What I've Learned From Interviewing 100 People About Performance

I can’t believe it’s been three years and 100 episodes. It all started as a fascination with what makes high-performers tick. Having worked in sport for a sizeable chunk of my adult life, I knew it offered insights that can help all of us deliver what we are truly capable of, whatever it is we do. Through my husband Ben, I’d seen how, in elite sport, no stone is left unturned to find an advantage. What if the rest of us who aren’t elite athletes took the same approach in our own lives?

That became the ethos of the podcast really. We’ve had gold medal winners, world champions, all-time record holders, international captains, title-winning coaches, university professors, best-selling authors and serial entrepreneurs. People who have been there, got the T-shirt and then did it all over again with even more at stake the next time.

We came out punching with Barry and Eddie Hearn in episode 1, masters of trusting your own instincts and never listening to the naysayers, through to England and Lions fly-half Fin Smith at number 100 who reminded us how talent is nothing without work ethic and a hunger to improve. All have brought something unique to the table but it’s amazing how many themes and habits come up time and again. Here are a few that resonated with me:

There’s always a story, a reason, a theme that drives people on. This can come early in life with a setback that changes your life’s direction, as we saw when Tom Beahon was rejected from Tranmere Rovers and vowed almost immediately to forge his own path. The result is sportswear brand Castore that has taken on Nike and Adidas to become a global player.

This switch can also happen later, when you need to find another gear. Olympian Helen Glover stands out, refusing to stick to the script after having kids and coming back for one more Olympics in Paris because she ‘loves proving people wrong’. For performance coach Prof. Greg Whyte, finding your own why is fundamental in powering you towards your goals.

It’s a line that Aussie rugby great George Gregan delivered, but it’s backed up by countless guests, from 100m sprinter Zharnel Hughes to Premiership winner, Martin Keown, who transformed his approach to diet and supplementation under Arsene Wenger in order to find a new level and extend his career beyond the ‘usual’ expectations. The real gains are made with the preparation, the details, the extra sessions and the unglamorous habits, when no one is cajoling or cheering you on. Ultimately, it’s up to you.

Athletes know how fundamental good sleep and recovery is to how they perform, yet how many of us prioritise it like they do? And what might be possible if we did? For performance coaches Dr. Peter Tierney, Steve Magness and Chris Tombs, who have spent their life analysing and strategising peak performance, it’s the number one habit, affecting how athletes focus, think, feel, perform and execute under pressure. The science, of course, backs this up and from conversations with circadian neuroscientist, Professor Russell Foster, and sleep specialists like Anna West, I’ve come to realise that this is the most overlooked and yet accessible lesson we can take from sport.

When we see athletes living an enviable life at the top of their field, it’s so easy to assume from the outside that it’s come easy for them, that talent and opportunity put them on a smooth road to the top, that they don’t suffer the same doubts and fears. Of course, the opposite is true. So many guests have had to deal with fear and anxiety on their way through life. Surfer, Laura Crane, springs to mind as someone who had to reframe her fears when taking on giant waves for a living. Triathlete Beth Potter and double Olympic sailing champion Hannah Mills both discussed their crippling nerves before big races. In Beth’s case she can’t sleep at all before a race. But through changing her self-talk she found a way to live with these thoughts and became a World Champion in the process.

Yes, it’s a familiar theme precisely because it’s an approach that so many elite performers abide by. Obstacles will appear in your path. That’s a given. Do you use them or capitulate? The adversity Lewis Hamilton experienced on his path through motorsport became the fuel that drove him to become the most successful F1 driver of all-time. The health challenges Lewis Moody faced in his early career just became extra motivation because of how he chose to frame it. As Lewis puts it, “I kept getting the chance to overcome difficult things.” What better lesson for sport, and life, than that?

There are, of course, countless other lessons our guests have provided, but you’ll have to dig into the back episodes for those. The breadth and depth of stories we’ve accumulated just goes to confirm our original idea: sport has so much to teach us about life.

Why wouldn’t you want to listen to the people moving the dial? Here’s to another one hundred.

The ainslie + ainslie Performance People podcast applies insights from elite sport to everyday performance. New episodes every Tuesday.