THE INVICTUS PROJECT

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to go and talk to a group of around 100 students in a school in north-east London. They listened to me ramble on who I was, what I did and the problems I solve and what my aspirations where. Following this, they got to fire questions to me. Some great questions came from the students. Why do you do what you do? I think everyone has the potential to be world class in something. The limiting factor is them. I saw how much I limited myself from

I've been lucky enough to work with some exceptional individuals and teams over the years. We were conditioned to keep it all help together especially when under pressure. I figured out how much more valuable this was when I wasn't an athlete. I was fortunate enough to watch the GB rowing national senior trials a few weeks ago and it was a flash back for me, a great perspective to watch how the athletes performed mentally as well as physically. It's easy to think we have th

The last week at the Olympics has been utterly amazing. Lots of success for those who knew they were good enough to win and a lot of upset for those where things didn't quite go to plan. So how special are the Olympians? They are exceptional people, what they have done to get to this level is commit, discipline themselves through the highs and lows, strive always to be better. Most of all they build the best versions of themselves that will do the best job on the day when i

So what is it? It is the ability to recognise our own feelings and others. Then knowing how to use that information best to guide your thinking and behavior. All human beings are easily influenced by emotions. We love it when things are going well and feel like we can take over the world. Equally on the other end of the scale when times are challenging or deemed to be stressful, emotionally we will act and behave another way. One emotion makes you feel that you can take ove

I find it amusing writing about this now as I teach it to my students. It wasn't something that was taught to us even at the highest level of sport. I guess it was expected, although only having it just in sport is dangerous as it's extremely useful for all aspects of life. Still leaving this to chance can create longer routes to get to success than necessary. We have the 2016 Rio games where a lot of my old teammates will be competing to become the Olympic Champions. What

Teenagers go through pretty rough patches in life. They are used to being dependent on parents from an early age and as they hit the teens parents struggle to let them become independent. However 99% of the time it's as clear as mud, where no one side understands the other. What we do during these years can heavily shape us as individuals for the future. Hanging out with "the crowd" or giving into peer pressure is a common trait. Spending more time worrying about what other