For years, the All Blacks were praised for their mental fortitude.
When it came down to the wire, fans could expect the team to handle the pressure, trained and prepared for all scenarios.
Much of that fortitude can be attributed to Gilbert Enoka – our national team’s mental skills coach for 23 years.
He retired at the end of 2023, and has now written a book that covers his mentality and philosophy during his tenure: ‘Become Unstoppable’.
Though some of the techniques used changed over his nearly three decade long career, Enoka told Mike Hosking that the underlying principles are the same.
“Pressure wears a new face every season, every year,” he explained.
“But the principles for managing and navigating your way through, I believe, are timeless.”
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So let's get into the world of headspace, shall we
an elite performance? Gilbert and Oka, as the All Black's
mental skills coach of course for years, retired from the
team back in twenty three. Sinchmon with England's cricket or
England Cricket and the new South Wales origin side as
well as Chelsea in the epl anyways book is called
Become Unstoppable. Gilbert Andoka is with us.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning, Good morning Mike, thanks for having me on
the show.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Great pleasure. Talk me through whether what you do is
age old. In other words, you subscribe today or prescribe
exactly what you did twenty years ago, or as your
field evolved dramatically.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, the underlying principles are the same. I you know,
pressure wears a new face every season, every year, but
the principles for managing and navigating your way through I
believe in timeless. And you know the ways of enabling
(00:55):
athletes to get better at handling pressure has evolved. The
principles of what you've got to do have been timeless.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Do you need to be open to the idea or
can you present to me something that is so obvious?
I can't help But implement it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well. I think once you understand that, you don't get
an external shift unless you get an internal shift. So
if I want you to embrace something, then I've got
to move you internally. So in the early days when
we were getting people to look at the mental game
in the mental area, people had fixed mindsets. They weren't
open to it, and so you needed to be able
(01:34):
to shift them, to break the frame, to make them
look at things in a different way. Once you do that,
then you open the door and they become more receptive
to what you present.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
See. What you've been doing is interesting, so so much
time with the All Blacks, but then you've also worked
with Lori daily in the Origin, you've gone with McCallum
at the cricket and with Chelsea. The EPL does it
very widely, depending on sport or level of sport or
type of sport.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
People ask me that question and I quite often say
it's completely different but exactly the same. Every time you
walk into a group. The dynamics of the group are different,
the principles aren't you know. Again, it's connecting with the individuals,
getting them to respect and being open to you. But
in the end, what we're aiming to do is to
(02:23):
give them skill sets that enable them to be reliable
under pressure, because what we hate in sport at any
level is unpredictability. And so whether it's cricket, whether it's football,
whether it's league, whether it's union, when the heat comes
on and you are tested, we need you to be reliable.
And if you're not, your reliability and it won't last long.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
How different is it within a team, within the team environment,
where you would have vastly experienced people who have heard you,
listen to you, applied their own pieces of information for pressure,
versus the guy who's just been selected yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I think it's you know that the crazy thing about
this area is that it's not something that you really
really get great at. You've got to keep working at it,
and the things that didn't provide an issue to you
last week, last month, last year sometimes can So it's
a skill set that's constantly evolving, and it's an area
(03:19):
that people have got to give attention to and once
they do and they move into it, then they can
get advancement with it.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
How long does it take? Because I know, for example,
origins are here now it's only on for a very
short period of time. I mean your contract for example,
at the moment of Chelsea. Do you need time to
make it work?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yes? I think you know if you apply it to
the same as a skill set, you know, it's an area.
It's like your strength and conditioning, it's like the nutrition.
It's a performance enhancement area, you know, like I've earned
in my work that you know, people say you've got
to rise above pressure, and you will know from the
(04:00):
book where we I challenge that paradigm a little bit
to say that everyone's saying precious a privilege and you've
got to walk towards it, and you've got to do that.
But I've learned that you've just got to work inside it.
You accept it as a lifestyle and you don't try
and rise above it. You get inside the bubble and
you get comfortable exploring and navigating your way around it. Well,
once you do that, then it's a skill set you've
(04:23):
got to develop every day, because your skill sets won't
work if your mindset it's not right. And that won't
just come about purely because you're a human being and
you're in a team or you're in a room with
other people, so you know, application to enhancing your ability
in these areas is an absolute must if you want
(04:43):
to actually achieve all you're capable of.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Okay, Chelsea, I'm really interested in Gilbert because in the
sense it's most I would have thought cultural thing. Often
language must be an issue. You're dealing with guys too,
at a level of money finance that's not seen in
this country. It's really, I guess, a different world. Does
it feel different and therefore does what you do need
to be different?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Absolutely? Look, I've I had a period with them. I'm
no longer with them now because it's just you need
to be over there living inside the bubble to do
the job effectively, and I haven't got the tide to
do that. But when I went in there, there were
thirteen different languages. During my time there. They've been through
five different coaches, and so when they go they just
(05:27):
spit everyone else out with them, and so a whole
new crew starts and if the players no good, they
just spit him out and spend one hundred million buying
somebody else. And I said to the owner, Todd Bowley,
I said, the first EPL team that adopts an all
black esque type culture, we'll get a significant advantage inside
the EPL. And from my observation, no one has really
(05:50):
taken up the mantra or taken up the challenge of
doing that. But it's a world of opportunity for someone
to walk through that door and to open it up
and to make the most of it.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And when you said an all black type mantra, one,
did they know what that meant? And two for us,
what does it mean?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, they certainly know what it is. It's the brand
that's universal. You know, Like I got up in front
of the players and spoke several times to them and
there wasn't a person in the room there that didn't
know who the all Blacks work. And you know, the
all black esque type culture is where they still the
all Blacks don't have their name on the back of
the jersey. You know every other sports team does. They
(06:34):
don't have their name on the back of the jersey
because no one owns it. Their job is to fill it,
to fill it with honor and so that it pays
respects to those people that have gone before them and
sets an example for those that follow. And when you
understand that the team towers above the individual and that
while me can serve. We we then strengthens me and
(06:57):
you get that circular motion right, and then all of
a sudden you're creating something that is greater than the
individual parts. And that's the uniqueness and the specialness of
the All Black culture, and it lingers long after you've
finished playing and being involved with the sport.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Is there an impediment though, because at least part of
the all Black story is about patriotism in a country.
Chelsea's not about patriotism. Chelsea's about a club.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes it is, and I think and that's where you know,
driving the personal motives about what's important to you. You know,
I've always felt any victory without character has been hollow.
And once an individual understands that their own character is
defining and what they do inside the team or organization
(07:45):
they're working with is an expression of their culture, then
it does create its own legacy. So you know, wherever
I go, I want to do my best inside that
specific area. And the greatest teams buying around something bigger
than themselves. But we understand that in today's day and age,
me's important. Personal branding and all that is terrific, but
(08:07):
you can get so much more if you allow that
to serve something bigger than yourself, and then at the
same time that thing that's bigger than you will actually
make you even better now, So you know there's merit
for those that I tell you a lot got it.
You know if guys like Reece James and people like
that inside that bubble that they get it. It's just
(08:28):
that if everything's fluid, like the loaners are changing and
the coaches are changing, it's damn hard to get the
stability you need to give yourself a foundation.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
What I would and this is not a personal session
for me, what I reckon I would under have real
trouble with is the outside stuff I can't control. Like
I don't mind being part of a team that's good,
but I look around and go that guy's a dickhead
and they keep changing the coach and the owners are
more on And that's what I would struggle with. How
do I buy into that the stuff I can't fix?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well, you know that that's a great comment, Like it's
in all my years of working with all these different sports.
It's unwinnable if it's not right at the top. So
that's the first thing, you know, it's unwinnable in a family,
it's unwinnable in a classroom, it's unwulnable in a sports team.
And then you know, the whole notion of you know
(09:21):
that of talking about being unstoppable is understand understanding that
you work on the things that that you that no
one else can control. The two things that other people
can't take away from you. One is your character and
two as your mindset. And so you'll only win when
your mind is stronger than your emotions. So for you
and for us experiencing sport and life, we can't stop
(09:44):
our emotions that happen all the time. So what we
have to do is we have to get better at
managing our responses to those to the things we can't control.
So in a rugby game, when somebody brasses us off
or does something illegal, we don't we don't want to
punch them in the head because that causes problems. And
so for Mike hosting, we've got to understand what are
the things that that rise raise your emotions and how
(10:08):
can we help you to ensure that your mind can
get some degree of control over them. That that's that's
that's the challenge. It's the duel. The jewel is the
battle between your emotions and your mind. And once you
win that battle, then you'll win more of those moments
than you'll lose them.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Can you still could you do it with Rory mcelroyal
Djokovic as an individualist with no real team per se.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, absolutely, they can teach us a lot too, by
the way, you know they I marvel at some of
the things. I hear them say they get it, but no,
but it's not an end point, you know, like it's
you know, some people with can be I can handle
pressure really well today, but in the next game and
the same situation, I can't. So it's ever evolving. I've
(10:53):
had lots of conversations with body over the years, with
Rory because he's a great mate of his and saying
the one area he needs work on, mates area, and
and I think that he could, he could really be
a superstar, And I think he's had conversations. But it's
it's applying it like you do other areas that you
work on it as a skill set, not just as
(11:14):
a motivational pep talk. And you know you've got to
you've got to lay yourself down, You've got to you
can't train what you won't talk about. So we've got
to get these athletes to talk about the things that
cause problems for them, issues for them, struggles for them
that test them, that stretch them. Once we identify those,
we can then train.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Them and we can and that we can presumably apply
this to the country as a whole. Can't we?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Absolutely? You know, it's a When I first started in
this area, and you would have noticed, you know, from
the book, it was it was sort of a poohood subject.
I always called himself the ugly duckling, and everyone accepted
all the other disciplines, but not this one. This one
was considered if you're worked in this area, your week.
(12:01):
And I still think that does pervade a lot of
the landscape, Mike. You know, I think it's a lot
of people think that if you need work and you
need to strengthen your mental gain, that there is a
weakness in you. But Grichy, I'd love to see it
toward as a curriculum, you know, like somebody has Actually
you know, I always told people I got on the
all black bus fifteen minutes before they went to training
(12:22):
or a game. I went to meetings fifteen minutes before
they came to a meeting, and all I did is
looked at the door. So when they came in, I
wanted to know where are you at today? Because I
can't move anyone unless I get that right. And that
changes every day, changes when we walk home at night
into classrooms. So I think it is applicable right across
(12:43):
the board.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Fantastic, Well, good luck with the book. Great to talk
with you, and I appreciate your time very much.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Thanks Mike, enjoy your show and enjoy your perspectives, and
thanks for the conversation.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You're with an okap.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
For more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
So let's get into the world of headspace, shall we
an elite performance? Gilbert and Oka, as the All Black's
mental skills coach of course for years, retired from the
team back in twenty three. Sinchmon with England's cricket or
England Cricket and the new South Wales origin side as
well as Chelsea in the epl anyways book is called
Become Unstoppable. Gilbert Andoka is with us.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning, Good morning Mike, thanks for having me on
the show.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Great pleasure. Talk me through whether what you do is
age old. In other words, you subscribe today or prescribe
exactly what you did twenty years ago, or as your
field evolved dramatically.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, the underlying principles are the same. I you know,
pressure wears a new face every season, every year, but
the principles for managing and navigating your way through I
believe in timeless. And you know the ways of enabling
(00:55):
athletes to get better at handling pressure has evolved. The
principles of what you've got to do have been timeless.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Do you need to be open to the idea or
can you present to me something that is so obvious?
I can't help But implement it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well. I think once you understand that, you don't get
an external shift unless you get an internal shift. So
if I want you to embrace something, then I've got
to move you internally. So in the early days when
we were getting people to look at the mental game
in the mental area, people had fixed mindsets. They weren't
open to it, and so you needed to be able
(01:34):
to shift them, to break the frame, to make them
look at things in a different way. Once you do that,
then you open the door and they become more receptive
to what you present.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
See. What you've been doing is interesting, so so much
time with the All Blacks, but then you've also worked
with Lori daily in the Origin, you've gone with McCallum
at the cricket and with Chelsea. The EPL does it
very widely, depending on sport or level of sport or
type of sport.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
People ask me that question and I quite often say
it's completely different but exactly the same. Every time you
walk into a group. The dynamics of the group are different,
the principles aren't you know. Again, it's connecting with the individuals,
getting them to respect and being open to you. But
in the end, what we're aiming to do is to
(02:23):
give them skill sets that enable them to be reliable
under pressure, because what we hate in sport at any
level is unpredictability. And so whether it's cricket, whether it's football,
whether it's league, whether it's union, when the heat comes
on and you are tested, we need you to be reliable.
And if you're not, your reliability and it won't last long.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
How different is it within a team, within the team environment,
where you would have vastly experienced people who have heard you,
listen to you, applied their own pieces of information for pressure,
versus the guy who's just been selected yesterday.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I think it's you know that the crazy thing about
this area is that it's not something that you really
really get great at. You've got to keep working at it,
and the things that didn't provide an issue to you
last week, last month, last year sometimes can So it's
a skill set that's constantly evolving, and it's an area
(03:19):
that people have got to give attention to and once
they do and they move into it, then they can
get advancement with it.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
How long does it take? Because I know, for example,
origins are here now it's only on for a very
short period of time. I mean your contract for example,
at the moment of Chelsea. Do you need time to
make it work?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yes? I think you know if you apply it to
the same as a skill set, you know, it's an area.
It's like your strength and conditioning, it's like the nutrition.
It's a performance enhancement area, you know, like I've earned
in my work that you know, people say you've got
to rise above pressure, and you will know from the
(04:00):
book where we I challenge that paradigm a little bit
to say that everyone's saying precious a privilege and you've
got to walk towards it, and you've got to do that.
But I've learned that you've just got to work inside it.
You accept it as a lifestyle and you don't try
and rise above it. You get inside the bubble and
you get comfortable exploring and navigating your way around it. Well,
once you do that, then it's a skill set you've
(04:23):
got to develop every day, because your skill sets won't
work if your mindset it's not right. And that won't
just come about purely because you're a human being and
you're in a team or you're in a room with
other people, so you know, application to enhancing your ability
in these areas is an absolute must if you want
(04:43):
to actually achieve all you're capable of.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Okay, Chelsea, I'm really interested in Gilbert because in the
sense it's most I would have thought cultural thing. Often
language must be an issue. You're dealing with guys too,
at a level of money finance that's not seen in
this country. It's really, I guess, a different world. Does
it feel different and therefore does what you do need
to be different?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Absolutely? Look, I've I had a period with them. I'm
no longer with them now because it's just you need
to be over there living inside the bubble to do
the job effectively, and I haven't got the tide to
do that. But when I went in there, there were
thirteen different languages. During my time there. They've been through
five different coaches, and so when they go they just
(05:27):
spit everyone else out with them, and so a whole
new crew starts and if the players no good, they
just spit him out and spend one hundred million buying
somebody else. And I said to the owner, Todd Bowley,
I said, the first EPL team that adopts an all
black esque type culture, we'll get a significant advantage inside
the EPL. And from my observation, no one has really
(05:50):
taken up the mantra or taken up the challenge of
doing that. But it's a world of opportunity for someone
to walk through that door and to open it up
and to make the most of it.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And when you said an all black type mantra, one,
did they know what that meant? And two for us,
what does it mean?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, they certainly know what it is. It's the brand
that's universal. You know, Like I got up in front
of the players and spoke several times to them and
there wasn't a person in the room there that didn't
know who the all Blacks work. And you know, the
all black esque type culture is where they still the
all Blacks don't have their name on the back of
the jersey. You know every other sports team does. They
(06:34):
don't have their name on the back of the jersey
because no one owns it. Their job is to fill it,
to fill it with honor and so that it pays
respects to those people that have gone before them and
sets an example for those that follow. And when you
understand that the team towers above the individual and that
while me can serve. We we then strengthens me and
(06:57):
you get that circular motion right, and then all of
a sudden you're creating something that is greater than the
individual parts. And that's the uniqueness and the specialness of
the All Black culture, and it lingers long after you've
finished playing and being involved with the sport.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Is there an impediment though, because at least part of
the all Black story is about patriotism in a country.
Chelsea's not about patriotism. Chelsea's about a club.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes it is, and I think and that's where you know,
driving the personal motives about what's important to you. You know,
I've always felt any victory without character has been hollow.
And once an individual understands that their own character is
defining and what they do inside the team or organization
(07:45):
they're working with is an expression of their culture, then
it does create its own legacy. So you know, wherever
I go, I want to do my best inside that
specific area. And the greatest teams buying around something bigger
than themselves. But we understand that in today's day and age,
me's important. Personal branding and all that is terrific, but
(08:07):
you can get so much more if you allow that
to serve something bigger than yourself, and then at the
same time that thing that's bigger than you will actually
make you even better now, So you know there's merit
for those that I tell you a lot got it.
You know if guys like Reece James and people like
that inside that bubble that they get it. It's just
(08:28):
that if everything's fluid, like the loaners are changing and
the coaches are changing, it's damn hard to get the
stability you need to give yourself a foundation.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
What I would and this is not a personal session
for me, what I reckon I would under have real
trouble with is the outside stuff I can't control. Like
I don't mind being part of a team that's good,
but I look around and go that guy's a dickhead
and they keep changing the coach and the owners are
more on And that's what I would struggle with. How
do I buy into that the stuff I can't fix?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well, you know that that's a great comment, Like it's
in all my years of working with all these different sports.
It's unwinnable if it's not right at the top. So
that's the first thing, you know, it's unwinnable in a family,
it's unwinnable in a classroom, it's unwulnable in a sports team.
And then you know, the whole notion of you know
(09:21):
that of talking about being unstoppable is understand understanding that
you work on the things that that you that no
one else can control. The two things that other people
can't take away from you. One is your character and
two as your mindset. And so you'll only win when
your mind is stronger than your emotions. So for you
and for us experiencing sport and life, we can't stop
(09:44):
our emotions that happen all the time. So what we
have to do is we have to get better at
managing our responses to those to the things we can't control.
So in a rugby game, when somebody brasses us off
or does something illegal, we don't we don't want to
punch them in the head because that causes problems. And
so for Mike hosting, we've got to understand what are
the things that that rise raise your emotions and how
(10:08):
can we help you to ensure that your mind can
get some degree of control over them. That that's that's
that's the challenge. It's the duel. The jewel is the
battle between your emotions and your mind. And once you
win that battle, then you'll win more of those moments
than you'll lose them.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Can you still could you do it with Rory mcelroyal
Djokovic as an individualist with no real team per se.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, absolutely, they can teach us a lot too, by
the way, you know they I marvel at some of
the things. I hear them say they get it, but no,
but it's not an end point, you know, like it's
you know, some people with can be I can handle
pressure really well today, but in the next game and
the same situation, I can't. So it's ever evolving. I've
(10:53):
had lots of conversations with body over the years, with
Rory because he's a great mate of his and saying
the one area he needs work on, mates area, and
and I think that he could, he could really be
a superstar, And I think he's had conversations. But it's
it's applying it like you do other areas that you
work on it as a skill set, not just as
(11:14):
a motivational pep talk. And you know you've got to
you've got to lay yourself down, You've got to you
can't train what you won't talk about. So we've got
to get these athletes to talk about the things that
cause problems for them, issues for them, struggles for them
that test them, that stretch them. Once we identify those,
we can then train.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Them and we can and that we can presumably apply
this to the country as a whole. Can't we?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Absolutely? You know, it's a When I first started in
this area, and you would have noticed, you know, from
the book, it was it was sort of a poohood subject.
I always called himself the ugly duckling, and everyone accepted
all the other disciplines, but not this one. This one
was considered if you're worked in this area, your week.
(12:01):
And I still think that does pervade a lot of
the landscape, Mike. You know, I think it's a lot
of people think that if you need work and you
need to strengthen your mental gain, that there is a
weakness in you. But Grichy, I'd love to see it
toward as a curriculum, you know, like somebody has Actually
you know, I always told people I got on the
all black bus fifteen minutes before they went to training
(12:22):
or a game. I went to meetings fifteen minutes before
they came to a meeting, and all I did is
looked at the door. So when they came in, I
wanted to know where are you at today? Because I
can't move anyone unless I get that right. And that
changes every day, changes when we walk home at night
into classrooms. So I think it is applicable right across
(12:43):
the board.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Fantastic, Well, good luck with the book. Great to talk
with you, and I appreciate your time very much.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Thanks Mike, enjoy your show and enjoy your perspectives, and
thanks for the conversation.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You're with an okap.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
For more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!