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Every game has rules. The blue line in hockey, the three-point line in basketball. And those rules quietly shape every strategy built around them. In this solocast, I’m asking a deceptively simple question: what game are you actually playing? There’s the visible game. The sport, the business, the role you’ve signed up for. But underneath it, there’s often an invisible game running the show without our awareness. The fit-in game. The be-liked game. The good-enough game. The money game. The feel-good game. None of these are wrong. But when the invisible game is in conflict with the one you say you want to play, things start to get gummed up. And here’s the twist: most of these invisible games are unwinnable by design. I share a story from preparing to interview Marie-Philip Poulin in front of a conference crowd, and how I caught myself trying to win the connection game by connecting harder. Then I walk through four steps for stepping out: name the game, look at what’s predictable and what’s impossible inside it, decide whether you want to keep playing, and choose a new game grounded in who you actually are. The goal isn’t to judge the game you’ve been playing. It’s to choose it consciously. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

For the best, reflection is an integral part of the process. For everyone else, reflection is one of the most overlooked parts of the performance cycle. Without  structure and commitment, reflection can quickly become rumination - replaying mistakes, picking apart what went wrong, and carrying all of that into tomorrow. In this solocast, I’m breaking down one of my favorite tools for closing out a performance: Good, Better, How. What did I do good? What will I do better next time? And, most importantly, how am I actually going to do it? I get into why the reps alone aren’t enough for growth, how reflection helps us turn experience into learning, and why going heavier on what went well isn’t about false confidence or ignoring mistakes. Done well, reflection gives you a way to close the tabs, get clear on what matters next, and move forward without needing to beat yourself up to stay motivated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this solocast, I’m exploring something I got wrong for a long time: the idea that when we’re carrying too much stress or activation, the answer is simply to get better at relaxing. Breathing, meditation, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation—I still believe in all of those tools. But what happens when you’re trying to relax on top of years of missed shots, disappointing performances, high-pressure moments, frustration, and stress that your body never really had a chance to move through? Over time, that stuff can start to accumulate. Our baseline creeps higher, our capacity to regulate gets smaller, and eventually the mental skills that used to work don’t seem quite as effective anymore. So in this episode, I’m playing with a different idea: instead of immediately trying to calm the nervous system down, what if we sometimes need to invite in activation first? I break down what I mean by “energetic hygiene,” why stress can get stuck rather than resolved, and a few ways I’ve been experimenting with helping that energy move—including high-intensity intervals, breathing, and cold exposure. The goal isn’t to become perfectly calm. It’s to create enough space in the system that when it’s time to regulate, recover, or move on to the next play, we actually can.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with former basketball athlete and executive/somatic coach Elisa Haggarty to explore how athletes, leaders, and high performers can build a more honest relationship with the body. Elisa’s work helps leaders and teams use bodily sensations, emotions, and present-moment awareness as data for authenticity, trust, and more effective communication. Drawing from her own athletic background, she shares how sport can teach us to work hard, push through discomfort, and chase approval. Meanwhile, we’re also disconnecting ourselves from the very signals that could help us perform and live with more clarity. Elisa offers a practical and grounded way to begin: notice what is present, name the sensations, get curious about numbness or disconnection, and allow the body to become a source of trustworthy information. If you’re an athlete, coach, leader, or performer who has learned to use your body as an instrument but struggles to actually listen to it, this conversation offers a powerful reframe: the body is not something to override. It is part of the intelligence we need to perform, communicate, and live more fully. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this solocast, I’m exploring what happens when performers try to avoid the very things they’re most afraid of. Maybe it’s falling. Missing the shot. Losing the tournament. Getting hurt. Looking like a fraud. Our instinct is often to push those possibilities away and use mental skills to stay calm, focused, and in control. But when we’re using those tools to cover up what’s happening underneath, we can actually create an artificial ceiling on our performance. I break down three ways we tend to relate to fear: pretending the “monster” isn’t there, trying to lock it away, or learning to acknowledge it, accept what’s possible, and make an empowered choice anyway. We’ll also look at practical ways to work with these experiences through journaling, pendulation, and meditation—and why the thing you’re most determined to avoid may actually point toward your greatest opportunity for growth. What if your fear isn’t something you need to overcome in order to perform at your best? What if learning to work with it is part of what makes you a better performer? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with former All-American wrestler, performance coach, TEDx speaker, and entrepreneur Jim Harshaw to explore what it takes to unlock sustainable high performance in sport, business, and life. Jim’s story starts on the wrestling mat, where early disappointment, self-doubt, and the pressure to prove himself eventually led to one of the most important mindset shifts of his career: moving from outcome obsession to process focus. That shift helped him become an All-American wrestler, and it now shapes the work he does with athletes, executives, entrepreneurs, and high performers who are trying to access the “last 10–20%” of their potential. In this conversation, we unpack why hard work alone is not always enough, how productive pauses create clarity and more effective action, and why sustainable performance requires more than just motivation. On top of all of that, Jim shares his four-part framework for peak performance. We also talk about failure, coaching, journaling, deep work, and the difference between grinding harder and taking inspired action. If you’re a high performer who already works hard but still feels inconsistent, stuck, or disconnected from the process, this conversation offers a practical structure for getting aligned and performing more consistently under pressure. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

We all want a little certainty before a big performance. A great warmup. A perfect night of sleep. Some sign that everything is going to go according to plan. The problem is that certainty is never actually available. In this solocast, I explore how our desire to know what will happen next can create fragile confidence, negative predictions, rigid expectations, and a whole lot of wasted energy. That tension can show up as panic practice, distraction, frustration, self-criticism, or even freezing when it is time to take action. I also share three steps for building a healthier relationship with the unknown: noticing how uncertainty shows up in your mind and body, learning to hold the tension between wanting something deeply and not knowing if you will get it, and practicing how to direct your energy and attention back toward the task at hand. The best performers are not certain everything will work out. They have learned how to stay engaged, trust their ability to respond, and perform even when the outcome remains unknown. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with sport psychologist and three-time national champion Dr. Kate Bennett, founder of Full Send Consulting, to explore one of the most powerful and often misunderstood drivers of performance: genuine human connection. Kate’s work sits at the intersection of athlete well-being, mental performance, and transformational coaching. Heavily influenced by Jerry Lynch’s Way of Champions and Brené Brown’s research on shame, scarcity, and vulnerability, Kate helps athletes, teams, and coaches build cultures where people feel seen, valued, and loved for who they are.  We talk about why connection and mattering are more than “soft extras.” They are core performance drivers. We explore how listening without immediately fixing can create real transformation, why psychological safety makes courageous risk-taking possible, and how love in high-performance environments often looks like accountability, honest conversations, and a willingness to go into hard places together. If you’re a coach, practitioner, athlete, or leader trying to build a culture where people can perform at a high level without burning out, this episode offers practical “marching orders”: listen more deeply, model vulnerability, create safety, recognize people for how they show up, and build the kind of belonging that helps excellence emerge. Learn about Kate’s work at fullsendconsulting.co. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

Brent spent years competing at the highest levels of cycling, including the Tour de France, the Olympics, and World Championships. Since retiring from professional cycling, Brent has completed graduate training in mental performance and now works as a coach, helping athletes and high performers translate lived experience into tools for growth, resilience, and well-being. This conversation is a case study in how mental skills actually show up in the real world. Brent and Pete explore how concepts like self-determination theory, mindfulness, acceptance, a relationship with pain, motivation, and identity played out across his cycling career. And how formal mental performance training helped him better understand what he had been doing intuitively for years. You’ll also learn about the human side of elite endurance sport: the loneliness, suffering, identity pressure, career transitions, and emotional demands that exist behind the glamour of the Tour de France. Whether you’re an athlete, coach, parent, business leader, or performer in any domain, Brent’s story offers a practical and deeply human look at how mental training can raise the ceiling of performance while supporting the person doing the performing. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this solocast, I’m exploring a paradox I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: the more optimized a system becomes, the more fragile it can get. We start with sleep, but this applies to performance routines, recovery, leadership, training, and the way we prepare for just about anything. When everything has to go exactly right in order for us to feel ready, we end up narrowing the window for success. So I’m breaking down the difference between fragile, resilient, and anti-fragile systems, and how we can build habits that don’t just work when conditions are perfect, but can actually hold up when life gets messy. The goal isn’t to stop improving your systems, it’s to make sure your systems can survive contact with reality. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

**This conversation is all about psilocybin-assisted therapy, but it is not medical advice. Psilocybin is not appropriate for everyone, laws vary by location, and anyone interested in this work should seek support only from qualified professionals in legal, regulated settings.** In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with Adam O'Neil, a Boulder-based licensed psychologist and clinical psilocybin facilitator working at the intersection of mental health, performance psychology, and natural medicine. Adam brings a rare combination of rigor and heart to this conversation. We talk about the importance of comprehensive psychological assessment, the structure of psilocybin-assisted therapy, and why preparation, facilitation, and integration matter just as much as the journey itself. We also explore how plant medicine, when approached responsibly, can help people encounter deeper layers of identity, trauma, shame, avoidance, and pressure that traditional mental skills training may not fully reach. You’ll learn about the role of acceptance, surrender, ancestral wisdom, and cultural humility in this work. And why athletes and high performers may be drawn to deeper healing beyond optimization. Whether or not psilocybin is part of your path, this conversation offers a powerful reminder that performance is not separate from wholeness, and that sometimes the next level of growth requires us to stop fixing ourselves and start meeting ourselves more honestly. Learn more about Adam’s work and The Clearing healing center here: www.theclearingboulder.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

Your nervous system is the foundation of everything else. It shapes the way you perceive reality, and everything flows from there: what you think, how you decide, what comes out of your mouth, and what your people feel when you walk in the room. You can have the right words, the right plan, and the right tools. But if your state is communicating panic, pressure, or disconnection, that's what lands first and colors everything after it. In this solocast, I dig into why state regulation isn't a sidebar to great coaching and leadership. It's the throughline. I share a story from my own work with a basketball team that illustrates exactly what happens when leaders skip this piece, and what becomes possible when they don't. We get into interoceptive awareness, the science of why calm is contagious, and three practical ways to start building a more regulated nervous system on purpose. Being calm, stoic, or serene isn't the end goal. It's about knowing where you are, being responsible for your experience, shifting when you need to, and creating the conditions for the people around you to access their best when it matters most. Learn more about working with me one-on-one and my new coaching course at drkcoaching.com. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with Buddhist teacher, meditation teacher, and author Lodro Rinzler to explore a concept that has powerful implications for athletes, leaders, and high performers: basic goodness. So many of us operate from the quiet assumption that we’re not enough. Not successful enough, disciplined enough, accomplished enough, or mentally tough enough. Lodro’s work and new book “You Are Good, You Are Enough” challenge that story at the root, offering the possibility that beneath the striving, self-doubt, anxiety, and the insatiable need to achieve, there is something fundamentally whole and worthy already present. Together, we unpack how meditation functions as mental training, why thoughts don’t mean you’re “bad” at meditating, and how loving-kindness can help us relate differently to ourselves and others. We also explore the tension between achievement and worth and why so many high performers keep chasing external validation only to discover it doesn’t deliver the peace they hoped for. If you’ve ever felt fueled by the belief that you’re not enough, or if you coach athletes and performers who live inside that story, this conversation offers a grounded, practical, and deeply human way to begin relating differently to your own mind. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

In this week's solocast, I’m unpacking something I’ve been seeing a lot lately: the idea of caring less about the outcome and just focusing on the process. That mindset may not seem like that big of a deal to you, but the more I hear it, the more I think it’s missing something important. Because the truth is, you do care. You care about the result, and when that starts to feel uncomfortable, pressure, anxiety, fear of what it might mean if you don’t get it, we try to solve that by pretending it doesn’t matter. What that actually creates is a version of you that’s never fully in, never fully committed, and ends up stuck in that half in, half out space.  So let's tackle what’s really underneath that, why it’s happening, and what it takes to move through it. Because if you don’t care about the outcome, the process doesn’t really work. At some point, you have to be willing to name what you want and accept the risk that comes with it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.

What does it really take to build trust and psychological safety in teams under pressure? In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with Peter Hodgkinson, high-performance consultant and the former Head of Build at Mercedes F1. Peter has spent decades in elite motorsport, including Formula 1, Le Mans, and the America’s Cup. He shares how environments with razor-thin margins and constant pressure shaped his philosophy on intent-based leadership, consistency, and human performance. Peter's experience connects directly to what many people are navigating every day: burnout from grinding in “second gear,” leading teams through high-stakes moments, and trying to align values with actual behavior, not just words on a wall. You’ll learn practical frameworks like Peter’s three-part model of trust (reliability, capability, relationship) and the importance of psychological safety in performance. Plus, get insight into how organizations like Mercedes made culture real by tying behavior, instead of just outcomes, to performance reviews and incentives. If you’re a leader, coach, or performer looking to build stronger teams, reduce burnout, and lead more effectively under pressure, this conversation offers both clear models and immediately actionable insights you can start applying today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Learn more about The Mental Training Lab Connect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | Website Subscribe to the podcast on Apple | Spotify This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.