Health & FitnessFitnessEducationSelf-Improvement

The Built For Pressure Podcast

Will Foden

This podcast is for leaders, business owners and executives to find their next 1%.

This podcast will educate those who want to regain their edge, consistently perform during times that matter and turn potential into performance.

- Human Optimisation
- Peak Performance
- Elite Mindset Strategy
- Personal Development
- Communication
- Leadership Performance
- Business Growth

These are all parts of the bigger puzzle for the modern leader.

This podcast is designed to connect and remodel what modern day leadership needs to become.

We are placing the human at the forefront of the performance.

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28 episodes
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#97
Today · 23 min
This Is The One Reason Why Your Performance Will Keep Failing You
There's a reason your performance keeps failing you. It isn't effort, it's how you're applying it. Most founders, executives and athletes treat performance like a set of separate projects. Get fitter. Get sharper. Make better decisions. Each one works on its own; none of them connects. In this episode I walk through the Mirror Model, five stages of development where every physical skill has a mental counterpart. Strength and mental toughness. Conditioning and cognitive endurance. Technical skill and cognitive precision. Tactical application and decision-making under pressure. Strategic planning and vision. I share why resilience and chronic stress are two different things, the metrics you should be tracking instead of guessing, why I train decisiveness in moments that don't matter, and what professional rugby taught me about chasing a goal I never properly defined. If you're performing on paper but feel like something is missing, this episode shows you where to look. Take the Capacity Index: capacity.scoreapp.com builtforpressure.net
#96
September 30 · 12 min
Eating Clean, Training Hard and Still Exhausted? This Is Why
If you're eating clean, training hard, but still feeling exhausted, there's a bigger game at play here. If that is you, your effort is rarely the problem. The system your effort sits inside is. In this video I break down why so many executives, founders and high performers do everything right on paper and still stall. Most performance advice speaks in silos. Your body is a fitness problem. Your head is a mental health problem. Your business is a leadership problem. In reality it is usually one intertwined problem showing up in different places. What I cover: - Why an executive needs to understand the demand signature. As there's more at play- whether it's physical, emotional, professional, or psychological- board meetings, travel, poor sleep, and dehydration all matter when it comes down to recalibrating and gaining back energy. - How to identify a constraint signature and recognise that's the thing holding you back when it comes down to elevations in your performance - Why chronic stress, a calorie deficit and high intensity training together can leave you gaining body fat while eating less. - How cortisol keeps blood sugar elevated, and why cutting carbohydrates can make the problem worse. - Why fat cells shrink but never disappear, and what repeated crash dieting does to your metabolism. - Why chronic stress is causing downstream effects on your sleep, performance, digestion, energy, mood, and emotions - Seasons of performance. Why you should not sit in a deficit for longer than eight weeks, and why dieting year round breaks you down. - The sleep cascade. Better sleep drives better nutrition decisions, lower inflammation, steadier energy and better performance across the board. A thriving body is fuelled to perform. It is not starved to get there. If you are not measuring it, you are not managing it. Stop looking for the next supplement and look hard at the 20% of behaviours you repeat every day, week and month. FREE RESOURCES The Capacity Index Seven pillars covering the key behaviours behind your performance. Score yourself and find your constraint. https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/ Executive Calorie Calculator Comment CALC below and I will send it over. It gives you your starting numbers on a balanced macro plan, the same approach I use to stabilise executives before anything else. If you have been training hard, eating clean and still are not recovering or performing, stop treating one piece of the puzzle. Find the constraint behind it and start there. 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#95
September 28 · 11 min
If You're the Biggest Liability in Your Business, Heres What To Do
Most founders measure every metric in their business except the one running it. Them. In this episode, recorded on the move with the dog, I break down the checkpoints I use with every client to assess the asset that drives everything else. When energy drops, decisions slow and the business starts to feel flat, the problem is rarely strategy. It is the operating system underneath the skin. In this episode: Minimum standards. Why the basic behaviours are the first to go when pressure rises, and why they are the only KPIs that protect your output. I share my own non-negotiables, from six training days a week to protein at every meal and morning light through a Manchester winter. Physiology before psychology. Emotions are signals, not reality. When your physiology is right, your thinking becomes clean and you operate from power rather than force. The stories you tell yourself. How we delete, distort and generalise information, and what my time in the back row taught me about chasing every ruck instead of picking my shots. Stepping off the dance floor. How elite leaders move between first, second, third and fourth person perspective to see the bigger game. What winning actually means. The minimum numbers you need to hit over the next 12 weeks to finish the year calm, focused and fulfilled. If you are struggling to see the wood for the trees heading into Q4, take the Capacity Index at https://capacity.scoreapp.com and find out where your capacity is leaking.
#94
September 16 · 10 min
If You Want To Achieve Big In Q4, Action This
Setting a goal and attaining it are two very different things. Most ambitious leaders have the first part sorted. Very few understand the mechanism underneath the second. This is the exact goal framework I use inside Built For Pressure with CEOs, business owners and athletes who operate under sustained pressure. It starts with a principle I learnt 10 years ago. The definition of done. If your goals are written in grey, emotional language, nothing upstream will ever produce the outcome you are asking for. The targets have to be objective. The route to get there can be as messy as it needs to be. What we cover: - The definition of done, and why vague goals never get finished. - High hard goals. Ambitious targets that stretch you just beyond your current capacity, built on the goal structure Steven Kotler lays out in The Art of Impossible. - Clear goals. The daily, weekly and monthly behaviours that turn a big ambition into something you can actually attain. - The gap. The most uncomfortable exercise a leader can do, measuring what you say you want against what you are actually doing. - Why your physical, personal and professional goals should be built in that order. - Boundaries and standards. Why your diary tells the truth about your priorities, and why training that is not in it will not happen. - Realign and recommit. How to stack wins and build the momentum that compounds. Download the free worksheets here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EFSiXCePob1p6rFJbQx8uaMKLVdxzO3A/view Set aside 15 minutes, work through them honestly, and look hard at the gap between your clear goals and your current week. That is where you start. About Built For Pressure Built For Pressure provides performance infrastructure for leaders operating in high-pressure environments. We work across physiology, recovery, mental performance and leadership so you can perform when it matters. 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#93
September 1 · 1 hr 26 min
What Elite Performers Actually Do Differently With Ex Military Sniper Turned Performance Coach Shaun Kober
Everyone wants to know what elite performers do differently under pressure. The answer is almost always disappointing, because the work that decides the outcome was done months earlier, in conditions nobody was watching. Coach Kobes, aka Shaun Kober, has tested that idea in places most people will never see or even comprehend. I have been lucky enough to call this man a friend for nearly a decade, and I have watched him grow and evolve as a coach and an elite practitioner. Six years in the Australian Army as a sniper taught him more about pressure and performing when it matters than any book ever will. Three deployments across Iraq, Timor and Afghanistan, then a career coaching elite fighters to world titles. In this episode I wanted to understand his process, and the difference between good performers and great ones. What actually separates the elite when the pressure arrives. A few of the concepts we cover: The gap between your expectations and the level of your training is the real differentiator under pressure. Shaun takes this from a military setting all the way through to helping Petr Yan win a world championship. Everyone has a fight, flight or freeze response, and none of us know which one we own until we are in it. If you have not trained to work inside that response in real time, you will not be effective when it counts. The third is the one I think most leaders get wrong. Shaun explains that coaching professional athletes is almost never about lighting a fire. It is about applying the brakes. General population need the opposite. They need pushing. Elite performers need to learn how to steer in real time with more precision. Then there is the personal piece, and I think most people will take strength from it. When you are handed compromising circumstances, how do you find acceptance and keep moving? After a serious spinal infection at the start of this year, Shaun has not only come back to perform, he is chasing a professional MMA debut before he turns forty two. Other lessons and experiences in this episode: - Growing up as the eldest of six with no electricity or running water, and leaving home before he turned fifteen - The crossroads between professional rugby and the army, and why he chose the harder path - How Shaun built a performance coaching career with world championship fighters - His coaching philosophy, and what it actually means to meet people where they are - What Live Train Perform is as a company, and what is coming next If you run a business, none of this is about fighting. It is about whether the system underneath you can absorb something you did not plan for, on a day you did not choose. Shaun been educated alongside each other in many different circumstances, and I have been a guest on his podcast, Live Train Perform, more than once. I can promise you will take something from this, from his experiences and from his story. Links to Shaun below. Instagram: @coach_kobes YouTube: @livetrainperform Website: https://www.coachedbykobes.com/ Built For Pressure is a performance partnership for founders and executives operating under sustained pressure. The Capacity Index scores you across seven pillars in under ten minutes and shows you where your own baseline sits right now. Link: https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/ 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net
#92
August 27 · 9 min
The Four Shapes Imposter Syndrome Takes In Leaders And How To Break It
Imposter syndrome in executives is not a sign you are out of your depth. It is evidence you are operating past your current capacity. In this episode I break down what imposter syndrome actually is, why high performing leaders misread it as weakness, and the three stages I use with CEOs and founders to move through it without freezing. Most people treat the feeling as a verdict on their ability and I'll explain to you why its not. It is what happens when you stretch into territory you have no evidence for yet, and your brain fills the gap with worst case scenarios. Handled properly, it becomes a performance signal. Handled badly, it becomes a freezing mechanism that stops you taking action on the thing you said you wanted. I cover the four shapes it takes in leadership: the perfectionist, the expert, the soloist and the visionary. I cover why self worth and self belief are two separate systems and what happens when you confuse them. And I cover the part almost nobody accounts for, which is that your physiology dictates the pace of your psychology. When you are under slept, under fed and running on adrenaline, imposter syndrome does not just appear. It magnifies. Mental performance trains exactly like physical performance. Progressive overload. Specificity. Repeated exposure. Most leaders never train it, then wonder why it collapses under load. Take the Capacity Index and get a scored read on where your system is currently holding and where it is leaking:https://capacity.scoreapp.com 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net
#91
August 19 · 14 min
The Reason You Feel Flat Despite Achieving More Than Ever
Seeing as it's the anniversary of the Copenhagen Ironman, I thought I'd take you back to my experience of that race, but more so some bigger lessons that I've learned from it. I finished Ironman Copenhagen in 2023 with one lung collapsed for the final 16km. For years afterwards I would not call myself an Ironman. I'm don't saying that because of modesty. It is what happens when your identity is welded to a single achievement, and the achievement doesn't land on the terms you set. In the previous video on my channel, you'll see that I literally survived the last Copenhagen Ironman in 2023 with an exercise-induced pulmonary oedema, with one of my lungs fully collapsed for 16K. Link here if you've missed it: https://youtu.be/nkS0-wZfApc?si=Fpr7RGF_mAuwCYFZ This episode is about why that happens, and what it costs you. Most leaders answer the question "who are you" with what they do. For years, it used to always be about the title. Professional rugby player. Business owner. Founder. Dad. That answer feels solid until the thing you do stops going your way, and then the whole structure moves underneath you. Identity is not a fixed object. It is a generalisation of your beliefs, values, and standards. That means it is trainable, measurable, and most people have never looked at it directly. What I cover in this video: - Why achievement is an elite edge and also a trap, and how to keep the edge without being owned by it. - The difference between a narrow identity and a broad identity structure, and why the narrow version is exactly what gets you off the floor early on and exactly what plateaus you later. - Being committed is imperative to achieve a high-hard goal, but recognising your boundaries and systems behind that is more important. - Why your old values are almost certainly no longer matched to your current behaviour, and why that mismatch is the real reason you feel flat, reactive and frustrated despite the results on paper. - The reason why you need to have a high level of standards to execute on a consistent basis to build sustainable performance, rather than being all in and all out The actionable takeaway is simple. Open your calendar for the last seven days. Read it as a stranger would. That document is telling you what you actually value, not what you say you value. Where the two do not match is where your performance is leaking. If you're struggling with a plateau in your performance and unsure why you can't sustain the behaviour you know you should be operating with, maybe you don't need more insight into your process. It's how you frame your current scenario, and what you need to execute is the most important thing for you to learn. 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#90
August 13 · 7 min
Discipline Made You Successful. Now It Is Costing You.
I'll show you the case that burnout is not a character failure. It is a resource management problem with physiological, psychological, professional and domestic inputs. Treat a systems problem with more willpower and you will keep arriving in the same place. What we cover: - Why commitment is almost never the bottleneck - The stretch zone and why it runs out - Why rigid discipline makes you fragile, not durable - Reading the constraint instead of chasing the symptom - Why identity collapses into job title under load - What toughness actually means when the environment changes - Burnout as a resource problem, not a willpower problem - Why the game stops being about attack If you want to see where your own capacity is currently leaking, take the Capacity Index. Seven pillars, ten minutes, a straight read on what is actually holding you back. https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/ 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#88
August 6 · 12 min
Why 10 Out Of 10 Mental Toughness Burns Founders Out: Here's How I Scored
Mental toughness is measurable. Most founders have never been shown how. In this episode I break down the four factors that make up mental toughness using the MTQPlus framework from AQR International, and I run through my own scores in real time so you can see what the data actually looks like on a person. Most of the founders and executives I work with arrive at the same point. Burnt out. Overwhelmed. Unable to attack the way they used to. They assume it is a mental performance problem. It rarely is on its own. Mental performance without the physical capacity to hold it is a short road to breaking. There is a distinction that matters here. Resilience is acute. Mental toughness is chronic. Resilience is what happens in the moment and then stops. Mental toughness is a long term practice, and unlike most of what gets sold in this space, it is measurable and trainable. The framework splits into four areas with eight subscales underneath them. Commitment: achievement orientation and goal orientation Challenge: risk orientation and learning orientation Confidence: confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence Control: emotional control and life control I go through each one and show you my numbers. Where I score high. Where I am exposed. Why 10 out of 10 is not the goal, and why the people sitting at the top of that scale are often the most susceptible to burnout, because they cannot pause, step back, or see anything outside the one thing in front of them. Burnout narrows focus. Everything becomes urgent. Everything becomes attack. Performance stops being three dimensional and collapses into a single point. This is not a three step framework from a book. This is elite level assessment applied to leaders under sustained pressure. In this video ill cover: - Why founders think this is a mindset problem - Resilience is acute, mental toughness is chronic - The four factors and eight subscales - What I scored on the mental toughness scale - Why 10 out of 10 is a burnout risk If you want to know where your own capacity sits before you look at mental toughness, take the Capacity Index. Seven pillars, scored out of 70, ten minutes. https://capacity.scoreapp.com Built For Pressure is performance infrastructure for leaders operating under sustained pressure. 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#87
July 31 · 5 min
Balance Is Bullshit For High Performers: Heres What You Need Instead.
- Why your business and your life are not separate systems - How capacity works and why growing it changes everything downstream - The seven capacity drivers we measure inside the Capacity Index - Why elite operators build systems instead of relying on emotional fortitude The seven capacity drivers covered: Sleep Stability, Energy and Nutrition, Stress Regulation, Recovery Capacity, Physical Capacity, Environment and Behaviour, Cognitive Performance. None of them sit in isolation. They feed each other. That is the point most people miss. If you take one thing from this, take this. Stop trying to find balance. Ask what you are actually trying to balance, and then ask how you integrate it. That is not accidental. It is deliberate practice. Link to the index: https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/ 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#86
July 22 · 11 min
Why Business Travel Is Destroying Your Performance And How to Fix It
Most business leaders have a game plan until they start to travel. That is when performance quietly falls apart. In this ten-minute workshop, I break down the exact protocol we use inside Built For Pressure to help executives perform on the move, across multiple time zones, without leaving it to chance. You cannot run away from your physiology. But you can learn to work with it. What is covered in this video: How jet lag actually works and why it is not just tiredness, it is physiological compromise that directly affects your decision quality and emotional regulation. How to manage your sleep architecture before, during, and on arrival so you land ready to perform rather than two steps behind. How to keep training on the road and retain the adaptation you have built, so travel does not undo your progress. The exact checklist I use with the executives I work with, plus the one app I recommend to every client who travels internationally. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction and why travel breaks most leaders 1:20 What jet lag actually is and why it matters 3:00 Sleep architecture and how travel disrupts it 5:30 Strategies before you travel 7:00 What to do on the flight 8:30 On arrival protocol 9:30 The app and checklist to steal Link to the checklist here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1htEH7G26RUNn6xW7kTrRdRPmBGfypnY2/view If you want to understand where travel is costing you performance, take the Capacity Index assessment at https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/. It will tell you exactly where your performance is leaking and what to address first. Built For Pressure is performance infrastructure for leaders operating under sustained pressure. Not coaching. Not wellness. The system behind the leader determines the performance of the leader.
#85
July 14 · 7 min
The Way Most Executives Build Their Diary Is Backwards
Most executives build their diary in the wrong order. Work goes in first, and their physical capacity gets whatever is left over. Usually nothing. In this episode I walk you through my actual diary for the week. Not a polished version built for the show, the real one, with calls, shoots, admin and check ins in it. I break down how I build boundaries into my week, how I anchor the pieces that do not move, and how I put my physical capacity in first so everything else has something stable to sit on. Here is what we get into. How I anchor the pieces that never move, training and recovery, breakfast and lunch at the same time every day, so the week has a spine. Why the gaps between meetings matter as much as the meetings, and how your energy leaves residue every time you switch subject. The three drivers I use to build a week: the intensity of your days, traffic lighting your diary, and the difference between focus days and buffer days. Why most leaders run their performance like a roulette machine instead of a vending machine, and what that says about how much they are still micromanaging. The standard underneath all of it is simple. My physical capacity is what makes me an asset to the people around me. If it is not in my diary, it does not happen. Listen through, then go and look at your own week. Find the one physical block you can protect tomorrow and put it in before anything else. If you want to go deeper, I have a full workshop on this called the Energy Audit, roughly ten minutes on how to structure your diary and protect your capacity. Energy Audit workshop: https://youtu.be/y-NTk-nnAyg
#84
July 7 · 11 min
Why You Cannot Maintain Your Performance No Matter How Hard You Work
Ten months before I ran out as captain, a surgeon told me I might not walk properly again. That moment in the tunnel taught me more about performance under pressure than 18 years of elite sport and business consulting combined. And in this video, I break down exactly what it exposed. Most high-performing executives are not failing because of strategy. They are failing because they have stripped three critical drivers out of their process without realising it. Recovery strategy. Deliberate practice. Identity. I cover what each one actually means at elite level, why the more, more, more approach is not building you but eroding you, and how the Built For Pressure Executive Performance Pathway addresses all three across four phases: Stabilise, Expand, Optimise, Govern. If you are an executive, CEO, or business owner who knows there is more in the locker but cannot work out why you are not accessing it, this is where to start. If you want a diagnostic to see where your biggest lever is, take this: https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/ WORK WITH ME Executive Performance Partnership and Executive Core programmes are open to a limited number of clients. DM me the word BFP on any platform or visit builtforpressure.net to find out if you are the right fit. Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net
#83
July 1 · 54 min
Mastering The Inner Game With Jay Hedley
Every leader I have worked with hits the same ceiling. Not a strategy ceiling. Not a physical one. The one between your ears. The game outside of you will only ever go as far as the game inside of you allows. In this episode I sit down with Jay Hedley, founder of The Coaching Room and Head Coach, and the man who has shaped my own performance more than almost anyone over the last decade. Jay works with CEOs and C suite leaders globally, alongside elite Rugby, football and boxing programmes, using NLP and developmental psychology to build what he calls the inner game. We cover: - The inner game and why most leaders never train it, even though it decides everything else - NLP explained properly, why perception shapes reality, and why the nervous system is the missing link in most performance conversations - Meaning and intent as the engine behind sustained high performance, and why so many high achievers hit a wall once the early hunger fades - The identity compass, and the difference between confidence (which should move with skill) and self worth (which should not) - The outcome versus process trap, and why focusing on what you do not want guarantees more of it - Why mental recovery is the most neglected pillar in performance, and what happens when leaders give it zero hours a week - Slowing down to speed up, and why the leaders who resist looking inward are the ones who stay stuck Jay has just opened Level 1 of his High Performance Mental Skills course, six weeks, built around the same framework we break down in this conversation. I have done the work with him directly and it has shaped how I run Built For Pressure. Course link: https://functionaltraininginstitute.com/high-performance-mental-skills-for-sports-fitness-coaches-level-1/ Connect with Jay Headley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayhedley/ Head Coach: https://www.headcoach.coach/ If you are operating below your ceiling and you know it, the question is not what is wrong with you. The question is, what are you doing with what is in front of you right now? 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#82
June 23 · 1 hr 7 min
How To Leave Professional Sport and Build a Company On Your Terms With Alex Shaw
Leaving professional sport is one of the hardest transitions an athlete can make. On this week's episode, I sit down with former teammate and friend Alex Shaw, owner of Kickback Coffee. Alex played professional rugby for over a decade. Leicester Tigers Academy. Sale Sharks. Doncaster Knights. England age groups. He had the career, the identity, the structure. And then it ended. What he built next says more about him than any of that did. Kickback Coffee started in a kitchen with a second-hand popcorn machine and beans from eBay. It now spans five sites and 51 people. A brand identity strong enough to attract world-class talent and a clear mission: To become the adventure coffee company in the UK. But this episode is not really about coffee. It is about what happens when the thing you have built your entire identity around disappears. How you find the next thing. Why most people wait until crisis to make a decision. What the internal experience of walking away actually feels like. And why the athletes who leave something on the table are often the ones who go hardest in business. We cover the moment in Sydney Harbour where everything shifted. The Covid pivot that turned five wholesale orders a month into 25 per day. The difference between a safety net and an anchor. The leadership lessons you only learn when you stop being able to be in the room. And why curiosity, not strategy, tends to be the real engine of great founders. This one is for the athlete who knows the clock is ticking and they need to make a move. For the founder still figuring out what the next chapter looks like. And for anyone who has ever had to rebuild their identity from scratch and channel that energy into something that actually means something. I was lucky enough to play alongside Alex at Doncaster. After this conversation, I can promise you that this is one of the most honest accounts of an athlete's transition and founder identity you will find. If this landed for you, leave a comment or send a message I'd love to hear from you. But if you are navigating this transition right now and are struggling, drop me a message I'll show you what you should do next. You can find Alex and Kickback Coffee here: Instagram: @kickbackcoffee Website: kickbackcoffee.co.uk LinkedIn: Alex Shaw Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net
#81
June 18 · 18 min
Burnout isn't A Discipline Problem. It's An Infrastructure Problem.
- Burnout isn't a discipline problem. It's an infrastructure problem. Most CEOs, founders and executives think they're failing because they're not working hard enough. The truth is the opposite. They're treating every task as an elite-level goal acquisition framework, living in absolutes, chasing peak performance on a continual basis, and wondering why their sleep, energy, digestion and drive have fallen by the wayside. You can't summit Everest and stay at the top. You climb, you summit, you return to base camp. Performance works the same way. Optimal isn't the peak. Optimal is the baseline you build the capacity to operate from, around 80% of the time, so you've always got 20% left to push when it counts. In this video I break down two things. First, the mechanism of burnout itself. The performance curve from boredom, through the comfort zone, into the stretch zone where optimal performance lives, and then into strain and crisis where most people break. - I explain allostatic load, why your nervous system is wired to protect you, and why a client of mine operating at a super high level felt incredible right up until the point she was nearly hospitalised two weeks later. - I introduce the Built For Pressure Capacity Index. The diagnostic I built after years of recognising one thing. You cannot think your way to a healthy system. If your physiology isn't in the right place, everything becomes a firefight. The Capacity Index scores you across seven foundations: Sleep Stability Energy and Nutrition Stress Regulation Recovery Capacity Physical Capacity Environment and Behaviour Cognitive Performance Each one gives you a score and a radar graph that shows you exactly which lever to pull that week to bring your performance back up. Because from a physiological standpoint, every one of these levers is tied to the others. This is for the CEO, executive, director or founder who is pushing their limits, building the company, and knows they also have to look, feel and perform at their best in real time. Watch the breakdown, then take the diagnostic and put it into your own process. Review your week, find your lever, and shorten the gap between knowing and doing. Links to the Capacity Index and further tools are below. Link - https://bfp-capacity-index.netlify.app/ If this has resonated and you want to learn more about the program, DM the word BFP on any of the channels below. 🔗 Connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net
#79
June 11 · 7 min
Dark Energy: The Weapon That Built You Can Be The One That Breaks You
Dark energy has been a fuel source for me for years, and if you are a high achiever pushing yourself across mind, body and business, you have used it too. You might just not have named it. In this episode, I break down what dark energy actually is. Not motivation. Not discipline. The part of your ego that refuses to quit and is willing to burn everything to prove a point about who you are. I take you through where mine came from. Being told I was too small, too slow, not fit enough, and answering every one of those. Having my knee shattered by a horse and using that same energy on a physio table to claw back the range of motion I needed to run again. Losing the relationship, the money, the house, part of my identity, and putting everything on black to get back. But this is not a celebration of dark energy. It is a warning about how to leverage it. There is a point in your career when you need it. It is the thing that gets the rocket off the floor, the push that starts the car rolling down the hill. The problem is what happens when you never put it down. When you rely on it to operate day to day, inside your business, your training, your family, the stress physiology required to hold that charge breaks your body, narrows your decision making to point and shoot, and quietly becomes the bottleneck you cannot see. Ego is not the enemy. Ego got me here, and most likely it got you here too. The next step is learning how to wield it, when to call on it, and when to deliberately leave it in the holster. If you know you have been wielding that weapon for too long and you are unsure how to leverage it properly, DM me the word ENERGY. I will send you a personal voice note on how I use it, the tools I run inside my own process, and what I do physically to make sure I do not disappear down the rabbit hole of breaking myself to achieve.
#78
June 5 · 19 min
A Horse Snapped My Leg In Half. It Built My Entire Career.
Most people who talk about executive performance talk from the sky down. Self-help books. Spreadsheets. Mindset. I was built from the ground up. In this episode I tell the full origin story. County-level cricket, tennis and javelin as a kid. Leaving home at sixteen to chase professional rugby. Captaining at National One. Signing my first professional contract at Doncaster Knights. And then, eight weeks in, the moment that broke everything: a horse trampling my partner, a lunge line wrapping my leg, and my knee snapping in half. ACL, PCL and MCL, gone in one step. The first thing I felt was not pain. It was fear that my rugby career was over. What followed was three operations, joint infections, ten months of rehab, and a surgeon telling me I would be lucky to walk properly again. I started at number seven against Cross Keys ten months later. But the deeper rebuild was not the leg. It was the identity. I had spent years spinning plates for everyone else and calling it loyalty. The crisis forced me to stop. This is the story of how physical collapse rebuilt me, why I believe physiology precedes psychology precedes leadership, and how working with heads of banks, founders and fund managers in Singapore taught me the real lesson: Why leadership infrastructure relies on physical performance. I am running a few minutes late; my previous meeting is running over How to deal with real pressure in a corporate enviroment?. How to not lose the human inside of the process. Pressure is not the problem. Infrastructure is the gap. This is where Built For Pressure was born. If you lead under pressure and want to understand what actually builds capacity, start here. If you want to connect with me: Linkedin: @willfoden Instagram: @willfoden Website www.builtforpressure.net #LeadershipPerformance #Highperformance #ExecutiveMindset #PeakPerformance #BusinessLeadership #EnergyManagement #ResilientLeadership #OptimizeYourself #mentalclarity #peakperformance #PersonalStandards #SuccessUnderPressure #EntrepreneurLife #ElitePerformance #ProductivityHacks #CEOHealth #sustainablesuccess #leadershipdevelopment #worklifebalance #trainsmart #masteryourenergy
#77
May 27 · 8 min
One Bad Night: The Exact Protocol I Follow When Sleep Is Not an Option
Last night my son decided sleep was optional. By 1:45 in the morning, I had given up on the idea of rest entirely. This morning my Garmin told me I had 4 hours and 5 minutes and a sleep score of 40. On paper, I was cooked. On paper, I also had a full business day waiting for me. In this episode I am not talking theory. I am walking you through exactly what I did, in real time, to manage a compromised day without losing ground. From the moment I stepped outside half conscious into the morning light, through to how I triaged my cognitive load, adjusted my nutrition, managed my caffeine window and used NSDR to bring my nervous system back from the edge. This is the conversation nobody has about high performance. Not the highlight reel. Not the optimised morning routine. The raw reality of running a business, raising a family, and still refusing to let one bad night become a bad day. If you are a founder, a CEO, or a leader who knows what it feels like to be on the floor before the day has even started, this episode is for you. Because being compromised is not the problem. Not having a system to manage it is.
#76
May 21 · 14 min
Why Elite Performers Struggle to Grow (And What To Do About It)
The better you get, the harder growth becomes. Not because you are less capable. But because the game changes, and the version of you that was built to win the last game is not automatically equipped to win the next one. In this episode, Will Foden gets personal about the specific kind of friction that every elite performer hits at least once in their career, and why most of them do not have a framework for it when it arrives. Drawing on his own experience navigating the transition from professional rugby player to performance practitioner to founder of Built For Pressure, Will breaks down the science of why high performers stall during growth phases, and what to do about it. At the centre of this episode is the work of performance scientist Steve Magness and the concept of broad versus narrow identity: why the focused, singular identity that drives elite performance in the early stages becomes the very thing that creates friction when the game evolves. You will come away from this episode with a clear understanding of why this friction is not a weakness signal but a growth marker, how to audit where your identity is currently anchored, and the three-step framework Will uses in real time to keep moving while the identity catches up to the new game. This one is for the leader, the founder, the athlete, anyone who is performing at a high level and feeling a weight they cannot quite name. The discomfort is not the problem. It is the price of admission. If you're going through this same specific situation right now, I'd like to hear from you. If I can help, I'll give you some links to what it means to be able to keep pushing your limits. DM me the word MAY, and I'll send you a few tools you can put straight into your process.

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