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🎙 Endurance Capital | The System Is the Success with Chrissie Wellington OBE
Episode 8 • 20th June 2026 • Endurance Capital • Ignacio Garcia
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🎙 Welcome back to Endurance Capital.

Most people still believe the same lie about high performance:

that confidence must come before action.

This episode challenges that idea through the extraordinary career and perspective of Chrissie Wellington OBE — four-time IRONMAN World Champion and one of the most accomplished athletes endurance sport has produced.

Chrissie did not build her career through certainty alone.

She built a system.

A system grounded in purpose, preparation, feedback, health, recovery, environment, and the ability to adapt under pressure.

Then she kept learning.

She learned when to push.

When to stop.

Which limits should be challenged.

And which limits protect the foundations that make performance possible.

But what makes her story powerful is not only what she won.

It is the way she thinks about success today.

The medal is visible.

The system behind it is not.

This is not just a conversation about racing.

It is about confidence.

Purpose.

Limits.

Health.

Identity.

And what it takes to build performance that lasts.

In this episode, we explore:

  • Why confidence is built through action rather than certainty
  • Why the system is the real success
  • How purpose creates the foundation for sustained performance
  • Why consistency must be combined with agility
  • How internal and external feedback improve execution
  • The difference between psychological, developmental, and structural limits
  • How to know when to push and when to stop
  • Why health is the foundation of every performance system
  • How environment shapes what becomes possible
  • Why identity must remain larger than any single result
  • What success means beyond medals and trophies
  • Why sustained high performance is a process, not a destination
  • What founders, CEOs, investors, athletes, and leaders can learn from elite endurance sport

Featuring:

  • Chrissie Wellington OBE
  • Four-time IRONMAN World Champion
  • Former professional triathlete
  • Author of A Life Without Limits

Hosted by:

Ignacio Garcia

Founder, Trampoline Venture Partners

Host, Endurance Capital

Presented by Endurance Capital.

Endurance Capital sits at the intersection of endurance sport, longevity, founders, investors, and long-horizon decision-making.

It is a practical playbook for people building and backing durable things.

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you by GetStride.com

Stride helps you understand how your body is actually adapting, so your decisions around training, recovery, and performance are based on signal, not guesswork.

Visit GetStride.com and use code TRAMPOLINE for £100 off STRIDE1 and 30% off any other individual Stride tests or supplements.

Links:

Endurance Capital Substack: https://substack.com/@endurancecapitalhq?utm_source=user-menu

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@EnduranceCapitalHQ

Stride: https://www.getstride.com

Chrissie Wellington OBE - https://www.chrissiewellington.com

Disclaimer:

Endurance Capital is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this episode or accompanying materials should be construed as investment, legal, medical, training, or professional advice. Views expressed by guests are their own.

Editorial note:

This episode was produced from original interviews and source material and refined with the assistance of AI as an editorial tool. The ideas, conclusions, and final wording reflect my own judgment.

Transcripts

Speaker:

Welcome back to Endurance Capital.

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Today's episode is about something many people admire, but really too few understand

properly, and that's sustained high performance.

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Not one breakthrough, not one perfect day, not one exceptional result, but the system that

allows someone to perform at the highest level again and again.

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And in doing so, discover that their limits were further away.

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Than they once believed.

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My guest today is Chrissy Wellington, four-time Iron Man world champion, one of the most

extraordinary athletes Endurance Sport has ever seen.

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A woman who didn't just win.

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She built a way of performing that kept expanding what seemed possible.

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What makes this episode especially interesting is that it is not only about races, it is

about life.

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About the system behind top performance, about what sport can teach us about resilience,

structure, self-belief, and going beyond what we thought was possible to us.

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And about how those lessons apply just as much to founders, chief executives, and anyone

trying to build at a high level over a long period of time.

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So, the question today is this.

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How is sustained top performance possible?

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And what can bring high performance teach us about going beyond our limits in life and at

work?

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I'm Ignacio Garcia, early stage investor and endurance triathlet, and this is Endurance

Capital.

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Let's get into it.

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Hey, Chrissy.

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Welcome back to Endurance Capital.

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It's a real privilege to have you here.

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Um, your career is extraordinary, so thank you for joining us.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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Um, let's start um, you know, with my first question.

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When you look back now, what do you think really enabled your success, not just physically

but also as a as a system?

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You know, what were those foundations that allowed you to perform at the level for so

long?

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Yeah, thanks so much for having me and what a great first question to start off with.

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I've been percolating a lot on the meaning of success.

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Is it trophies?

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Is it medals?

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Is it something else?

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And to me, the system is the success.

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It's far less about the medals.

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That's the kind of sparkly manifestation of success that many see.

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But designing the system, a resilient system, a system that enables you to not only

perform once, but to perform under pressure over time.

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Navigating, building, living that system.

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is my definition of success.

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um And also when I look back at my life journey, um think Steve Jobs said it best, that

it's only in the rear view mirror that you can see how the dots join.

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And so it's now looking in the rear view mirror, having lived almost 50 years, that I can

look back and see how the dots joined.

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And my life has been about so much more than sport.

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So when people look at the public persona, they see sporting success.

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But for me, I've achieved success in many different areas of my life, some of which have

been related to sport, many of which haven't.

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But I can also start to map that system and think about...

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what enabled me to perform in many different areas of my life over time, not just sport.

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And I think, you know, maybe we can just touch on a few of those.

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I think the first one is having that anchor of purpose, having that personal mission, that

North Star that guides me.

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And that's important in an operational, organisational context, very important in a

personal context.

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What matters to me?

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you know, what is my mission in life?

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What am I here to do?

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A quite profound question, but I think so important to know your personal mission.

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Then the process of exploration, you know, being curious enough to think about what might

be possible and then having the courage to take those steps often out of your comfort zone

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when the outcome is uncertain.

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And I think when you have that courage to explore, then you're able to define your goals.

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And goals can be outcome focused, literary medals and trophies and records, but they can

also be process driven.

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part, not crazy.

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That's the mental part.

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But you need a body to sustain that, right?

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You need to design a system to sustain your pursuit of the goal.

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So the system is multifaceted.

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it involves, for me, let's have a laser sharp focus here on sports.

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So for me, my system involved um having the goal, the outcome goal, but then you need

process goals.

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And that process goal is manifested in a plan, in a training plan.

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So that can be an hourly plan or it can be a yearly plan.

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And that plan is iterative.

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So there's that feedback loop that's necessary in order to be able to iterate and build on

that plan.

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So you need that training program.

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You need guardrails.

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You need cultural guardrails.

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How am I going to act?

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How am I going to show up?

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How am I going to behave?

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And then you have the policy guardrails that are so important in sport.

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What are the rules?

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What are the anti-doping procedures?

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So you've got those two types of guardrails, same in an organization.

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You have to have both.

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You have to know who you are as an athlete, how you want to show up as an athlete, but you

have to operate within a system, within the systemic guardrails of sport.

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Then you need to curate an environment that's conducive to success.

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So designing a system is about designing an environment.

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We're products of our environment.

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And by environment, I mean, yes, our structural environment.

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Do I have a swimming pool?

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Do I have roads to ride on?

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Have I got healthy food in my fridge?

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My structural environment, but also my personal environment in the people that I surround

myself with.

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So my system is both structural and my system...

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um

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is relates to the people that I have around me.

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So I think that those are some really important facets of the system that I created.

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And then you move on to execution.

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um And that involves consistency with agility.

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It involves pacing.

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It involves that circular feedback loop, that iteration.

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Yeah.

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So if I...

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If I look back and what I've seen as a life that has been so multifaceted and branched

like a tree, can actually, I think when I look in retrospect, I can map that process.

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But that process doesn't just apply to sport.

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It can apply to all areas of our life.

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It enabled me to thrive in sport.

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It enabled me to be my personal best in a sporting context.

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but it's enabling me to be my personal best in other areas of life too.

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Yeah, but a lot of people think confidence comes first, but often it seems to be built

through action, right?

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Preparation and boring repetition, you know, those fifty fifty meter laps in the pool, you

know.

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But how did confidence actually get built on your career, you know?

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It's such an interesting question, isn't it?

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I wrote a LinkedIn post about this em the other day because I think there's a

misconception that every professional athlete or business founder has this kind of

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chest-stomping confidence.

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You know, they're the Michael Jordans that manifest it, believe it, think they can achieve

it and go on to do so.

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Some have that.

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But many don't and I'm a case in point.

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So for me, as you alluded to, confidence has been highly iterative.

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You know, I like to say it's built in the trenches of experience.

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So you need enough confidence and support around you to take the first step.

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You take the first step, you explore what's possible, physically, psychologically.

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And so your confidence grows.

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And failure doesn't always mean success builds confidence.

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Failure can build confidence because you realize in those setbacks, in those moments of

adversity, that you're stronger than maybe you thought possible.

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So those psychological limiters maybe are challenged um and you can use those, draw on

those memory banks to give you.

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to give you confidence.

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for me, yeah, confidence was highly iterative.

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when I did my first World Championships, my outcome goal was top 10 finish.

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I was encouraged by my coach to very much focus on the process and not the outcome, focus

on the process, focus on the execution.

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But I wasn't confident that I could win the race, and yet I did.

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I did because I had a system, I did because I focused on execution and once I'd won, yeah,

I felt a sense of imposter syndrome and used that to empower me.

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But after that, then my confidence grew about my capability.

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Yeah.

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But what what I'm hearing from you is something that matters enormously in in startups, in

business too, because the strongest founders are leaders, and and leaders are rarely the

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ones who can produce one burst of brilliance, right?

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They are the ones who build systems that let them keep producing, learning and adapting

over time.

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Um so that's yeah, that system is absolutely spot on.

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I love it.

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Um

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Yeah, and it's, I mean, it's like I said, it's iterative and it's about taking action

despite a lack of clarity.

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There's never full clarity about an outcome or a process, but you've got to take that

step.

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Then you've got to inbuilt the feedback mechanism, both the internal feedback mechanism.

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How am I feeling?

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How was my effort?

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Am I tired?

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Did that go well?

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What's my heart rate doing?

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And then that external feedback where you elicit feedback from others because we all have

blind spots, right?

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Help me see what I can't see.

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So there's that internal intuitive feedback.

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There's the external feedback.

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There's the data assimilation.

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Then you've got the horizon scanning.

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And then you iterate and evolve and some things work, some things don't work.

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Easy to say, difficult to execute.

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I I I keep seeing founders in business that don't perceive success without burnout.

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So imagine a champion that does not perceive success without burnout.

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Yes, but that speaks to the most important foundation of any high-performance system and

that's health.

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know, health is foundational.

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So if our life is a pie, right?

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And it's made up of different slices.

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It's made up of work, it's made up of family, it's made up of social life and hobbies and

education.

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Health is the crust!

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Without the crust, everything disintegrates.

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So we need health as a foundation.

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But I think you speak to the concept of limits, right?

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um Because success isn't about constantly defying limits.

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It's about understanding limits.

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So we have structural limits.

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our energy, our time, our capacity that have to be respected.

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Those structural limits have to be respected and if we constantly defy them then the

system breaks down.

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Whereas you have other limits that can be challenged and can be defied and the edges can

be pushed slowly outwards.

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So I think the most effective leader doesn't just

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have a kind of no limits philosophy.

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They understand the different types of limits, whether they're structural, psychological,

developmental, my capabilities, for example.

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And you're able to differentiate and you're able to push, learn.

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adapt, evolve, you know, depending on the outcome of action.

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Does that make sense?

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Yeah.

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But let let's talk about you, Chris.

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Our audience would love to hear more about you.

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You know, one of the of the reasons why I think your career resonates so strongly is that

it seemed to keep expanding what was possible.

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You know, how do you think about limits now and and where did they are they were real or

or fixed boundaries for you?

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W or were they flexible at that point?

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I published my autobiography in 2012 and called it A Life Without Limits because sport

taught me that my physical and psychological limits were not where I thought they were.

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So sport gifted me the opportunity to test, challenge myself and explore

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the extent of my capabilities.

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And that's a real gift, you know, to be able to explore your potential, exceed your

potential.

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But I just go back to what I said before.

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There are different types of limits.

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So I'm talking about psychological limits.

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What am I capable of?

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Right?

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I was able to challenge that and defy that.

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I never thought I was capable of four world championship victories.

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So my psychological limit was not where I thought.

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And my developmental limit was not where I thought.

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My skills, my experience, my resilience.

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I was able to build that.

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I was able to learn and grow in a way that I never thought that I could.

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So I explored my developmental limits.

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But those structural limits, you have to respect them.

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It's not about constant self-flagellation and defying the limits of your body in terms of

sleep, in terms of rest, in terms of...

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of cognitive load, because otherwise there are trade-offs, right?

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And we have to be mindful of those trade-offs.

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And the times when I have tried to push those limits, I've broken.

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So those, yeah, there's a subtle difference in how I conceive limits.

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And there are some that you can really push.

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And there are some, I think, that come with trade-offs, like,

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Sleep for example, know, recovery.

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How much am I willing to push that and what trade-offs am I making by doing so?

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Very irrelevant.

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I love what you're saying.

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So deep.

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Um, but you decided to open the door to sport, right?

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Nobody opened the door to sport for you, and the and the door to sport was not open for

you.

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So there is a point in life.

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Let's think about people that are going through life, and uh they need to open the door

for that first exploration.

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And in your case, you decided to open the door for sport and

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You decided to try.

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So I think there is a point in time where you have to think about do I want to open that

door?

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Do I have a purpose in life?

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Right?

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I would say yes to a point.

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I was so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people, an environment that enabled me

to...

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participate in sport, to participate in sport recreationally and to participate in sport

as a professional.

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Many, many people do not have that opportunity.

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So yes, I have agency and I can make the decision that I would like to do something, but I

can only do that if I've...

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if I have an environment around me, one I've created or one I'm fortunate enough to be in,

that enables me to pursue that, to pursue that dream.

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You hit on another very relevant.

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So it's it's the combination of two in my opinion.

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Um I don't know what you think.

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You know, you are who you surround with.

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Um if you don't have the environment and you don't have people around you that help you

open the doors or expose you, then um it's it's gonna be more difficult for you to get

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inspired to do it on your own.

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So

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Yes, I think we have agency um and we need to exercise that and surround ourselves with

people that can be uplifting and can be encouraging and supportive.

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That's so important.

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um But so too is having an exploratory, curious mindset.

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I never wanted to look back and think, what if?

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For me, the biggest failure of all is not to act and to be left wondering.

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So I always have a curious mindset about opportunities or potential that I like to

explore.

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So it's that calculating risk taking, that stepping slightly out of your comfort zone.

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to satisfy a curiosity and then surrounding yourself with people that enable that to

happen.

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Yeah.

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Um can you remember maybe or take us um through one race where you realized you discovered

that yeah there are no limits.

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Mmm.

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I can take you through two moments.

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The first one where I discovered where there were limits and that was my third World

Championships in:

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well.

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I just didn't feel well enough to race and I had to respect those limits because sometimes

I think strength is about understanding where those...

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limits are.

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think success is understanding where those limits are and making the best decision both in

the short term and the long term.

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So that was when I respected a different kind of limit.

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A year later I raced the world championships again.

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Two weeks prior I'd had an accident on my bike and I had quite severe burns, road rash all

the way down my left side.

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and was in and out of hospital, my training was affected, I couldn't travel to the race

until later.

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you know, physically, psychologically, psychologically extremely disrupting.

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ah And, you know, there are strategies you go through in instances like this.

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And I got to the start line and...

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focused again very much on execution and on the process, but never with an aspiration of

winning, always with an aspiration of trying to complete the race.

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And I won my fourth world championships that year.

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And I think in doing so, realized that those physical and those psychological limits

really weren't where I thought

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they were.

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And it also taught me another really important lesson, think, as athletes especially, we

seek perfection.

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and we don't rest until we achieve it.

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But I realized that for me, perfection in that instance was bloody and tear-stained and

riddled with setbacks.

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And that's what made that victory so perfect in my eyes.

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um Precisely, I think, because of the setbacks, because of the adversity, because of...

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the uncertainty around the race.

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It made that race so perfectly meaningful.

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And yeah, I think it completed me, if I'm honest.

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And that's why I chose to retire because I knew at that point.

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that it epitomized me as an athlete.

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Yeah, lots of things come to my mind, Chrissy, and I can visualize that moment.

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so what you're saying is expose yourself.

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Don't get yourself hijacked by your mind when you have difficulties.

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You know, expose yourself.

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Don't be hijacked.

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um I'm saying endurance sport is as much psychological as it is physical.

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um And the skill is to be able to understand all the signals that your body is telling

you, physical and psychological, and differentiate.

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what those that you should listen to and those that you shouldn't.

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And as an athlete, I became adept at quieting the voice that

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told me that something wasn't possible.

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Yeah, that's brilliant.

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and was able to challenge the voice in your head that tells you to step aside, that tells

you to give up, that tells you to slow down.

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um

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And so I think it's the skill to be able to differentiate those signals and understand

what's a real limit.

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and what limit can be kind of more ephemeral and what one can be kind of pushed.

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Yeah.

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um

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How how would you help someone go beyond what they think is possible without drifting into

fantasy or even self destruction?

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eh I think my role if I were a coach would not be to convince people they can do anything.

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would be to help them see more clearly what's possible, what the barriers are, what might

be getting in the way, and what the next meaningful step looks like in order to be able to

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resolve them.

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So I think part of that involves challenging the assumptions, especially those fixed

psychological assumptions around

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around capabilities and start to unpick them and examine them.

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Where do those fears, those habits, those beliefs come from?

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And is there an alternative reality where they don't exist?

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So I think as a coach, you play a facilitation role in enabling

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the athlete or the founder in your context to be able to see for them, to see themselves

and understand where their perceived limits are and to start to challenge those.

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um But it also loops back here.

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You mentioned kind of self-destruction.

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It loops back to understanding

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What are the real limits?

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What are the structural limits?

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And what are the trade-offs from messing with those?

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you know, the need for recovery, the need for sleep, the need for health as a foundation.

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So what are the risks of challenging those limits as much as challenging the psychological

ones?

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Hmm.

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What I'm hearing from you is something like this that maybe one of the most valuable

lessons for for our audience, for founders, chief executives, Chrissy, is that because if

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you want to leave, you have to live near the edge of your current capability.

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You have to push yourself, you have to explore.

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And the question is not whether

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You feel limited.

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The question is whether you can build the systems, the habits, and the mindset that lets

you discover the limit is not where you really thought it was, right?

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Yes, you need that inbuilt system to be able to act, to question, to set a goal, to act,

and then to review and recalibrate and to learn from that.

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yes, it's pushing the edges.

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It also requires a pause where you review

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internally, externally, and then recalibrate and understand.

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Actually, is that limit real?

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You know, is it fixed or is there something further, know, some place further I can go?

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So yeah, that exactly.

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It's about creating a system which enables you just to push the edge a little bit further

each time, but then to pause and reflect.

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And I think also

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in our busy lives, where we celebrate busyness, we don't give ourselves space.

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We don't give ourselves space to think about, who am I?

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What matters to me?

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Where am I going?

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What have I learned?

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How can I improve?

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You know, we just plow on, don't we?

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We just keep going and keep going and hope that we'll still get the same results.

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But sometimes I think we need that pause.

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But the the good news is that very soon or as we speak our agents will be able to do all

the work for us and we will have a lot of time th to think about who we are.

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Yes, but then life becomes less human, doesn't it?

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It becomes more about science than art.

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And the beauty of sport, I feel, is that it's still as much art as it is science.

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And when it becomes too much science and very little art, then I think it becomes less

personal and less enjoyable.

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The fun is in the struggle.

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The fun is in the jeopardy.

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and the uncertainty and the unknown, right?

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That's why we love sport.

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You know, that's why I loved it.

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If the outcomes are given, no one's going to watch it.

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So it's about testing and trialling and iterating and that element of jeopardy that we all

love.

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If we think about that in our life context, then we're happier to step outside of the

comfort zone, right?

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If we don't need everything to be certain and carefully curated and picture perfect all

the time, we're willing to take risks, the edges, explore.

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We're not scared of failure because it's an opportunity to learn, right?

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:

Yeah.

343

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Well now um a little bit of um publicity before I was finished

344

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Well, this episode of very popularly talking you I guess quite often.

345

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One thing I've learned from athletes, coaches, chief executives, founders, everyone, is

that understanding your own biology is the real unlock.

346

:

And that's exactly what a stride helps you do.

347

:

It doesn't matter if you're a world-class athlete or someone trying to understand how your

body adapts.

348

:

When you train with intention.

349

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Stride brings you your sessions, your data, and your goals into one place.

350

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So you can actually see what's working and what isn't.

351

:

If you're listening to Endurance Capital, you're already interested in doing things

differently.

352

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So take a look at getstride.com and bring more clarity to how you train and how you

operate day to day.

353

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Use coupon code trampoline and they'll give you a 100 pound off.

354

:

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355

:

Okay, let's uh let's carry on, Crazy.

356

:

Um high performance is is one thing, but sustain high performance is another.

357

:

What made your system sustainable enough to keep delivering so much over time?

358

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I think it's a really important question because it's not about one peak, it's about that

kind of sustained success, sustained performance, sustained execution over a long period

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of time and I think for me

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There's several facets.

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I think some of them I've touched on.

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So I think the first is that clarity of mission and purpose.

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So, like I said, for an organization, for an individual, having that clarity of mission

and purpose, that North Star, that anchor that doesn't change over time is really, really

364

:

important.

365

:

then so that provides your kind of why and then you have the what underneath it and the

what are the goals.

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And again, they're iterative over time.

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:

My goals changed from being a recreational triathlete to being professional triathlete to

trying and being an Olympian and I failed at that, to just completing the world

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:

championships, to winning the world championships.

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:

So it was an iterative process.

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Your goals need to develop and evolve over time.

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And then most importantly, sustained high performance requires that.

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:

that system, but not a static system.

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A system that has a plan and a strategy, but one that is responsive and is able to flex.

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So you consistency, but paradoxically with agility.

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:

That's so important.

376

:

So consistency isn't just doing the same thing day in, day out.

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You need to be consistent, but you need to be agile and flexible.

378

:

And then again, you need the guardrails, you need the environment that's conducive to

success.

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So the system around you needs to be sustainable so that you can operate.

380

:

Your performance can be sustainable over time, that makes sense.

381

:

Absolutely, absolutely.

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:

I if if sustained high performance is the goal, what does the system have to protect?

383

:

What are the things that break first when people chase excellency that badly like you did?

384

:

Um, can I challenge that framing slightly?

385

:

So I don't think sustained high performance is the goal, because that implies an outcome.

386

:

Okay.

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:

Sustained high performance is the system.

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:

It's a process.

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:

Sorry, can I just go back on that?

390

:

Let me start the answer again.

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:

Okay.

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:

I just want to challenge that framing slightly because I don't think sustained high

performance is the goal.

393

:

I think sustained high performance is the process.

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:

um And I think if you optimize

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For an output, you see success, I think, as a kind of fixed end state, if that makes

sense.

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:

um So for me, it's less about that big, shiny, sparkly medal and more about whether a

person or a team or an organization.

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:

can remain aligned to their mission and goals under pressure.

398

:

um And that to me is what sustained high performance really means.

399

:

What does an organization, if I remember rightly your question was what does an

organization need to protect?

400

:

It needs to protect its mission and its purpose.

401

:

It needs clarity around that.

402

:

It needs to protect its guardrails.

403

:

It needs to protect its house.

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:

all elements of psychological, physical, emotional, financial health.

405

:

needs to, and it, I think it also needs to

406

:

Protect identity flexibility.

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:

Because if one's identity is solely linked to an outcome goal, it's inherently unstable.

408

:

So sustained high performance means having an identity that is more spacious than just a

single.

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:

outcome goal.

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:

If that does that make sense?

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:

Like in a sporting context, if all that I am and all that I'll ever be is for world

championship victories and now I'm looking in the rearview mirror and that happened 15

412

:

years ago, that's an unstable platform on which to base my life.

413

:

So my own personal sustainable high performance

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:

has to be about so much more than a world championship victory.

415

:

Yeah, what what I'm hearing from you is is this.

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:

You know, this is the same in company building in startups.

417

:

You know, a a business can survive short bursts of chaos, let's say.

418

:

Can win once.

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:

But if you want excellence to last, you you really have to build a system that protects

the foundations for that growth.

420

:

You know, that is true in sport and it is true in any kind of leadership role.

421

:

Yeah, absolutely.

422

:

And I think health is the most important foundation.

423

:

Well, two, mission and purpose and health.

424

:

They have to be protected, I think, to sustain that performance over time.

425

:

Yeah.

426

:

If if you were speaking directly, just put yourself in the in the mind of a founder.

427

:

If you were speaking to to a founder or or a CEO trying to build something very difficult

over a long period of time, what what lessons from your high performance sport would you

428

:

most want them to take seriously?

429

:

Mission and purpose.

430

:

um Curiosity and exploration.

431

:

Iterative goals.

432

:

You want to build something huge.

433

:

You might not get there immediately.

434

:

So play the long game and just take the first step.

435

:

Curate an environment for success.

436

:

I was the product of

437

:

an incredible environment.

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:

had amazing people around me and I had a structural environment that enabled me to

succeed.

439

:

So it's not just about you, it's about the environment you create around you.

440

:

Inbuild this review, reflect, recalibration loop at every step.

441

:

of the process.

442

:

You know, as an athlete, I couldn't just do the same training day in, day out.

443

:

There's always that internal and external review and recalibration.

444

:

And I think organizationally, it's exactly the same.

445

:

And I think lastly, make it more than you.

446

:

um I think sustainable high performance.

447

:

enables you, enables two things actually, it enables you to achieve more than you ever

think possible, but it enables you to do that in others, for others.

448

:

So I think we can all be a candle for someone else.

449

:

So sustainable high performance isn't just about personal high performance.

450

:

It's about paying that forward.

451

:

It's about being the candle and elevating and

452

:

and empowering and inspiring others.

453

:

And I think that's what makes it so impactful.

454

:

Sport was such a gift for me because it was about so much more than me.

455

:

And in an individual sport like triathlon, to be able to use my platform to uplift and

inspire others.

456

:

enabled my own high performance but also in you know through that I was innate you know

able to enable it in others if that makes sense.

457

:

Yeah.

458

:

Yeah.

459

:

I'm uh really deep thoughts, Chris.

460

:

What what do you think success is really for?

461

:

In essence, you know, what should it give a person beyond the recognition and the proof?

462

:

Yeah, like I said, success is that sparkly manifestation, isn't it?

463

:

um An accolade or a trophy or a medal.

464

:

But if you don't win, are you then a loser?

465

:

Are you then unsuccessful?

466

:

No, of course you're not.

467

:

You know?

468

:

So for me, success is about the way in which a person shows up.

469

:

Can I be successful at being a parent?

470

:

Can I be successful...

471

:

in my voluntary work, can I be successful at baking a cake or walking the dog?

472

:

Yes I can.

473

:

It's how I do it.

474

:

Do I show up with integrity, with authenticity?

475

:

Do I give it my best effort?

476

:

That's the true measure of success because the winning element in sport is ephemeral.

477

:

It fades.

478

:

I'll always hold that accolade and I take great pride in my sporting achievements.

479

:

Bye.

480

:

I think the true success is the way in which those successes were earned, if that makes

sense.

481

:

that's very deep what you're saying, Chrissy.

482

:

Um and maybe the the deeper lesson here is that high performance is not just about output,

about the medal, or it is about becoming the kind of person who can keep meeting

483

:

challenges with structure, with composure and and belief, no?

484

:

That is useful in sport and it's useful in life itself, right?

485

:

Um

486

:

I think so and it all comes back to the purpose.

487

:

Are you living a life that matters to you?

488

:

Are you doing the things that you care about?

489

:

Are you having an impact beyond yourself?

490

:

To me that's true success.

491

:

I look at my daughter and

492

:

I don't have a trophy for the parent that I am, but I'd like to think that my parenting is

successful.

493

:

And that doesn't mean that it's perfect, by the way.

494

:

Just as in a sporting context, when you win or when you lose, doesn't mean that everything

went perfectly or everything went dreadfully.

495

:

You know, the success is like you said.

496

:

so eloquently is in how you show up.

497

:

Yeah.

498

:

Well we get into the part of the conversation that I enjoy the most.

499

:

Um I'll probably enjoy two.

500

:

These are sh short questions and answers, so please be be short.

501

:

So one thing people get wrong about top performance.

502

:

I'm an endurance athlete, I don't give short answers, only long answers.

503

:

um What do people get wrong about top performance?

504

:

Is that right?

505

:

um They think it's all about the medals.

506

:

Okay, that's that's good enough.

507

:

And one thing ambitious people should build earlier.

508

:

Sustainable health.

509

:

I love it.

510

:

And now finish the sentence.

511

:

You go beyond your limits when

512

:

You have courage and refuse to treat fear as the decision maker.

513

:

Fantastic.

514

:

And one word you would use to describe your relationship with winning today.

515

:

Detached.

516

:

It's not that winning doesn't matter, it's just that I can't allow winning in that narrow

sense to define who I am because that's dangerous.

517

:

Yeah.

518

:

And finally, question five.

519

:

What matters more in the long run?

520

:

Confidence or consistency?

521

:

Consistency with agility.

522

:

Consistency with agility.

523

:

It's not just doing the same thing day out.

524

:

It's um consistent in your flexibility as well.

525

:

Yeah, yeah.

526

:

Okay, well we we got to to the end uh almost uh almost there.

527

:

So my my takeaway today is

528

:

Best performance and the best suns only show us what winning looks like, they show us how

performance is killed.

529

:

So Chrissy, thank you for showing us that sustained excellence is not magic.

530

:

It is a system of discipline, self belief, support, and

531

:

The willingness to keep discovering that you are capable of more than what you thought.

532

:

And thank you so much for helping us decode what top performance actually rests on and why

the lessons of elite sport matter far beyond race day.

533

:

Before we wrap, a final note: if today's conversation opened something for you about

performance, structure, confidence, or listening to your own biology.

534

:

Take a moment to explore getStride.com.

535

:

Stride helps you make sense of your data, see how your body actually adapts, and bring

more intention to your training and your life.

536

:

And as a listener, you can use the code trampoline for 100 pounds off Stride1 and 30% of

any other individual stride tests and supplements.

537

:

If you are exploring what's possible, Stride gives you a clearer map.

538

:

Visit

539

:

GetStri.com and keep moving with purpose.

540

:

Endurance Capital is brought to you by Trampoline Venture Partners.

541

:

I'm Ignacio Garcia.

542

:

Thanks for listening.

543

:

See you on the next episode.

544

:

Okay, thank you so much.

545

:

Yeah, no fav.

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