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With the London Olympics just weeks away, athletes are finishing their | :00:19. | :00:24. | |
preparation. In elite sport, the title of head coach increasingly | :00:24. | :00:29. | |
refers to the specialist hired to get inside the athletes' head to | :00:29. | :00:34. | |
instil winning mentality. My guest today is Dr Stephen Peters, a | :00:34. | :00:39. | |
consultant to the British Olympic cycling team and a highly prized | :00:39. | :00:49. | |
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adviser to a host of other sporting names. His winning all in the mind? | :00:50. | :01:00. | |
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Dr Steve Peters, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you for having me. | :01:20. | :01:25. | |
Is it true to say that instead of training athletes to run and jump | :01:25. | :01:28. | |
and kicked commie you train and had to think? That would be fair. | :01:28. | :01:32. | |
would think an athlete would already know how to think before | :01:32. | :01:36. | |
reaching a pinnacle of their sporting career? I think that's a | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
fair comment. What I would say is that most of the athletes don't | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
realise what is happening inside their heads so they're not sure of | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
the machine they are working with. Coming from a psychiatric point of | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
view what I have done with athletes is to give them some insight into | :01:50. | :01:54. | |
what is inside their head and what they can and can't do with it. | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
Let's be clear about the background. Are you somebody who is in any | :01:58. | :02:04. | |
sense a specialist in sport? Wrong. At all? I think I am a specialist | :02:04. | :02:10. | |
in the human mind -- know. If you want to enter his specialist field | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
like sport, my job is to enter that world and learn about the world. | :02:15. | :02:19. | |
When I first arrived in the elite sport in 2005 I think it was fair | :02:19. | :02:22. | |
to say I didn't have much of an idea, especially about cycling, so | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
I had to learn about that. I work with coaches and other people who | :02:26. | :02:30. | |
can inform me of the new all sources of that particular sport | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
and then understanding the environment that the athlete is in. | :02:33. | :02:36. | |
You can tune into the kind of stresses or beliefs they are likely | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
to encounter. I would like to talk a lot about the stresses they | :02:40. | :02:44. | |
encounter. Is there a basic accountability problem here? We | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
know professional sports people in various different environments - | :02:47. | :02:53. | |
they have a tendency to, and this is often a quote, to ask "how many | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
medals have you won?" before they take advice from anybody. You admit | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
you don't know a lot about sports, is an issue of credibility with | :03:02. | :03:05. | |
those you are trying to advise? don't think so, because I don't | :03:05. | :03:09. | |
make it a secret that time not a sports person as such. I don't have | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
that credibility. I can't walk in and saying "I am an expert in this | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
field", clearly are not. As long as I have an understanding of that | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
field and what the athlete perceives in it. Let me take up | :03:22. | :03:27. | |
with you something that you said not so long ago. You said "when I | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
watch sport it's easy for me to see if somebody is underperforming for | :03:30. | :03:35. | |
psychological reasons". Is that really true? Particularly if you | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
don't find yourself immersed and steeped in those sports? It is a | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
spectrum. We never say an absolute for anything. In my world it is | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
about probabilities and possibilities. Give me some | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
examples. Cycling is your big example at the moment. You're | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
working closely with the British cycling team light it for any | :03:54. | :03:57. | |
medals. When you look at the top cyclists performing and maybe he is | :03:57. | :04:01. | |
not performing at the peak of his form, how can you tell whether that | :04:01. | :04:08. | |
is as a result of mind issues - psychological problems? If, for | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
example, I look at the individual sprint on the track, it is a | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
tactical race, which means I have to beware of what that means | :04:15. | :04:19. | |
tactically. I have learned over the years what the dos and don'ts are. | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
I'm not an expert - we have coaches who are experts and they will in | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
for me and tell me what they need the athlete to do. They will tell | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
me that an athlete has hesitated when there is a split second when | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
they have to go. If I watch this, because I have been with cycling | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
for seven years, you know when someone is hesitating. You can see | :04:37. | :04:41. | |
that and think that that is not the optimum way to perform. When we get | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
the athlete of the back saying "I hesitated, why did I do that and | :04:46. | :04:51. | |
how can I stop doing it?", that is a simple example. Most people, I | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
don't think you need to be a psychiatrist to watch sport and say | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
that somebody did something that was emotionally driven and not | :04:57. | :05:04. | |
optimal. They think "I just need to get my head right". Yes, getting | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
their head writers obviously a big part of it. Here is a crude | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
question - in percentage terms, when one is talking about elite | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
performance, how much of the performers would you a credit to | :05:17. | :05:23. | |
having the right mindset? In rough percentage terms? I can't answer | :05:23. | :05:27. | |
that because it's a very individual - I think the key to this whole | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
conversation is, as a psychiatrist I'm coming at the individual | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
machines. If you want a programme to do a certain action you have to | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
look at the machine in front of you. A human being has a spectrum within | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
the mind. Some people are born naturally very laid-back and others | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
are quite anxious. We work with that machine. We are not all | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
exactly the same, so I cut generically say this is the amount. | :05:48. | :05:53. | |
What I do is say "what you want? What is your belief system around | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
this? How do you think you will work optimally?" and then I will | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
look and see why they can't do that. Also whether it is realistic, what | :06:01. | :06:05. | |
they're asking to do. Interesting you refer to the human machine. In | :06:05. | :06:09. | |
other contexts you have talked a great deal about the inner | :06:09. | :06:16. | |
chimpanzee that we all have inside out that heads. If I understand, | :06:16. | :06:20. | |
that is the reference to the part of our brains that is the most | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
impulsive, emotional and primitive parts of our thinking. You say that | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
is a very dominant part of our brain and that what this successful | :06:28. | :06:34. | |
athlete has to do is learn to manage and control that in a | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
chimpanzee. We manage it - you can't control it, that would be a | :06:39. | :06:43. | |
mistake, to try and control it. Explain what managing it means. | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
What I have invented is not a scientific theory or a fact, it is | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
a model. A model is something to explain to you in very simple terms | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
like sock puppets - let's make it simple. There's the emotional brain | :06:55. | :07:00. | |
with all of these features, it acts like a chimpanzee. You know? It is | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
very emotional, impulsive, aggressive and it doesn't consider | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
consequences. You have got another part which is human, it is inside | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
your control and is a thinking machine that you can control. It | :07:11. | :07:14. | |
says, let the work is out with facts and troops and put it | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
together logically. The problem is, it's in that order. The emotional | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
brain get it first, the thinking brain second. There's a part, OK? | :07:23. | :07:28. | |
This is an automatic pilot. This is what I call the computer. Now, bear | :07:28. | :07:33. | |
with me. Think of them as free brains, emotional, logical, | :07:33. | :07:38. | |
computer. If you see someone on the blocks and his chimpanzee is in | :07:39. | :07:42. | |
action, he is more likely to do the following - it is likely to be | :07:42. | :07:46. | |
saying "this is it, everything is on this race, you've got to get it | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
right". That's not really the right place to be when you have to come | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
up with results and other places. When you come out of the blocks in | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
100 metres you want to be driven by the computer, it needs access, we | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
need to settle the chimpanzee down and the human down and get the | :08:01. | :08:05. | |
computer running. That is a skill. That's something you have to learn | :08:05. | :08:09. | |
and practise. In my work, it's the same as if you went to a gym and | :08:09. | :08:15. | |
you said, I want to get physically fit. What you do is you go to an | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
expert in strength and conditioning and they ask you what you want to | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
achieve, sprinting? Shot put it? This is what we need to do for your | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
muscles, this is the machine, and this is what it will do. They will | :08:27. | :08:31. | |
more literate and do it with you. If somebody says to me "I want to | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
come out of the blocks quickly" I explain the chimpanzee, I explain | :08:36. | :08:45. | |
the human, I explain the computer and tell them - let's learn how to | :08:45. | :08:51. | |
go with the computer. It's a skills. When you have worked with some | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
triple gold-medallist in Beijing, or one of the top cyclists in the | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
world today, do they get it quickly? Are they able to adapt the | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
way they use their brain as a result of conversations with you? | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
The problem of sports people is a lot of them have come in here with | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
fantastic physical abilities and skills and the mental skills are | :09:12. | :09:18. | |
run different scale. Some of them are very talented mentally -- are | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
on a different scale. Some of them don't have these skills and need to | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
be taught. How were barricading the still depends on the individual. It | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
depends on me as well, as a tutor to try to facilitate. Ronnie | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
O'Sullivan is in snooker. He has talked about working with you and | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
he says you turned around. He was at a point in his career way he had | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
had enough of snooker. He didn't want to go into the World | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
Championships anymore or be under the strain he had been under the | :09:47. | :09:54. | |
past. Partly because he couldn't handle not winning. You did | :09:54. | :09:57. | |
turnaround, he played in the championships and came across as a | :09:57. | :10:02. | |
much happier player. How did you do it? There are a number of things I | :10:02. | :10:05. | |
would like to say before I explain that, to set the scene so what has | :10:05. | :10:11. | |
not taken out of context. Went on he came to see me he had beaten -- | :10:11. | :10:14. | |
he had won three world champions. At the one to beat my chest, he | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
could have done it without me. If you work on your mental skills like | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
he did, the probability of success rises, it's not a guarantee. | :10:21. | :10:25. | |
seems to me what you're doing with any of these top sportsman is | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
teaching them how to overcome their fear. Particularly their fear of | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
losing. Yes. Because these are habitual winners, but they are also | :10:35. | :10:39. | |
frightened of losing. Again, if we stick to the model - and you | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
remember, it isn't a person fearing that, we have to split the brains | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
up. Ronnie's chimpanzee was saying to him "I'm looking at consequences | :10:48. | :10:54. | |
and what happens if I lose - it defines me if I were in". We need a | :10:54. | :10:57. | |
human being sat there very differently and said to me, I would | :10:57. | :10:59. | |
like to win, that would be pleasurable, but I have other | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
values in my life which I am not sticking to because I chimpanzee is | :11:02. | :11:07. | |
hijacking me. We have two people in talking to. Roddy started to | :11:07. | :11:17. | |
:11:17. | :11:21. | ||
recognise the difference. What he did this time -- Roddy.... Winning | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
his it pleasure and it's my profession, but it doesn't define | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
me and it would upset me to the point that where I feel like is | :11:28. | :11:35. | |
impossible to win a fight -- impossible to live if I don't win. | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
I see some sports people in their sporting arena behaving with a | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
picture of passion that seems to tally with your description of the | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
inner chimpanzee, yet you are telling me that the inner | :11:45. | :11:48. | |
chimpanzee is totally destructive. I never said totally destructive - | :11:48. | :11:53. | |
I never mentioned that. What has it is this - you have a choice. I'm | :11:53. | :12:01. | |
not saying or chimpanzee can't win, I'm not saying that. By saying -- I | :12:01. | :12:06. | |
am saying it's about probability. When people choke in the middle | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
sport, you can almost guarantee what system of the brain they are | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
using. When they going to fight mode and become overly confident, | :12:14. | :12:19. | |
that's how it works, it is likely to suddenly flip into a panic mode | :12:19. | :12:23. | |
or fall out of focus. If you go much more akin to a computer mode, | :12:23. | :12:33. | |
:12:33. | :12:34. | ||
the -- much more into a computer mode, you are more likely to stay | :12:34. | :12:42. | |
there. When I entered sport, I learned about what they call the us | :12:42. | :12:52. | |
:12:52. | :12:53. | ||
-- the zone.... They might be in an aggressive stance, but they are | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
quite calm and collected and they know they can do this. We need to | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
do so on example is of those who are not like that. When BT of the | :13:01. | :13:05. | |
Premier League in football, players like Murray Abdullah telly -- it I | :13:05. | :13:15. | |
:13:15. | :13:24. | ||
am thinking of the Premier League - - Mario Balotelli. When you see | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
them, do you think "I could make them much better players". I don't | :13:29. | :13:36. | |
think that. They are operating in chimpanzee mode. We see those | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
emotions exhibited on the pitch. we assume that, that is an | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
assumption - that system is relatively unstable, but that | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
doesn't mean I should dive in and say, I think you should change your | :13:47. | :13:50. | |
system. What I'm saying is that you need to look at the possibility | :13:50. | :13:56. | |
that that system will let you down at some time. I have worked with a | :13:56. | :14:06. | |
:14:06. | :14:07. | ||
Premier League footballer who worked on that. A Premier League | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
football at whom I cannot name. He collapsed and couldn't get back - | :14:11. | :14:14. | |
once you have collapsed they aren't into the system you can't get back | :14:14. | :14:18. | |
because you realise the fallibility of it. Craig Bellamy was working in | :14:18. | :14:23. | |
chimpanzee mode. He has gone public about this. The reason I originally | :14:23. | :14:29. | |
asked him not to - I ask most of them not to go public, the public | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
have this expectation that once you work with me and you get it right | :14:32. | :14:35. | |
it will always be right and if you get it wrong once, you have failed. | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
Or more to the point, maybe you have failed. I can live with that. | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
What I can say is if they go into that mode and they are in the | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
spotlight, I don't have an all or nothing - what I'm saying it is a | :14:48. | :14:53. | |
skill. When you have a day when you can do something well, there are | :14:53. | :14:57. | |
the days when the skill let you down. That doesn't mean you have | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
failed, it just means on that day you haven't done as well as you | :15:00. | :15:05. | |
could have done. Like me, I have a skill. Sundays I meet athletes and | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
I know I have nailed it. Other days I know I need to go back and do it | :15:10. | :15:13. | |
again because it's not quite right. Let me ask you are somewhat | :15:13. | :15:16. | |
different sort of question which takes you away from your direct | :15:16. | :15:20. | |
daily involvement in professional sport and asks you to look at it | :15:20. | :15:25. | |
from a distance. Would you, as a clinical psychiatrist agree with me | :15:25. | :15:29. | |
that professional sport can be very bad for your mental health? I think | :15:30. | :15:36. | |
that's true for anything. There are peculiar pressures. If I go to | :15:36. | :15:41. | |
other world of being a doctor and ask if there is pressure on | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
accident and emergency doctors, they are different pressures, but | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
it will depend on the individual. We can't be generic here. Some | :15:49. | :15:52. | |
sports people I work with thrive on the so-called pressures. They don't | :15:52. | :15:57. | |
see them as pressures. But also common sense says if you like in | :15:57. | :16:00. | |
the limelight and your value to the rest of society is on how you | :16:00. | :16:03. | |
perform, then there is a pressure to most people. Most people would | :16:03. | :16:13. | |
:16:13. | :16:19. | ||
feel that pressure. It's a heavy Italian volleyball player who wrote | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
powerfully about how he saw his own sport. He said, "Ultimately prefegs | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
fal sports people are a business asset that belongs to somebody When | :16:27. | :16:29. | |
has invested money on them and wants a return on the investment. | :16:29. | :16:34. | |
It doesn't matter how I felt or what I wanted, it doesn't matter if | :16:34. | :16:38. | |
I wasn't physically fit enough to stand up. I had to perform and | :16:38. | :16:43. | |
perform well. There was no other option." He describes pretty well | :16:43. | :16:47. | |
the reality of professional sport for a lot of sportsmen. I am not | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
denying. This I have worked full- time for about seven years in sport | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
and previously some years part-time. Clearly, there are a lot of young | :16:54. | :16:58. | |
people where this is quite damaging. Again, it doesn't need a | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
psychiatrist to say this. When they leave sport at an early age, | :17:01. | :17:04. | |
particularly if they had not succeeded in their eyes by getting | :17:04. | :17:09. | |
an Olympic medal and maybe they get to a semifinal in an event at the | :17:09. | :17:14. | |
Olympics, if we were put in our own professions and we had reached the | :17:14. | :17:22. | |
last 16 in the world we would be alerted. The consensus if they had | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
failed The analysis is first is first and second is nowhere. Yes. | :17:26. | :17:29. | |
With this brutality and belief system, and that is their choice, I | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
can only offer them an alternative where they get Nougat De Montelimar | :17:33. | :17:36. | |
perspective. At the end of the day they are doing their best. They | :17:36. | :17:41. | |
can't do better than this. It is irrational. Isn't it your job to | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
tell coaches and you would be a mind coach working with a physical | :17:45. | :17:55. | |
:17:55. | :17:55. | ||
coach that they are failing their charges. I mean, well -- Holly | :17:55. | :17:59. | |
Aville has just quit trying to get into the British Olympic athlete | :17:59. | :18:04. | |
team because she's admitted she's had anorexia problems for years. | :18:04. | :18:08. | |
They go back to a time when she was 16 and one of the coaches said to | :18:08. | :18:13. | |
her, "Holly, you have done well in this particular tournament but you | :18:13. | :18:16. | |
have to watch your weight." Since then she's tried to starve herself | :18:16. | :18:22. | |
and her bones have gotten thinner and she's had to quit for those | :18:22. | :18:26. | |
reasons. Coaches are are feeling the charges. I don't know what the | :18:26. | :18:30. | |
coach said or why he said it. you think it is an unusual story? | :18:30. | :18:34. | |
don't think it is unusual. Let me finish. We have to get both | :18:34. | :18:38. | |
contexts of what we do. Obviously it is a very sad and I don't know | :18:38. | :18:41. | |
this young lady and obviously somewhere along the line | :18:41. | :18:44. | |
professional help should have been available to her to support her. I | :18:44. | :18:48. | |
don't think we should start blasting the coaches and saying | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
they are sterling. They are doing their best. If a coach comes to me, | :18:52. | :18:56. | |
and it happens a lot with coaches, and they say what is the best way | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
to get the performance out of the athlete? Clearly, most of us don't | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
like being beaten by a stick. That is not rocket science. We like | :19:05. | :19:09. | |
encouragement. We might need a kick up the pants at times, but it is | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
almost better ourselves. I will say to coaches, if you do a certain | :19:12. | :19:15. | |
thing, these are the likelihood of your athlete in this particular | :19:15. | :19:20. | |
case of responding this way. If you do this, this is the likelihood, | :19:20. | :19:24. | |
but to give you a simple example when I started if sport, a coach | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
said to me - I usually get on with the coaches - but I am not | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
perfectly popular because I will speak. They asked me what do we say | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
on the day of competition? It depends. Ask them what they want. | :19:37. | :19:40. | |
Some notes will say can you cope up the words, Steve. Your presence | :19:40. | :19:44. | |
settles me. If they say I want you to hover and come and talk to me at | :19:44. | :19:47. | |
this point, that is when I do. In order, you have to work it out with | :19:47. | :19:51. | |
the athlete and the coach does the same. I am going to stop you there. | :19:51. | :19:55. | |
I am going to stop you because I am very aware that people watching | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
this, listening to this, around the world will perhaps be bringing a | :19:59. | :20:02. | |
different perspective to the table. For example, in China, we know from | :20:02. | :20:06. | |
the book ground of the Beijing Olympics, but the Chinese approach | :20:06. | :20:10. | |
to creating champions was to extract talented kids from their | :20:10. | :20:13. | |
family, as young as 10 years old, to have them live in special | :20:13. | :20:17. | |
environments and see their parents maybe twice a year to instil | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
incredible discipline into those children and basically give them a | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
message which was, "If you win, you will have a great life. Your family | :20:23. | :20:27. | |
will be given great gifts and everything will be rosy. If you do | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
not win, you will be thrown on the scrap heap and life will be | :20:31. | :20:34. | |
miserable." that is a form oar coaching and discipline that you | :20:34. | :20:40. | |
haven't addressed at all, but it worked. It got 51 gold medals. How | :20:40. | :20:45. | |
do you explain that? If I get a gun and put it to someone's head and | :20:45. | :20:51. | |
say go to the gym but damage your back permanently and lift the gun | :20:51. | :20:55. | |
they will lift the waits, but that doesn't make it right. But how -- | :20:55. | :20:58. | |
am saying at the beginning, it is about probabilities. All I am | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
saying is happy people are more likely to engage. People who are | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
empowered are more likely to take accountability and responsibility | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
for poem who are suppressed and dictated to. It is a probability. | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
Once you get so severe that they say this is going to affect your | :21:14. | :21:17. | |
entire life, I suppose most people will engage. That doesn't make them | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
happy people. I am saying from my perspective when I came into sport, | :21:22. | :21:25. | |
my job of course in sport is to get these performances, but with anyone | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
I am working with, I am not going to do that. What I am going to do | :21:29. | :21:34. | |
is get someone to be happy within themselves actually saying, "I feel | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
good about where I am." We will move on. The chances are they will | :21:39. | :21:43. | |
pick the waits up and work. It is a very different way of dough it. | :21:43. | :21:47. | |
know your goal working with the British Olympic teams is to get as | :21:47. | :21:50. | |
many goal medals for your people as you can. I wonder do you sit become | :21:51. | :21:54. | |
and think, "You know what, those years ago when I was working in a | :21:54. | :21:58. | |
secure hospital with deeply damaged menly ill people trying to turn | :21:58. | :22:03. | |
their lives around, was that in all honesty more worthwhile than trying | :22:03. | :22:10. | |
to deliver gold medals?" I was working one day in surgery - I am a | :22:10. | :22:14. | |
doctor and you train through a different discipline - obviously it | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
gets quit tedious, but that is for me to say but I never interact with | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
the people. What struck me was you get them better for quality of life, | :22:24. | :22:28. | |
you get them better so they can enjoy life. There is no point in | :22:28. | :22:31. | |
getting someone better and they are miserable. You haven't given them a | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
quality life. At the end of the day most of us would say it is not | :22:35. | :22:37. | |
about being physically and mentally fit, but about the quality of life | :22:37. | :22:41. | |
that you have. It is about happiness. If you start looking at | :22:41. | :22:44. | |
sports people, of course I say to ports people, if a martian came | :22:44. | :22:49. | |
down and said, "What do you do for a living?" "I kick a ball around a | :22:49. | :22:56. | |
fold." They would say, "What use is that?" I would say, "I make people | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
happy for them to win medals or score goals." We watch the Olympics | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
because it makes us feel happy. does it make you happy to reflect | :23:04. | :23:08. | |
that is the way you have taken your life? Absolutely. It does? | :23:08. | :23:12. | |
Absolutely. You don't think of people who are not famous sporting | :23:12. | :23:16. | |
names and how you could have benefited societyed in so many | :23:16. | :23:20. | |
different ways? I am locking at it as a doctor in society. I could go | :23:20. | :23:23. | |
back to dealing with mental illness and mental health, which I have | :23:23. | :23:26. | |
done for a long time. However, when you look at it, we are looking at | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
quality of life, so I did address the question when invited to join | :23:30. | :23:35. | |
the team full-time. I spend 12 months deliberating and thinking | :23:35. | :23:39. | |
can I really justfy this to myself? At the end of the day, yes, you | :23:39. | :23:43. | |
cannot believe how many people come up to me and thank me for going | :23:43. | :23:47. | |
into sport and athletes say I have made a difference. Fan mail come | :23:47. | :23:51. | |
through and say it made their day. You think this is quality of living | :23:51. | :23:55. | |
that sports people are giving us. I would argue it is called call of | :23:55. | :23:58. | |
human living. A final thought because the Olympics in London are | :23:58. | :24:08. | |
only weeks away. I have in my head Baron deKupertan's words it is not | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
the winning that matters, but the taking part. You don't believe | :24:13. | :24:16. | |
that? I saw the Olympic corrode. It is not about the winning, but the | :24:17. | :24:21. | |
struggle. Taking part in the struggle, the effort you make. | :24:21. | :24:26. | |
Absolutely. That is the right moral stands. The chimp says "you are | :24:26. | :24:31. | |
joking, I am out there to win." You have to live with your chimp. One | :24:31. | :24:36. |