November 5, 2025 • 27 mins
Lewis Hatchett, a former pro cricket player and host of the MindStrong podcast, shares his strategies for success
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:24):
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Lewis Hatchett to Before Breakfast. Lewis
is the host of the mind Strong podcast. It's also
a coach who works with people on time management, productivity
in their mindset, and he is a former professional cricket
player as well. So Lewis, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thanks Laura. It's good to have be on your show.
We're having you.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You've just been online, so exactly it was great slop
like this, Yes, a good exchange for sure. So why
don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, so right now, I am a mindset coach that
works predominantly in the sport space. Just naturally. It's been
easy for me because that is the world I came
from as a professional athlete. My own personal background in
sport is a slightly unique one. I won't go into
sort of a forty minute kinot But ultimately I was
(01:17):
born with a rare condition called Poland syndrome, so I
missing my right pectora muscle two ribs are behind it.
I was told at birth that I wouldn't be able
to play sport. I hid that from the world and
then overcame it to play a sport where actually, if
I was to be hit by a cricket ball, many people,
if your listeners from the US or Canada, cricket is
(01:38):
the second largest sport in the world. So there's that fact.
But also it's kind of like baseball. The ball moves
around at ninety mile an hour. It's much more solid
than it's a little bit more solid than a baseball,
so if you get hit, you break bones and things
like that. But if I was to get hit with it,
it would potentially kill me. So I hid that from
the world and I managed to make my way into
(01:59):
being a pro athlete by what I would just say,
not through talent, not through skill. Well there was skill
at the end, but basically mindset was my ability to
mentally overcome some of the challenges and just stay persistent
and stay in the game. Essentially, and then I always
say that professional sport is kind of like who's the
last person hanging on? And then if you're left at
(02:20):
the end, then you get a chance. And then I,
unfortunately did get a career ending injury. I broke my
back and then I had to come out of the
sport at twenty six, and I then moved into coaching naturally,
but that coaching then started to mold itself towards a
much more mentoring space. When athletes found out about my
condition and my story, they wanted to ask how do
(02:44):
I build confidence, how do I overcome failure, how do
I deal with pressure? Moments That led me into my
interest in the psychology space, doing my master's in performance psychology,
and then eventually built a brand called mind Strong Sport,
which I actually developed into an app that teaches mental
skills to athletes in the comfort of their own home.
(03:05):
And yeah, most of my work is trying to make
people mentally stronger to take on the challenges that they
face in the world. So that really is my very
quick synopsis of where I'm from, what I'm about.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, well, I know some of my international listeners are
more familiar with cricket. The probably than my US listeners.
But just real quick because from what I understand of cricket,
having both pectoral muscles would probably be.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Helpful, be a benefit. Yeah, so actually give you an
insight that. So the only thing that protects my lung
on my upper right portion of my chest is just skin.
So I and that unfortunately as a batter who I turned,
I was left handed, so I'm facing the bowler, which
means it's the most vulnerable side. But I was given
(03:50):
and had built for me a kevlar chest guard, so
it's completely one of a kind, Like it's only designed
to my chest, and it's bulletproof, so it won't just
stop a cricket ball at stop a bullet but I
I the only other things that it really helps it
doesn't help with is sort of mechanics, so like I
can't get my right arm above my head as easy
(04:10):
as I can on my left. I get very regular
muscle spasms in my right shoulder, like I'm coming off
the back of one now, so I kind of get
knocked down for a cup of well, I just become
a bit more incapacitated in terms of movement. I get
regular headaches because of just the overactive muscles that are
compensating for a very large muscle not being there. So yes,
(04:32):
a lot of management. I'm trying to tamele that down
and look after my body. And yeah, I I throw
myself into that ringer like I don't make it. I
don't make it easy for myself. I'm in the gym
every day, I'm constantly pushing my body. So it's it's
I'm willing to take that hit for the things that
i want to get out of life.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Well, let's talk a little bit about the mindset things
that you had to do then, because obviously, if you're
starting from a bit of a physical disadvantage in terms
of even just your musculture and how your body is built,
how does one do that sort of day and day out.
Like I'm going to keep working on this, I'm curious
if there are particular mental processes you've found helpful.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, weirdly enough, the thing that I didn't really think
about at the time was things like that. So I'm
not sitting there going like we do now in the
world where I'm like, right, if I get a if
I can have these seven hacks that allow me to
unlock I wasn't rethinking that the thing that I weirdly
and I just spoke to someone about this recently, was
how am I going to build self belief in myself
(05:37):
if everything is kind of against me? And the number
one thing I could choose at the time, especially now
knowing the psychology, the strongest way you can build that
self belief is through past experience. But as a teenage
LA guide like I didn't have those experiences to hold
on to, and they weren't really relevant in the sort
of realm I was going into. You're not going to
build self belief in a professional environment if all you've
(06:00):
done is play high school sport, right. But one thing
I did do was I became an absolute geek at
other people's stories. So I loved stories of other athletes,
especially those who were similar to me or done something
similar to me, or at least had a condition and
(06:22):
had an underdog story. So if I knew they had
an underdog story, then I lashed onto that and I
was like, what did they do? How did they do it?
What were some of the things that I could use there?
And then I would just take all these stories and
find the similarities and be like, do you know what
if they have done it, then I believe if I
kind of follow the ways in which they've done it,
then I can too. And a lot of the approach
(06:43):
that I now look back on and I realized that
I wasn't whether I was unique in this way, But
when I was trying to get my goal of what
I was trying to achieve as a professional athlete, I
wasn't actually focused on getting that goal I wanted it.
It was this north start in terms of that's where
I believe I can get to. But actually the thing
I was focused on so much more was what's the
(07:05):
type of person I need to be in order to
get that? So my things that I did was how
can I I was building values, especially when I watched
these athletes through the stories that they were telling, or
it might have been a very inspiring film or story,
and I thought, what are the traits and characteristics that
I can take on from those people? And if I
(07:26):
aim at that, then it looks like by just numbers
game that these are the there's positive outcomes that are
going to come from that. So I didn't really sort
of go out there and go, this is the thing
that I'm going to hold on to and I want
to this. These are the steps. I actually just focused
on the person I was going to be, type of
character I wanted to be. What those behaviors were. So
if I then.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Was give me an example, I would say like being
a I say this like never giving up or being persistent,
and the way I would manifest that would be or
or choosing to do things when even when the environment
was tough.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Right, so still persisting when the environment was tough, and
the way that would manifest would be. I live in
the UK. Our winters are not favorable. We get rain,
we get snow, it's cold. So if I knew I
had to go to a training session and it's nice
and warm inside and it's cozy, I had already said
that I am not someone who is going to I'm
willing to do things in tough environments. I'm willing to
(08:24):
do something difficult. And so that would make the decision
of whether I put my trainers on really easy, because
I'm not breaking this habit that I've got in front
of me. I'm actually breaking something much deeper. I'm breaking
a bond with myself of the person that I'm wanting
to be. And for me, there's this underlying belief for
myself is if I break my bond with myself, then
(08:47):
I almost can't live with myself because I'm not the
person that I believe I am, And almost I couldn't.
I couldn't live with that. I couldn't live with not
being true to the person that I am. And if
it's some form of action that aligns with that person
I want to be and I break it, it's just
something I can't live with. So I've made those promises
(09:09):
to myself and through those you get the habits, you
get the things that kind of get you to where
you want to be.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
All Right, We're going to take a quick ad break
and then i'll be back with more from Lewis Hatchett. Well,
I am back talking with Lewis Hatchett, who is the
host of the Mind Strong podcast. He's been talking about
his professional cricket career, despite having a disability that in
(09:39):
many cases might make it challenging to play a cricket
let alone on the professional level, achieving that. But Lewis,
let's talk about this because I want to get into
sort of coming out of that. I mean, obviously, we
can have a very strong mindset, trained very well, achieve
the highest levels, but being a professional athlete, you know
that your career is going to end, and it is
going to end far earlier than those of us who
(09:59):
do most other things. I mean, you can work in
a bank for your entire life, but at some point
you're going to be off the cricket field. And so
I wonder what you were thinking, knowing you wanted to
hit the highest levels of that, but knowing you're going
to have to at a relatively early age find something
else to do as well. I'm curious how you were
thinking about that in the process of that transition.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah. Well, again, I think if you were to serve
a lot of athletes, how many of them actually think
about it comparative All of them know it, You all
know it, but how much you think about it is
a different thing, right. So, But for me, I think
because of my condition, because of how I got into sport,
(10:40):
it was and my parents potentially got it into me
early as well. They always would say, what are you
going to do when it ends? What's going to happen?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Now?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
There's two things, right when you want to have an
eye on that, but also when you're playing sport, you
want to be all in. When you're in it, you
want to be all in. But for me, I also
it kind of goes back to what I said earlier,
which was that I believed that if I could have
traits that I knew would be successful outside of sport
(11:13):
and not siloed to just sport, and valued those as well,
So not value what it is that I was doing,
but potentially how I was doing it, that I could
trust that I could learn anything outside of it. So
we can all learn skills, we can all learn new things.
But the things that especially you see this in the
corporate world right now, that people are really latching onto
(11:34):
is the people is how they do things, how they
show up, how they're doing what they're doing. Not necessarily
what they do, yeah that's great, but how they do it,
that's something that can make you unique. So I've really
focused on those. And then, luckily, pre cricket career, my
parents got me into working pretty early, so I was
like a fourteen year old working in kitchens and working
(11:57):
in fish factories before I turn pro. And then when
I came out, i'd had experiences outside of the sport.
Now I work for myself, but I went and work
for my brother. He works in the corporate space, and
you find that there are things that you can use
in terms of not whats but how's, and they can
(12:18):
be really really effective for you being able to transition
from one thing to another.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So I'd like to talk a little bit about some
of the mindsets that you help people develop. Right, So
if I come to you and I am saying, you know, Lewis,
I would like some help becoming sort of more effective
at what I'm doing? What are some of the practical
things that you would have me doing differently in my life?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Well, first thing, even just using the word effective, I
would probably ask what is effective? Right? What will make
you effect? When have you been effective? And what does
what does that kind of look like? Is it? Is it?
Is it removing a fear of failure? Is your barrier
to being effective? Fear of failure? Is it more confidence?
Is it belief? Is it state of anxiety that you
(13:02):
find yourself in? Do you struggle performing under pressure moments
when it is that you need them. If it's in
a sporting space, it might be in a big game.
If it's in a corporate space, it might be when
you have to give a presentation and you have to
get up and speak. That could be the clutch moment
that you need to perform. So I would really try
to drill down on where you feel there's a big
(13:23):
block that you've got going on in terms of, yeah,
how you want to be effective? What is the best
version of you look like? And really start there, like,
what's the best version of you that we've got? How
do you start there and build a framework of when
you have performed well? Because we're humans, we look at
all of the negative biases in our lives. We look
at all the times where I've failed and oh, I
(13:44):
hope this doesn't happen again, and completely discount all of
the good things that have happened in our lives. So
we have to remember, like, what are we so good at?
What are we awesome at? And it comes and I
choose not only that from I choose that from not
only the literature, but I choose that from actually eperience,
my experience with my condition. I could sit there and go, oh,
my condition doesn't allow me to do X y Z.
But my optimistic view is I have all of this
(14:07):
other stuff to my disposal, and this can make me
effective and I can do some awesome things here. So like,
first off, my big thing with people is what are
your strengths and how do we make them super strengths.
How do we make them things that you become really
well known for and kind of mixed within that, I'm
really I really love trying to help people find what
(14:28):
makes them unique. So and I know I mean this
or like super simple things for me, like one of
the most unique things I could find about myself at
a certain time, I was left handed, and I was like,
that is unique to me. That's unique. And then if
I couldn't figure that out, I was like, I'm from
a state school or I'm from a country village. Like
I would find these things that I could then latch
(14:49):
onto them and make a little story about them that
would make them unique and that would pump my tires up,
that would make me feel good, That would give me
something that I could go into something with confidence, and
I believe that would them makes you more effective, right
because you if you're confident, if you're in control of
what you're doing. But that would be it like starting
off of trying to get people confident in themselves before
(15:13):
sort of knowing where it is that they want to go.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, and I hear you saying this, but I think
you're probably working with people who are already putting in
a ton of time into the skill development as it
is that it's the mindset that's sort of a distinguishing
factor then, right, So if everybody is doing the four
hours in the gym, right, if everyone at the top
level is doing that anyway, then it's the person who
has the better stories they're telling themselves that is able
(15:38):
to distinguish themselves. Is that what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, yeah, you go to any professional sport that take tennis,
but like I'm in the world of tennis a bit,
and you take the top one hundred tennis players, especially
in the men's game, and even probably even more so
in the women's game. Actually, you take those players, there's
not a massive amount of difference between all those hundred players.
(16:03):
Men outcras and center they're outlies at the moment, but
the majority of say the women's game, there is not
much difference between a lot of them, and so the
big differentiator is how they deal with it mentally, emotionally
around it. You take every other sport and I always
find this quite fascinating in American sports, for example, when
you see a player move up from say college football,
(16:24):
to the NFL and into the pro pro leagues, how
they deal with that transition because they've no longer become
an outlier player in a national league. They've now become
sort of maybe middle rung, maybe even bottom rung in
another national league, and it's just another level and they realize, oh,
my god, everyone is good. Everyone has got the skills,
(16:45):
everyone's got the ability. So what is your differential differential
factor there? What is this sort of un unseeable skill
that you potentially have that people can go, Yeah, they've
got that, and that is going to make them different?
And you think about it. A lot of the players
that EVA come up against or I've seen happening in
(17:07):
the world, and some of the best performers that you
think of. I bet you if you think about people
who are really excellent in their fields and you were
to describe them, the first things that you would start
to describe are more characteristic traits, more mindset sort of
traits that they might have the way they go about
what they do, rather than how it is that they
do what they do, or the skills that they actually Oh,
(17:29):
they've got this amazing shot, or if it's like Steve Jobs,
he has a great presentation or whatever it is, right, Like,
it's more, No, these people are ruthless. These people are
really confident in themselves. These people are They're willing to
get knocked down and get back up again. Right, it's
the mindset that differentiates those people.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Absolutely. Yeah, I just find that fascinating, especially like watching
the Olympics a year ago. I remember that, like the
men's one hundred meters dash, everybody in the final is
like in the photo right across in the line. I mean,
there's no difference between any of these athletes in terms
of what speeds they can run at, right, Like, they're
all within hundreds of thousands of a second of each other.
(18:08):
So yeah, what makes somebody win is probably something else.
We're going to take one more quick ad break and
then I will be back with more from Lewis Hatchet. Well,
I am back talking with Lewis Hatchet about mindset, how
we become distinguished from people who all have about the
(18:30):
same level of skills and talents. I want to pivot
a little bit though, and talk about your current schedule.
So we always like to hear about people's daily routines.
I wonder if you have any routines that you think
help make you more productive, they.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Say, I one hundred percent hang everything around my physical training.
Now that's probably down to being an athlete, but I
do have this huge underpinning that if I'm not physically well,
if I don't feel physically good about myself, then I'm
not going to be able to be effective in anything
that I do. And I say that for kind of
(19:02):
two reasons. One, I know physiologically I need to be
in good health to be able to maintain a good schedule,
but also there's an element of when I'm physically well
and in good shape, I just present myself better and
I show up better, whether it's in front of people
or for myself. I kind of carry a confidence in
(19:22):
myself that I feel so much more able and capable
of taking things on, So that for me actually gives
me the confidence to then take on the work that
I have. What it is in the day, my schedule
can be quite chaotic sometimes because I do have whether
it's a client that might need something quite quickly, they
might have a game or a tournament that's coming up,
(19:44):
or they need a bit more of my time, so
I tend to maybe need to change this, but I
don't actually block them out of my schedule because I
want to be available for them. The one thing I
would hate to have is this player of mine or
client of mine that's in need and they can't get me.
Right So I have actually blocked out my mornings so
(20:05):
they can't get me before twelve o'clock. They definitely can't
do that. So that gives me a little bit of
time to get into the day. But I definitely focus
a lot of my time around like where is my
physical training going that day? If I need to move
it or move it, but it's not coming out of
the schedule. And then everything in terms of how I
build my my work and my client base or even
(20:29):
just marketing, I kind of chunk them up into certain
parts of the day, try to get a lot of
the weirdly send a lot of creativity stuff towards the
end of the week. I found that because I'm not
trying to if I'm trying to get a hold of
new clients or trying to get a hold of maybe
a new opportunity that's out there, I tend to attack
sort of Tuesday and a Wednesday. But if it's if
(20:52):
it's creative, I leave that stuff towards the back end
of the week because I find it's a bit more
fun and I feel when you're leaning into say a
weekend day, you kind of feel that fun vibe coming
into your life and you're like, oh, the weekend's come in,
so I could do something a little bit more creative today,
whereas a Monday. I'm not too creative on a Monday
because Mondays just come with a name, a stigma attached
(21:15):
to them.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So Mondays are for business, all getting down to what
you're supposed to be doing, and then by Fridays then
then you're they're dreaming up a few possibilities.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Mondays for Monday's definitely for planning and sort of strategizing
how the well Monday morning. But but then I'm always
a big, big believe. I heard this quote before, like
was it never? Oh my god, it was crush Crush
your average Tuesday. So Tuesday is the one to go for.
And I kind of like that because then you've I've
(21:44):
kind of got them. I've got the energy in Tuesday, right,
So yeah, low, low hanging fruits on a Monday and
then start crushing a Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I'm a big fan of making Tuesdays as good as
possible for sure. Lewis. I asked, oh, my guests, what
is something you have done it recently to take a
day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
What have I done recently to take a day from
great to awesome? I I actually, and this sounds like
so trivial, but I started writing down the tasks that
(22:25):
gave me real friction, so the ones that I've really
hated and the ones that I kept moving and the
re and sort of even put alongside it that the
reasons why I didn't want to do them, and I
just started attacking those straight away. They become really really important.
And I'd heard, I'd heard, I can't remember the entrepreneur
(22:48):
that spoke about it, but spoke about Steve Jobs having
noise and signal and having and he lived his life
in noise and signal. And I recognized that the things
that I was I was spending more time on was
noise and the signal. There were definitely signal things that
I was moving down that list, and I started pushing
them towards the top of the list, Like three things
that like three signals that I needed to definitely do,
(23:11):
even if I didn't know what the outcome was going
to be, but they were if I could get them done,
then get them done. And for example, one was my
dissertation writing. It was writing a dissertation and that I
was moving. I kept finding reasons to move it, but
then once I just said, do you know what, get
it done and also attributed the feeling with it. So
(23:32):
I've been doing a bit of psychotherapy as well, and
I was starting to definitely attribute the emotional feeling to
getting something done, and so bringing that thing up the
list and then associating a positive emotion that came with it,
that definitely made well. Whether I see the difference in
the results is neither here nor there, But I feel
(23:54):
the result in myself right because I feel better.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Absolutely. It feels good to get things done, and particularly
things that we may not have wanted to do, but
when they're done and they're off the list, it's it's great.
What's something you are looking forward to right now?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Oh, I have a couple of opportunities on the horizon
which I am really looking forward to, which I can't
really say yet because they haven't actualized. But working with
a really exciting athlete. But one one thing potentially is
moving to Barcelona that's on the horizon, which I would
(24:29):
be really excited about, and then that would and getting
my app mind strong sport into more funny enough American colleges.
So we just partnered with University of Colorado and getting
it into more universities and colleges something I am genuinely
really excited about expanding that because I'm very very passionate
(24:50):
about improving the mental health of whether it's athletes and
people that are in sport, because I personally have an
ethos that we've spoken a lot about mental health in
our lives, and we've actually maybe focused on the wrong
thing in trying to protect our mental health. We've actually
protected ourselves too much from the challenges in the world.
(25:10):
And actually, if we can build mental strength in what
we're doing and have the skills and the tools to
help us take on challenges, then actually by doing that,
the byproduct is positive mental health because we feel better
about ourselves. And the reason I approach sport is because
I believe sport is an exaggeration of everyday life events
and we can teach a lot of personal skills outside
(25:31):
of sport. Whether people play high school, college, professional sport,
it doesn't matter once they leave that sport, do they
have skills and tools that they can transition and use
that makes them not only great at what they do
in the disciplines that they're going into, but actually just
great human beings at the same time. So I'm really
(25:53):
really passionate about doing that.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Absolutely, resilience is a wonderful thing to have. The Lewis
where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Best place is probably Instagram just at Lewis Hatchett or
head over to my website Lewishatchett dot com and they
can go and find out a lot of things absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, Lewis, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone
can go check out mind Strong. Thank you to everyone
for listening. If you have feedback about this or any
other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at
Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura,
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
(26:37):
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(26:59):
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:24):
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Lewis Hatchett to Before Breakfast. Lewis
is the host of the mind Strong podcast. It's also
a coach who works with people on time management, productivity
in their mindset, and he is a former professional cricket
player as well. So Lewis, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thanks Laura. It's good to have be on your show.
We're having you.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You've just been online, so exactly it was great slop
like this, Yes, a good exchange for sure. So why
don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, so right now, I am a mindset coach that
works predominantly in the sport space. Just naturally. It's been
easy for me because that is the world I came
from as a professional athlete. My own personal background in
sport is a slightly unique one. I won't go into
sort of a forty minute kinot But ultimately I was
(01:17):
born with a rare condition called Poland syndrome, so I
missing my right pectora muscle two ribs are behind it.
I was told at birth that I wouldn't be able
to play sport. I hid that from the world and
then overcame it to play a sport where actually, if
I was to be hit by a cricket ball, many people,
if your listeners from the US or Canada, cricket is
(01:38):
the second largest sport in the world. So there's that fact.
But also it's kind of like baseball. The ball moves
around at ninety mile an hour. It's much more solid
than it's a little bit more solid than a baseball,
so if you get hit, you break bones and things
like that. But if I was to get hit with it,
it would potentially kill me. So I hid that from
the world and I managed to make my way into
(01:59):
being a pro athlete by what I would just say,
not through talent, not through skill. Well there was skill
at the end, but basically mindset was my ability to
mentally overcome some of the challenges and just stay persistent
and stay in the game. Essentially, and then I always
say that professional sport is kind of like who's the
last person hanging on? And then if you're left at
(02:20):
the end, then you get a chance. And then I,
unfortunately did get a career ending injury. I broke my
back and then I had to come out of the
sport at twenty six, and I then moved into coaching naturally,
but that coaching then started to mold itself towards a
much more mentoring space. When athletes found out about my
condition and my story, they wanted to ask how do
(02:44):
I build confidence, how do I overcome failure, how do
I deal with pressure? Moments That led me into my
interest in the psychology space, doing my master's in performance psychology,
and then eventually built a brand called mind Strong Sport,
which I actually developed into an app that teaches mental
skills to athletes in the comfort of their own home.
(03:05):
And yeah, most of my work is trying to make
people mentally stronger to take on the challenges that they
face in the world. So that really is my very
quick synopsis of where I'm from, what I'm about.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, well, I know some of my international listeners are
more familiar with cricket. The probably than my US listeners.
But just real quick because from what I understand of cricket,
having both pectoral muscles would probably be.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Helpful, be a benefit. Yeah, so actually give you an
insight that. So the only thing that protects my lung
on my upper right portion of my chest is just skin.
So I and that unfortunately as a batter who I turned,
I was left handed, so I'm facing the bowler, which
means it's the most vulnerable side. But I was given
(03:50):
and had built for me a kevlar chest guard, so
it's completely one of a kind, Like it's only designed
to my chest, and it's bulletproof, so it won't just
stop a cricket ball at stop a bullet but I
I the only other things that it really helps it
doesn't help with is sort of mechanics, so like I
can't get my right arm above my head as easy
(04:10):
as I can on my left. I get very regular
muscle spasms in my right shoulder, like I'm coming off
the back of one now, so I kind of get
knocked down for a cup of well, I just become
a bit more incapacitated in terms of movement. I get
regular headaches because of just the overactive muscles that are
compensating for a very large muscle not being there. So yes,
(04:32):
a lot of management. I'm trying to tamele that down
and look after my body. And yeah, I I throw
myself into that ringer like I don't make it. I
don't make it easy for myself. I'm in the gym
every day, I'm constantly pushing my body. So it's it's
I'm willing to take that hit for the things that
i want to get out of life.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Well, let's talk a little bit about the mindset things
that you had to do then, because obviously, if you're
starting from a bit of a physical disadvantage in terms
of even just your musculture and how your body is built,
how does one do that sort of day and day out.
Like I'm going to keep working on this, I'm curious
if there are particular mental processes you've found helpful.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, weirdly enough, the thing that I didn't really think
about at the time was things like that. So I'm
not sitting there going like we do now in the
world where I'm like, right, if I get a if
I can have these seven hacks that allow me to
unlock I wasn't rethinking that the thing that I weirdly
and I just spoke to someone about this recently, was
how am I going to build self belief in myself
(05:37):
if everything is kind of against me? And the number
one thing I could choose at the time, especially now
knowing the psychology, the strongest way you can build that
self belief is through past experience. But as a teenage
LA guide like I didn't have those experiences to hold
on to, and they weren't really relevant in the sort
of realm I was going into. You're not going to
build self belief in a professional environment if all you've
(06:00):
done is play high school sport, right. But one thing
I did do was I became an absolute geek at
other people's stories. So I loved stories of other athletes,
especially those who were similar to me or done something
similar to me, or at least had a condition and
(06:22):
had an underdog story. So if I knew they had
an underdog story, then I lashed onto that and I
was like, what did they do? How did they do it?
What were some of the things that I could use there?
And then I would just take all these stories and
find the similarities and be like, do you know what
if they have done it, then I believe if I
kind of follow the ways in which they've done it,
then I can too. And a lot of the approach
(06:43):
that I now look back on and I realized that
I wasn't whether I was unique in this way, But
when I was trying to get my goal of what
I was trying to achieve as a professional athlete, I
wasn't actually focused on getting that goal I wanted it.
It was this north start in terms of that's where
I believe I can get to. But actually the thing
I was focused on so much more was what's the
(07:05):
type of person I need to be in order to
get that? So my things that I did was how
can I I was building values, especially when I watched
these athletes through the stories that they were telling, or
it might have been a very inspiring film or story,
and I thought, what are the traits and characteristics that
I can take on from those people? And if I
(07:26):
aim at that, then it looks like by just numbers
game that these are the there's positive outcomes that are
going to come from that. So I didn't really sort
of go out there and go, this is the thing
that I'm going to hold on to and I want
to this. These are the steps. I actually just focused
on the person I was going to be, type of
character I wanted to be. What those behaviors were. So
if I then.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Was give me an example, I would say like being
a I say this like never giving up or being persistent,
and the way I would manifest that would be or
or choosing to do things when even when the environment
was tough.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Right, so still persisting when the environment was tough, and
the way that would manifest would be. I live in
the UK. Our winters are not favorable. We get rain,
we get snow, it's cold. So if I knew I
had to go to a training session and it's nice
and warm inside and it's cozy, I had already said
that I am not someone who is going to I'm
willing to do things in tough environments. I'm willing to
(08:24):
do something difficult. And so that would make the decision
of whether I put my trainers on really easy, because
I'm not breaking this habit that I've got in front
of me. I'm actually breaking something much deeper. I'm breaking
a bond with myself of the person that I'm wanting
to be. And for me, there's this underlying belief for
myself is if I break my bond with myself, then
(08:47):
I almost can't live with myself because I'm not the
person that I believe I am, And almost I couldn't.
I couldn't live with that. I couldn't live with not
being true to the person that I am. And if
it's some form of action that aligns with that person
I want to be and I break it, it's just
something I can't live with. So I've made those promises
(09:09):
to myself and through those you get the habits, you
get the things that kind of get you to where
you want to be.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
All Right, We're going to take a quick ad break
and then i'll be back with more from Lewis Hatchett. Well,
I am back talking with Lewis Hatchett, who is the
host of the Mind Strong podcast. He's been talking about
his professional cricket career, despite having a disability that in
(09:39):
many cases might make it challenging to play a cricket
let alone on the professional level, achieving that. But Lewis,
let's talk about this because I want to get into
sort of coming out of that. I mean, obviously, we
can have a very strong mindset, trained very well, achieve
the highest levels, but being a professional athlete, you know
that your career is going to end, and it is
going to end far earlier than those of us who
(09:59):
do most other things. I mean, you can work in
a bank for your entire life, but at some point
you're going to be off the cricket field. And so
I wonder what you were thinking, knowing you wanted to
hit the highest levels of that, but knowing you're going
to have to at a relatively early age find something
else to do as well. I'm curious how you were
thinking about that in the process of that transition.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah. Well, again, I think if you were to serve
a lot of athletes, how many of them actually think
about it comparative All of them know it, You all
know it, but how much you think about it is
a different thing, right. So, But for me, I think
because of my condition, because of how I got into sport,
(10:40):
it was and my parents potentially got it into me
early as well. They always would say, what are you
going to do when it ends? What's going to happen?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Now?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
There's two things, right when you want to have an
eye on that, but also when you're playing sport, you
want to be all in. When you're in it, you
want to be all in. But for me, I also
it kind of goes back to what I said earlier,
which was that I believed that if I could have
traits that I knew would be successful outside of sport
(11:13):
and not siloed to just sport, and valued those as well,
So not value what it is that I was doing,
but potentially how I was doing it, that I could
trust that I could learn anything outside of it. So
we can all learn skills, we can all learn new things.
But the things that especially you see this in the
corporate world right now, that people are really latching onto
(11:34):
is the people is how they do things, how they
show up, how they're doing what they're doing. Not necessarily
what they do, yeah that's great, but how they do it,
that's something that can make you unique. So I've really
focused on those. And then, luckily, pre cricket career, my
parents got me into working pretty early, so I was
like a fourteen year old working in kitchens and working
(11:57):
in fish factories before I turn pro. And then when
I came out, i'd had experiences outside of the sport.
Now I work for myself, but I went and work
for my brother. He works in the corporate space, and
you find that there are things that you can use
in terms of not whats but how's, and they can
(12:18):
be really really effective for you being able to transition
from one thing to another.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So I'd like to talk a little bit about some
of the mindsets that you help people develop. Right, So
if I come to you and I am saying, you know, Lewis,
I would like some help becoming sort of more effective
at what I'm doing? What are some of the practical
things that you would have me doing differently in my life?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Well, first thing, even just using the word effective, I
would probably ask what is effective? Right? What will make
you effect? When have you been effective? And what does
what does that kind of look like? Is it? Is it?
Is it removing a fear of failure? Is your barrier
to being effective? Fear of failure? Is it more confidence?
Is it belief? Is it state of anxiety that you
(13:02):
find yourself in? Do you struggle performing under pressure moments
when it is that you need them. If it's in
a sporting space, it might be in a big game.
If it's in a corporate space, it might be when
you have to give a presentation and you have to
get up and speak. That could be the clutch moment
that you need to perform. So I would really try
to drill down on where you feel there's a big
(13:23):
block that you've got going on in terms of, yeah,
how you want to be effective? What is the best
version of you look like? And really start there, like,
what's the best version of you that we've got? How
do you start there and build a framework of when
you have performed well? Because we're humans, we look at
all of the negative biases in our lives. We look
at all the times where I've failed and oh, I
(13:44):
hope this doesn't happen again, and completely discount all of
the good things that have happened in our lives. So
we have to remember, like, what are we so good at?
What are we awesome at? And it comes and I
choose not only that from I choose that from not
only the literature, but I choose that from actually eperience,
my experience with my condition. I could sit there and go, oh,
my condition doesn't allow me to do X y Z.
But my optimistic view is I have all of this
(14:07):
other stuff to my disposal, and this can make me
effective and I can do some awesome things here. So like,
first off, my big thing with people is what are
your strengths and how do we make them super strengths.
How do we make them things that you become really
well known for and kind of mixed within that, I'm
really I really love trying to help people find what
(14:28):
makes them unique. So and I know I mean this
or like super simple things for me, like one of
the most unique things I could find about myself at
a certain time, I was left handed, and I was like,
that is unique to me. That's unique. And then if
I couldn't figure that out, I was like, I'm from
a state school or I'm from a country village. Like
I would find these things that I could then latch
(14:49):
onto them and make a little story about them that
would make them unique and that would pump my tires up,
that would make me feel good, That would give me
something that I could go into something with confidence, and
I believe that would them makes you more effective, right
because you if you're confident, if you're in control of
what you're doing. But that would be it like starting
off of trying to get people confident in themselves before
(15:13):
sort of knowing where it is that they want to go.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, and I hear you saying this, but I think
you're probably working with people who are already putting in
a ton of time into the skill development as it
is that it's the mindset that's sort of a distinguishing
factor then, right, So if everybody is doing the four
hours in the gym, right, if everyone at the top
level is doing that anyway, then it's the person who
has the better stories they're telling themselves that is able
(15:38):
to distinguish themselves. Is that what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, yeah, you go to any professional sport that take tennis,
but like I'm in the world of tennis a bit,
and you take the top one hundred tennis players, especially
in the men's game, and even probably even more so
in the women's game. Actually, you take those players, there's
not a massive amount of difference between all those hundred players.
(16:03):
Men outcras and center they're outlies at the moment, but
the majority of say the women's game, there is not
much difference between a lot of them, and so the
big differentiator is how they deal with it mentally, emotionally
around it. You take every other sport and I always
find this quite fascinating in American sports, for example, when
you see a player move up from say college football,
(16:24):
to the NFL and into the pro pro leagues, how
they deal with that transition because they've no longer become
an outlier player in a national league. They've now become
sort of maybe middle rung, maybe even bottom rung in
another national league, and it's just another level and they realize, oh,
my god, everyone is good. Everyone has got the skills,
(16:45):
everyone's got the ability. So what is your differential differential
factor there? What is this sort of un unseeable skill
that you potentially have that people can go, Yeah, they've
got that, and that is going to make them different?
And you think about it. A lot of the players
that EVA come up against or I've seen happening in
(17:07):
the world, and some of the best performers that you
think of. I bet you if you think about people
who are really excellent in their fields and you were
to describe them, the first things that you would start
to describe are more characteristic traits, more mindset sort of
traits that they might have the way they go about
what they do, rather than how it is that they
do what they do, or the skills that they actually Oh,
(17:29):
they've got this amazing shot, or if it's like Steve Jobs,
he has a great presentation or whatever it is, right, Like,
it's more, No, these people are ruthless. These people are
really confident in themselves. These people are They're willing to
get knocked down and get back up again. Right, it's
the mindset that differentiates those people.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Absolutely. Yeah, I just find that fascinating, especially like watching
the Olympics a year ago. I remember that, like the
men's one hundred meters dash, everybody in the final is
like in the photo right across in the line. I mean,
there's no difference between any of these athletes in terms
of what speeds they can run at, right, Like, they're
all within hundreds of thousands of a second of each other.
(18:08):
So yeah, what makes somebody win is probably something else.
We're going to take one more quick ad break and
then I will be back with more from Lewis Hatchet. Well,
I am back talking with Lewis Hatchet about mindset, how
we become distinguished from people who all have about the
(18:30):
same level of skills and talents. I want to pivot
a little bit though, and talk about your current schedule.
So we always like to hear about people's daily routines.
I wonder if you have any routines that you think
help make you more productive, they.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Say, I one hundred percent hang everything around my physical training.
Now that's probably down to being an athlete, but I
do have this huge underpinning that if I'm not physically well,
if I don't feel physically good about myself, then I'm
not going to be able to be effective in anything
that I do. And I say that for kind of
(19:02):
two reasons. One, I know physiologically I need to be
in good health to be able to maintain a good schedule,
but also there's an element of when I'm physically well
and in good shape, I just present myself better and
I show up better, whether it's in front of people
or for myself. I kind of carry a confidence in
(19:22):
myself that I feel so much more able and capable
of taking things on, So that for me actually gives
me the confidence to then take on the work that
I have. What it is in the day, my schedule
can be quite chaotic sometimes because I do have whether
it's a client that might need something quite quickly, they
might have a game or a tournament that's coming up,
(19:44):
or they need a bit more of my time, so
I tend to maybe need to change this, but I
don't actually block them out of my schedule because I
want to be available for them. The one thing I
would hate to have is this player of mine or
client of mine that's in need and they can't get me.
Right So I have actually blocked out my mornings so
(20:05):
they can't get me before twelve o'clock. They definitely can't
do that. So that gives me a little bit of
time to get into the day. But I definitely focus
a lot of my time around like where is my
physical training going that day? If I need to move
it or move it, but it's not coming out of
the schedule. And then everything in terms of how I
build my my work and my client base or even
(20:29):
just marketing, I kind of chunk them up into certain
parts of the day, try to get a lot of
the weirdly send a lot of creativity stuff towards the
end of the week. I found that because I'm not
trying to if I'm trying to get a hold of
new clients or trying to get a hold of maybe
a new opportunity that's out there, I tend to attack
sort of Tuesday and a Wednesday. But if it's if
(20:52):
it's creative, I leave that stuff towards the back end
of the week because I find it's a bit more
fun and I feel when you're leaning into say a
weekend day, you kind of feel that fun vibe coming
into your life and you're like, oh, the weekend's come in,
so I could do something a little bit more creative today,
whereas a Monday. I'm not too creative on a Monday
because Mondays just come with a name, a stigma attached
(21:15):
to them.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So Mondays are for business, all getting down to what
you're supposed to be doing, and then by Fridays then
then you're they're dreaming up a few possibilities.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Mondays for Monday's definitely for planning and sort of strategizing
how the well Monday morning. But but then I'm always
a big, big believe. I heard this quote before, like
was it never? Oh my god, it was crush Crush
your average Tuesday. So Tuesday is the one to go for.
And I kind of like that because then you've I've
(21:44):
kind of got them. I've got the energy in Tuesday, right,
So yeah, low, low hanging fruits on a Monday and
then start crushing a Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I'm a big fan of making Tuesdays as good as
possible for sure. Lewis. I asked, oh, my guests, what
is something you have done it recently to take a
day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
What have I done recently to take a day from
great to awesome? I I actually, and this sounds like
so trivial, but I started writing down the tasks that
(22:25):
gave me real friction, so the ones that I've really
hated and the ones that I kept moving and the
re and sort of even put alongside it that the
reasons why I didn't want to do them, and I
just started attacking those straight away. They become really really important.
And I'd heard, I'd heard, I can't remember the entrepreneur
(22:48):
that spoke about it, but spoke about Steve Jobs having
noise and signal and having and he lived his life
in noise and signal. And I recognized that the things
that I was I was spending more time on was
noise and the signal. There were definitely signal things that
I was moving down that list, and I started pushing
them towards the top of the list, Like three things
that like three signals that I needed to definitely do,
(23:11):
even if I didn't know what the outcome was going
to be, but they were if I could get them done,
then get them done. And for example, one was my
dissertation writing. It was writing a dissertation and that I
was moving. I kept finding reasons to move it, but
then once I just said, do you know what, get
it done and also attributed the feeling with it. So
(23:32):
I've been doing a bit of psychotherapy as well, and
I was starting to definitely attribute the emotional feeling to
getting something done, and so bringing that thing up the
list and then associating a positive emotion that came with it,
that definitely made well. Whether I see the difference in
the results is neither here nor there, But I feel
(23:54):
the result in myself right because I feel better.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Absolutely. It feels good to get things done, and particularly
things that we may not have wanted to do, but
when they're done and they're off the list, it's it's great.
What's something you are looking forward to right now?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Oh, I have a couple of opportunities on the horizon
which I am really looking forward to, which I can't
really say yet because they haven't actualized. But working with
a really exciting athlete. But one one thing potentially is
moving to Barcelona that's on the horizon, which I would
(24:29):
be really excited about, and then that would and getting
my app mind strong sport into more funny enough American colleges.
So we just partnered with University of Colorado and getting
it into more universities and colleges something I am genuinely
really excited about expanding that because I'm very very passionate
(24:50):
about improving the mental health of whether it's athletes and
people that are in sport, because I personally have an
ethos that we've spoken a lot about mental health in
our lives, and we've actually maybe focused on the wrong
thing in trying to protect our mental health. We've actually
protected ourselves too much from the challenges in the world.
(25:10):
And actually, if we can build mental strength in what
we're doing and have the skills and the tools to
help us take on challenges, then actually by doing that,
the byproduct is positive mental health because we feel better
about ourselves. And the reason I approach sport is because
I believe sport is an exaggeration of everyday life events
and we can teach a lot of personal skills outside
(25:31):
of sport. Whether people play high school, college, professional sport,
it doesn't matter once they leave that sport, do they
have skills and tools that they can transition and use
that makes them not only great at what they do
in the disciplines that they're going into, but actually just
great human beings at the same time. So I'm really
(25:53):
really passionate about doing that.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Absolutely, resilience is a wonderful thing to have. The Lewis
where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Best place is probably Instagram just at Lewis Hatchett or
head over to my website Lewishatchett dot com and they
can go and find out a lot of things absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, Lewis, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone
can go check out mind Strong. Thank you to everyone
for listening. If you have feedback about this or any
other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at
Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura,
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
(26:37):
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(26:59):
your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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