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Lessons From The World's Best

Lessons From The World's Best

Written by: Paddy Upton
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 Welcome to Lessons From The World’s Best; created to entertain you and to offer practical, relevant and maybe even life-changing lessons for your journey in sport, work and life. Professor Paddy Upton interviews some of the world’s best athletes, in open, honest and vulnerable conversations about the story behind their stories. These are never-before-heard, courageous conversations about what drove their successes, as well as the uncomfortable truths about their fears, failures, challenges and personal experiences, both on and off-the-field.Paddy Upton
Episodes
  • 16. Ryan Stramrood: Pushing Past Impossible

    16. Ryan Stramrood: Pushing Past Impossible
    Jul 25 2022
    Ryan Stramrood is an extreme ocean and ice swimmer, wearing only a speedo, swim cap and goggles. He achieved a Guinness World Record for the fastest crossing of the 32km shark-infested False Bay in Cape Town, spent 32 minutes swimming one mile in one degree below-freezing Antarctic waters, and has numerous extreme ocean crossings under his belt. At the time of recording, he had completed the 7.2 km Robben island to Blouberg crossing, in the cold Cape Town waters, a whopping 122 times. What makes his story so compelling, is that he started out as an unfit, over-weight, average-Joe at the age of 29. He was not born with any particular gift for swimming or handling cold water. His is a story of how an ordinary guy trained his body and taught his mind how to push past impossible. He shares fascinating accounts of his swims in freezing cold, pushing beyond extreme exhaustion, swimming through a field of jelly fish, swimming in shark- infested waters at night, blacking out due a rare lung condition in freezing waters and an up-close encounter with a great white shark. He discusses how the mind is both our greatest asset and our biggest limitation, courtesy of its need for comfort and safety. How, as humans, we tend to be ‘excuse magnets’ and that you don’t need any special talent to achieve even greater heights in whatever your pursuit. This episode promises fascinating stories and very achievable and universally applicable lessons from them.
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    2 hrs and 1 min
  • 15. Greg Minnaar: GOAT On The Slopes

    15. Greg Minnaar: GOAT On The Slopes
    Jul 5 2022

    Greg Minnaar is the greatest downhill mountain bike racer of all time. His professional career has spanned 21 years at the very top of this high-risk and highly-technical adrenaline sport. In 2021 and at the age of 39, Greg was crowned Downhill World Champion for the fourth time in his career, 20 years after his first World Cup series win. He has been runner up in the World Cup four times, placed third three times, and has been the winner in 23 World Cup events, the most by any racer in history. At 40, he is still competing, and winning.

    In this interview he is his usual cool and calm self. He discusses how he manages fear of injury and crashing at speeds of over 70km/h, how he maintains consistent performances and a consistent performance mindset, and about adapting and adjusting to change. He speaks riding the fine-line of the perfect race, between hesitation and caution on one side, and reckless over-striving on the other, and about riding your own race in sport and in life. He also shares advice for recreational mountain bikers to go faster, with while getting injured less, and more.

    Greg is the GOAT of downhill racing, and his lessons are applicable to all of life.


    Ingredients for Performance  5.35

    How it started 9.00

    Critical voices 12.00

    Managing self 17.10

    Evolution of the sport 19.00

    The best from the rest 21.15

    Mitigating risk 28.10

    Fear of injury 29.30

    Mindset 31.35

    Process and preparation 33.45

    Fear of failure 37.00

    Overcoming fear 43.20

    Flow state 47.00

    Character 52.05

    Adapt and adjust 53.35

    Downtime hobbies 1.02.50

    Downhill tips 1.05.40 

    Advice to young athletes and their parents 1.07.10

    Life lessons 1.10.25 

    The big question 1.11.35
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    1 hr and 27 mins
  • 14. Ryan Sandes: Trail Blazer

    14. Ryan Sandes: Trail Blazer
    Jun 16 2022

    Ryan Sandes is one of the world’s best-ever ultra-distance trail runners. His remarkable career started only in his 3rd year of university, when as a wannabe Springbok rugby player and non-runner, he entered the Knysna marathon – only because the half marathon was fully booked.

    After only three weeks of training, he completed the 42.2km in a little over three hours - which marked the beginning of a rather unexpected and quite remarkable career.

    His first official race as a novice trail runner, was a 250km race across the Gobi desert. Four months of training later, this totally unknown runner from Cape Town surprised the ultra-running world by crossing the finish line first.

    He went on to become the first person to win all four races in the 250km Four-Desert Series, and then to become the first person to win an ultra-trail race on all seven continents.

    Ryan upped the ante again, when he and a friend, Ryno Griesel, went on to set a new trail-running record by running 1 435km across the Great Himalayan Trail in Nepal, in only 25 days. Which included climbing 63.7km in elevation - the equivalent of running up and down Mount Everest 7.5 times!

    He speaks candidly and without filter about his career challenges and lessons - and let’s us into his head as he describes the most extreme spiritual high moments of ‘going to the well’, and to the depths of hell when the mind and body shuts down through sheer exhaustion.

    It’s a riveting conversation with someone who’s been to places that few humans ever have, or will go.


    First Ultra .840

    University/work life 13.45

    Gobi Desert 16.40

    Competition 19.20

    Bonking 30.00

    Winning 34.30

    Going pro 36.15

    Sponsors 42.10

    In the Zone 44.40

    "Going to the well" 47.10
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    1 hr and 38 mins
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