The 7 Skills to impress™
The 7 Skills to impress™
“Not today, inner bitch”: why naming the voice in your head makes it easier to ignore. One morning in September 2020, Joe Rogan posted this on Instagram: “My inner bitch put up a hell of a fight today. All sorts of convincing arguments about enjoying the morning and just drinking coffee and relaxing instead of…
England’s defeat shows how protecting what you’ve got often costs you what you wanted. Fifty-five minutes into the 2026 World Cup semi-final in Atlanta, Anthony Gordon put England 1-0 up against Argentina. It was no more than they deserved. England had pressed high from the first whistle, won their duels, and played with the sort…
Decoding what their language reveals about success under pressure Linda Noskova won the first set of the Wimbledon final 6-2 and led 5-2 in the second. Serving for the title at 5-3, she double-faulted twice, her only two double faults of the set. Five championship points came and went. Karolina Muchova took the set 7-5,…
The hidden force behind high and low performance. Why we lose momentum and how to get it back Have you ever wondered why, on some days, everything seems to come easily, while on others the simplest things suddenly feel awkward? A pass you’ve played a thousand times goes astray. Words that would normally come effortlessly…
The hidden psychology of football’s most divisive pundit. A player who was a client at the time told me something about Roy Keane that I’ve never forgotten. Roy was the assistant manager for the team, and, just before half-time, they were in trouble. A teammate underhit his pass back to the goalkeeper, the opposition striker…
Why the world’s best player can look unbeatable one week and unravel the next. At the 2026 Roland Garros, Aryna Sabalenka was in complete control. She had won the first set 6-3, broken Diana Shnaider twice in the second, and led 4-1. The match was, to all appearances, over. Then she lost the next ten…
‘It’s OK to be not OK’ was, for a while, a useful thing to say. Then it became a social media caption, a formula people reach for out of habit rather than thought. That’s the point at which phrases stop doing work and start doing damage. Nothing that follows is an argument against what the…
Ranking World Cup managers by the inspirational quality of their language Most football pundits judge managers by tactics, style of play or results. My focus is on a different quality altogether. For thirty years I worked in high-pressure environments, from firearms operations to hostage and siege negotiations, before coaching senior executives and elite athletes. I…
How to turn your body’s stress response into a performance and health asset Maya checked her watch twenty minutes before the board presentation. Her fitness tracker showed her heart rate was up. She already knew she was stressed, and seeing it confirmed didn’t exactly help. She’d been preparing for three weeks and knew her material….
The Science of What Is. The Art of What Could Be. A Premier League academy striker had gone weeks without scoring. The club’s coaching staff had worked hard on the problem, going back through videos of his movement, his positioning, his technique, finding things to correct and working on them in training. They had been…