“I often talk about the difference between fixing broken and creating awesome,” Rachel Vickery tells the Leaders Performance Podcast.

The performance coach, who guides and supports high performers to excel, lead and thrive in high pressure and high stakes environments, is discussing the importance of preparing athletes for the high pressure scenarios they face in competition.

“You don’t need a ‘get out of jail card’ in the first place if you haven’t ended up in jail in the first place," she continues.

“Performance under pressure is less about what happens in the moment of pressure, it’s more about ‘what have you done?’ everywhere else that’s led you into that moment.”

In the course of our chat, Rachel, a former gymnast who works across the worlds of sport, military and medicine, to name a few, explores:

• The importance of helping athletes to build buffer and front-loading strategies to deal with human stress responses [6:00];
• The need for awareness and understanding of those stress responses so that athletes don’t feel they are ‘going crazy' [13:00];
• The role of imposter syndrome in feeding arousal states during competition [23:00];
• Why it is necessary to aim for excellence rather than perfection [28:00].

Check out Rachel's website here.

John Portch: Twitter | LinkedIn

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