The Roaring Heads Podcast

This week we had a chat with Mark Jansen about the challenges an athlete faces being an elite level age group triathlete and cyclist while working full-time in the corporate world. Mark is a super strong willed athlete, racing successfully in 70.3 and Ironman. A twice top 5 finisher in Hawaii and a multiple sub-9 hour Ironman, he is well positioned to speak about the balance of work, life and sport. We talk about the gift and the curse of the type A personality and the management it takes to keep that requirement in homeostasis. We are talking about confidence, loads, recovery, the benefits of an active lifestyle and the foil of high-level sport and a corporate career. We chat about what it means to go deep in racing terms and the physical and psychological nuances of racing and training that make them what they are. Mark is a highly articulate human and that makes this chat great listening. Enjoy, Gilesy Support the showGrants Website

Want the best of yourself?It's not about how you react; it's about how you respond. Critically, it's about your state of mind as you respond that governs the quality of the action you take in that response. You're programming around what you think you can and can't do radically affects your capacity to respond from a place of power rather than from a place of defense. If you are responding from defense, you are out of your power and trapped in your head. All that you see in front of you is how you feel in your head. Let me give you an example: How does the world look to you when you are sick? It's not the same world, right? Yep, Its pretty drab! Did the world change or did your perception of it change based on the way you feel? We know through scientific research that we process the world based on our history, not on how it actually is in reality. So, when you hit that spot inside yourself where things start to get difficult in a race or a training session and you are in a world of pain, that hurt doesn't belong to the session or the race, it belongs to you and your perception of it.That's a melting pot of expectations brought to you by similar experiences of your past. You see that course as you are, not as it is.What are you going to do to get free of that so you can contact and deal with the reality of it as it is here on the coal face? Let's explore that real potential that you carry as an athlete and a human. Support the showGrants Website

I suspect that a warrior hides in the DNA of all athletes. Many of us are disempowered in these times though. We are so busy trying to be an athlete on an outer level and not quite coming to terms with what that means.So, in this podcast Im covering a few specific questions:When does the warrior become the worrier? Where do we leak power in our sessions? What are the implications of that for our racing and performances? How do we lose connection to purpose, enthusiasm and motivation?I'm breaking it down here and pulling apart the pieces that seperate us from our own instinctual warrior. Yes, you have one! Lets explore how we can rediscover the power we need to perform on a level we never thought possible.Gilesy.Grants Website.Support the showGrants Website

In life we have times where we meet a crossroads where we have to make a choice. Profound life change can be a portal to a deeper existential shift in our perception of ourselves as human beings. This week we had a chat with professional triathlete Laura Dennis who is being faced with that challenge right now. Laura sustained a serious head injury after being hit by a car in training, and today we chat to her about the significance and the meaning of presence, intention, gratitude and visualisation in changing our perceptions not only of what has happened but also of where we want to be and what we want to experience. The human brain is an amazing organism that has the capacity to literally change its own perception and heal itself. I hope you enjoy the listening. Gilesyhttps://www.grantgiles.com.auhttps://sansego.sansego.co/coach-grantgrant.giles@sansego.co Support the show

People have ideas about mental strength which are not entirely true, often thinking they need to be ruthless with themselves.They tend to think they need to have an Ironclad will that shows no vulnerability, no mercy, no leniency. But that which does not bend, often breaks.The problem is, it is weak as it is projected outwards towards the world, and strong as it's projected inwards towards ourselves. Like a tracker on a scent or footprints in sand , he has to use an element of intuition or the trail and the footprints will be lost in the sands for ever. If he starts to follow every track and every print in the sand, he will lose the scent completely.This is a metaphor for how we lose our own  scent. We get lost trying to track our own progress because we only want to assess it from the outside, but it doesn't work, it's not enough! A torrent of fiction, drowning in a sea of information bereft of a direction, a million tracks leading to no where if we are mindful.So, this podcast is about finding you own inner strength so you can bring it to the world.Gilesyhttp://www.grantgiles.com.auhttps://sansego.sansego.co/coach-grantgrant.giles@sansego.co Support the show

In this podcast I am discussing the three pillars of progress through process. Namely -Thrive Automaticity Discomfort I discuss the subsets of each pillar. The idea here is to provide you a short cut in your own athletic endeavours through the experience of my own and the observation of those I have coached over the last 25 years.Gilesy. http://www.grantgiles.com.auhttps://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/https://sansego.sansego.co/Support the show

Most of our problems as athletes are bound up not in the way we physically train but in the way we think and react to the stimulus. No point in training like a champion and thinking like you have already lost.  To make any real change we first have to understand what it is we are thinking. Importantly we can change the way we think, feel and react, creating a positive, supporting mindset for performance at the very same time. In this podcast Grant gives you an overview of a winning mental strategy -THE HIERARCHY OF MENTAL PERFORMANCEThe WhyThe IntentionThe PurposeVisualisation Rituals / Habituals Intentional Action Belief Perseverance / Resilience Many MoreWorking on performance from the inside out is the best way to bring mind, body and spirit into a state of flow that leads to the ultimate in  personal performance excellence.Cheers, Gilesyhttps://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/http://sansego.sansego.co/grant.giles@sansego.co 'Support the show

The chase for the dream, the outcome, or the result is the motivating factor that encourages  many people to get after their aspirations. In this podcast we explore what is important in terms of the energy that fuels our chase and our relationship to the chase, do your motivations and actions move you towards your goals? Or do they move you away and indeed block the path you have chosen. In this podcast you will lean how to unpick your own locks so your intention and attention are directed into alignment with what it is you really want to achieve. We explore the realms of -PurposeThe whyIntentionAttentionFocusDoubt Negative Expectancy Negative Self Talk Alignment Flow And many more. I hope you enjoy the listen.Cheers,Grant Gileshttps://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/http://sansego.sansego.co/Support the show

When we get what we want, we want what we don't have!! It's a slippery slope, sometimes getting what we want is the worst thing that can happen to us. If it comes easy, it comes greasy, slips through our fingers and then the more we have the less we feel like we've got. This concept we are sold of fame and fortune is an empty promise, a void with no real substance, people who arrive there quickly learn that it is not made of what they thought it would be made of. The void comes courtesy of a lack of definition, the promise is that when we arrive at destination success that it will define us, and of course it can't and doesn't. In the same way when we believe that destination happiness is a place, a face, an object or a person, we ultimately come up against this empty void. The more happiness you think you have attained, the more you want, the more money, fame and success you think you have attained, the more you want. The salesman sells you on more, but what you feel is less, it's an uncomfortable paradox, the more safety you get, the less safety you feel. It's a hint that the deeper aspects of life send us to let us know that the things we play with are not made of definition, we are already defined by life, and try as we might, we can never add to it in any real sense. It's a great leveller, the vagrant, the destitute, the middle class, the upper class and the filthy rich all cut from the same piece of mortal cloth, now that's a truth you can take to the bank. Support the show

This week we are speaking with Karl Page, the founder of WOSUP (War On Single Use Plastics). Karl is somewhat of a journey man. We speak about the fantastic inspiration behind WOSUP, the idea behind the experience that sparked a movement of sustainable materials. Established in 2018, WOSUP is a social impact enterprise dedicated to making a difference in our environment by providing sustainable alternatives to single use plastics. This podcast moved into the journey of the self, the role of alcohol in Australian society, Karl's personal journey into sobriety and the meaning behind it. We delved into many aspects of what it means to be human in the current environment of pressures. We are all being forced to look inwards at our lives, and so we consider what we can find in the dark shadows to guide us to a more authentic way of life. We speak about the choice to live authentically, simply, and minimally. Most importantly, we speak of how we can live sustainably on an unstable planet. I find the content of these podcast chats amazing. When the (non-plastic) container is opened and the truth comes forward, the truth speaks its own powerful language. This one is a great listen. Thanks Karl for your honesty and authenticity. Wosup Website-https://wosup.com.au/pages/about-usGrants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/aboutSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

There is nothing like race day pain and suffering to test our mettle. The deals we make with ourselves in the smoky backrooms of our minds, the tenuous connections that we make to our own internal strength, often frayed at the edges by the experiences of the past and the doubts of the future. That incredible day before a big event where the mental pain at times often feels overwhelming, only an athlete or anyone who risks much knows that feeling, that low drawn feeling of ambiguity to a future that isn't here yet, and yet close enough to make us suffer. o   But what if there is another way? o   What if the answer is nowhere near as complex as the stories our minds create? o   What is the truth? o   What is the reality? o   What is the possibility in all of this? If you have ever experienced what I am talking about here, you may want to listen to this one. We never arrive at clarity without investigation and enquiry. As athletes and humans, we tend to investigate everything for an advantage, and hey, athletes are opportunists, but they tend to overlook the one area that can leverage the greatest of all advantage, the space between our own two ears. Grants Website- https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show

Doubtful, fearful, reactive, defensive, divisive, alienating, isolating, estranging, inharmonious, disingenuous, manipulative, repetitive, cynical, victimising, dishonest, deceitful, underhanded, duplicitous, insincere, calculating, scheming, devious and unscrupulous. A bunch of words to describe the tip of the iceberg that we have all been witness too in Australia and around the world in the last few months. What do they all have in common? They are words, mutations in truth and reality, states of mind that form thoughts, beliefs and ideology, actions that are born of this small group of words and thoughts fed in a matrix of chaos and confusion, that are met by the amygdala in our brain that alerts our nervous system that  something is up and fires up the fight and flight response which takes our rational brain offline. It's an amygdala hijack that requires a mindful approach to solving.Nothing gets solved by doubt, fear and panic. We each need to serve ourselves a healthy dose of mindful thought and action right now in the interest of keeping ourselves centered. Living life for the moment is the best way of keeping ourselves healthy in this stressful time.There are always two ways to look at things, within the toughest of times, opportunity lies, growth waits, evolution patiently waits for the opportunity to leap and we never know the hidden reasons behind such discomfort and suffering. Perhaps Krishnamurti said it best when he said "man does not see the illusion in fear until he loses everything there is to lose and then realises there is nothing to fear". Footnote: The content in this podcast is personal, one mans observed opinions, using words as a means of expression, is always fraught with  misunderstandings and context issues so listen up with an open mind or switch it off.Much love in trying times,Gilesy. Grants Website- https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show

The advent of Instagram and the body image sales pitch that has created influencers and so called successful movers and shakers, pushing us to look a certain way by targeting our unconscious need to fit and consume, can at times be a very destructive force which separates us from the deeper truth of our potential if we are not using a high degree of self awareness. The dangers are obvious. Disordered eating, body dysmorphia, unrealistic body shape goals, self judgment, anxiety and depression are the shadows which cloud the perfect pictures.The projection athletes tend to make of themselves around fitting certain image criteria lends itself to major drawbacks in terms of development, personal evolution and athletic metamorphosis, and can lead to stagnation and indeed regression.A major portion of human athletic suffering is brought about not by the pain of the process, but rather, the suffering of trying to measure up to the internal images and the expectant images of what others perceive it should look like. This podcast is an exploration first of the issue and the way out of it towards our personal growth, not only as athletes but more importantly as human beings.Grants Website- https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

 Doubt is the ultimate cynic. Are you sick of manifesting the opposite of what you want? Repeating the same outcomes regardless of the preparation? Feel like a victim, not a victor? Fatigued from trying? Do you know what trying would look like if doubt were not present and you were? If we could only see the athletic process without the filter of judgment, tags, labels, doubts and fears and into the power of pure seeing. We can, it is available, and it is a choice that we have to choose to make. Doubt is that gnawing feeling of not feeling grounded in our true sense of natural confidence. It's a cynic, a liar and a cheat, that whispers shadowy thoughts into our sense of stability. So today we take a little exploration into the realm of doubt, the role it plays and the havoc it wreaks on our athletic endeavours. How doubt does it, how it gets imbedded, how we manifest what we don't want, and what we can do about it. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

What we often don't talk about is our journey as ex-athletes. It is a subject that we need to bring out into the open.Ex-athletes often feel like they have been swept under the carpet or put out to pasture in some way, but this projection lacks a basic truth, in that most of the discomfort in retiring from sport, or anything else for that matter, is in fact self driven in the way that the individual has defined who they were in sport and the way they define themselves now in the return journey. Everything in life has an outward and return journey, the issue is that we are accepting of the outward journey, regardless of how difficult it is, and then we resist the return journey without considering it's value. So we look at our experience in sport and life in terms of likes and dislikes. We resist our retirements and our return journeys because we try to make a solid out of a liquid. A sporting career or  indeed anything else is not solid, it is transient, temporary and completely unstable. Finding happiness in life post sport is about finding happiness in the pure experience of what you do and finding out why you are doing it. Instead of looking outwards as we have been taught to do, to do the opposite and look inwards for clues to what we would actually love to be doing for an experience instead of an outcome. To take a closer look at all those goals and outcomes and to realise that none of it is solid, and then to feel and realise the freedom in that, man what a relief.  From there to work not on what appears to be valuable from the outside, but to work on what is valuable to you as a human, right here and now, for the ultimate benefit of your future. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Fear and doubt rely on two critical aspects of mind that feed them their meals, those two mind based aspects are known as memory and imagination. They wreak havoc on our sense of peace, they take away our presence, limit our awareness and separate us from our true sense of self. You could call these mind based aspects "the separate self" as one great teacher Rupert Spira refers to them as. This resonates because they are literally a form of separate self, they disconnect and divorce us from our deeper sense of self. When we live this way we dissociate from the deeper aspects of the true self to live a life of stress, pressure, anxiety and depression. When we disassociate this way, we are dissociating from the natural world, ourselves and others. We live a life of projection that leads to us feeling empty, apathetic and ineffectual. The separate self fuels itself on memory and imagination, it fuels and feeds the doubt and fear on illusion, projection, self judgment and worry. The antidote is a damn good dose of reality, a look into the deeper aspects of the true deeper sense of self that society spends most of its time running away from. We can never expect the outside world to look different while we are wearing smoke coloured glasses on the inside, the outside world will forever look dark and smoky while this is the case. We need to move away from delusion, illusion, memory and imagination, doubt and fear, and until we do we will continue to fruitlessly search for answers to anxiety and depression in the outside world, we will continue to boost the bottom lines of drug companies while we move further and further away from the truth. What's the truth? The answers are right under our noses. The first step is the step we take to look inwards and to accept what we find with compassion and care, and then to slowly and gently align ourselves with the true light of our own existence, for the ultimate benefit of everyone. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/ Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Intentional Resilience is power made of many aspects. No athletic goal moves anywhere without desire and intention. The power of dreams is an internal process that drives a physical outcome. That internal drive can look a little like this-  Desire, inception, intention, inspiration, enjoyment, motivation, enthusiasm, heart, guts, will, acceptance, non resistance, and the ultimate outcome of resilience and trust. Without these critical drivers our goals and dreams are little more than a concept.All of these inner qualities demand a healthy dose of the reality of the present moment in order for them to force a transformation. The present moment is the source that holds these qualities together. Athletes tend to go off track, make things too complex, too rigid, they tend to project and dissect and rarely do they introspect. The outer goal has its core at an inner level, if we are disconnected from it we lose our ability to know what true resilience means. If you are feeling frustrated by your endeavors in just about any sense, this one is going help you.  Gilesy. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

This week we are talking to waterman Mick Di Betta, the inaugural World Champion Molokai to Oahu prone Paddleboard Winner. Mick has been a top 10 fixture in that event for nearly 21 years, which is an amazing feat in of itself. Mick is also a coach who has coached many champions to the world championships, working both online and physically with his group "Just Paddling". Many of the world's top 10 paddlers follow Micks programs, and his knowledge of the ocean and the Molokai strait is second to none. Mick is also a level 3 surf coach so has the perspective of both the athlete and the coach.The straight is not referred to as the "channel of bones" for nothing, it has a fierce reputation as one of the world's most dangerous pieces of ocean.So we thought Mick would make for a great podcast on the importance of staying calm and centered in an ever changing environment like this, and to speak of the reality of what mental strength means when not just facing performance pressures, but also instinctual survival pressures.If you are interested in what it means to balance performance, headspace and survival all at once spoken by the true salt of the sea, this one will hit the spot!Mick's coaching website-https://justpaddling.com/Grants website -https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

This week we are talking to Mark Turner who has just finished a stint as Triathlon Scotland high performance coach. In this podcast we wanted to open a non judgmental discussion about the nature of high performance sports programs and what can be done to remove the toxic elements of doubt and fear.  All sports programs, even down to the grassroots level, suffer from some degree of politics and conflict. Often we find that doubt is a personal driver that infects the collective. Doubt is the cynical thought process that leads to protective beliefs, and limits the expansive lateral thinking that leads to a well oiled collective machine that creates athletic success at the end of the chain. Psychological safety is a big component within a well functioning collective. In this podcast we discuss the power of vulnerability, authenticity and honesty as a route to making a sustainable change to the high performance model, in order for us to best serve the purpose at the end of the chain; great, well adjusted, fully developed athletes that are capable of performing at the top level with a background of solidity and solidarity. There is something in here for everyone, coaches, athletes and administrators at all levels. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

This week we have a discussion with Dr Paris Williams. We discuss the transition that took Paris from world champion hang gliding athlete, to the depths of an intense personal inner transformation and awakening that led him on a journey of exploration of the human condition. Paris attained degrees in ecology and psychology, specializing in humanistic, existential, transpersonal, somatic and ecological approaches to understanding human nature and healing, becoming a registered Clinical Psychologist and Hakomi Teacher. His exploration led him to conduct research on extreme states, trauma recovery and deep personal transformation, as a result he published the widely acclaimed book, Rethinking Madness.The podcast theme revolves around human metamorphosis, interwoven with a message of hope for those people who suffer and struggle with self definition and purpose. This is one for both the athletic and general community. It speaks to power of coming to understand the deeper existential truths of the self that impact our enjoyment of the outside world, our place in it, and our impacts on it. Many of us get stuck in our struggles or find ourselves falling down in life, however what we can fail to realise is that the fall is often a stage in a metamorphosis. The first stage in an important process of transmutation that can move us directly into our own power.Paris uses a metaphor of the chrysalis in the stage of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. In the chrysalis stage, the bulk of the caterpillar's pudgy mass is recycled into the adult features that are meshing together inside the tough shell of the chrysalis. The interior is, at this stage, mostly a nutrient soup, feeding the embryonic imaginal discs as they complete their delayed development into butterfly. In our lives we can go through a similar experience of inner transformation that will first expose us to our own darkness. It's very easy to get stuck in these first intense stages as we hold on for dear life, when often what is required is a letting go.In this sense depression and anxiety can be seen as part of that chrysalis, two of the drivers that can alert us that something is not right. When we are in the depths of despair, it is often hard to see it as movement of hope and opportunity.This podcast shines a light onto the darker areas of the process that illuminates a path of hope, not just for the benefit of humanity, but also for the planet we live on and the impacts we have on it when we are not fully awake in life. Life is for living and living is for life! Thank you Paris. Links -https://cncl.info/www.rethinkingmadness.comGrants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

This week we have an interesting interview by Grant Giles with Shawn Smith, athlete manager and chief editor at Triathlon news website www.trizone.com.au.In this podcast Shawn speaks openly about athlete management and shares the benefit of his experience. We speak to the do's and dont's of building and maintaining athlete/sponsor relationships, and the importance of an effective coherent support team.We also cover some ground from each stakeholders perspective, and the importance of gluing the whole thing together, so it becomes an add for all concerned, rather than a drain. Shawn shares his advice for budding athletes and their support network, and we speak to the power of patience and resisting the temptation to bite off more than you can chew. Many athletes rush the brass ring. There is often this propensity toward "making hay while the sun shines". We speak not only of the damage that this limited thinking can do to an athletic career, but also how that thinking and action can stunt your growth as an athlete. A stable financial career requires stability of mind and action, with a long haul overview being the path to longevity as an athlete.  Often the crush to make the bucks leads an athlete to a feast or famine mentality, that can mentally cloud an athletes path. This mindset often leads to rash decisions in the spur of the moment that make their development patterns messy and unsustainable.Obviously an anxiety around the length of ones career leads to a perception of lack, however that perception is the same perception that rides an athletes back at races and makes it difficult for them to focus. Pressure wears many masks!Shawn pulls the thing apart for you so you can get a bird's eye view into the blurry world of keeping everyone happy including yourself.If you are an athlete, a coach, a supporter or part of an athletes family or support network, this one is aimed at you. If you simply love the nature of sport, here is a view you don't often get to see from the sidelines.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Your second chance is being served to you on a plate. What are you going to do, survive or thrive?Athletes often tend to miss the importance of moments that contain opportunity. Often in hindsight we identify moments that provided key opportunity's that we missed, because we were too busy sitting in judgement and making ourselves victims of the situation. This moment is calling for a key decision, perhaps one of the biggest in your athletic career, what are you going to do with this time? Make yourself a victim of the situation or find a hidden opportunity? So this weeks podcast is devoted to using this time to develop a strength and a skill that has been hidden from your view in all the noise. The unlimited potential of your own internal focus provided to you courtesy of your own awareness. The mind is a narrow corridor of your awareness, you have an opportunity to vastly expand its capacity for focus and clarity in a time where the world has vastly slowed down. Self awareness in athletic terms can take you far beyond the limitations of mind and thought into the twilight zones of becoming one with what you do. You move from self judgment to self awareness. Awareness is always present, it's level of effectiveness depends on how much attention you are able to pay to what's really happening in your experience, rather than what the mind is projecting onto your experience.When we talk about mindset we pay very little attention to the fact that what we are really talking about is taking away the layers of mind based illusion that covers and clouds our awareness, a virtual removal of the rubbish to expose the real.An effective “mindset” is in fact a lack thereof, a subtraction of the weight and the noise to allow the innate intelligence to flow into your direct experience. You can't increase awareness with more thinking, the word mindset is an oxymoron. So here's the skinny, not just in terms of sport but also life.Our identification with the mind is the root of the problem. We believe our thoughts before we believe our experience, it is utterly backwards!We fail to realise that our eyes are like projectors onto this world. We need to raise our awareness of what we project, because we don't realise that we are the creators of this reality. I don't take this lightly, this is not a small opportunity for athletes, it is hands down the greatest. Nothing you can think about or do physically even gets close.Don't overlook the power of the awareness In the heart. Your heart is a muscle. With awareness you can learn how to harness its power, It's not just a physical point in your body that pushes out blood. It's the centre of who you are and when we are unaware we don't see or feel its ability to overcome adversity and challenge. The world is giving you a pause in your crazy world to find something new about yourself that could revolutionise the way you train and race. Try and see now before it becomes hindsight, this is your chance to work the mental edge hard. If you can get through this, you can get through anything!You'll never get an opportunity like this again, you make a choice to endure it or thrive as a consequence of it. Seriously this time is giving you the quiet reflection needed to make substantial gains, don't piss it away filling it with noise. Gilesy.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

The viral shift. It's not about answers, it's all about the questions! As a species we have spent an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to make stable that which is by nature unstable. Our main lesson here is that nothing in physical life is stable, even reality. Reality is in fact as solid as tissue paper. I'd like a dollar for every time I have heard the words, surreal, weird, eery, strange, come out of peoples mouths lately. The fabric of reality can tear so very easily, it bends, morphs and changes shape, and much like that tissue paper reality is the nature of our thinking, it changes shape at every moment. Banking your future on thinking is banking your reality on chaos. There is nothing stable or rational about thinking in a panic. Collectively we have an opportunity to move into flow with the planet we live on and it's dynamic nature. Or we can stay the same!That opportunity though is a very personal and individual process of reflection and introspection. Am I going to move out of this the same way I came in?The remedy to all bad dreams is simply to wake up, right now life is slapping us awake. We now make the deeply personal choice to wake up or continue to take part in the bad dream. If you want a shift in the world, the first place you have to make it is inside yourself, otherwise life will do it for you, as we get  dragged through one warped reality into another. If you are feeling challenged, uncomfortable, anxious, frustrated, depressed, fearful, apathetic or just plain confused, this one is ode to you. Gilesy. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Challenging times we are going through no doubt. Often challenge and the doubts like we are facing right now tend to expose our core wounds, often leaving us feeling raw, exposed and vulnerable. For the athletes right now, these are uncertain times, athletes like to control their external world but right now that is not possible. What we are doing in this podcast is exploring what you can control right now. This is not the time to be disintegrating into apathy. There is always opportunity hidden within challenge, we must stay open to that.  We collectively seem to be doing all we can right now on an outer level, but what can we do on an inner level to steady ourselves, to not get dragged headfirst into the next negative headline? What can we do to steady the ship in wild seas? In this shorter podcast Gilesy is discussing the nature of challenge and what it brings up in us.Relax, get a cuppa, and put your feet up for a moment, the world will still be here when you get back, lets explore this landscape together and see what we can find that can help us stay on course. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

This weeks Roaring Heads Podcast is a guest interview with Craig Alexander, 5 times World Triathlon Champion. From the outside one would say that Craig is a tough nut. No one excels in Kona and records a Palmarès of such longevity without lashings of mental fortitude and toughness, but what does that actually mean? In this podcast we explore what that has meant for Craig. There are always clues left in the wake of great champions that can help us to unpick our own locks if we listen carefully enough to the words spoken and what they mean on an experiential level. So I guess the theme that runs through the entirety of this interview is the power of the self aware athlete. That doesn't necessarily mean the most positive athlete or the most do or die, but it means the athlete who is most honest with themselves, willing to be able to take a good long hard look inside and action change that creates the space for something great.  A self aware athlete is someone who sells themselves on reality, and then meets that reality with acceptance and a willingness to do what it takes to meet that reality, regardless of what it looks like. Some have in the past called that the digger spirit. Call it what you will, when you line yourself up at the gates of lofty goals, there will be no hiding from yourself. Craig is one of those people who has looked into the grind, the relentless hard graft, the darkness and the un-glamorous nature of its truth and answered the question with a yes, and it makes for interesting listening.There are many pearls of wisdom in here for all levels of athletes, and of course as sport is such a great metaphor for life, it applies to life in general as well. Buckle up and listen up, there will be truth bombs in here that will resonate. Gilesy. https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/ Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Isn't it strange how we are able to train so consistently and so confidently in the day to day training environment, but as we draw into race week the jitters begin. Some of that shakiness is a requirement, a shakiness that alerts us to the fact that we are about to go into battle and that we need all our reserves to be awakened. However once that shakiness moves into the realm of doubt, we move into a shadow land of hidden inner judgements, criticisms, doubts and fears, yes those ones we don't want the competition to see. In this episode we are working to bring clarity to what is helpful and what is harmful to your performance in that uncomfortable week called race week, and the pitfalls we set ourselves up for unconsciously through the inner habits we perpetuate and the resistance we create to the process we trained so effectively for physically. Nerves, anxiousness, obsessiveness, doubts, fears, agitation, avoidance, resistance, apathy and how to reach an optimal pre race arousal level all covered here in this episode to help you negotiate the tricky landscape called pre race angst. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

In this episode Gilesy explores the age old athlete question, how do I know when I'm too fatigued to train and when I'm just slacking? Athletes have a very hard time coming to terms with fatigue, often we will override our own intuition to push on into the twilight zone. In this episode we explore the effect of rumination on the decision   making process on whether to train or not, the damned if you, damned if you don't scenario that so many athletes struggle with in their day to day training environment.We unpick the very nature of our relationship to fatigue and the role intuition and awareness plays in maintaining the necessary long term consistency which sometimes  plays out at the cost of the short term plan in order for us to stay in homeostasis and continue to grow athletically. Some of the key areas we cover this week around the hooks hidden in this question are- rumination, worry, stress, doubt, fear, comparison, outcomes and expectations and the effect they have on us making the right decisions for the benefit of the long term goal. If you've ever found yourself wondering whether you should pull the trigger and train or go home, this one is for you. Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

In this episode we have Kira Sutherland, an Australian Naturopath and Sports Nutritionist with more than 20 years in clinical practice. Kira's focus in performance nutrition led her to be the first Naturopath in Australia to undertake the International Olympic Committees diploma in sports nutrition. She is the 2019 winner of the BioCeuticals Integrative Medicine Award for Excellence in practice (Nutrition/Dietetics).In this chat we discuss the link between the gut microbiome and our mental, emotional states and the ultimate intelligence of the body to self regulate. We talk athlete body types, athlete weight obsession and disordered eating.We discuss athletic dietary trends and fads and the performance implications that surround our decisions, and sometimes the consequence of not paying enough attention to the awareness around the signals that out bodies are sending us. We speak of the massive role intuition plays in correct nutrition practices, both in races and in training, and learning how to dial into the internal messages the gut is sending and what it means. Naturally we talk pre-race diet and race day nutrition plans. The importance of only making subtle dietary changes in race week. Removing the complexity and keeping it simple, avoiding race day disasters set in motion by not trialing enough in training or the big mistake of changing too much leading into races.  This chat was one I was looking forward to having and I'm sure there will plenty of take homes for any athlete taking the time to listen in.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

In this episode Grant explores the epidemic of anxiety. I pulled the trigger on this particular podcast due to the fact that so many have contacted about the subject of anxiety. Anxiety steals the peace, tranquility and efficacy of living life as a being. We suffer so at the hands of anxiety because we misidentify ourselves as objects. Unconsciously we feed our anxiety the fuel it requires, which is our own ignorance of our true definition.  If we want to work with anxiety, first we must understand what and who anxiety and fear really occurs to. Here Grant explores our relationship to it and ourselves, and the ways we unconsciously get ourselves stuck in it, and more importantly what we can do about it. How we can put an end to the fear inside the fear. While ever we see ourselves as an object, we will see ourselves as doings not beings. Beings naturally do, objects are inert lumps of matter that have no being, if we see ourselves this way, how can we not feel anxious? Anxiety is a misinterpretation of our true identity, the confusion that comes with that  keeps us stuck on a rats wheel of illusion, dissatisfaction and despair. But it need not be that way. Anxiety likes to hide out in the dark corners of our subconscious waiting for an opportunity to strike, it thrives on our ignorance and lack of awareness. However you can't be caught off guard if you are looking at it, allowing it, accepting its presence. In this podcast Grant explores a mode of recovery from anxiety that has lasting power. It's about moving into your own power and getting back into the drivers seat of your own life. The first step is to commit to change and to give up the resistance. If you suffer from anxiety, know someone who suffers from anxiety or even if you worry too much, this one is for you. Its time to stop the rot.  Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

This week I am discussing one of my favorite subjects when it comes to the borders of athletic endeavor, "relaxing into pain". In this episode I am covering some of the key aspects around pain, discomfort and our relationship to managing it, including:Our relationship to pain.Pain is a tag we learnt from our parents. Our judgment of pain.Pain, is it felt or thought?The practice of using awareness to become the conduit of pain, not the victim of it. The practice of relaxing into pain.The practice and the transmuting power of allowing discomfort, challenge and pain to be as it is.The role acceptance of pain can play in finding flow. Finding your solid ground from which to perform. If you want pain and discomfort to cease then you first need to let go of it. We spend an inordinate amount of time judging ourselves to be the victim of it, when in fact, we make it so because we think that way.We divide pain into likes and dislikes. We judge it so intensely that we don't give it the opportunity to flow though, like all energy, it comes and goes. In order to find flow and alignment with an athletic process you have to accept it as it is, the second you find yourself in resistance is the second you find yourself out of flow, you are no longer in your process, you are standing outside of it in judgment, you move out of the present moment and into past and future. If we want to learn how to connect the dots of athletic process to its best effect, we need to explore the way we think and the damage it does, bearing in mind that most of what happens to us that separates us from our process is largely unconscious thinking patterns, its been going on for so long that we are not aware of it. Its an old program paradigm that needs an upgrade. If you want the best from yourself then explore the parts of yourself that are most triggered or challenged. There are not many things that challenge or trigger athletes like pain and discomfort. Dig in,Gilesy.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/  Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Today I interview Christie Giles {née Sym}. We haven't shared anything specifically from the feminine perceptive yet so I thought this might be an interesting perspective given the life she has led thus far.Probably Australia's best adventure racer through the years 2006-2009, Christie won just about everything. The epitome of what looked from the outside to be mental toughness.Tired of being expected to win she sought out a new challenge and moved across to triathlon in 2009, setting the triathlon world alight early winning multiple 70.3 races and placing second in her first Ironman at Busselton only 3 minutes behind winner Gina Crawford.Christie moved overseas through the years 2010-2013 and raced professionally, winning in international races but somehow lacking real consistency through a propensity to push too far too often.What often looks like mental toughness from the outside does not match an athletes inner dialogue and we can travel a fine line, when driven to succeed, between appropriate self care and outright self destruction and unconscious self sabotage.Christie has taken some hard hits and learnt some big lessons on her journey and one of the key lessons is that being hard and collapsing in on yourself can only go on for so long before it causes issues. So once again it raises the critical question, what does mental toughness actually mean? Today Christie will talk about the nature of athletic self care and self nurturing for longevity. She shares her struggles with body type, eating dysfunction and society's polarised view of what the female athlete should look like. We talk diet obsession, self sabotage, over-training and overreaching, negative self talk, negative expectancy and much more. This is a good listen for all levels of ability, hope you enjoy.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Today Gilesy discusses the immense power in the seemingly opposing recipe of giving up in Success! It's not about what you gain, it's about what you give up. What are you willing to give up for your dreams? Your late nights, your social butterfly ways, your high GI sugar fixes, your self judgment, your doubts, your fears, your Friday afternoon beers? Ultimately success is not measured by what you have, but by what you have given up! What you find in that giving up of outside attachment is the source of your very own power that fills the gaps in the void your attachments have left behind. Real power, tangible power. We need to sacrifice the peripheral to find our center, whereby we are in flow with success, in rhythm with it, in sync, that means subtraction of that which is surplus to the flow of success itself. When we want to have an each way bet and fail to fully commit, we stay out on the periphery, we know we haven't made the necessary sacrifice and the heart knows it, so we are at the mercy of the spinning periphery, we cling and hang on for dear life and just hope we don't get flung off the success trajectory we have sold our ego and neglected to swallow into our heart and gut. Heart and gut is the answer to the athletic realm and just about every other realm of life for that matter. When we really start to dig into the twilight zones, do we really believe there's a chance in hell we are going into that place without heart, will, desire and guts? None of that is coming from your mind.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

Today Gilesy is discussing a few of the pillars of becoming self aware. The unconscious traps we tend to fall into that sever our performance cord and separate us from our own internal potential. Most of them experienced by Gilesy and explored out to hopefully add something to your own exploration that may help you short cut and negotiate some of the same holes that he fell into. The judgment system, being aware in this moment, the past, the future, fear, doubt, self confidence all tied into a non binding discussion that flows through all the corridors and ends up back where it starts, with you!Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

On today's Roaring Heads Podcast we have triathlon coach Mark Turner. Mark has run a very successful triathlon business on the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Mark is an extremely passionate and thoughtful human. He made the big jump to move his Family to Scotland to take over the role of head coach of Triathlon Scotland.In this podcast we discuss the in and outs of coaching and the mental game that underpins the value of the whole process between athlete and coach. We talk of the value of personal integrity and the realm of vulnerability that so many athletes and coaches struggle with. Whether you are a coach or an athlete, I feel like this will be well worth a listen. Hope you enjoy!GrantGrants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show

Today we talk to 2016 World 70.3 Triathlon Champion Tim Reed. Tim is most likely Australia's best 70.3 athlete and has made serious inroads into the Ironman distance, having won Ironman Australia and setting the run course record, and in the same year he won the Ironman 70.3 World Championship on the Sunshine Coast.Tim speaks about that banner year in 2016 and the mental adjustment taken which provided a breakthrough in his performances.We go in depth to what the nature of mental resilience means to him, and what Tim does to keep himself grounded whilst juggling the demands of a full time professional career and the role of a family man.Tim has great clarity around his situation and articulates it very well, and I hope you enjoy the interview and can take something from it. Obviously it's working for Tim as he is still setting course records and winning globally.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show

He has won so many races I can't count them. Often at speeds pro athletes would be proud of. Hayden has podiumed at World championships, won Ironman and 70.3 categories over many years. He has finished top 10 overall in several Ironmans including an 8:45 at Ironman New Zealand last year, from an age group start and has often been the first age grouper home. His palmarés is so long I wouldn't have the time to list it out.Hayden is certainly no stranger to toughness and mental resilience. He is called upon by Richie Porte and Cam Wurf for a training partner when they are home, such is his strength and consistency. You can bet if he is racing, he will be as tough as nails. Hayden is also one of my longest coach/athlete relationships. Hayden is also the principle at Armstrong's Insurance Brokers, a thriving insurance business in Hobart Tasmania, that has seen big growth over the years. As well as being a Husband and father to a small family. I thought Hayden would be the perfect man to talk family, elite sport and business and the nature of what mental resilience across such a broad life actually means to him.Grants Website-https://www.inconvenientminds.com.au/Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)

What is possible when we truly accept the outside world and ourselves as we are? What is possible if we drop all the judgement? All the names and shames that cloud our athletic trust. We have to measure our goal against what the motivation is, and if the motivation is to simply add something to ourselves in terms of ego or reputation, then that motivation won't be strong enough and the required faith and trust will be MIA when we need it most. We need to anchor out trust inwards so we can draw on it in the heat of battle. Words, ideas, thoughts and belief are not enough for an athlete under pressure, stability is felt, not thought. Anchoring your motivation and trust in thought is like relying on a thief to not take your last 5 bucks. Faith, will, desire, heart and guts are the key modalities to self trust, all of them are felt sense, not thought. You can try and think them but it will be a thin, weak hologram representation of the real thing. As a master, thinking makes a great servant. Don't cower to your own thinking, most of it isn't even original to you. Over the coming months and hopefully years I plan on bringing a mix of interviews with athletes, coaches and psychology professionals, as well as touching the keys areas for all of us wanting to live a richer life.Coming to itunes and Spotify soon, please listen via the link in the mean time!The Roaring Heads Podcast Episode 1 November 2019Music Credit: To The Mountain by Zep Hurme (c) copyright 2016Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/GrantGiles)