At the start of this week, I had never heard of The 12 Hour Walk, and as I write this now, my feet wish I still hadn't!

It all started on Monday when I got a message from a mate: "Have you heard of Colin O'Brady who has a book called The 12-hour Walk?" I hadn't, but the title piqued my interest.

Wayne Smith has had a massive influence on both myself and DG so it was only fitting that he was our first guest on Talking Performance. Smithy has been my mentor for over 10 years now and that came about through one of DG’s typically challenging conversations, and as I write this I have a huge sense of gratitude towards DG for all those conversations we have had over the years.

There were many great takeaways from this episode but one thing in particular is Jonah says “Its not about reducing stress or pressure, its about building capacity to embrace more”

sometimes I would (try to) bullshit myself and say that I had gone all in and make all sorts of justifications as to why I did or didn’t do something. Deep down though I knew that the reason I didn’t go all in was because “what if it failed?”, “what if I wasn’t good enough?”, “what would people think?”, etc.

When we hear of courage we often think about those massive moments where we are courageous, jumping out of a plane, public speaking or taking action in those big moments but I love the way DG talks about the importance of having a plan. There is depth to the courage, there is a plan in place, they have a mentor and they have done the work and in many ways the outcome is guaranteed.

“an opportunity for us to look at ourselves and our values and that this was actually a gift, it was like having the opportunity to have an MRI over the way we are living and seeing if that truly aligns with our values”.

I loved the way he spoke about truly knowing who you are, your ancestry and how this makes up your identity and shapes the person you are today.