Strong Mind

In this conversation with Mason Earle, a former pro-climber now navigating life with ME/CFS, the focus shifts to resilience and gratitude. Mason shares how chronic illness transformed his perspective on life, prompting reflections on suffering, identity, and the importance of mental health. He discusses the role of climbing in managing his condition, the impact on personal relationships, and the danger of toxic positivity. His journey highlights the necessity for empathy in conversations about health and the beauty of finding joy amid adversity.

In this episode, Hazel and Angus Kille chat about fear of falling. They talk about - what fear of falling is and discuss some nuances and misconceptions around it - how fear of falling holds back so many climbers - how many climbers have fear of falling and don't pay much attention to this fear as a limiting factor in their climbing - how culturally we've neglected to address this in the right ways - how easy it is to get fall practice wrong and how this has given fall practice a bad reputation - self-awareness as the missing ingredient to effective fall practice If you'd like to learn more about fear of falling join the waitlist for Strong Mind's upcoming course and we'll send you 6 free videos in fall practice training. GO.STRONGMINDCLIMBING.COM

In this episode, Hazel speaks with climber, ex-base jumper and all-round adventurer Tim Emmett. They talk about Tim's relationship with all the risky activities he gets up to and what attracts him to sports with consequences. They talk about the extra risks in base jumping and how he has justified those risks in the past. Tim talks about being ready to walk away and focusing on controlling every controllable. Then they talk about why he eventually gave up base jumping. They then spend the final portion of the podcast focusing on Tim's recent process of trying to climb his hardest sport route which he hasn't yet done. Tim has been sharing a lot about this journey on social media which has been really positive but it has also added external pressure. He talks about how he's managed that and how he's tried to stay positive despite having not done the route.

In this episode, Hazel speaks with race car driver coach Ross Bentley about how he uses psychological tools and strategies to help drivers perform at their best.

In this episode, Hazel and Angus speak with Emma Wood, one of the great minds working in the space of psychology in our community. We talk about sports psychology for competition, what we can all learn from how competitors manage their mindset and attention under pressure, problems with how we approach psychology in climbing, how our community could be better at educating, understanding and welcoming psychological concepts, why don't instructors and guides get any training around psychological concepts (?!) trying hard, effort and how this can be trained, winning mastery and competition and how to balance them all, process versus outcome, self-awareness and psychological tools to manage stress, fear and pressure and much more. Emma is always a joy to speak with and one of our most trusted thought leaders working in this space. If you're already a member please go to the members-only RSS feed to listen to the whole conversation. Head to https://www.strongmindclimbing.com/podcast to become a member!

In this episode, Hazel speaks with free-ride world champion Lorraine Huber about her journey to win. At first, Lorraine had a lot of anxiety around competing and focused all her attention on the podium. Through mental training and mindset shifts she learnt how to find flow and joy during competition and which enabled her to ski at her best. Lorraine is a true testament to how important the mind is in sport and also that we are all capable of training and changing our minds.

This is the first part of a long conversation with Aidan. We mostly focus on mastery, goals, motivation and direction in climbing. To access the second half of the conversation where we further explore mastery, discuss flow in bouldering and talk about how Aidan focuses become a Podcast Community Member at strongmindclimbing.com/podcast

Professional free diver Miguel Lozano discusses the challenges and dangers of freediving, managing risk, the similarities between freediving and climbing, mental training tools such as visualization and breathwork, achieving a flow state, and transferring mindset from freediving to other areas of life.

Hazel talks to Sue Jackson about flow, mindfulness and performance and how they all relate. Sue is a psychologist, researcher and mindfulness practitioner. She has a phD in flow and carried out the first in-depth qualitative investigation of the experience of flow by elite athletes. She studied under Csíkszentmihályi, who first coined the term flow and carried out the first research into flow as experienced by everyday people. Sue and Csíkszentmihályi wrote a book together called 'Flow in Sports' which was the first book addressing flow state in sport. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in climbing, sport and life in general. Check out strongmindclimbing.com for more information on our coaching, online course and upcoming membership programme.