Performance Intelligence
Performance Intelligence is a podcast about unlocking human potential in everyday life. Hosted by mental skills and leadership coach Andrew May, it features conversations with experts from various fields. Each episode explores practical ways to improve performance, resilience, and well-being. The show aims to help listeners find an edge in work and daily life.
Episodes
The Surprising Mental Skills Behind a #1 Rock Star | Marcus Bridge (Northlane)
Before you go looking for your next big idea, go back to your last great one.Marcus Bridge was four months into fronting Northlane when the band recorded Node. It went to #1 and won an ARIA, but a decade on he’d outgrown the singer on that record, so he went back into the studio and sang it again.A rock star might seem an unlikely teacher for a leader. But Marcus has spent 10 years doing
Bite Size: What a Performance Psychologist Got Wrong About His Own Life | Dr Michael Gervais
There is a phrase elite performers use to keep people at a distance without ever saying so directly: don't look at me, look at my performance. Dr Michael Gervais, the sport psychologist behind some of the NFL's most recognised teams and a trusted voice inside Super Bowl-winning locker rooms, built an entire career on that idea before he noticed what it was costing him somewhere much close
The Science of Neurotransmitters: 5 Chemicals Every Leader Must Understand | Dr Tom Buckley
Much of what leaders put down to stress, or to a lapse in discipline, is chemistry at work. Andrew chose five of these moments, drew a real scenario from our coaching practice for each, and asked an expert to identify the neurotransmitter behind it, without warning.Play along. One scenario is the board presentation that keeps replaying long after midnight. Another is the leader whose driv
Bite Size: Why “My Door’s Always Open” Isn’t Enough | Keegan Hipgrave
Most leaders have said it. My door’s always open. Far fewer realise their team is watching whether they ever walk through a door themselves. Former NRL player Keegan Hipgrave was the teammate everyone could talk to, the one pushing mates to open up inside a macho dressing room, and later the host of his own mental health podcast. Yet for 8 years, he kept the loss of one of his best mates
198 Culture Expert: How Leaders Measure, Own, and Fix the Culture They Inherited | Karl Treacher
If culture’s in HR, it’s in foster care. Karl Treacher has spent 25 years inside boardrooms, including the war room of a big four bank during the Royal Commission, and he has watched leaders hand culture to the one department that was never meant to own it. Engagement scores can look healthy while the culture underneath is quietly turning toxic, and the board is often the last to know.Kar
Bite Size: The Hidden Cost of a High Performing ADHD Brain | Lindy Hadges
Lost jobs. Bankruptcy. Marriages that did not survive. Unmanaged ADHD can leave a trail most of us never see, because the risk-taking that looks like drive on the outside is fed by the same low dopamine that quietly pulls a life apart. Lindy Hadges maps the layers sitting beneath the label, and makes the case that you cannot work with ADHD until you understand what is actually holding it
197 How a CEO Built Leadership Capacity + Created a Ripple Effect in His Entire Team | Byron Cannon
You’re exceptional at your job. That isn’t the problem. The skills, the experience, the judgement, you’ve spent years building those and they aren’t going anywhere.The question is whether you’ve still got the capacity to use them. Enough in the tank for the project that matters. Something left for the people at home afterwards. The momentum to get where you told everyone you were going.An
Bite Size: Stop Promoting Your Best Performer Into Leadership | Lisa Alexander
Ask Lisa Alexander who the best coaches she has known were, and almost none of them were the best players. Alexander spent a decade running the Australian Diamonds netball team to an 81 per cent win rate, one of the most dominant coaching records in Australian sport, and she names the pattern directly: serial winning coaches are rarely elite players themselves. The reason has nothing to d
Bite Size: How To Coach a Client Through the Worst Year of Their Life | Nam Baldwin
Divorce at the start of the year. A great white shark attack, live on television, in the middle of it. The death of his eldest brother at the end. That was 2015 for professional surfer Mick Fanning. Performance coach Nam Baldwin, who has worked with world champions across multiple sports, was in his corner for all of it. Baldwin says the conventional playbook for elite athletes, push thro
Bite Size: Why Win-At-All-Costs Doesn't Survive Contact With Business | Michael Klim
Olympic gold medallist, Michael Klim, explains why the mentality that won him 17 years of world records nearly destroyed his life after retirement. Michael took the same win-at-all-costs approach into business: redeye flights, fourteen-hour days, no off switch, and it cost him his relationship, his mental health, and eventually his body.You can find Michael at his TGI Sport Profile: https
Bite Size: What Creatine Actually Does to a Desk-Bound Brain | Dr Tom Buckley
Creatine has spent decades filed under gym supplements, something for building muscle and nothing else. Dr Tom Buckley says that filing is out of date. A recent meta-analysis found measurable improvements in memory, attention and processing speed among people taking creatine, distinct from any effect on strength or size. Buckley, who has spent his career researching human performance, is
Bite Size: The Weeks You're Allowed to Just Survive | Andrew May & Angela Poon
Most productivity systems quietly punish you for a bad week. Andrew May's Better Week framework budgets for them. The target is 25 to 30 genuinely good weeks a year, a number most high performers find uncomfortably low, which leaves room for the stretches when everything lands at once. He walks Angela Poon, Performance Intelligence COO, through the maths. What he calls the rest of the yea
Bite Size: The Skill Sport Teaches That Leaves You Lonely | Stuart Clark & Steve Rixon
Years of touring teach cricketers to be very comfortable in their own company. Coffee when you want it, lunch when you want it, a day built entirely around you. Former Test wicketkeeper Steve Rixon argues the skill cuts both ways: it protects you on the road, then quietly isolates you once the career ends and the kids leave home. Former Test fast bowler Stuart Clark has already had to wor
Bite Size: How to Step Down Without Screwing It Up | Michael Bungay Stanier
Most people who benefit from the status quo work hard to keep it. Michael Bungay Stanier, Rhodes Scholar and bestselling author of The Coaching Habit, says it was built for him, and decided to spend some of that advantage. First through curiosity and humour, the quieter tools for shifting who holds power in a room. Then through the harder move: stepping down as CEO of Box of Crayons, the
196 The Science of Mental Fitness: Why Movement is Non-Negotiable | Dr John Ratey
A professor at Harvard and MIT wrecked his knee and stopped running the 7.5 miles he ran every night of his adult life. 5 months later he could not finish his own work. He was losing the thread in conversations, forgetting things he had never forgotten, and getting angry in a way he did not recognise. He was convinced he had developed adult ADD in middle age.He hadn't. He had just stopped
Bite Size: The Simple Habit That Flattens Your Energy Crashes | Dr Amantha Imber
Most nutrition advice focuses on what you eat. Dr Amantha Imber, an organisational psychologist and author of The Health Habit, became more interested in what happens after you eat, and started wearing a continuous glucose monitor on herself to find out. The device tracks blood sugar in real time, and what she discovered about a specific ten-minute habit after meals surprised her enough t
195 Conflict Expert: What Swallowed Words Costs a High Performing Team | Tim Duggan
You have rehearsed it in the shower. You have written the message and deleted it. And every time the moment arrives, you find a reason it can wait until next quarter.That conversation is still making decisions for you. It decides who gets the promotion, which project quietly dies, and which good person leaves without ever telling you the real reason.Tim Duggan spent 3 years inside one que
Bite Size: The Two Steps That Stop a Player Throwing a Punch | Gilbert Enoka
A young player once told Gilbert Enoka that his advice was rubbish. On the field, when a referee makes a call he disagrees with, he wants to throw a punch, and no amount of mindset work was going to change that in the moment. Enoka, the All Blacks' mental skills coach for 23 years, did not argue the point. He gave the player a simple physical structure instead, and the player's own frustr
194 Performance Nutrition: Lessons From Special Ops + Elite Athletes for Everyday People | Jessica Spendlove
Elite athletes and Special Forces do not eat like you do....and the reason you fade in the afternoon is usually something you did that morning.Jessica Spendlove will tell you exactly what. She will also tell you what to eat when you have 4 minutes and no time to think, whether the supplements you bought are doing anything at all, and why she rarely recommends that a woman fast.Jessica is
Bite Size: You Are Almost Certainly Underestimating Yourself | Craig Harper
There is a gap between what you are capable of and what you are actually doing. Craig Harper has spent 40 years studying it. His view: the gap is not primarily a talent problem or a knowledge problem. It is a psychological one. Fear, the need to be right, poor self-awareness, and an unwillingness to tolerate discomfort are quietly capping the performance of people who are objectively skil
193 Mental Agility: Why it's so Important & How to Train it | Andrew May, Angela Poon, Jacqui Louder
Some people get sharper when the pressure lands. The meeting turns hostile, the plan collapses, the number comes in wrong, and they are still thinking clearly while everyone around them has gone quiet or gone hard.That is Mental Agility. The capacity to move between demands, tasks, roles and relationships while staying grounded and effective when conditions change. It is trainable, and it
Bite Size: A Debrief Won't Fix a Numb Team | Ex-SAS Soldier Harry Moffitt
A suicide bomber walked into a crowded local event in rural Afghanistan, and Harry Moffitt's small medical team spent the day treating the dead and dying. By the afternoon his unit sat in near silence, exhausted and numb. Moffitt, who spent close to three decades in Australia's Special Air Service, reached for the one thing he carried on every deployment for exactly this reason. What happ
192 We Have Misdiagnosed a Generation of Exhausted Leaders | Andrew May on DLTOMI
You're probably treating recovery as the reward for hard work, when elite sport treats it as part of the work.Andrew May has spent more than two decades coaching in sport and business, and Andrew thinks we have misdiagnosed a generation of exhausted leaders. Call it burnout and you go looking for rest. Andrew says the shortfall is usually capacity, and the first move is measuring it rathe
Bite Size: Forget Your Why. Start With How... | Keith Abraham
Most goal-setting advice starts with your why, the deep, soul-searching question everyone knows they're meant to answer but rarely do. Keith Abraham, one of the world's leading authorities on goal achievement, thinks that's exactly backwards, and too hard for anyone with a job and a diary.He starts somewhere else entirely, with a short list of feelings almost nobody names out loud before
191 Mental Skills that Saved the Only Person to have the #1 Radio Show in 2 Countries | Christian O'Connell
What do you do when the version of yourself that's winning is also the version that's breaking?You know the feeling, hitting every number, saying yes to everything, and still walking away from the day feeling like you performed it rather than lived it. Now imagine finding the exact moment that stopped working, and the one small shift that got you back.Most high performers don't burn out o
Bite Size: A Bad Day is a Jacket, Not an Identity | Rose Herceg (WPP President, AU/NZ)
Rose Herceg, President of WPP Australia and New Zealand, has a specific image she uses to stop a hard day turning into something bigger, something she thinks most people have lost the ability to do. Running a business of 2,500 people through a genuinely volatile industry, she has no shortage of bad days. What she refuses to do is let one bad day become a bad week, a bad month, or a story
190 The Science of Fasting & How to Use It for Sharper Thinking | Dr Tom Buckley
When did you last actually let yourself feel hungry? Not the "due for a snack" kind. Properly, deliberately hungry, on purpose. If you can't remember, you're not alone. Now imagine using that discomfort as a lever instead of avoiding it.Every reflexive snack, every meeting that runs straight into the next, every bite you take before your body even asks for it keeps you running on one sett
Bite Size: What a Great Coach Does When Your Confidence Is Gone | Jason McCartney
Most leaders try to restore a struggling performer's confidence with a pep talk. It almost never works. When Jason McCartney had written himself off, a coach did something far more deliberate, and it pulled him back from the edge of walking away. The approach is simple, repeatable, and the opposite of what most people reach for. You can find Jason at his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com
189 The "Why Not?" Mindset: How to Break Self-Imposed Limits | Matt Formston
What goes through your mind when you're trapped underwater by a 50-foot wave? For Matt Formston, it's not fear. It's making an omelette.After losing 97% of his vision at just 5 years old, Matt has become a Paralympian, world champion, world record holder, and the first blind athlete to conquer the legendary waves of Nazaré. But today isn't about the achievements...it's about the process b
Bite Size: The Embarrassing Habit Even Smart People Have | Andrew May on Healthed
"I know this." Andrew May hears it from some of the smartest people in the country, right before they admit they are doing none of it. The gap between what we know and what we do is not a willpower problem or a time problem, and treating it like one is exactly why nothing changes. He breaks down the difference between self-awareness and self-regulation, and the small, almost embarrassing
188 Producer of X Factor, Big Brother: How to Build Brands People Buy & Can't Ignore | Maz Farrelly
What do people say about you when you're not in the room? How are they introducing you, summing up your work, your professionalism, your brand? Now imagine you had control over that.Because here's the reality: you already have a brand. You're building it whether you like it or not, and right now it's either working for you or quietly costing you.Maz Farrelly has spent 30 years creating an
Bite Size: The Exercise Formula Was Never Designed for Women | Dr Paul Batman
Women achieve the same cardiovascular health benefits as men at roughly half the exercise volume. Yet the standard exercise guidelines prescribe identical amounts for both. Dr Paul Batman argues this is one example of a deeper problem: a fitness model built on incomplete data, applied to populations it was never designed to reach. Only 16 percent of people follow the conventional guidelin
187 The Science of Sleep High Performers Swear By, From Special Forces To CEOs | Dr Jemma King
The best performers in the world have found a competitive edge that's completely free. You can use it too, and it starts tonight.When Dr Jemma King put wearables on Australia's Special Forces in 2017, the culture was "sleep when I'm dead". Within months, those same soldiers were showing off their recovery scores and competing over who slept the most. Not because they went soft. Because th
Bite Size: Why Being Underestimated Might Be Your Greatest Asset | Nic White & James Slipper
Nic White played 77 test matches for the Wallabies. For most of that career, he felt like he was one bad game away from being dropped, one coach away from being told he was not in the plans. He was told exactly that in 2015. So he left. What he did next, and why he came back, says a great deal about what actually drives elite performance over the long haul. This is a conversation about th
Bite Size: Mental Rehearsal Is Not Mindset, It's Neuroscience | Andrew May
Jim Carrey wrote a cheque to himself for ten million dollars when he was a broke, unknown actor. Sara Blakely visualised a billion-dollar business and an Oprah appearance before either was remotely plausible. Easy to dismiss as coincidence. Harder to dismiss once you understand what an fMRI shows when a person runs a scenario in their mind. Andrew May breaks down the neuroscience behind w
Bite Size: ADHD It's Not Laziness, It's Low Dopamine | Lindy Hadges
Since the 1700s we have described this condition in the language of character. Lazy. Undisciplined. Careless. As recently as 2023, an Australian parliamentary inquiry heard the same words still follow people through their lives. Lindy Hadges explains why a condition that sits in the brain attracts shame that an identical shortfall in the pancreas never would, and what happens the moment s
Bite Size: He Ran His Recovery Like a Pre-Season | Jason McCartney
The first thing Jason McCartney asked for wasn't a doctor. It was a whiteboard. Badly injured and facing months in hospital, he didn't ask "why me?!". He set a goal, picked a deadline, and started working backwards, the same way he had for every season of his AFL career. What he learned about handling the moments that flatten everyone else is something most leaders never have to discover
Bite Size: You've Accepted a Lie About Getting Older | Craig Harper
There's a moment in your 50s when you start planning for decline instead of planning for growth. Craig Harper never had that moment. At 60+, he's more committed to his physical and mental performance than most 35-year-olds. This isn't about genetics or obsession. It's about asking a different question: what would I have to do differently to stay in the game? His answer might surprise you.
186 How to Access Flow State & Significantly Boost Performance | Dr Sue Jackson
Have you ever finished a presentation, race, meeting or performance and someone asked, "How did it go?" only to realise you can barely remember it? Not because you failed but because you were completely immersed.Dr Sue Jackson is one of the world's leading researchers on flow and co-authored the defining book on the subject alongside the man who first named it, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.Sue
Bite Size: Why a Psychophysiologist Thinks We're Treating Depression Wrong | Dr Paul Taylor
Most conversations about depression treatment start and end with medication. But what if that starting point is too narrow?Paul Taylor challenges a widely accepted assumption in mental health care that antidepressants are the primary or most effective solution for depression.What he argues is not simplistic and not anti-medication. It’s more uncomfortable than that: that for many people,
185 The Science of Ozempic and What Happens After You Stop | Dr Tom Buckley
Inside the venom of a desert lizard, scientists found a molecule that does something the diet industry spent 50 years failing to do. It quietly switches off hunger. That molecule is now the most talked about drug on the planet, and it's sitting in the fridges of millions of people who couldn't explain how it works if you paid them.Dr Tom Buckley, 30 years in medicine and a professor at Sy
Bite Size: How to Stay Hungry After Success | Dan Haesler (Mental Skills Coach Penrith Panthers)
Most teams spend their lives trying to reach the top. Very few have to answer the question of what happens when they get there.The Penrith Panthers have won 4 consecutive NRL premierships. In an era designed for parity, they've achieved something almost unheard of in modern sport. Which raises a fascinating challenge.How do you keep people motivated when they've already achieved the goal?
184 LIVE: The Mindset that Drives an AFL Premiership and a Full Career Reinvention | Kieren Jack
Talent gets you through the door. It does not keep you in the room, and it has almost nothing to do with what you become.Kieren Jack is proof. The last pick in the AFL rookie draft, too small and too slow on paper, he outworked every reason he should not have made it. Kieren played 256 games for the Sydney Swans, co-captained the club, won the 2012 premiership and earned a place in its Ha
Bite Size: The Survival Skill That Keeps Reporters Calm on Air | Ali Piotrowski
Ever lost your composure right when you needed it most? In a high-pressure moment, when everyone's watching and one wrong move costs you, most people freeze. This reporter learned to do the opposite.Seasoned news reporter, Ali Piotrowski breaks down the one skill that kept her sharp through war zones, Middle East conflict, and the chaos outside Trump's indictments: calm. Not the kind you'
183 The Question Nobody Asks High Performers: Who Motivates the Motivator? | Craig Harper
The kind of person who's been helping others perform better for 40 years doesn't usually admit they're struggling. Craig Harper did.His dad is in the hospital. The drive is five hours return. The calls from clients still come. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, one of Australia's most recognised performance coaches said something he'd never said publicly before.That he's lonely.Thi
Bite Size: The 8 Health Behaviours that add 26 Years to Your Life | Dr Tom Buckley
Could eight daily habits, locked in by 40, really add more than two decades to your life? The research says yes. And the habit at the top of the list is the one most senior leaders quietly deprioritise.If you want a clear, no fluff framework for long-term health and the small daily decisions that compound into decades, start here. You'll walk away knowing exactly where to focus, and what
182 Friendship, Footy, and What's Next? | Wallabies James Slipper & Nic White
How do you build a team where people will run through a wall for each other? Not metaphorically. Literally. James Slipper, the most capped Wallaby of all time. Nic White, the third most capped scrum half in Australian rugby history. Two men who've spent more time with each other than with their families, who've argued hard on the training paddock and sat next to each other every Tuesday t
Bite Size: What an Olympic Recovery Scientist Really Thinks of Your Fitness Tracker | Shona Halson
You've got more data on your body than any generation before you. Heart rate variability, readiness scores, recovery metrics. But are you actually recovering better? Dr Shona Halson is one of the world's leading recovery scientists. She's worked with Olympic athletes, elite sport, and high performers at every level. Her verdict on wearables is more nuanced than the marketing suggests, and
181 The Recovery Crisis Nobody Talks About: Doctors, Executives, & the Burnout Myth | Andrew May on Healthed
You know what you should be doing. More sleep. Better recovery. Less time running on empty. You have known it for years. So has every burned-out doctor, executive, and elite athlete Andrew May has ever worked with. The problem is not knowledge. It is the gap between knowing and doing. And most people are misdiagnosing the reason for that gap entirely.Andrew May is a Mental Skills and Lead
Bite Size: How to Get Present When Pressure Spikes | Dr Michael Gervais
Backstage. Heart hammering. Sweat beading. Every mental tool in the toolkit, breathing, self-talk, all of it, failed Dr Michael Gervais in real time.Michael is one of the world's leading performance psychologists and was moments away from presenting to the international body of sports psychologists. The researcher whose theory he was challenging was sitting in the front row. And he was fa
180 What Reality TV Gets Right About Human Behaviour that Business Gets so Wrong | Maz Farrelly (Producer X Factor & Big Brother)
Most people think they're pretty good at reading people. Maz Farrelly says they're not, including you. Maz has sat across from more than 20,000 people across 30 years of television production. Big Brother. X Factor. Celebrity Apprentice. She has watched people try to hide, perform, charm and deceive their way through a room. She knows exactly what they're doing.Maz shares what three decad
Bite Size: The Simple Science of Living Longer That Nobody Talks About | Dr Paul Batman
8 blokes showed up to help a mate with prostate cancer. They cleaned his house, mowed his lawn, scrubbed his kitchen. 3 hours of work. No gym. No program. No heart rate monitor.Dr Paul Batman ran the numbers afterwards and told them what they'd actually done. The equivalent of three five-hour marathons.Most of us have been thinking about movement the wrong way. We wait for the perfect wor
179 The Science of ADHD Part 2: What High Performers, Women & Kids Are Never Told About Their Brain | Lindy Hadges
Most conversations about ADHD stop at the diagnosis. This one goes further.ADHD expert, Lindy Hadges, gets specific across the three groups where ADHD is most misunderstood and most consequential: high performers in business and sport; women, who are being diagnosed in their mid-50s after decades of masking; and children, whose ADHD behaviours look very different at home than at school.Li
Bite Size: How to Redeploy Yourself Before AI Redeploys You | Andrea Clarke
A leader from one of Australia's biggest banks called Andrea Clarke with a problem. 5000 employees. 1 AI tool. 0 opens.Not one person had clicked the app.Andrea's response wasn't to talk about technology. It was to talk about fear. Because what that leader was really dealing with wasn't a training gap or a communication failure. It was something older and more fundamental: we are not wire
178 The Science of ADHD Part 1: What Nobody Told You About Dopamine, Focus & Performance | Lindy Hadges
You've probably heard the word ADHD more times than you can count. You might even use it yourself. But if someone asked you to explain what is actually happening in the brain of a person living with it, could you?Most people can't. And that gap, between the label and the reality, is where a lot of pain lives.Lindy Hadges is a Psychotherapist, ADHD expert, and board member of the ADHD Foun
Bite Size: The 3am Idea that Changed How the All Blacks Scrummage | Mike Cron
What does Deep Purple have to do with the All Blacks scrummaging better? More than you'd think.Mike Cron is one of the most successful rugby coaches in history. In this Bite Size, he tells the story of one of his strangest coaching ideas, where it came from, why it should not have worked, and why it did.Learn more about Mike here: https://www.mikecroncoaching.co.nz/
177 The Mindset Behind One of AFL's Most Remarkable Recoveries | Jason McCartney
October 12, 2002. AFL star Jason McCartney was on holiday in Bali. By the end of that night, 202 people were dead, and he had burns to 50% of his body. Most people with his injuries spend 3-4 months just getting out of hospital. Jason was back on the football field in 5 months.What got him there was not superhuman toughness. It was a specific set of skills, built through years of setbacks
Bite Size: Why the Most Prepared People Are Excited for the Storm | Psychologist Dr Lisa Martin
Nobody feels ready. Not elite athletes before competition. Not doctors before a high-stakes exam. Not leaders before the moment that defines them.Psychologist Lisa Martin has spent her career working with people at the edge of their performance. Her finding: readiness isn't a feeling you arrive at. It's a practice you build. The people who perform when it counts aren't calm because they'r
Bite Size: The Leadership Philosophy Behind a $50 Billion Business | Earl Evans
Some leaders grip everything. Others let it all slide. Earl Evans has spent decades building businesses that do neither.Earl is one of the most influential figures in Australian wealth management (CEO of Shaw and Partners) and one of the sharpest operational minds working in Australian business today. He thinks about leadership differently... and in this Bite Size, you'll hear exactly why
Bite Size: 2 Minute Mindfulness Reset for Better Performance | Andrew May
Think mindfulness needs 30 minutes, a meditation cushion, and complete silence? Think again. Andrew May is one of Australia's leading Mental Skills Coaches for elite sport and CEOs and takes you inside a his exclusive keynotes breaking down how mindfulness can be woven into your day in just moments.You’ll learn simple, practical ways to become more present while working, training, or movi
Bite Size: The Creatine Dosing Strategy That Actually Works | Dr Tom
Creatine is one of the most researched supplements in the world. Yet most people still ask the same question: how much should you actually take?Precision Medicine Expert, Dr Tom Buckley, explains the simple approach to creatine dosing that can help support strength, training adaptation, and performance.But just as important as knowing the dose is understanding when creatine might not be a
Bite Size: The 5 Big Rocks Strategy for a More Productive Week | Angela Poon & Andrew May
Most people start the week reacting. Meetings fill the calendar. Emails dictate the day. And before long, the most important things get squeezed out. But what if your week was designed differently?Mental Skills and Leadership Coach Andrew May and PQ Operations Lead, Angela Poon, share a simple concept they call the 5 Big Rocks: identifying the five priorities that truly matter and placing
176 How to Close the Gap Between Your Potential and Performance | Craig Harper
You know that quiet thought you have sometimes: I’m capable of more than this. Not more ideas. Not more knowledge. Just… more execution.That gap between what you know you could do and what you actually do? That’s where most people live. And it’s costing you energy, confidence, results.Craig Harper has spent decades watching high performers wrestle with this exact tension. The ones who mov
Bite Size: The Honest Conversation Every Head Coach Needs First | Aaron Walsh
Being a head coach can be one of the most exposed leadership roles in sport. Every decision is scrutinised. Every result is judged. And the pressure rarely switches off.That’s why the relationship between a head coach and the people supporting performance is so critical. Mental performance coach Aaron Walsh and performance strategist Andrew May explain why their first step with any team i
175 How to Stay Calm in the Chaos: Lessons From Live TV | Ali Piotrowski
When you turn your TV on in the morning, you see a reporter live on air. Calm voice. Clear sentences. Perfect composure. What you don’t see is the environment surrounding it: Breaking news. Conflicting information. A producer counting down in your ear. Millions watching while the story is still unfolding.For more than 16 years, Ali Piotrowski has operated inside that pressure. Reporting f
Bite Size: The Daily Grind Behind This Champion Ironman Success | Ali Day
From the outside, elite sport can look like glory, podiums and big moments. What most people don’t see is the relentless daily grind behind it.For champion ironman Ali Day, staying at the top isn’t built on occasional big efforts - it’s built on showing up every day when the body is tired and the mind is tested.The training is demanding. The pressure is constant. And the recovery has to b
174 Live Keynote: Why Most Professionals Mismanage Energy (And the Fix) | Andrew May
Most people don’t have a time problem. They have an energy problem.You wake up tired, grab coffee, check your phone, push through meetings, and crash by the end of the day wondering where your focus went. Sound familiar?Mental Skills and Leadership Coach Andrew May has spent decades working with elite athletes, CEOs and world-class teams. His biggest insight: the people who perform best a
Bite Size: The 3 Daily Pillars That Drive Elite Performance | Dan Abrahams
Most people assume high performance is complicated. More systems, more strategies, more information.But what if it actually came down to just three things?Performance psychologist Dan Abrahams believes the foundation of elite performance is built on three simple pillars: attention, intensity, and intent.When those three elements align, focus sharpens, energy rises, and performance lifts —
173 Fitness Snacks: The New Science of Movement to Meet Modern Day Demands | Dr Paul Batman
You snack all day. A quick scroll between meetings. Emails between tasks. A podcast in the car. Life now happens in fragments - small moments squeezed between everything else. Yet when it comes to fitness, most people still believe it requires a full hour, a gym, and a perfectly clear schedule.What if that idea is wrong?After more than 50 years in the fitness industry, Dr Paul Batman bega
Bite Size: Still “On” After Work? Here's How to Switch Off in 30 Seconds | Andrew May
Most leaders know how to ramp up for performance. Far fewer know how to switch off. Operating at full speed all day without deliberately down-regulating keeps the brain and body in a prolonged stress state - impairing decision-making, recovery and next-day performance.Andrew May (Mental Skills Coach to the Wallabies) explains why the ability to shift gears is a critical leadership skill,
172 The Hidden 10%: How Culture Unlocks High Performance | Aaron Walsh
A leadership team with top-tier talent, strong strategy, and capital behind it still misses targets. Engagement scores drift. Execution stalls. On paper, nothing is wrong. In reality, the environment is misaligned.That gap between capability and consistent performance is where culture either compounds results or quietly erodes them.Aaron Walsh, Head of Culture, Leadership and Mental Perfo
Bite Size: The Reality of Leading Australia’s Largest Bank + The Seesaw Of Ambivalence | Matt Comyn
Most people want the title of CEO but very few want the weight that comes with it. When you’re at the head of Australia’s largest bank, Commbank, there’s no hiding. No delegation of ultimate responsibility. Sometimes that means sitting alone at night reading a 600-page document because if your name is on it...you own it.In this Bite Size, Matt Comyn shares what leadership actually feels l
171 The Longevity Advantage & How to Live a 100 Year Life | Dr Tom Buckley
You don’t drift into longevity. You build it...or you erode it. Most people think living longer is about genetics or luck. The data says otherwise. Where you live matters. But what you do daily matters more.Mental Skills Coach, Andrew May, and Longevity Rsearcher Dr Tom Buckley break down what actually determines how long and how well you live.From blue zones to biological age, from the p
Bite Size: Train Your Nervous System Like an Olympian | Nam Baldwin
What if calm isn’t something you’re born with — but something you can train?When the pressure hits, most people try to think their way through it. But breathwork expert Nam Baldwin argues that high performance starts in the body. Calm is not a vague mindset or a lucky personality trait. It’s a physical and neurological state — and it’s the foundation that elite performers rely on when eve
170 The Art of Big Picture Thinking & How to Spot Opportunities Others Miss | Rose Herceg
Rose Herceg built her first business in her twenties. She’s led teams under pressure and shaped culture at the very top of Australian business. She takes risks most wouldn’t dare, spots opportunity where others see none, and somehow stays calm when everything is chaos. As President of WPP AUNZ, Rose Herceg sits at the helm of one of the most influential marketing and communications networ
Bite Size: What a Performance Psychologist Knows About Fear | Dr Scott Goldman
Fear isn’t weakness. It’s wiring. Your brain can’t tell the difference between a boardroom and a battlefield. A tough conversation can trigger the same survival response as a physical threat.Performance psychologist Dr Scott Goldman explains why so many of our fears are rooted in primal instincts — and why they feel so intense, even when our lives aren’t actually at risk.When you understa
169 The Science of Hardiness & Why Resilience Isn’t Enough | Dr Paul Taylor
Face challenges the way your toughest opponent would. Dr Paul Taylor, expert in hardiness, shows how hardiness isn’t just a trait - it’s a mindset, a practice, and a way to confront life’s most difficult moments. He shares how he approached open-heart surgery like going into battle, found mindfulness in a simple morning walk, and trains attention and resilience as essential life skills. P
Bite Size: How to Lead with Questions, Not Answers | Michael Bevan & Jake Trbojevic
The best coaches don’t always give answers. They ask questions that make you think differently about yourself, your game, and the moment you’re in.Aussie cricket legend, Michael Bevan, reflects on the coaching lessons he’s picked up over decades at the highest level — and why knowing what to ask, when to ask it, can be more powerful than any instruction. It’s a reminder that growth often
168 Training Readiness with Athletes & Business Professionals | Dr Lisa Martin
Pressure doesn’t arrive politely. It doesn’t wait for confidence. It shows up when something matters.For sports psychologist Dr Lisa Martin, the work isn’t about removing pressure or silencing the mind. It’s about understanding what happens when the moment tightens — and staying available rather than overwhelmed.Through her work with elite athletes, including Ironman champion Ali Day, she
Bite Size: What a Doctor Sees Behind the Scenes of Touring Life | Dr Bill Anseline
Life on tour looks glamorous from the outside. On the inside, it can be lonely, exhausting, and unforgiving.In this Bite Size from episode #154, Dr Bill Anseline shares why he built Hemisphere — a business designed to support touring musicians when their bodies and minds are under the most pressure.From the long nights to the constant travel, Dr Bill explains what artists really need on t
