> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thebeyondpodcast.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How a Six-Time World Champion Performs Under Pressure | Anna Hemmings - URL: https://www.thebeyondpodcast.com/how-a-six-time-world-champion-performs-under-pressure-anna-hemmings/ - Published: 2026-09-09T16:15:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-10T08:55:58.000Z - Description: Six-time world champion Anna Hemmings on the start-line mind, process over outcome, visualisation that works, limiting beliefs and recovery as strategy. - Author: Elliott King - Tags: Anna Hemmings, episode, Season 3, resilience, high performance, mindset **What is going through the mind of a world champion in the seconds before the starting gun?** Six-time world champion marathon kayaker and two-time Olympian [Anna Hemmings MBE](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/anna-hemmings-mbe) joins host Aleksandra King on The BEYOND Podcast to unpack the psychology of performing when it counts, for leaders, founders and anyone who has to deliver under pressure. Now a high performance and resilience specialist, speaker and coach, and the founder of the consultancy [Beyond the Barriers](https://www.beyondthebarriers.co.uk), Hemmings explains what she trained her mind to do on an Olympic start line and why the same system works in a pitch, a board meeting or a difficult conversation. ![Wide shot of Anna Hemmings and Aleksandra King in conversation across the coffee table on The BEYOND Podcast set](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5e/74/5e74ba0c-c249-4586-8ce5-03deb56fdf93/content/images/2026/09/02-two-shot-anna-hemmings-aleksandra-king-5.jpg) ## Episode summary Hemmings begins with the start line itself, where everyone has trained hard and everyone has talent, and where, she says, what happens in the mind on race day separates the good from the exceptional. She traces that mind back to a kayak club on the River Thames she joined at nine, a mother who went looking for a sports psychologist in the mid-1990s when nothing was wrong, and the lesson that fear lives in the outcome: what if I lose, what if I mess up. Her answer is to set the goal for clarity and then live entirely in the process, because the outcome cannot be controlled and, as her pink elephant example shows, telling yourself not to lose points your brain straight at losing. From there the conversation moves through controlling the controllables, including the office mandate, the cost-of-living crisis and the traffic jam on the way to the airport, and the breathing that brings the prefrontal cortex back online when the amygdala has taken over. Aleksandra brings in the anxiety debate from her conversation with psychotherapist Joshua Fletcher, and Hemmings answers it with the one thing you can always control: your breath. Hemmings then dismantles the manifesting myth around visualisation, explaining the neuroscience she saw first-hand in neurofeedback training, the difference between outcome and process rehearsal, and why she rehearsed every stroke of a race hundreds of times so that on the start line she did not have to think. She is emphatic that no one gets to the top on their own, five of her six world titles in a single kayak notwithstanding, and admits she had to relearn that lesson as a founder doing her own invoicing. The episode turns personal with the coaches who told her she was too small to be a great kayaker, the belief that she could not win a sprint finish, and the step-by-step reframing that delivered three of her six world titles on exactly that finish. It closes on the lesson a two-year illness taught her: that recovery is not a reward but a strategy for high performance, the paragraph you read three times, and the 2 a.m. brain that has finally found some quiet. > “When we sit on the start line at the World Championships, at the Olympic Games, everyone's trained hard, everyone's got a certain amount of talent, but talent only gets you so far. And it's what happens up here on race day that makes a difference.”– *Anna Hemmings on what separates the exceptional* ![Anna Hemmings gesturing as she makes a point on The BEYOND Podcast, microphone in front of her](https://storage.ghost.io/c/5e/74/5e74ba0c-c249-4586-8ce5-03deb56fdf93/content/images/2026/09/03-anna-hemmings-making-a-point-9.jpg) ## Key takeaways - Talent gets everyone to the start line; what happens in the mind on race day decides the result. - Fear lives in the outcome. Set the goal once for clarity, then put every ounce of attention into the process. - Control the controllables: your response, your attitude, your strategy, who you reach out to, and always your breathing. - Visualisation works because the brain does not distinguish a vividly imagined experience from a real one; it is rehearsal, not manifesting, and it needs the hours of work behind it. - Question a limiting belief: is it true, and is it helpful? Rewrite it in an increment you can believe, then build the evidence. - Recovery is a strategy for high performance. Pausing is what makes the next hour of work efficient. ## Key chapters | Chapter | Timestamp | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | | Six world titles, two Olympics, and why mindset separates the exceptional | [01:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=79s) | | The leaflet, the Thames, and a nine-year-old who wanted to race | [05:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=343s) | | What if I win? The lens that shapes success | [08:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=536s) | | Where the victim mentality comes from, and how to break the loop | [11:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=693s) | | Inside her head on the start line | [14:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=865s) | | Fear lives in the outcome: process versus outcome | [17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1020s) | | Don't think of a pink elephant | [19:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1193s) | | The sports psychologist her mum went looking for | [21:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1301s) | | Controlling the controllables: the office mandate and the cost of living | [23:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1432s) | | The traffic jam on the way to the airport: what can you control? | [27:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1636s) | | Amygdala hijack and getting the prefrontal cortex back online | [29:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1760s) | | Does visualisation actually work? The neuroscience | [30:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=1816s) | | Outcome visualisation in HD, and process visualisation stroke by stroke | [34:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=2042s) | | Not manifesting: vision without action is daydreaming | [37:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=2278s) | | No one gets to the top on their own | [40:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=2438s) | | The founder who took too long to hire a PA | [43:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=2638s) | | Limiting beliefs: the sprint finish | [45:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=2750s) | | Too small, not strong enough, go and do something else | [48:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=2913s) | | Is it true? Is it helpful? Rewriting the belief in steps | [51:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3111s) | | Three of six world titles won on a sprint finish | [53:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3204s) | | Self-sabotage and the fear of failure | [56:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3397s) | | Train the brain: three positives for every negative | [58:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3507s) | | Recovery is a strategy for high performance | [59:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3590s) | | The glass of water: why nobody takes recovery seriously | [1:02:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3760s) | | Counterintuitive: the ten-minute pause that saves time | [1:03:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3831s) | | Best ideas on a run, and the 2 a.m. brain that can finally think | [1:04:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=3874s) | | The lesson a two-year illness taught her | [1:07:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ&t=4036s) | ## The guest Anna Hemmings MBE is Britain's most successful female marathon kayaker: six world titles, three European titles and two Olympic Games. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome at the peak of her career and told she would never compete again, she returned to regain her world and European crowns. She now works as a high performance and resilience specialist, keynote speaker and leadership coach, and is the founder of the training consultancy Beyond the Barriers. - [annahemmings.com](https://annahemmings.com) - [Beyond the Barriers](https://www.beyondthebarriers.co.uk) - [LinkedIn](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/anna-hemmings-mbe) [Anna Hemmings's guest profile](https://www.thebeyondpodcast.com/guests/anna-hemmings/) ## Where to listen - [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp80BWA%5FyWQ) - [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-with-aleksandra-king/id1786173140) - [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/0haFQYUTnEn0fpr0LQYlhH) - [Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/fa6dc7af-5f98-49c3-895b-4585eac8c06b/the-beyond-podcast) ## Related reading The other side of the anxiety argument Hemmings makes here: Aleksandra's conversation with psychotherapist Joshua Fletcher, [The Anxiety Paradox: Panic Attacks](https://www.thebeyondpodcast.com/anxiety-paradox-panic-attacks/). ## Transcript #### Read the full episode transcript ### Cold open 00:00:00 **Aleksandra King:** You've practised for something for your whole life. What is going through your head just before you have to go and compete? 00:00:07 **Anna Hemmings:** What I've trained myself to do in that moment is to just to be clear, to be calm, and by focusing on our breathing, it brings us into the present moment. Hi, I'm Anna Hemmings. I am a high performance and resilience specialist. I'm an inspirational speaker, a leadership and high performance coach. My background is from the world of sport. I'm a six-time world champion. I'm a two-time Olympian. I'm passionate about high performance. 00:00:31 **Aleksandra King:** I've heard you speaking about controlling the controllables before. So what is that? 00:00:36 **Anna Hemmings:** Example might be, I don't know, the economy and the cost of living crisis. I can't control any of that, but what I can do is control how I respond. Change is happening. I can't control change, but I can control who I go and reach out to for support. And when we focus on the uncontrollables, it makes us feel anxious, makes us feel worried. We put electrodes on the brain and you can actually see certain parts of the brain light up when you visualise. And so we know that new neural circuits are being formed when you visualise. We can change the way we think to help us. It's not easy. The lens that we see things through really influences the action that we take. ### Interview 00:01:19 **Aleksandra King:** You're an Olympian. You're a world champion many times over. Not everyone can intro themselves this way, which is exactly why you're here. Because to be at the top of your game, right at the top, it's more than talent, right? It's a lot more. And what I would like this episode to impart to people and where I'm heading with this is I would like to see what it is inside your brain, your heart, your mindset that has allowed you to achieve so much in your life. 00:01:58 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. 00:01:59 **Aleksandra King:** So accolades aside, titles aside, focusing on what you can bring to the audience for someone who doesn't know you, doesn't know of all these things that you've achieved. Why should they watch? Why should they watch and listen? 00:02:23 **Anna Hemmings:** I guess so. I have some lived experience when it comes to high performance, achieving it and sustaining it. As I mentioned, I was at the highest level of my sport for 15 or so years and I won six world titles, European titles along the way. My journey, like any journey that spans that length of time, wasn't without its challenges, adversity, setback. I needed to develop a winning mindset. I needed to build my resilience in order to thrive in the face of high pressure environments and those challenges and setbacks that I faced. So yeah, I learned some invaluable lessons along the way which I love sharing with people. And now since I retired from my sport, I've spent the last 15 years building my credibility and my credentials as a high performance and leadership specialist and bringing that combination of lived high performance experience in sport combined with the science of performance, the psychology of performance, and bringing that to leaders and teams in the corporate world. 00:03:38 **Aleksandra King:** Okay. So, as I mentioned earlier, so many Olympians are talented and they've got all these wonderful things that, they've had their life of practice. They've got wonderful genetics that they've got, but is there a particular thing that you need? We've spoken about a lot of– you mentioned resilience. Is there a particular something that you all share in common or is it that you get to the top in various different ways? 00:04:05 **Anna Hemmings:** I think that yes, that we– people get to the top in different ways. Lots of different ways of skinning a cat, right? But I believe that mindset is crucial. Your mindset determines your success and that's something that we build and we develop and we learn how to develop the right mindset. And I think that's what separates, you talk about talented, or the good from the exceptional. When we sit on the start line at the World Championships, at the Olympic Games, everyone's trained hard, everyone's got a certain amount of talent, but talent only gets you so far. And it's what happens up here on race day that makes a difference. It's what happens up here that's allowed you to get to that point, to deal with the challenges, the setbacks, the pressure, and everything that happens to get to that point. And it's what happens up here in the mind. 00:04:57 **Aleksandra King:** So, it's what happens in your mind. So I'd like to step back a little bit. So when you were growing up and your mind was developing and you started to try sports and things, how did things click in place that you got to do something, the kayaking, that actually met your talents, that met your needs at the time, that all of it, how did it come together that in that moment your childhood, your upbringing, your destin– all came together? What was it about that? Were you the driving force in that or was it more luck and circumstance? 00:05:43 **Anna Hemmings:** It's a good question. I stumbled upon my kayak club and the sport of kayaking because it's not a sport that everyone's going, "Mum, mum, please." It's not– but I was a kid who did lots of different sports and I loved sport. And my mum picked up this leaflet one summer holiday, come and try kayaking. I think she was just trying to get us out of the house and keep us busy in the summer holidays. So, it was kind of luck. But she was really sporty. She knew we were into it. So, we went along. We tried the sport. We loved it. And so, it was bit of a coincidence that there was this club, this kayak club, that was down the road from where we lived. The River Thames was beautiful. It was a summer's day. We did it for a week. It was beautiful sunshine. We're paddling on the river. The scene was great. It wasn't always like that. It was \[unclear: tough?\] and cold and wet and miserable. But that beginning, that got us drawn in. My brother and I went along together. And it happened to be a club that was one of the best in the country at the time and it was a great environment. It was social as well as really competitive, which really played to my competitive nature, and it was– we turned up and it was about making these boats go faster. We're having fun. We're splashing about. We're falling in. We're swimming in the Thames. So it was a real combination of fun but competition, excellence and sporting prowess at the club, so it was a real mixture of things that really ticked a lot of boxes for me. 00:07:09 **Aleksandra King:** It sounds like you were in the right environment at the right time, and can I say that it ignited a competitive spirit, like the enjoyment and want of competing, because not everyone likes to compete and it's quite scary. And was that something that really excited you and it clicked and connected with that part? 00:07:28 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, I mean I'd competed before in other sports and so it wasn't something– competition wasn't new to me and I loved competition. Like some people, like you say, are afraid of it. But I was just like, I just want to get on the start line and race. I just want to show you how fast I can go. I wasn't afraid of losing. I just wanted to see if I could do it, if I could win, who I could beat, how fast I could go. So, yeah. So, it was– and the club was like that. It was very competitive and it was all about– and obviously not from, I was nine when I started, so it wasn't like on day one we were racing, but it was pretty quickly going in that direction. So yeah, it was perfect for me. 00:08:04 **Aleksandra King:** Can I just touch on something you said? You said you weren't afraid of losing. You weren't. 00:08:10 **Anna Hemmings:** Oh, later on in my career, yes, I was, later on. But in the beginning, when you're a kid, it's like, 00:08:17 **Aleksandra King:** yeah, 00:08:18 **Anna Hemmings:** just go and race and it doesn't matter, right? You just go and do it. Maybe other kids had a different attitude, but I think I always wanted to just see what I could do and see if I could win, and if I didn't, then I'll try again next time. 00:08:33 **Aleksandra King:** I think it's already at that young stage you're already developing the right traits, I would say, and because I would say that it is unusual that you just, it's fun, let's compete, and yes, if I lose I lose, but it's something that excited you, because I think competition does scare, even with little children. I think it is daunting. 00:08:56 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, I agree. I see it in my own kids. They get scared of competing and they're afraid of what people are going to say and what we're going to think and I'm going to humiliate myself and what if I come last. And I guess what I've noticed is the difference between focusing on the negatives that could happen and worrying about what if I don't win and what if I lose and what will that mean and what will people say, whereas I was like, what if I win? I believed, I knew I was good at sport, and what if I win? That'd be quite exciting. So it was a different– 00:09:29 **Aleksandra King:** I hear that. 00:09:30 **Anna Hemmings:** lens. 00:09:31 **Aleksandra King:** Yes. And I've interviewed a lot of people and lots of really successful people and I am finding actually the pattern. It doesn't matter whether you're very corporate or completely in a different direction or you come from music or arts or whatever it might be. But ultra successful people in their field do have this common trait of looking at the world in a way that serves their craft, their skill, to be the strongest and best that it can be. It feeds into that. It's so connected that it's one thing. And it's when you look at people like this, you think, well, I'm not surprised, because your life, the way you think is wired, it's fundamentally wired to achievement in what it is that you're doing. 00:10:23 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. I think it is, it's a way of thinking, and I think it demonstrates that we can change the way we think to help us. It's not easy. But the lens that we see things through really influences the action that we take. 00:10:39 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. I'm– Yeah, it's extremely powerful. I had a really difficult week with things happening. But actually, if you think, I had a really difficult week, I'm going to feel sorry for myself, that's not going to help you. If you think, I've had a difficult week, I've managed to work through the things that I've had to work through, they've made me, my team, everyone better, stronger, whatever, more successful in all these fields, then it's just a completely different perspective and then you're wired more for that success versus going into a more victim, pull back, hide mentality. 00:11:17 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It either propels you forwards or it brings you back, right? I've had a difficult week and I got through it. And now I know that next time when I have a \[unclear: good?\] difficult week, I can get through it again because I've been there before and I've got those skills. 00:11:33 **Aleksandra King:** And that just builds us up for next time because that's life. It's going to happen. Why then are some people, and even people close to me, we all know someone that they tend to fall into the mode of like, it's bad, things are bad, like they just have that outlook. It's almost, it sounds horrible to say, but it is a bit of a victim mentality. Why does that even exist? And why do they do that? 00:12:03 **Anna Hemmings:** I don't know. 00:12:04 **Aleksandra King:** What do you think? 00:12:05 **Anna Hemmings:** Isn't it? Like, it is just– I find it hard. But I don't know. I wonder if it's the way our brain has been wired from a very young age. Perhaps because of the people we've been around, perhaps the teachers at school, friends, family, parents. If we've got parents who have got that kind of wiring and that kind of that voice that you're hearing all the time, then naturally we're going to pick it up. Or if we're with school teachers who are constantly negative and pessimistic, we learn these behaviours. So, I think that's where it comes from. And so it doesn't mean that it's impossible to change, makes it harder if that's where you've been, the way you've been wired from a young age, but we can change it. Our brains are neuroplastic and we can learn to catch it and to notice that negativity. Is this thought serving me? Is this helping me? No, it's not. So, let's change it. Let's challenge it and then let's change it. It takes practice and you got to continually work at it. But we can change the way we think to serve us better. 00:13:14 **Aleksandra King:** Because there will be people watching that do fall into the bit of, that they find things are very hard and they stuck in a loop. They're just stuck in a constant loop and the negativity reinforces more negativity and it's hard to break that. What would you say to someone that's suffering with that? Would you just say the first thing is awareness, I guess, of you doing it, and what would they– how do you break it? 00:13:39 **Anna Hemmings:** I think that I might question how it's serving them as well, because it might be serving them to be in that mode. I wonder, is it helpful to them? Does it allow them to not have to take chances, to take risks, to step into the comfort zone, to face fear, and so maybe it serves them a little bit. Maybe they get more attention from it, or I don't know, but I might question that first. But then yes, it would be what I just described. It's about awareness, noticing that this is my thought pattern and is it helping me here, is it serving me? If I'm trying to achieve X and Y, is this thought process helping me get there, and if it's not, then what do I need to change it to? 00:14:25 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah, okay, so I'm going to get right into your mind now in a pressure moment. So, you're on the starting line, medals on the line, world watching, you've practised for something for your whole life, you've practised for this moment. What is going through your head literally just before you have to go and compete in these serious events? So when you're actually on the start line and waiting for the gun to go, there's nothing else left to do. 00:15:03 **Anna Hemmings:** Well, so in that moment you're trying not to think too much and you're just trying to stay focused on– I am probably focused on my breath at that moment. I'm focused on listening for the gun. I'm– there's not– I'm trying to quieten all that chatter because it's not helpful in that moment. So what I've trained myself to do in that moment is to just for it to be clear, to be calm, and by focusing on our breathing, it brings us into the present moment. Because what we don't want to be is in the future, worrying about what's going to happen next or the finish or what if I'm going to win or not win or what are they going to say, or competitors and how fast they're going to be. Any of that stuff is so totally unhelpful in that moment. And what I need to do is be present. And I don't need to be in the past either, thinking about what I did or didn't do or what I should have done or whether the training was good or bad. Yes, it might be useful to recall that I'm in great shape and then I'm strong and then my training has been brilliant and all of that, but that's done. On the start line, that stuff is– I've done that when I'm warming up. I've done that in the morning and the day before. In that very moment, I need to be grounded in the present moment and focusing on my breath, on my body, on the feel of the paddle in my hands, listening for the start gun. That's where I need to be in that moment. 00:16:22 **Aleksandra King:** Okay. Powerful. But yes, it makes sense if you're just worrying about what someone else is doing next to you and hear the gun go off and then you– 00:16:30 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, 00:16:30 **Aleksandra King:** that does make sense in such a high pressure moment. So you spoke as a child, you weren't really afraid, you wanted to compete. So you never really– is it that you didn't think about the outcome of it? You didn't think what does not winning mean, or how– what was it that actually, besides having fun, what was it that allowed you to move away from fear towards doing things and competing? 00:17:00 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. So when I say I wasn't afraid of losing, that wasn't true all through my career. Absolutely. There were times when I was afraid I wouldn't win and afraid of losing. Just when you're a nine, 10-year-old kid, that was– and you're carefree and it's just like, let's just go and do this. Let's go and race, see what happens. But later on, for sure, there was fear. And I think often it comes from worrying about the outcome. That's the thing that causes the biggest fear, is that what if I lose or what if I don't win or what if it doesn't work out how I should? What if I mess up? It's all those fears about what– often more about what you don't want to happen is what causes the fear. And so I learned, particularly– I worked with a sports psychologist from the age of 16 and I learned those strategies about, one, the outcome is out of my control. So there's no point focusing on the outcome. And two, it just makes me feel anxious thinking. And also, and three, I'm focused on what I don't want to happen rather than what I do want to happen. And when I look back to, like I said earlier, when I was a young 10-year-old, I was focused on what if I win. I was focused on what I wanted to happen and that's what made me excited. I wasn't the kid who was focused on what if I lose and I get humiliated and what if I come last? That's what makes me anxious. I was focused on what I wanted to happen and so that's exciting for me. And so, one, I need to focus on what I want to happen, so yes, the outcome of winning, but actually in the end, yes, outcome's exciting and that's what motivates us, but ultimately whether it's a positive or negative outcome, I don't really want to be focused on the outcome at all because I can't control it. What I can control is the process, and I can control how I achieve that outcome that I want. So that's the \[unclear: post/process?\]. 00:19:00 **Aleksandra King:** This is why it's so incredible to get into the mind of a world champion, of an Olympian, and you've pivoted and you're doing really well in your career and you're a mum. You've got so many things going on. Because that again is unusual. There are a lot of people that are watching now that are in unhappy marriages. What if I leave? It's going to be a disaster. What if I get judged? What if there's– in jobs that they dislike that are making them really unhappy. Oh my gosh, will I be able to get another job? Am I going to be able to earn the same amount? What– many reasons, many things going on and again very much focused on all of the bad things that can go wrong and that fear paralysing them completely. So it seems like you have inherently got this positive outlook on life. But a lot of people again don't have that. 00:19:53 **Anna Hemmings:** So I have to say that I– yes, I'm naturally a positive, optimistic person, but I did learn about process versus outcome. That's something that I learned from my sports psychologist, that we need to focus on what we want to happen. The brain doesn't know the difference between when you talk about a negative. Like if I say to you now, don't think of a pink elephant. 00:20:18 **Aleksandra King:** Right? 00:20:19 **Anna Hemmings:** You've got a big pink elephant in your head, right? And so if I say don't think about losing, I'm focused on losing. And so that's not helpful to me because that makes me feel anxious. That makes me feel worried, afraid. I don't want to race now. So I need to focus on what I want to happen. That's what helps us take those steps forward. Like you say, the job that I'm unhappy about and I'm worried about if I don't– if I stay, what will happen, and this and that. But actually, what is it that I do want? What is the life that I want? What is the outcome? What is the job? What is the situation that I'm striving for? And then what's the process that helps me get there? And it's the process– once we've ident– we have to be focused on the outcome sometimes because we've got to be clear on where we're going and what we're trying to achieve. But once I've got that clarity, then what's the process that's going to help me get there? That's what I want to focus on, because then we're taking away the fear, because it's like now I'm in control and now I've got a plan and this is what I want to achieve and these are the steps I need to take to do it. So let's focus on that. Like when I'm in the race, there's no point thinking about I want to win, I want to win. I can't control that. But what I can control is focusing on my race plan and the strategy that's going to help me to win. That's what's going to help me. And then the outcome takes care of itself. 00:21:41 **Aleksandra King:** That's really powerful. And I feel for people watching, they have to bear in mind that you got to a certain point with your talent, with your hard work, all of it. And then when you got to that point, you were then given– because you went to that level, you were given the sports psychologist who is– 00:22:00 **Anna Hemmings:** Well, actually, I wasn't just given that. That was someone my mum went to seek. 00:22:03 **Aleksandra King:** Right? 00:22:04 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. 00:22:04 **Aleksandra King:** So that wasn't something that you just– like, provided to you. 00:22:09 **Anna Hemmings:** This was something we went out– my– well, in fact it was my mum who was like, what else can we do to help you be better? Wasn't like I was struggling, wasn't like I was necessarily mentally weak. It was more a case of what else do we need to reach the highest level. 00:22:27 **Aleksandra King:** Interesting. So– 00:22:28 **Anna Hemmings:** It wasn't just– it was landed on my plate. It was something that– this was part of the process. If I'm going to reach this level, what are the things that I need to help me get there? So we're going out, being proactive, looking for that support. 00:22:43 **Aleksandra King:** That's incredible. So it's amazing that your mum had that foresight to think, actually, let's leave no stone unturned, and actually this mental element, your brain, has to be part of the equation for you to succeed. 00:22:59 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. And what's interesting is that this was back in the '90s, late 90– mid– am I going to say mid '90s? I can't even remember how old I am now. 00:23:09 **Aleksandra King:** But let's not talk about dates. 00:23:11 **Anna Hemmings:** But anyway, '90s, when– today sport psychology is common. 00:23:15 **Aleksandra King:** It's massive. 00:23:16 **Anna Hemmings:** It's massive. 00:23:16 **Aleksandra King:** That's why I thought you got handed one, because I think– 00:23:19 **Anna Hemmings:** Yes. Now they do. Athletes today, it's part of the support team. Every elite athlete, not every single one, but a majority of elite athletes will work with the sports psychologist at some point in their career. Some might not like it, don't want to do it, but a lot will have been exposed to that. But back in the '90s, this wasn't a thing. And so this was quite unusual, actually. But it was about thinking about what else can we do to be better. 00:23:52 **Aleksandra King:** Okay. So let's talk about that, because I've heard you speaking about controlling the controllables before. So what is that? What does that mean for practical life? 00:24:04 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, I alluded to it already, I think, with the outcome and the process. And this is about– let's think of an example in the workplace where there's lots of people now who are talking about we've got to go into the office four days a week, and Covid happened and everyone worked from home and everyone loved it and it was easy and we got used to it, and now companies are forcing the fact that we have to go into the office. Well, we can whinge about that and complain about it and I don't want to do it and it means that I can't pick up my kids now and this and that, and yeah, I get all of that, but ultimately this is the way it is and I can't control it. They've may– your company may have put– enforced this new rule. I can't change it. I can't control it. I've got to accept it. And what we can do is choose our response to that. And I can choose to either be frustrated about it and angry about it and annoyed and moan about it and whinge about it, and that makes me feel not good, or I can choose my response. I can choose my attitude. I can choose to have a different perspective on it. Or another example might be, I don't know, the economy and the cost of living crisis. I can't control any of that, but what I can do is control how I respond. Change is happening. I can't control change, but I can control who I go and reach out to for support. I can control my attitude. I can control my strategy. So it's all about what can I control, rather than focusing all the things that I can't control, the things that stress me that are out of my control, like on my way here, the traffic or the train, and I can't control some of that stuff. So what can I do? I can control communicating with you. I can control what's my next step. And when we focus on the uncontrollables, it makes us feel anxious. It drains our energy, makes us feel worried. But when we focus on the things we do have control in, that's empowering. 00:26:14 **Aleksandra King:** Do you know what? I've actually had an anxiety expert in and we were speaking about anxiety a lot. And I really wish that I had had him in– anxiety Josh– with you at the same time, because I would love to hear the perspectives on anxiety, because yeah, controlling the controllables is for sure something that will bring your anxiety levels down, because there is also a school of thought that you just let anxiety just be anxiety and you're not afraid of anxiety, which is also a powerful thing, in that I'm not afraid to get anxious. I'm just going to allow myself to get anxious. But actually your way of doing it, it ties in so well to a lot of the stuff that he's talking about in how to manage anxiety, but through these really– it's what you said earlier, the word process, like that things have a process. Control the process. Get on top of your process. Control the controllables. That resonates with me. I feel like that's a nice way to be empowered, I suppose, to– on top of it. 00:27:16 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, I think that there's a case for let's just let the anxiety– let's recognise it. Let's acknowledge it. Let's sit with it. Let's be with it. And say, take for example, you're on the journey. You're travelling to the airport to go on holiday and there's a massive traffic jam. That's really stressful, isn't it? Like, I'm going to miss my plane and we're not going to get there in time and I've got to buy a new flight and there's all this anxiety. So I'm not saying that let's focus on the controllables, what I can do right now, takes away that anxiety instantly, because it doesn't, because the reality is– so I'm sat in the traffic in the taxi on the way to the airport and yeah, there's traffic. What can I do? 00:27:57 **Aleksandra King:** Nothing. 00:27:58 **Anna Hemmings:** Nothing. 00:27:58 **Aleksandra King:** Nothing. 00:27:59 **Anna Hemmings:** I can't do anything. What can I do though, is control my breathing maybe, or I can recognise that I'm sat here and I'm feeling anxious and I am worried and I can acknowledge that and I can sit with it. But what can I control is I can control the fact that– I can control my breathing in this moment, and that can help regulate my nervous system and help calm me down a little bit, because I can't change anything else right now. The traffic is what it is and we may get there or we may not. But what I can control is my breathing. That's one thing I can always control. And now I'm managing my nervous system, which is helping to manage my anxiety a little bit. So that's a powerful way of dealing with something. I'm not saying that control the controllables manages everyone's anxiety. It doesn't. And sometimes we have to acknowledge it and sit with it. 00:28:53 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah, that's– but I feel like having some kind of agency over something– 00:28:58 **Anna Hemmings:** Is powerful. 00:29:00 **Aleksandra King:** Yes. But again, it might not always be the right thing to do, because I'm the sort of person that if something's happening, I'm an action person. I have to take an action. I see something happening, I'll want to put out the fire. But also sometimes it is better to sit back and maybe not rush to do something, because it might not be the right thing and you might just have to sit with it. 00:29:20 **Anna Hemmings:** Well, and that's why the breathing is powerful, right? Because the breathing, when– if we're an action person, and I am too, the tendency is to go right, what can I do? Take action. Do this. Do that. Make sudden moves. And actually, when our brain is– when we're in panic mode, stress mode, we don't think clearly. That prefrontal cortex shuts down and we don't have any more rational, strategic thinking in that moment. And so when we breathe and we control the nervous system and we calm it down, that prefrontal cortex comes back online and we can think more clearly and strategically again. Rather than being hijacked by the amygdala, which is like emotional hijacking, we respond emotionally, which isn't always the best response. And so much better if we can, regardless– if I want to take action, I just breathe first and get calm, get in control and then make a decision about what action I need to take. 00:30:16 **Aleksandra King:** That's really good advice. That really is. Visualisation. This particular one, I'm not even sure. I don't really know that much about visualisation. I don't know. I've heard about it. I've heard that it works for some people. I'm not sure how it actually works, if you know what I mean. I don't know if– if audience– how much they know about it, but the first question is does it actually work, and the second follow-on is if it does actually work, how do you do it in a way to make it work? That's good. 00:30:50 **Anna Hemmings:** Really, really simple. Yeah, so visualisation, there's been a lot of studies around that, and again something I learned from a sports psychologist, and yes it does work and yes there are studies to prove that. I actually, following my sporting career, I did some training in neurofeedback, where they actually– we put electrodes on the brain and you can actually see certain parts of the brain light up when you visualise, and so we know that new neural circuits are being formed when you visualise. So I mentioned earlier the brain is plastic, neuroplastic, and so we can constantly build these neural circuits in the brain. We can change the way we think. Can change our brain processes. And so the visualisation works by– you can do process visualisation or outcome visualisation. So outcome, focusing on the outcome I want to achieve, or the process that takes me to get there. So in my case, a race, I'm either focusing on I've crossed the finish line, I'm standing on the podium, I'm– I've got the gold medal around my neck, that would be the outcome. Or I can focus on the process, which is the race plan and the strategy that gets me there. Or a client, someone in the business world going to do a pitch, a business pitch, and so I can focus on the handshake, got the client or got the job or we won the tender or whatever, and I'm seeing the– we're celebrating, and that's the outcome. Or I can focus on the process, which is me delivering the presentation, delivering the pitch to the client and seeing myself speak articulately and confidently. So I'm either doing a process or an outcome visualisation. And what it does is– the brain doesn't know the difference between a vividly imagined experience and a real life experience. And that's the powerful thing, because when you keep rehearsing these simulations in your brain, in your mind, and bring it to life in your mind's eye, eventually your brain is like– it believes that this has already happened. And that's why it's really powerful, because then when we get to that scenario, if I've never done a pitch before, it's difficult for me to say to someone, well, just believe in yourself. You'll be fine. You've done it before. But what if I haven't done it before? We often get confidence from past experiences. So what we can use visualisation for is to trick your brain into believing that you've done it before, because it's seen it happen so many times. So that when we get there, we feel like we've already been there and done it and it's like, "Oh, this is cool. I know what to do. Been here, done this, know the outcome. It's great." And so that's where it brings us confidence and it brings us a belief. And it's also navigating the uncertainty of it. If it's something new, what can be scary is the fact that I've never done it before and I don't know what it looks like and feels like and I don't know what's going to be the outcome. And that uncertainty can be disarming. And so visualisation is really powerful for helping us to enter into situations we've not tried before. But it does work. We know it works from the research under neuroscience. And it's powerful. 00:34:02 **Aleksandra King:** Okay. So which is more important, or do you do both? The outcome-based visualisation or the process-based visualisation? 00:34:11 **Anna Hemmings:** Both. So we have to– well, I did both as an athlete. I did both all the time. And the outcome visualisation is powerful because that got me excited, right? That was like, I'm seeing myself on the top of the podium as the world champion, and what we need to do, and it's powerful– part of the important part of the visualisation process is to bring it to life using all of your senses. So, I'm imagining myself standing on the top of the podium. I've got a big smile on my face. I'm imagining the feeling of joy, the pride. I'm imagining my mum's smile and her feeling of pride, and my coach's big grin on his face, and I'm listening to the national anthem, and it's all in colour and it's in HD and I'm really bringing it to life. What I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what I'm hearing, and then it's really vivid and then it's really sinking in. The brain doesn't know the difference. And then you're really embedding it in the mind's eye. So that has to be really powerful. But that's also exciting, right? To see that what we do want to happen, because what's really scary is when we fear, we create images in our mind subconsciously of what we don't want to happen. That creates fear and anxiety. So it's very exciting and motivating to see something and it's like, oh, maybe I can do that. I've just seen myself do it. Maybe it can happen in real life. And so it's really powerful to do the outcome. But the process visualisation for me as an athlete is what allowed me to get to the start line and not have to think. The very first thing you asked me about was not, what am I thinking about? Well, I've already planned it all and I've trained myself to get to this point and to just go, because I've prepared it. I've prepared my mind and body to– you hear about athletes entering into the zone, being in flow and being on autopilot, and that happened for me because of the mental rehearsal, that visualisation that I did hundreds of times in advance, so that I know when I sit on that start line I don't need to think. When I hear the gun go, my body will take over and I've rehearsed it, every single stroke of this race. 00:36:27 **Aleksandra King:** I've had situations where visualisations happened by accident, that even as a kid, I remember, it just came to me before the sports day that I just knew I was going to do well in this running race. I love running and I just had a vision of myself doing really well and getting a medal and all that sort of thing, and I came second in the race. I ran it really, really well. It wasn't my race. It wasn't my distance, this particular race, but I surprised myself. It was a little vision, but then at the same time, sometimes I'll have a vision of, oh yes, I haven't been sick for a while. I'm probably going to get sick, and then I'm ill a week later with tonsillitis or something like that. I think, oh no, don't think it, because it might happen. So there's that, which proves the case to me sometimes, and I haven't done it in a really controlled way. I am going to try what you're saying. But then there's also the other side of things, which is more the bad rap that visualisation can get. And you'll see these social media influencers posting with a Porsche and, oh yeah, all you need to do is just think about your Porsche and you'll get a Porsche, and follow me. I mean, I know it sounds a bit silly, but they sort of maybe sometimes also taking something that can work. You're saying it's powerful. It's worked. It's been proven in science that it's worked. But diminishing it in that way and trivialising it to the point where, like, oh yes, just think of a BMW or whatever, Porsche, Ferrari, and then you're just going to get the Ferrari or the– 00:37:56 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah, exactly. More of it. 00:37:58 **Anna Hemmings:** There's a lot of talk about manifesting, and that's a slightly different thing, and I'm not familiar really with the ins and outs of manifesting, but I think it's a slightly different thing, and I'm not sure how proven that is. There are some overlaps with visualisation because you're imagining what you want to happen, maybe, and visualise the Porsche and it's going to arrive. I don't know how that happens. But yeah, so I should caveat all of what I've just said with the fact that I then put in hours and hours and hours of training to make it happen. 00:38:33 **Aleksandra King:** I think we need to– 00:38:35 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. So visualisation doesn't happen without action. What the visualisation is doing is helping you to perform under pressure in the moment. It's giving you motivation to take action. It's giving you the belief that I can achieve this because I've seen it and I know it can happen. It's given you the belief in the moment when I go to deliver– have a difficult conversation with a colleague, that I can get through this conversation because I've rehearsed it and I know that I can deliver it because I've planned it in my mind, and I know how, when they respond angrily and defensively, I know I'm going to be able to stay calm because I've rehearsed that. But it's not about, I just do that and it's magic. I did 20 hours of training each week, hours of it, and 100% every day. And I also focused on my recovery and what I ate and all of these other things that allowed me to deliver that performance. 00:39:34 **Aleksandra King:** Can we talk about that? 00:39:35 **Anna Hemmings:** So, you need action. 00:39:36 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 00:39:38 **Anna Hemmings:** We can think of it almost as a bit of daydreaming, because that's what daydreaming is, right? We're imagining something. We're just \[unclear: peering?\] off into the distance in our mind. But vision without any action is daydreaming, and these outcomes aren't going to happen without taking some kind of action. But what the visualisation might also do is, and this has been shown, is that it's driving into the subconscious to help draw into your life the people and the resources to make it happen. So, we're starting to then look for, okay, so I'm imagining that outcome, and then because I'm regularly imagining it, I'm starting to think, oh, maybe I do need a sports psychologist that will help me achieve that. Ah, nutritionist. Oh, maybe I need someone who's going to help me eat the right foods and refuel my body after training and make sure I can sustain my energy for two and a half hours in a race. Oh, I need the nutritionist. But I have to take action. 00:40:38 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah, to be fair, you did say that the visualisation is split into this outcome visualisation and then the process. And the process is the work, the training every day. What's happening in training today? How's that going to look? And so, to be fair, you did touch on that, but let's go to the team, because that's a huge thing, the team. It's working together with people, that you can't possibly get to these summits on your own, and it started obviously with your parents. They're looking after you and they're putting you in the right environment. So that was already your team, and then that team advanced, and then the sports psychologist came on, and then, like you say, you've got the people to look after, you know, massage or whatever it might be, and the nutrition side of it. Do you agree that real success actually does dictate and need to have a team around you? 00:41:40 **Anna Hemmings:** Absolutely. Yeah. No one gets to the top on their own. Doesn't matter who you are. And I won five of my six World Championships in a single kayak. But I did not get to the start line, let alone win medals, without a team of people around me. So yeah, in the beginning it was my coach and training partners at the club, my family, and then I made the Great Britain team, and then I got to work with sports scientists, sports psychologist, physio, nutritionist, \[unclear: masseur?\], all of those people, all bringing their expertise, and what's really key is that we were aligned in the goal. Winning the World Championships was no longer my goal. It becomes our goal, or part of the Great Britain team, and we've got a collective goal, and that's what's key, is that we're all aligned, trying to achieve the same thing, and recognising that we've got to draw on these different expertise. We can't just work in isolation. 00:42:39 **Aleksandra King:** And even in teams, in business, in life, no one deals with challenges– with corporates, that– 00:42:46 **Anna Hemmings:** I do a lot of stuff on team development. 00:42:47 **Aleksandra King:** Because in businesses, because you cannot reach the highest levels of business with one leader on his own. You need teams of people with different expertise, different viewpoints. I didn't used to have that mindset at all when I started off. I was very much an independent worker, and I took a lot of pride from the fact that I could get things done on my own. And that was my USP, that if you give it to me, I'm going to do it. But it's like, I'm going to do it by myself because I'm self-sufficient. I don't need that help. And with that attitude, there was no way I was going to get to running a business and have a team and everything. So, I've had to change. I've had to let go of things. I've had to also acknowledge, and I have learned it, believe me, I've learned, that I'm just not as good at certain things as other people are. They are so much better at these things. But this is what I can do. This is what I'm good at. Let me stay here, and then, so that I've had to change so much in that way. But that wasn't a default position. Did you have to change, or did you have that understanding pretty early on about team? 00:43:58 **Anna Hemmings:** So, before I answer that question, I've been in the same position, with you following my career in sport, setting up my own business, and I did fall into that trap initially until I went– yeah, because you start off, when I'm building a business as a speaker and I'm a training consultant and delivering team development coaching, and when you start out in business you're doing the invoicing and you're doing the sales and you're doing the marketing, you're building your website and you're doing the delivery of the actual work and you're doing everything, and then you start to get busy, and then it took me a while to bring on a PA, and when I did I was like, oh my God, why have I taken so long to do this? I knew I should have had this on board from the beginning. I know about sport and teamwork, but it's easy to think, oh, it's a cost thing, I haven't got enough money to do that, but actually she's far more effective at doing all that stuff than I am. My time is much better spent doing the delivery, which is what I love and what I'm good at. And that's what teams are for, right? I've got people who design my slides, or who are helping me with my social media, or who are doing my finance and my accounts and the admin and my contracts, all that stuff, because that's their expertise, and that's what teams are about, right? It's about having people with different expertise and drawing on all those expertise, because we've all got different strengths, and let's harness our strengths rather than trying to do things that we either hate, that drain us of energy, and boredom. And let's focus on the things that we're great at, and let's delegate out that work to other people. And so that is something that I learned from sport, and took me a stumbling to get to in my business, because I was like, oh, let's think about what I did in the sporting world. But it's an easy trap to fall into. Really easy. 00:45:50 **Aleksandra King:** So you were speaking about strengths there, but I do want to talk and spend some time here actually on limiting beliefs. And again, people watching are going to be relating to this. We all have these things that we say to ourselves that hold us back from achieving, but I'm not really good at this. I'm not really good at that. Whatever that voice is. I mean, I've got– yeah, I don't like my voice that sometimes speaks to me. I think it's quite rude actually, the things it says. But we have our limiting beliefs and they come at us. They really do. It's like a– and sometimes they really come at you with like a barrage, like a tsunami or whatever. And we all have to deal with them. So, are limiting beliefs something that you deal with or have dealt with? And is it easier now for you than maybe at the start? 00:46:35 **Anna Hemmings:** So, everyone has limiting beliefs. Olympian, world champion, doesn't matter who you are, we've all had a limiting– and probably continue to have some limiting beliefs, and yes, I had to work on them, and I think that we should all learn to try and identify what some of those are, because they can hold us back. And they come from experiences that we've had, or they might come from parents, teachers, coaches who repeatedly tell you things. It's like the kid in school who gets told they're not academic and keeps getting told you're not very academic, not very academic, and then you do bad in a couple of exams and then, oh, now that's a belief that I've got. So for me, for example, I had a belief that I wasn't good at the sprint finish. I did marathon kayak racing, two and a half hour race. And I believed that I wasn't good on the– so often it's a little bit akin to cycling, road cycling, where you might often be in a pack and then there'll be a sprint to the finish. Not always the case, but sometimes it would be the case that there'd be three or four of us, two of us, but there would be– I was in races where it was a sprint finish. And in my earlier days, I lost regularly on the sprint finish. So I developed a belief that I wasn't good at sprint finish, and it also came from the belief– came from, one, from experience, and two, from coaches in my early years as a paddler, as a kayaker, telling me that I was not going to be big enough or strong enough to be a great kayaker, and that particularly so the Olympic discipline in kayaking is sprint racing, is 500 metres. And I was told I was too small, not big enough, not strong enough. Sprinters were bigger and stronger, and I wasn't built like that. And so I would be good at marathon racing, I could have endurance, but I was never going to be strong on the sprint. So when it came to sprint finish, I've got it in my head that I'm not a sprinter. 00:48:33 **Aleksandra King:** That must have hugely impacted you to hear that from the co– you're the people that you're looking up to at that point. 00:48:40 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, that was a pretty early rejection. 00:48:42 **Aleksandra King:** It's a knock. Yeah. 00:48:43 **Anna Hemmings:** That I was told, and in fact I was actually told maybe you might want to go do something else, because I can see that you're really passionate about this. You're turning up training a lot. You're really into it. And I can see that you've got your sights set really high, but not sure you're going to make it because you're not built right. So yeah, that was an early– 00:49:02 **Aleksandra King:** That's enough to crush– yeah, that can crush your dreams right there. So why didn't it crush your dreams? 00:49:08 **Anna Hemmings:** Because, yeah, again, my– I went home and told my mum and she was like, yeah, whatever. Just you go prove him wrong. 00:49:15 **Aleksandra King:** Really? 00:49:16 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. So, was– yeah. So my mum had a big influence on my career. And I was passionate about the sport and I loved it, and I didn't want to believe that, and I didn't want– and I wanted to do the sport. I wanted to believe that I could be great. And I chose to reframe that, really, and think about, well, what can I do to overcome this? What's the solution rather than focusing on the problem? I can't change my height, but I can get stronger. I might not be strong enough now. Not strong enough yet, but I can get stronger in the future. Right? Maybe and eventually I did so much weight training. Eventually I was the strongest girl in the British team in the gym. That was my mission. I was like, I will be strong, and so I became strong. If that's what you're telling me is stopping me, then I will overcome that. So I just reframed it into, well, what do I need to do to overcome this? But back to the limiting belief. So that was in my head and that became quite deeply rooted, that I'm not good at sprint finishing, and then I had the evidence to prove it. So I had to overcome that, because the first two times in the World Championships I got second, silver medal, and both of them I lost on a sprint finish. And so I needed to change that belief because it was holding me back. 00:50:41 **Aleksandra King:** So it was a real thing. The mind work, the working on the psychology of it, is huge. 00:50:48 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. Yeah. 00:50:49 **Aleksandra King:** It's massive. 00:50:51 **Anna Hemmings:** And people, everyone in every walk of life will have limiting beliefs about I'm not good enough at this, or I don't know– yeah, all sorts of beliefs that I'm not a salesperson, I'm not very good at– I don't know, all sorts of beliefs that people have about themselves and they hold us back. 00:51:11 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. I think what's cool about the way that you addressed that is you took the different elements. So, you've got the endurance side and then you knew you had to work on the strength side and you basically chose, you and your mum chose, not to pay attention to that because you saw those as two necessary halves of where you need to go. Yes, you need the endurance, but you do need the strength. So, you're going to actually dismiss that and work on the strength because actually that takes you towards the goal and the goal is still the goal. So you invested time, energy, everything, resources into developing what you knew would make you better. 00:51:49 **Anna Hemmings:** It was informed. 00:51:50 **Aleksandra King:** Yes. Exactly. 00:51:51 **Anna Hemmings:** But I think in terms of the belief, what's helpful is to question it really, whatever the belief is that we might hold. It's about, I'm never– I'm not a leadership type, or I'm never going to be the owner of a business, I'm not an entrepreneur, or I'm not that kind of person who can lead teams, or whatever it might be that's limiting. It's to question, is that true? And quite often it's not true. So it's about– or it may be true, but so then the question is, is it helpful? Is this belief helpful to me? Probably not. Mostly, limiting belief that I'm not good at sprint finishes is not helpful to me because I have to do them if I want to win World Championships. And so, is it true? If it's not, then how can I change it, or what would be a more helpful belief? And if it's not helpful, well then what would be, again, what would be a more helpful belief? So the more helpful belief for me was, I'm not good at sprint finishes yet, or I'm becoming better at sprint finishes, or I'm going to be stronger and therefore get better at sprint finishes. So whichever way around you want to place it, but it's about reframing it for something that's more– that will serve you better, and then you start to build the evidence, because I can't go from I'm not good at sprint finishes to I'm great at sprint finishes because I'm not going to believe that. 00:53:20 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 00:53:20 **Anna Hemmings:** Because the evidence suggests that I'm not. 00:53:24 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 00:53:24 **Anna Hemmings:** Because I have– But I guess if you unpick it, I probably– I had won the occasional race on a sprint finish, small races against certain people, hadn't won the big ones. But so to say that I never win and I'm not good at is not 100% accurate, because there was some evidence that I might have won sometimes. So, it's about reframing it and choosing a different belief that you're going to believe in, because I'm brilliant at sprint finishes isn't one I'm going to believe right now. I do believe that now because I did go on to win sprint finishes at marathons. In fact, I won three of my six world titles on a sprint finish. So, I did eventually believe that, but it wasn't the belief that I held instantly when I wanted to change it. It's one that developed over time. 00:54:15 **Aleksandra King:** Okay, let's look at the other side of this, and twist it a little bit. So, we've got limiting beliefs and I would also talk about limiting actions, which is things that we do, actions that we take that actually sabotage us quite often. For example, when I started my first job ever, I was very enthusiastic. I couldn't believe first of all that I was hired and I had an actual job. So, I was so excited. But I was very fast at everything, very quick, very like, yeah, I'll do it, done, done. And in the work that I was doing, I was a system tester. There were documents that you had to read, and they were quite detailed documents and I would just scan them and then still try and do what I had to do. And my boss at the time then took me aside and went, "Hang on a minute. You must read this thoroughly and probably not once, probably not twice, but at least three times before you take an action." And that just has always stayed with me. Always. I took it personally. I was upset, but I took it extremely seriously. And I took it in a way that I really wanted to never do that again because it hurt me that I had done it so quickly and that I didn't do the best job that I could. But it had a profound impact on me in that I know this about myself. When I'm too quick with things, I'm going to drop the ball. And I have to always manage myself to just– it's a thing you were saying, breathe, to actually stop and pause and to work slower. It almost goes against your nature. And this is why I say the limiting actions. There might be things that you automatically might do that actually don't serve you in certain settings. So you have to keep an eye on those and you have to take that criticism really well, really on board, and change and work on it because it's not going to help you. But it's the things that take you to your goal and the things that improve you. Limiting actions then becoming positive actions because you're limiting the limiting actions and you're having a positive outcome. Does that make any sense? Sorry. 00:56:37 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah. I think that people do sabotage their own success sometimes and they do it out of fear of failure. So for example, I worked with clients who will avoid, will procrastinate, for example, on preparing for a presentation, let's say, and they avoid doing it because they're afraid of the failure, and therefore if I don't prepare for it fully or if I avoid it, then I've kind of got an excuse for when it doesn't go well, because I didn't really prepare properly and I didn't really know what I needed to say. And so it's easier, and so now I'm afraid it's going to happen and if it does happen then I kind of know why and that's okay, because I didn't really learn what my presentation– I didn't prepare my slides properly. And so I'm kind of making it a little bit easier to fail and so I'm self-sabotaging with those actions. So, you're absolutely right. We do do that. And it's about recognising, why am I doing this behaviour? What is it that's causing me to do this? What is it that I'm afraid of that's causing me to behave in this way? 00:58:00 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. And I think also, because we spoke about the limiting beliefs, the ones that we want to challenge and the ones that we don't have time for those. And then there's the ones where the things that do limit us, we do want time for those. We want to change them. So it's like there's just so much work we need to do on ourselves. 00:58:25 **Anna Hemmings:** It's a minefield. 00:58:26 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 00:58:27 **Anna Hemmings:** Yeah, it is. And I think that's something that I learned from my experience with sport psychology, was that so much of the way my brain operates now is because I trained it for so long. It feels a little bit more natural that I focus on the positive, I reframe things, I see the opportunities, all these wonderful things, but I don't think I was born like that. But I did so much work training it all the time that now it feels a little bit more natural. But it takes time. It doesn't just– we are more wired to think negatively. Our brain is designed like that because of our ancestral days where we were faced with danger all the time. We needed to look for danger. We needed to think about, could the lion be around the corner? Oh, there's probably danger around that corner. I shouldn't go here. I shouldn't, because there was so much danger. We needed to be in that negative, pessimistic mode because it helped serve us and keep us safe. But now we're not in that situation. We don't need that. And so we actually need twice as much positivity and positive reinforcement than we do the negative. So for every negative, we need three positives to help change the pattern. And we need to work on it. It doesn't just happen. We need to train the brain. Just like I did the physical training, I did the mental training. 00:59:50 **Aleksandra King:** Train the brain. I love it. I love it a lot. There's one big subject we haven't even touched on and that's recovery. So we've done all these things, high pressure environment, on the line, racing, pivoting in your career, challenges, everything. What about, how seriously do you take recovery, period? 01:00:13 **Anna Hemmings:** It's essential. And I discovered through my sporting career and through an illness that I had that recovery is a strategy for high performance. 01:00:24 **Aleksandra King:** A strategy. 01:00:25 **Anna Hemmings:** Yes. Yeah. 01:00:26 **Aleksandra King:** Why? 01:00:28 **Anna Hemmings:** Because think about it as an athlete, you can do only a certain amount of hours of training eventually. When you're at the highest level and you're doing two or three sessions a day, you can't just double that again to get better. Doesn't work like that. You reach a limit in terms of volume that you can cope with. So what can you do to get better? Well, you can maximise the intensity that you give in each of those training sessions. You can– and you do that by building recovery into the day. So I do my training in the morning. I then have to go home and make sure I eat properly to refuel so that I recover quickly. I might be getting a massage in the afternoon to help my muscles recover. I'm sleeping and getting optimal sleep at the end of the day so that my body can repair and the muscles can regrow after the weight training. So recovery is part of the strategy for high performance. If I want to perform better on the water, I need to recover better when I'm off the water. And it's the same thing in my working life today. And it's things that I coach people on when I want them to be– helping them to be more resilient. Think about the workplace. It's constant go, frantic, back-to-back meetings, fast-paced, rushing from this to this, one project to the next. And people barely stop to pause for breath, let alone lunch, and to stop and take 10 minutes to refuel or to just switch the mind off and the brain off. And ultimately, we've probably all experienced this where you're reading a document, the document you're talking about, and you read– you have to read the same paragraph three times over. We've all done that, right? And it's taking a long time to get through the document because either we're stressed or we're tired or the brain is busy. We can't focus. And so we think, "Oh, we haven't got time to stop and pause and take 10 minutes out to go and get some fresh air and a glass of water or cup of tea." We think we don't have time. But actually, we're wasting time by taking three attempts at reading the paragraph because we haven't stopped. And so actually we're more efficient and more effective when we pause and when we give the mind and the body time to recharge and to shut down. 01:02:40 **Aleksandra King:** I watched something actually the other day. It was a speech, I think, by some psychologist and he was talking about stress, and actually it was about a glass with water and he was saying, how heavy is this glass? I don't know if you've seen this. Like, how heavy is it? And the students in the lecture hall were all trying to guess how heavy it is and he was holding it up, and then he was saying, really, it's not about how heavy it is, it's about how long I'm holding it for, because the longer you hold it the heavier it becomes, like, to you. So if you land up holding it for one day, what's going to happen to your arm? So you have to let it go and have that break. It's like an interval and then recuperate. But I know for a fact, like even people that I work with and family, they do not take recovery seriously. They don't even think– there's no concept of thinking in that way of, I need to really put the nutrients in, and they need to be– these nutrients, we need to test to make sure we're okay, and we need to– the quality of sleep, people hear about it, but they don't– I don't know why. Unless you're a professional athlete, or with a lot of the people, successful people, they take it really, really seriously. But I would say a lot of people in general just don't care. It's not a thing, I think. 01:03:51 **Anna Hemmings:** It's counterintuitive though, isn't it? To think that, oh, if I stop, when you've got a really busy day and you've got tons to get through and you've got a deadline of 5:00 or tomorrow morning or whatever it is, I've got too much to do. I can't possibly stop because I've got to get all this done. 01:04:07 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 01:04:07 **Anna Hemmings:** So, it doesn't make sense rationally to stop and go, right, I'm just going to take 10 minutes and I'm just going to go walk around the block. It's impossible. Or I'm just going to go and do 10 minutes of meditation and mindfulness, when I've got this pile of things to get through and I've got all this and someone's expecting me to deliver this report by 5:00 today. I can't stop for 10 minutes and do a mindfulness on the Calm app. 01:04:33 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 01:04:34 **Anna Hemmings:** Doesn't feel like the right thing to do, or the– but ultimately this isn't about just feeling better. This isn't about well-being and looking after ourselves. It is that as well. But if we just want to think about performance, like I said, when you're wasting time by being slow, and actually when you stop and take time out, you come back more energised, more efficient, more effective. You make better decisions. You have more clarity when we pause and we give our minds a break. So ultimately, if you're in a high pressure job and, I don't know, you're on a trading floor and you need to make quick decisions and be able to take this and this and put it together and make a call on something, you can't have your brain frazzled. You need it to be calm and clear. And that frantic fast pace shuts down that clarity. It prevents us from having new ideas emerge. Like, I don't know about you, but when I do exercise, and I'm sure there'll be people listening who do this, when I go for a run, that's sometimes when I get my best ideas. Do you ever have that? Or people talk about when they're in the shower or when you're on holiday. The best ideas don't come to us in the middle of that frantic fast-paced day. Those brilliant ideas never come. Then when we've got problems to solve, there's this challenge that I'm facing with my team or we can't see the strategy and the solution for this, when you step away from the noise and the frantic fast pace, that's when you start to process it and it starts to become clear. Or even just, at the end of the day, if you want to talk about well-being, then lots of people don't sleep well, right? Lots of people have trouble with sleep and it's usually stress related. But what often happens is you get to the end of the day and, say it's 11:00 at night and you're trying to go to sleep and your mind's whizzing. The thoughts are just racing and either I can't fall asleep or I'm so tired that I pass out real quick and then 2:00 in the morning, ping, wide awake and the thoughts are racing again. And what's often happening is that throughout the day, you're not giving yourself any chance to stop and pause and let your mind percolate and think and just wonder. And so it gets to the end of the day and the phone's put away, the lights are switched off, the TV's off, the computer's away, all of this, all– it's quiet. And your brain goes, "Brilliant, it's quiet. Now I can finally think." 01:07:16 **Aleksandra King:** Wow. 01:07:16 **Anna Hemmings:** Because you didn't give it any time during the day to stop and think. And I was guilty of that. And I used to be– when I started in my new career after sport, I was like, "Right, I need to learn about coaching and leadership and this and that." And I would literally go from my desk and I'd walk to the gym, but on the way to the gym, I'm listening to a podcast about– or I listen to an audiobook to learn and to do more, and what can I– I need to absorb more and I need to do more training and this. And it was just constant. 01:07:45 **Aleksandra King:** Mm. 01:07:45 **Anna Hemmings:** I never gave myself a chance to pause and I had to come back to the fact that these are the lessons I learned in sport. 01:07:53 **Aleksandra King:** Recovery. 01:07:54 **Anna Hemmings:** And recovery was essential, and I had an illness that took me out of my sport for two years that taught me about this, and I had to come back to that and recognise that we have to give the brain chance, for one, for our well-being, but two, also for our performance. It's funny how life teaches us the lessons we have to learn, isn't it? 01:08:15 **Aleksandra King:** Yeah. 01:08:15 **Anna Hemmings:** Really does. 01:08:16 **Aleksandra King:** Anna, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for sharing your elite mindset with us. 01:08:22 **Anna Hemmings:** Pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. 01:08:24 **Aleksandra King:** Thank you. ## Follow Aleksandra - [Instagram](https://instagram.com/king.aleksandra) - [X](https://x.com/aleksandrabking) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandraking) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@AleksandraKing) - [Aleksandra's Inner Circle](https://laylo.com/aleksandraking) Business and collaborations: [aleksandraking.com](https://aleksandraking.com) | [aleksandra@aleksandraking.com](mailto:aleksandra@aleksandraking.com) *The views expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of Aleksandra, the podcast, or its producers. This podcast is for entertainment only.*