid program? What, what exactly does that look like? Yeah, essentially it was looking to speak to, um, coaches of, of, of any level, any stage of experience that are looking to distinguish themselves as, as. As coaches who firstly make decisions aligned with their passions and their interests.

And look, I I, I went through a journey at different stages of my career where I was still trying to, to write certain wrongs that I had or needs that I wanted by thinking, this job will fix that. I think I’ll go there, or I’ll try that role. And invariably it wouldn’t always, because maybe I made decisions that weren’t necessarily aligned with the things that really fulfilled me or got me, got me highly excited about an opportunity or, you know, excited about going to work every single day.

Um, so I kind of, I, I broke, I broke the habit, if you like, and the minute that I, I found a lot more fulfillment in, in what I do and, and why I do what I do is because I started to work with people more. On terms that it inspired me. So, you know, for me it’s all about working with the right people, the right projects, and the right environments.

And I think once you do that, the work that you do already is exciting, it’s fulfilling, but there’s a huge amount of return that’ll come at you from all areas be that, you know, um, financial health or happiness or whatever, whatever it might be, really. So the premise of of that was to, um, encourage coaches to go through a decision making framework that would firstly establish what it is that you want, what it is that you’re looking for, and then look to consider where your best, um, attributes or skills might align with potential opportunities that then are gonna be far more congruent with what it is that you seek fulfillment or derive enjoyment.

As far as your career goes, can we make more decisions aligned with that concept? So it was, um, it was initially like a, a, a PDF product that people could take online. And, and I think, I think we’re in a really interesting space right now as, as coaches. I think that the message, uh, and concept for balancing health, wealth, happiness with your career is a lot more on vogue.

It’s a lot more discussed. However, I think that as, um, as certainly, maybe I can speak to more because of a background, but physical preparation practitioners go, we aren’t willing to part with our cash financially. To necessarily discuss how we make decisions about, about employment, I think, so to speak. I think we either go that way or that we go that way and we pay the price and we learn and then we iterate from there.

Um, and so it was, it was kind of an extension from, from some mentoring that I was doing with coaches and, and a concept with a, with another colleague of mine at the time. But, um, yeah, I think, I think interesting and relevant, not the least for, you know, what we’re talking about when you’re thinking about the transition from employment to self-employment and how you make decisions aligned with what, what really is your purpose?

Cause I think that’s quite a, it’s quite a precarious ground to make, to make choices on. Yeah. You know, one thing that I think that you might find interesting that I want to share with you is I just was invited into, uh, I live in Connecticut and the United States we’re between Boston and New York. And so, um, we’re kind of like the place you stop for gas, uh, c cigarettes and, you know, like a, a pedia light if you’re an athlete.

Right, right, right. So otherwise, just no reason to be here. Um, but I shouldn’t say that. I, I, I have a beautiful, I mean, I live on a beautiful property with, you know, rolling mountains in a state forest and, uh, bear that goes through my garbage every morning. So it’s, it’s cool. But, um, what was interesting is a part of this group that I got invited to here in Connecticut is some of like the top business owners in the area.

And they, one of the two of the guys recommended me because they’re like, Hey, we’re trying to add some diversity to the group. So I came in as, you know, just a mental performance coach. Cause I also do mindset for. Basically anyone, you know, whether you’re getting married and stressed, uh, apparently, um, you know, in a, in a multitude of other things.

But what was interesting is I made a acquaintance, I met a guy who was fascinating. So get this what he does, the business that he’s working on creating. And I think, and once he told me and I got to know him, I’m like, I just want to hear you talk about your business. Is he used to be, he’s a retired undercover investigator, like the guy who would go like undercover, you know, and he is like sitting in this straight and he’s got the burly beard and he looks kind of thra like cuz he doesn’t look clean.

Cut. He looks naar. He looks gnarly. Yeah. Uh, if you saw him on the street and he said, Hey, you know, you wanna buy some stuff, like, you all due respect, like he, he fits that role where you buy in pretty quick. Mm-hmm. But anyways, so he’s really, really good at human behavior and interrogating people and getting people to either say things that they think they don’t wanna say or say things in a way that reveal, like Hughes.

So what he is working on is a program that is for HR where he can be in a room with like five or six of your candidates and he just has like all these ridiculously fascinating things like addicting, fascinating things that he does, like even little things for him. Hey, what? Who’s that out there? Like weird stuff that you could, you could never in a million years create this in your own head where he’d be like, Hey, look out that window.

What is that? And like, just the way someone reacts to that, he gets intel. But anyways, he’s coming up with a way to find out like who you should hire based on his very unique, we talk about unique value proposition. Nobody’s got this. And, uh, Uses that to help, uh, HR companies make better decisions. So I thought Very cool.

Li li little off tangent, but I know when you talked about HR that Yeah. That, that kind of got me fired up. But, um, so, so I know as we’re kind of wrapping things up here, um, let’s wrap things up with like one question that I wanted to kind of hear from you and then we’ll, we’ll, uh, we’ll break ways and hopefully we can do this again.

Because honestly, I think anyone that’s gotten to this point is gonna realize that this is not just us asking you like, oh, hey, so what’s got you started now? I don’t wanna, what got you started? I want to know what got you to, you know, the win last weekend? You know, that’s the kind of, I go right for the good stuff.

Cool. Um, but would love to hear, uh, where do you think things are going? Like, what’s like the next thing that you’re either just starting to be curious about or just starting to explore or maybe even haven’t explored hit, but you feel as on its way when it comes to sports performance. Cool. What a question that is.

You blow the doors open with that one, I think. Um, oh gosh. I mean, I mean the, you know, the whole, you know, as we talked about before with it, with it, with the glasses, I think motorsport, you know, when you’re looking at what are the divisions in, in great and exceptional performers and those that can do that perfectly again and again, I think you do invariably, if you’re curious enough, start to ask the questions about what’s the unique point of difference there?

How do we drive continual improvements in performance and what we know, what are the margins that, that we can consider here that are different from the norm, from the average in, you know, in motorsport, you know, as a background, as a physical preparation coach. There’s an amount of, of physical prep, strength, fitness that for sure will have an influence.

I mean, you’ve got to be fit enough, first of all to drive a car for, you know, an F1 for two hours at 80% of your max heart written and holding there, like, these guys are fit. But making somebody necessarily fitter by 5%, 10%, potentially more lofty, isn’t gonna put somebody on the podium. It makes you fit enough to compete but not fit enough to win.

And then I think, you know, there there’s, there’s, there’s two things I’ll bridge it on really. But the, the things that I think hold the most value in, in continual performance that evolves over time is for sure the mental, it’s understanding mindset and how to hijacks, hijack. A crappy word to use, but how to hijack in any situation to then get yourself into the right state of mind for the right performance.

Arousal for the right, you know, execution. And then with that bridge, because I think the visual system is a really untapped space, particularly in, you know, sportswear, visual depth perception, reaction, time, acuity, proprioception is incredibly important. It’s the lesser trained of the components that I think guys like me, performance coaches are invariably looking at.

I think we’re doing soft little pieces around the edges, but I don’t, cuz it’s very difficult to measure, to train, to impact, to, to know that you are adapting and. Improving. I think invariably that in the next decade or two decades will be a space that definitely scientifically we start to understand a lot more about, and there are more rudimentary, you know, training interventions that we can use.

And I think right now folks like m are, uh, are probing and testing and playing with things like that, with the stroke glasses, with, you know, what we can do in that space. But I think for sure, I think that will be a growing, a growing interest in, in the field of performance sports. No, I love it. Yeah. And dude, thank you so much.

There’s, this has been great. I really appreciate your time. I’ve enjoyed it. Uh, yeah, I, I feel like you and I are more on this same, same way wavelength than I had even originally anticipated. So really wanna thank you for that. Thanks for sharing like, some really good knowledge too. Like you unleashed a lot of even questions for myself.

You know, I think that there’s things that I’m gonna explore and, and, and revisit. You know, you start to realize that. Um, sometimes you, you know, you could read a book, you know, you could read, you know, think and Grow Rich or you know, Robert Kiyosaki’s book. Mm-hmm. And if you read it, but then you read it, let’s say six months later, you’re at a different point in your life.

Yeah. You’re gonna see and hear different things. And so I think what was interesting and valuable to me personally in this podcast was there’s a lot of things that you talked about that I think I need to revisit and just explore more because, you know, I always say that if I expect my athletes or if I push my athletes to be their best, well I’m gonna do the same.

And so, uh, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. And, uh, if anyone wants to hire you for what you are worth, um, how can they find you and reach out to you? Um, you can reach out to me. Uh, well, you know, I guess social media, I’m knocking around as John Newnan coach is the handle there on email. You can get me a john@noonanperformance.com.

Uh, for those who don’t spell Nunan so well, most don’t is N O N A N. Um, it’s Irish, but I, I’ve, I don’t, as far as I know, got any Irish descendants in, in the, in the family. But yeah, you, you can, you can probably grab me on there to be honest with you. Um, or maybe, maybe message you first cuz you could be my sales pitch before I then get to the next.

So, you know, we could try that avenue as well. Oh, for sure. And thanks for your time. I’ve enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely. I thank you so much and uh, we’ll talk soon. Thanks John. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thanks having me on.