STUART WALTER

You know my work… you just don’t know me.

For over 20 years, I have worked quietly behind some of the performances the world remembers, alongside more than 50 World and Olympic Champions and thousands of athletes who wanted to understand how much more was possible when their mind began working with them rather than against them. Most people never knew I was there, which is probably why The Athlete’s Secret Weapon became such an appropriate name. The athletes knew the difference the work made and quite often they were perfectly happy keeping that advantage to themselves.

Speaking gives me an opportunity to share some of that understanding with you, although if you’re expecting me to stand on a stage and tell you to work harder, push further and want it more, we’re probably going to have a very different conversation. Most athletes I meet already know how to push. In fact, some of them have become so good at pushing that their mind and body have spent years trying to tell them to stop.

I get it because I was an athlete too. I know what it feels like to train harder because you think harder must eventually equal better. I also know how frustrating it is when you have the ability, you’ve done the work and somehow the performance still isn’t matching what you know you’re capable of. That’s where I want to sit with you for a while and look at performance from a completely different direction.

Think about a car race. When a performance car comes into the pits, nobody thinks it has given up. Nobody looks at the driver and questions their commitment because they stopped. The stop is part of the performance. The car gets fuel, tyres, adjustments and whatever it needs to go back onto the track capable of doing what it was designed to do. Sometimes you have to stop to go faster.

Human beings seem to have a harder time accepting that.

We keep pushing because somewhere along the way we learned that stopping means slowing down. We train through exhaustion, carry pressure from one competition into the next and keep demanding more from ourselves because we genuinely want to become better. Then we become frustrated when our mind starts pushing back.

Yet your mind isn’t designed primarily for performance. Its number 1 program is protection.

That changes the conversation enormously.

The harder you push against something your mind perceives as threatening, exhausting or unsafe, the harder it can begin pushing back. Maybe your confidence changes. Your motivation disappears. You start overthinking things that used to happen automatically. Your body tightens when you need it relaxed. Competition begins feeling heavier than training and eventually you start wondering what has happened to the athlete you used to be.

I don’t look at that athlete and think something has gone wrong with them. I become curious about what their mind is trying to tell them.

Because once we understand that, we can work with it.

That is what I love sharing when I speak. I want to open your mind to the possibility that becoming better may not require you to keep demanding more from yourself. It may begin with understanding yourself better. Understanding why your mind responds the way it does, what happens when pressure arrives and how to create the internal state that allows all those years of physical training to actually become available when you need them.

There is usually a point during these conversations where I can see people starting to look at themselves differently. The athlete who thought they needed more confidence begins understanding what has been taking it away. The person who thought they needed more motivation starts recognising why their mind has been applying the brakes. The athlete who has spent years trying to force performance begins considering what might happen if they learned how to create the state that allows performance to come through.

That’s where things become exciting for me because I’m not interested in turning you into somebody else. I want you to become more capable of accessing the person and athlete you already are.

So when we spend time together, relax. Take a breath. Listen. Laugh. Ask questions. Think about your own experiences and allow yourself to become curious about what might be possible. You don’t need another person standing above you telling you how much harder you need to work.

I’d rather sit at your level and help you understand why everything might change when you finally learn how to get your head in the game.

You know my work… you just don’t know me.

Maybe it’s time we changed that.