A New Way of Being

Why relationships are the key to success in sport and life, with former England captain Will Carling. Will was appointed captain aged just 22 and led England to their first ever rugby World Cup final in 1991. As well as reaching that World Cup final- England won three Grand Slams in the 90s under Will, and were undoubtedly the northern hemisphere’s best team during that period. The theme of this conversation is relationships, in life and sport, which Will says are more important than 'success'. Will also talks about why leadership is all about having the best interests of your team at heart, emphasises the importance of continuous honest conversations, and explains why hitting rock bottom, as he did after retiring from his playing career, can be a blessing in disguise. MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-mundie-89379114/And for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast.Thank you.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a lot to be said for truly empathetic leadership, where caring for and taking an interest in the individual comes first. Not only does this create an environment in which people can flourish, it makes winning and success more likely. And my guest this week, Ama Agbeze, undoubtedly proved that to be the case, when she led England to their greatest netball triumph – a historic Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2018.The Commonwealth Games is the pinnacle competition in netball, because currently the sport is not part of the summer Olympics. Team England’s victory in 2018 was their first gold medal in the competition – and was the undoubted all-time highlight for the sport in this country. How did Ama capytain the team to triumph? We talk about the importance of valuing individuals within a team set up, and Ama also shares insights such as the impact on her life and mental health when she was unexpectedly dropped from the team the following year. And Ama’s emotional intelligence doesn’t just shine on court – she does some amazing work off it, too, in her role as an ambassador for Greenhouse Sports, the charity that uses sport to help disadvantaged young people. In this episode:The importance of valuing individuals within a team set upEmpathy and sincere complimentsSport as a great leveller"If you work hard anything is possible”The key mentors in Ama's life – and what she took from themMaking your own mind up about people, not accepting pre-conceptionsSuccess is not a straight lineThe importance of beliefRemembering people are just people – and taking them off pedestalsManaging voices of doubtImportance of a support networkThe journey is more important than the medalLearning that it is ok to be vulnerableThe power of time management & prioritisingGreenhouse Sports - Changing lives Through Sport: https://www.greenhousesports.org/**MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-mundie-89379114/And for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast.Thank you.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would you like to know some tips for succeeding under pressure from someone who was one of the best in the business?Sir Nick Faldo is Britain’s greatest ever golfer – a six times major winner who spent 97 weeks as world number one in his pomp.During our full length conversation – I asked him about one of his strategies for success, which came down to being able to... slow down.**MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/Email: info@simonmundie.comAnd for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast. Much obliged.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We tend to believe happiness is found when we accumulate money, success and status – but that’s actually wide of the mark. According to one of the pre-eminent happiness scientists in the world, real joy is found by tapping into the transformative power of Awe.Dacher Keltner is a bestselling author and psychology professor at the University of California. Twenty years into teaching people about happiness, he is on a mission to reveal the secrets of the good life. He has found that experiencing a sense of awe leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others, while also becoming more modest, and less narcissistic. In a nutshell – It’s not about aggrandising our sense of self – it’s about transcending it.But what is awe and how do we get more of it in our lives? You’re about to find out.Dacher's 8 'wonders of life' and ways into awe: the moral beauty, nature, collective movement, music, visual design, spirituality, big ideas, and the cycle of life and death. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dame Heather Rabbatts trained as a barrister – but that barely gets her CV started. She’s also been a BBC Governor, the youngest-ever Chief Executive of Merton and Lambeth Councils, Head of Education at Channel 4, a Director of the Bank of England, a Board Member of the UK Film Council, and deputy chair of Millwall FC – and that’s just to name a few.I wanted to ask her about getting ahead in big organisations and businesses – and she gave her take on that before speaking about retaining humility as you rise the ranks – as was so masterfully personified by Nelson Mandella, who she met while working in Lambeth.***MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/Email: info@simonmundie.comAnd for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast. Much obliged.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best".As many of you know, the topic of flow and its deeper implications are subjects I have spoken about on many occasions in this podcast – and in today’s episode we dive into what is a fascinating area. Steven Kotler is a New York Times best-selling author and executive director of the Flow Research Collective.Steven has spent decades exploring flow and working out ways for people – from elite athletes and Navy seals through to your everyday man and woman – to hack their way into 'the zone'. As well as being about flow and how to get in to it, this episode is also about peak ageing and performance, and is full of actionable insights, tips and hacks.In this episode we discuss:How the feats of extreme athletes in the 90s informed Steven's decades of work on FlowHow Flow is a trillion dollar industry - we pay to watch it and love to experience itFlow underpins peak performance - and peak ageingWhy accessing Flow is so crucial as we age (think inflammation & stress and Flow's direct anti-ageing properties)How Flow can increase the speed of learning by as much as 500%Flow & releasing the 5 Potent Reward chemicalsSteven's Peak Performance ageing experimentThe Four Stage Cycle of getting into FlowDeliberate Practice v Deliberate PlayUnderstanding Allostatic Load - the cumulative burden of stress & life eventsHow to do a Flow WalkFriction that gets in the way of FlowUnderstanding Flow TriggersThe Flow Research Collective: https://www.flowresearchcollective.com/Steven's website & book Gnar Country 'Growing Old, Staying Rad': https://www.stevenkotler.com/book-pages/gnar-country**MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/And for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast.Thank you.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What the experience of flow - particularly in sport - may reveal about the nature of reality. One theme that has arisen time and again while recording this podcast is the experience of flow, and numerous athletes in particular have spoken about the experience of "me" not being there in such moments. But what is that "me" that seems to disappear? That’s a big question and here to help address it is Rupert Spira, a philosopher interested in the nature of reality, the nature of consciousness - and non-duality.This is a rerelease of the episode Rupert and I recorded in 2021 - the full 2 hour episode can be found here:https://www.simonmundie.com/blog/rupert-spira-a-philosophy-of-sport-and-reality"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." - Max Planck, the Nobel prize winning Physicist and 'father of quantum theory'MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-mundie-89379114/And for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Understanding the cost of fear and how to face and replace it - with the former England football psychologist, who was credited with helping transform the team at the 2018 World Cup. Pippa explains the difference between 'in the moment fear', and 'not good enough fear', and it's the latter that is the focus of this conversation and which is lurking behind many of our self-defeating behaviours.MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-mundie-89379114/And for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The ability to hack our health could be right inside us. That’s the view of Wim Hof - aka the iceman.Among other things, he has run marathons barefoot beyond the polar circle as well as climbing through the "death zone" of Mt. Everest in only his shorts. He puts his achievements down to the Wim Hof Method – which has three components, cold exposure, breathing techniques and meditation.Wim speaks about the importance of tapping into your inner pharmacy – and putting ourselves into stressful situations consciously – by using cold, water for example – to make us more robust and resilient. Continually seeking comfort is gradually killing us – he says, so go to the stress, before the stress comes to you.**MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/Email: info@simonmundie.comAnd for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast. Much obliged.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would you like a proven pattern to tackle your most ambitious and challenging plans? Whatever it is you would like to do – whether it is starting a business, running a marathon or transforming a school – this episode is for you.My guest in Sir Michael Barber, whose career has straddled the world of elite sport and government. Since joining the government in 1997, he has advised 7 of the last 8 Prime Ministers – the exception being Liz Truss. In the world of sport, Michael has advised Team Sky, the elite cycling team, and he is a member of the Football Association's Technical Advisory Board, which helps the FA prepare England’s teams, both men and women, for major tournaments.Michael has written a book called Accomplishment, and we discuss some of the key themes in this episode, so that you can immediately start applying them in your own life. In this episode we discuss:-         The value of setting an irrationally big goal underpinned by values-         A powerful thought experiment used by Tony Blair to understand what is truly possible-         How to develop focus in an age of distraction & why it is crucial-         The key elements to building a plan-         Planning mustn’t stop action. How do you know when you have done enough?-         What to do when things go wrong-         How to build relationships & the art of negotiation-         Managing an ‘implementation dip’-         Recognising that ‘success’ isn’t all its cracked up to beSir Michael Barber's website: https://sirmichaelbarber.co.uk/Michael's book Accomplishment: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314538/accomplishment-by-barber-michael/9780141991276**MyTwitter: https://twitter.com/simonmundieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonmundie/And for the 'Mundie on Monday' newsletter - featuring three of the best Life Lessons from four years and 200 of these conversations - head to simonmundie.com (where you can also drop me an email)Please do share this episode - it makes a big difference in helping people find this podcast.Thank you.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.