StarPlayer Academy | Sports Motivation Pep Talk | Mental Toughness | Mindfulness | Sports Psychology...

"I tell people that their first Ironman should be their best one, because that (finishing) should be their only expectation." - Julie Moss Press and hold link to visit the page Listen to the episode, try it out yourself and share your comments with us on the Show Notes   Show Link: Julie Moss’s Inspirational Near-Win in the 1982 Ironman Ironman Looks Back: Hall of Fame Member Julie Moss Best Performance Books: The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery by Sarah Lewis Your FREE Audio Book Best Resource: Download your Cheat Sheet Featured Video: https://youtu.be/nVKqFAPdjIA   Thanks for listening!  

“When we take on a big goal, it’s always going to be difficult at first. For some reason we forget that just showing up, and continuing to try, is going to get us there.” - Kyle Maynard   Press and hold link to visit the page Listen to the episode, try it out yourself and share your comments with us on the Show Notes   Show Link: Official Website of Kyle Maynard Best Performance Books: No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life by Kyle Maynard Your FREE Audio Book Best Resource: Download your Cheat Sheet Featured Video: https://youtu.be/jqRJ-178dVk   Thanks for listening!

"The starting point of all achievement is desire." - Napoleon Hill Today’s episode, we will be exploring on how reliving the desire you have of your sport can quell the frustrations you may have over trying to reach your potential amidst the pain you have either physically or emotionally.   Have you ever wondered how you got to be so serious and committed to your sport? It could be love at first sight, it could be a friend who nudged you to come along or it could be that you were simply bored.   You might have thought of any reason. Truth be told for me, as I delved into my habits of my sport and got busy trying to achieve all the vivacious team goals, the very beginning of how I got there started to fade away. I never really thought about how I got there. Today I'm not talking about the reason you got into your sport, but more of how it led you to just sign up for it.    Press and hold link to visit the page Listen to the episode, try it out yourself and share your comments with u

"I really think slopestyle is fascinating because someone like me, who grew up on a small mountain, can still excel. The size of the hill doesn't matter. All that matters is the kind of jumps and rails you can find or build." - Tom Wallisch   Press and hold link to visit the page Listen to the episode, try it out yourself and share your comments with us on the Show Notes   Show Link: Tom Wallisch, Former Sochi Hopeful, Reveals Injury Best Performance Books: Your FREE Audio Book Best Resource: Download your Cheat Sheet Featured Video: https://youtu.be/VKuH8NSCRow   Thanks for listening!

“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.” - Steve Maraboli   Press and hold link to visit the page Listen to the episode, try it out yourself and share your comments with us on the Show Notes   Show Link: Once Told He’d Never Walk Again, Irish Gymnast Is Now Olympian   Best Performance Books: Your FREE Audio Book   Best Resource: Download your Cheat Sheet   Featured Video: https://youtu.be/xCeSkxW45OQ   Thanks for listening!

Hi, good Sunday to you guys, this is Marilyn Wo and this is Pep Talk Weekend, episode 80.   Muhammad Ali said: "It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself."   Dearest StarPlayer, what do I believe?   I believe you are someone who is deeply passionate about your sport   I believe, because every time you step into a game, you know you have something to give.   I believe you know you have to give your all, but there are times when you feel afraid that what you are doing is not right. There are times when you doubt yourself, you doubt your teammates, you doubt your coaches.    But let me tell you this: Today, nobody you are playing against will believe in you.   Why? Because they don’t know you yet, they’ve not seen that fury in your eyes, that sparkle in your imagination, they’ve not seen what you can create.   I know we have been through this journey together good and bad, let’s all forget that

“If tomorrow wasn’t promised, what would you give for today?” Ray Lewis   Today’s show is the start of our Pep Talk Weekend. Something you can use for yourself, your team or even at work, whether you are doing sales or engineering.   This is what I’ve come up with as inspired by Ray Lewis:   Whatever happens, you are my team of greatness, whatever happens, I’d rather be playing with you, because unlike them, we don’t go for the in between, we go for excellence. We can choose to not move at all, but, I believe that you and I, all of us, we fight for every ball and every point. We may be trailing behind right now, but who doesn’t. With another game to go, what’s stopping us? Who has the right to stop us from from taking this chance to fight….till we lead the game when the time stops? If the worst has to come, we are already at our worst ever. We are making the comeback today.   Press and hold link to visit the page Listen to the ep

“It’s about standing and being counted and saying you’re proud of who you are.” - Megan Rapinoe   Today is the start of our all new edition, or should I say version of StarPlayer Academy show. As mentioned in yesterday’s episode, episode 77, Thursdays and Fridays I will feature stories that you can learn from and apply what you've learned to your sport. You will get success stories, failed attempts and even fiction anecdotes, anything that I can pull something you can learn from to fuel your success.   When it comes to the term “successful”, I want you to know that it doesn’t mean a successful athlete is one who must have won a medal. If you are successful, it must be within your own terms, not based on somebody else’s goals and dreams and desires.    Success for you could be to turn pro or to just enjoy the sport by performing up to the standard you know you can be best at, or even just to eventually inspire the athlete next to you.

“You take a crash, you get back up and next time you succeed and that’s a great feeling." - Shaun White   Today’s show is not like our regular show. We will be witnessing a little change in the format of the show starting from tomorrow. So today I will be laying out upfront on what you will expect to receive tomorrow onwards. I thought it’s important for you to know so that you understand what you are learning today, the next day and the 7 days in a week.   Previously, what I did was to just dish out every lesson day by day, some of you aren’t able to expect what will come out of it. So that didn’t work out too well for you. This time, i hope the changes will benefit you in how you take these lessons to bring your game to the next level.   If you’ve taken some time to listen to episode 76 yesterday, I shared with you a very short message on revisiting and repurposing your life as an athlete because being willing to spend time and effort on your

“Live life with a passion, because without passion life is nothing.   Listen to your heart, because you can change the world if you listen with your heart. And when you do, then you can start reshaping the World.   The past is the missed opportunity,    The present gives us the opportunity to plant the seeds,   The future gives us the opportunity to cultivate love, respect, and kindness.   Let us strive to spread happiness because happiness is in our heart, not circumstances!"   - Imran Warsi   Hi Starplayers, once again a good Wednesday to you and you are listening to Midweek Minute on StarPlayer Academy, an episode a week where I run through a minute or two of quick mindful messages to keep you focussed on where you want to go in your sport and life. You are listening to episode 76 and I’m Marilyn Wo.   I hope you are enjoying these short episodes so far to get you through the middle of every week before you hit the weekends. If you are working in a

“Only one guy can be world champion, and so if everyone else thought they were failures you’d have no one left on the grid.” - Mark Webber   Today, I would like to share with you how you can become even more successful then you think after all that failures you’ve experienced. Well, I guess it also depends on what you perceive as failure in the first place. Even your perception of failure can change as you get on with your life as an athlete.   Should we even use this word failure to start with?   What do you think?   Let’s just take a moment to figure out if there is indeed such a thing as failure in the first place. Do you think it exists? Or is it just like fear, this illusion in mind that creates a downward spiral emotion in your body?   According to Oxford Dictionary, the word “failure” means “lack of success”.   If we base our own personal experiences as an athlete in our lives, what would this mean for us?  

"You don't have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you." - Dan Millman   When it comes to feeling nervous, there is one bad news, that is, you can never eliminate it in its entirety. You can either use it to galvanise your performance or paralyze your abilities.   One of the great myths in sports is that elite athletes are not nervous. They are human and get just as nervous before and during competition as the rest of us. "I get nervous," admits future Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux, considered by those who watch and hit against him to be one of the coolest all of professional athletes. He went on to say, "But it's okay. Getting nervous is part of the game."   I’m sure you’ve heard of this, but I know it’s also natural that you will try to find ways to counter it because it’s not helping. Furthermore, it impedes performance by leaving you with sweaty palms and some of you may start shaking uncontrollably rather

"Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." - Mahatma Gandhi   We all know we are our own best and worst critic, and the greatest enemy is in fact ourselves.    It’s just so typical isn’t it? How many games have you been competing and time again, this little voice of yours must be there to draw all sorts of personal references, judgements and biases. Sometimes you can clearly see it as disturbing you, but there are times when it's are so subtle, you actually follow it without knowing it’s affecting your performance in a negative way.    What I want you to do today either on your own or with your team, is to find a quiet spot that doesn’t invite any form of distrac

“You should be able to recover your equilibrium, your balance faster than the opponent and find any fault in his balance and take advantage of that." - Moshe Feldenkrais   Today, I’m going to introduce you to this new skills called Feldenkrais. It may not be new to you, in that case, just practice it along with us, you may find something new from your body that you’d otherwise not.     What is Feldenkrais?   Based on an article by Ed Brucia, Feldenkrais lessons use carefully constructed sequences of unusual movements to focus your awareness on how you organize movement. The lessons are better viewed as mental exercises for the body rather than physical exercises in the usual sense. Improving the quality of your movements is the paramount goal. Pain, effort, and hurrying are all counter-productive, and will reduce or even reverse the benefits of doing the lessons.     So how does this exercise help you at all?   First of all I would like to qu

“Epic things start with small humble steps. Pay respect to your beginnings. And if you're just starting out, know that it's OK to be sucky. To be small. To be messy and chaotic. Just make sure to never ever stop dreaming." - Vishen Lakhiani   In today’s show, you will quickly learn the 3 most important questions to ask yourself when it comes to being in a competitive environment, aspiring to be an athlete, training for a game or when it’s time to face your rivals.   I’ve learned this from Vishen Lakhiani of Mind Valley who came up with this powerful system for setting goals in business and life and I’m adapting his version onto how an athlete can use it in a competitive condition. I will leave the link in the show notes to Vishen Lakhiani’s website for you to get a view of the system as originated by him.   The problem for many athletes is that winning games has become the means goal in competitive sports, and that can cripple many player&

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” - Wayne Dyer   What should you do when you are left with 7 days to your game? So you’ve got down and dirty for the past 6 months to a year, grinding day in day out, practicing everything you needed to withstand the test of your sport as much as you can. You endured pain, stopped partying, put off meeting your friends and for some even your families, all for what? It’s all down to one thing, that very game in 7 days time.   It’s how you look at things Now, I’m going to share with you a couple of things here that are short and proven to work. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to grind some more. At this juncture, all you need is to sort of change a bit of how you look at things. That’s what I’m going to do today, to shift your mindset. But they will be quick, because you shouldn’t clutter your mind in these 7 days.   Press and hold link to visit th

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” - Bruce Lee   In today’s show, you will quickly learn the 7 Most Challenging Questions You Can Ask Yourself Everyday to Become a Mindful Athlete.   I’m giving you the full transcript here since it’s a pretty short episode.    Here are the 7 most challenging questions you can ask yourself:   Question Number 1: What are the physical activities that pose discomfort to your body? What exactly do you feel and where?   Question Number 2: Everyone tends to create a barrier for themselves, what is it that you have made for yourself?   Question Number 3: What is it that you long for or desire as an athlete in your sport?    Question Number 4: What exactly do you worry about?   Question Number 5: For each of these emotions, rank them in or

"Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due." - William Ralph Inge   Have you ever had a challenge on making a comeback fast enough to win games that you were initially trailing?   How often does this happen to you?   Very often I supposed. This usually happens when you meet teams that are of about the same standard as your team or they may even be more experienced than you and you are aiming to reduce the lead as much as you can.    Either way, for serious athletes in sports, trailing is never something anyone hopes to be experiencing. However, it’s part of the game. Everyone will experience this at any point in their lives as a competitive athlete, whether you have been successful or not.   For many, the sweet victory isn’t so much of winning the game, but to be able to comeback from behind to win it, that’s the satisfaction.   However, before we get to even make it to draw the

"If you dedicate yourself to something, you can achieve it. It’s simple, but it’s true, and your age is just an excuse." - Herschel Walker   In today’s episode, I would like to share this one mastery tip used by most professional athletes and very few ordinary amateurs when it comes to taking shots. It makes a real difference to your game. Just about anyone of you can use it in any sport at all. If you are in martial arts it can be applied to your punch, if you are in golf, it could be your swing.   Let’s take basketball for example, one of the key differences between professionals and ordinary amateurs is that when the professionals decide to take a shot at goal, they really work at it. I mean to say that they give a lot of thought and stay with it for enough time to give it a chance to work.    Have you ever had this feeling that you somehow know your shot is just not going to make it while you are in the midst of it? Just to remind you, I’m using th

"When I am on the mound I create a lane between me and home plate and I block out everything else. I just focus on the target that my catcher has given me. Nothing else exists." - Roger Clemens   Today’s show is largely based on this quote:   "Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky   The thoughts in our minds make things so complicated, yet when it comes to getting rid of bad thoughts, we tend to focus on them instead. So we can’t think of them, yet we also can’t suppress them. What should you do then?    Problem with a lot of athletes is not that we let our thoughts affect us, it’s that we put our attention on the wrong thoughts.    I was posed a question that we can prepare all we want before the game, but where there are situations during the game that caused us to can’t help it but feel surmounting pre