Sports coaching
The mental game, coached.
Mental performance coaching for athletes and teams. Most of the enquiries I get are about this, and most of them start the same way: the body is ready and the head is not.
For individual athletes, squads, school sport, and the coaches and parents around them.
Lived, not studied
I coach what I have had to learn the hard way.
Survivor SA, the Cape Epic, the Adventure Race World Championship, a Drakensberg Grand Traverse record attempt, the 100 km Ultra Trail. Each one taught me something about the mental side of performance that no textbook did: how to decide when you are exhausted, how to hold a team together when the plan breaks, and how to keep going when the result is already gone.
That is what I bring to athletes. Not theory about mental toughness, but the practice of it.
- Survivor SA: Immunity Island, 2021
- Cape Epic finisher
- Adventure Race World Championship, 2023
- Drakensberg Grand Traverse, Fastest Known Time attempt
- 100 km Ultra Trail, Drakensberg
World champs in adventure racing.
Survivor SA
Trail training
Smiling when life gives storms.
What we work on
Six things that decide a result before the start.
Mental toughness
Staying clear when the body wants to stop. Routines and reframes that hold under fatigue, not just in the warm-up.
Your relationship with failure
Understanding it is the single biggest amplifier of future success. We make failure useful instead of frightening.
Consistency
Your everyday determines your one day. The unglamorous habits that compound into the result that looks like talent.
Decisions under pressure
The criteria of decision making, applied to race day, game day, and selection day.
Team coherence
How a squad behaves when the score turns. Alignment between coaches and players on what the team actually stands for.
Pre-event preparation
A plan for the head, not just the body, in the weeks before a big event. And a reset afterwards, whatever the result.
Who it is for
Athletes, squads, and the people around them.
Individual athletes
Endurance athletes, competitive amateurs, and professionals preparing for a season or a single event.
Teams and squads
School first teams, club sides, and academy groups. Sessions with players and coaches in the same room.
Young athletes and their parents
For a teenager whose talent is ahead of their mindset. Built on a relationship over time, not a one-off meeting.
How it works
A relationship through a season, or a block before a big event.
A conversation.
Where you are, what the event or season is, and what is getting in the way.
A plan.
Fortnightly sessions through a season, or a focused block in the weeks before an event. In person or virtual.
The work.
Most of it happens between sessions. You do it. I hold the standard.
The review.
After the event, win or lose. That is where most of the growth is.
For teams and schools
Two talks built for young athletes.
Both work as a stand-alone session for a squad, a sports academy, or a school assembly, and both can open a longer coaching relationship.
Do I need better mental health, or better mental strength?
A straight conversation with young people about the difference between the two, why both matter, and which one they actually need to work on before the exam, the final, or the big decision.
How does my relationship with failure impact my approach to success?
Beginning to understand our relationship with failure is the single biggest amplifier of future success. A talk that helps young people stop fearing failure and start using it.
“Placeholder for one short quote from an athlete, a coach, or a parent.”
Name, sport, team
Next step
Tell me about the athlete, or the team.
The sport, the event or season, and what is getting in the way. I will come back with a suggestion for how we could work together, and we take it from there.