Strong Mind

Hazel and Angus tackle the intricacies of performance psychology for climbers. They explore strategies to manage performance anxiety and highlight the elusive flow state. Listeners learn how to set goals without the burden of expectations, and discover techniques to harness mindset as a powerful tool for climbing success. Insights into balancing mental and physical training offer a holistic approach to the sport. Plus, there's a discussion on social pressures faced in climbing, making this a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their performance.

Join Aldo Kane, a former Royal Marine and elite safety consultant, and Matt Pycroft, an adventure filmmaker, as they tackle the evolving definition of masculinity in today's world. They discuss the importance of vulnerability and emotional strength for men, particularly in male-dominated spaces like climbing and the military. The duo shares insights on teaching emotional resilience to young boys, the role of fathers in modeling vulnerability, and the impact of social media on men's mental health. This candid conversation aims to redefine masculine ideals while promoting open dialogue about emotions.

Shauna Coxsey is one of the most decorated climbers of her generation, but this conversation goes far beyond competition results. We explore her journey through high-performance sport, injury, identity, mental health, and motherhood. Shauna shares her experiences with anxiety, disordered eating, and the often unseen challenges of life as a professional athlete, including supporting her husband through depression, being dropped by her main sponsor and coming back postpartum. It’s an honest and thoughtful conversation about values, positivity, life-philosophy, vulnerability, and what it means to stay true to yourself, on and off the wall.Check out our free mindset workbook and guided reflection here.If you want to join our Thought of the week, follow this linkMental health helpline for your country findahelpine.comTimestamps:00:02:22 - Hazel’s take on some of the themes in the conversation 00:04:27 - Shauna’s climbing beginnings00:08:27 - Choosing the path of a professional athlete00:14:14 - Are you naturally competitive?00:15:39 - Balancing personal motivation in competition00:20:18 - When winning isn’t enough00:26:40 - Shauna's doubts about competition climbing00:28:16 - Injuries and the body’s messages00:32:07 - The Olympic mindset00:38:10 - The tension between performance and well-being00:40:56 - Speaking out about mental health on social media00:51:06 - Shauna and Ned’s story and relationship00:58:24 - Struggles with depression and anxiety and sharing these topics publicly01:05:07 - Managing anxiety today01:11:04 - Mental health perspectives and real life01:20:19 - Eating disorders in climbing01:36:36 - Motherhood01:45:32 - Adidas dropping Shauna

In this episode, I sit down with Barbara Zangler ( Babsi) and Jacopo Larcher to learn more about their ascent of Freerider on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. They both shared the same goal of flashing the route, however, only Babsi managed to achieve this, making her the first person to have ever flashed El Capitain. Hearing the story from both sides was interesting and unique. We discuss their motivations for climbing this route, what the road to get there looked like and what they both learned from the experience.There is a movie about their ascents on the Black Diamond website, you can follow this link to check it out! Link to video If you want to join our Thought of the week, follow this link.We also have a free performance psychology webinair you can sign up for today, just follow this link.- Timestamps - 00:00:00 - Intro and updates.00:06:24 - When did you both decide to commit your lives 100% to climbing?00:14:53 - Partnership and their climbing journey.00:21:27 - Strategic approach to climbing throughout the year.00:24:10 - Struggles of the first time climbing in Yosemite.00:34:04 - When did flashing freerider become a goal for you?00:41:25 - Did this goal have more meaning to you compared to others?00:48:46- How did you manage the pressure?00:54:15 - Jacopo’s fall on the boulder problem.00:57:25 - Babsi’s flow experience on the boulder problem.01:01:10 - Jacopo on supporting Babsi and managing his emotions after he failed.01:06:34 - Jacopo’s inner critic vs. practising self-kindness.01:09:50 - Babsi’s reflections after the climb.01:14:46 - Is happiness tied to achievement?01:19:27 - What lessons have you both learned from this journey?

WARNING - we do talk about eating disorders in this podcast. In this episode, Hazel speaks with Emily Harrington about her life as a professional climber from when she was a kid competing to now as a mother herself. We talk about how she started climbing and how she fell into competition climbing. We talk about her struggles with having an eating disorder at a young age but how she recovered from it and how she thinks about it now. We talk about how she's stayed motivated throughout her climbing career and how she's managed performance anxiety and stress around big goals. We also talk about social media and external pressure. Then we finally talk about motherhood, how she's taken to motherhood so far and how she thinks about risk as a mother.

In this episode, I speak with Africa Brooke. Africa is a consultant, coach, strategist, and speaker with a unique focus: tackling self-sabotage and self-censorship. We talk about Africa’s path to working in this field, from her childhood in Zimbabwe and her journey with recovering from alcoholism. We talk about how to rebuild confidence, self-worth and self-trust even when you feel ashamed of things you’ve done in your past. We talk about taking personal responsibility and the difference between being a victim and victimhood. We talked about why self-censorship is such an important personal and social phenomenon right now and how insidious it is within the human psyche. We talk about social and emotional risk and the cost to self-trust when we lose our authenticity. Africa works with visible people in the public eye but I think that self-sabotage and self-censorship show up in all of us in different ways and each of us could learn a lot from this conversation.

In this episode, Hazel speaks with Allison Vest about her struggles and progress with mental training in climbing. They talk about how she found competitions hard psychologically and how some of those struggles have carried over to outdoor bouldering which is her main focus. They talk about the gains she's made with her mindset recently and the work she still has left to do. They talk about her recent sends and the psychological tools she used for those sends. They talk about how to balance the desire for the outcome with being focused on optimal performance in the moment. Join our new online course Performance Hacks: https://go.strongmindclimbing.com/performancehacks

The conversation dives into leveraging mental training to enhance performance, particularly in climbing. Key topics include the power of visualization and self-reflection in optimizing physical skills. They discuss the concept of flow and the significance of a strong mindset for achieving peak performance. Insights into a comprehensive climbing performance course reveal its inclusive design, integrating mental techniques for climbers of all levels. Additionally, there's excitement for an upcoming performance psychology course, offering structured support for personal growth.

Dr. Michael Melnychuk, a neuroscientist and climber, discusses his research on brain plasticity and the relationship between breath and brain activity. Dr. Sundar Balasubramanian, a cell biology researcher, specializes in breathing exercises and their impact on well-being. The podcast explores the benefits of breathing practices, the convergence of Eastern and Western traditions, and the physiological, cognitive, and emotional benefits of meditation and breathwork.

Lor Sabourin is a professional climber, mental training coach, and Training Leader for the Warrior’s Way, an organization that uses climbing-based mental training to optimize performance and improve mental health. Lor’s work is trauma-informed and they have just finished a Masters's degree in mental health counselling with an emphasis on somatic therapy and adventure-based counselling. Hazel and Lor cover many areas with the main focus being mental training and Lor's work. They cover psychological risk, trauma, working with trauma and somatic therapy, resilience (and how climbing fosters resilience), how they define success in climbing and how we can change what success means to us, how to manage failure, self-worth, and self-love among many other topics.