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Performance Intelligence

Andrew May
Performance Intelligence
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449 episodes

  • Performance Intelligence

    Performance Nutrition: Lessons From Special Ops + Elite Athletes for Everyday People | Jessica Spendlove

    02/09/2026 | 1h 9 mins.
    Elite athletes and Special Forces do not eat like you do....and the reason you fade in the afternoon is usually something you did that morning.
    Jessica Spendlove will tell you exactly what. She will also tell you what to eat when you have 4 minutes and no time to think, whether the supplements you bought are doing anything at all, and why she rarely recommends that a woman fast.
    Jessica is a performance dietitian with more than 15 years behind her, a decade of it in elite sport across 7 professional teams, Olympic medallists, world champions and premiership-winning sides, plus 7 years with Special Forces Command. 
    Jessica has heard every version of "I'm already doing everything right" and she has never met anybody whose nutrition she could not improve. And she is happy to be challenged on that!
    The reason it lands is that she got it wrong herself. Jessica spent years feeding elite athletes while running on adrenaline, cortisol and caffeine, and it took her own data to stop her arguing with herself.
    If you have been telling yourself you will sort your nutrition out when things calm down, start here.
    00:00 The day we took nutrition off the table
    03:44 Seven professional teams at once, running on adrenaline, cortisol and caffeine
    06:12 The reply-all email that got her roasted at the Christmas party
    11:46 The keynote she nearly pulled out of, and the data that made the call
    17:19 The three hour morning window where it all comes apart
    20:14 The domino habit has to survive your worst day
    31:41 You can't ice bath your way out of chronic sleep debt
    39:25 Why she almost never recommends fasting for women
    55:25 Same meal, different order, different result
    01:04:00 Walking into a room of commandos and getting it wrong
    01:14:42 How to work with Jessica Spendlove

    Contact Jessica through her website, Linkedin, or Instagram.
    Buy Jessica's new book "For The Long Run" here.
    -
    High performance is not about pushing harder. It is about building the capacity to perform when it matters and sustain it over time.
    Hosted by Andrew May, one of Australia’s leading experts in human performance, leadership and mental skills, the Performance Intelligence Podcast explores how leaders, athletes, coaches and researchers think clearly, manage pressure and consistently perform at their best.
    Drawing on more than 20 years working with senior executives, elite sporting teams and the Australian Defence Force, Andrew combines candid conversations with evidence-based performance insights and practical strategies you can apply.

    Episodes span leadership capacity, performance psychology, mental skills, energy management, strategic recovery, productivity and wellbeing.
    Listen to think more clearly, lead more effectively and perform at your best for longer.
    Get in touch through:
    Our website
    Book Andrew
    Follow us on Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook
    Watch this episode on Youtube
    If you enjoy the podcast, we would really appreciate you leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. It takes less than 60 seconds and really helps us build our audience and continue to provide high quality guests.
  • Performance Intelligence

    Bite Size: You Are Almost Certainly Underestimating Yourself | Craig Harper

    30/08/2026 | 9 mins.
    There is a gap between what you are capable of and what you are actually doing. Craig Harper has spent 40 years studying it. His view: the gap is not primarily a talent problem or a knowledge problem. It is a psychological one. Fear, the need to be right, poor self-awareness, and an unwillingness to tolerate discomfort are quietly capping the performance of people who are objectively skilled, experienced, and intelligent. And the higher you rise, the easier it becomes to avoid confronting that.
    You can find Craig at his website:https://craigharper.net/
    Follw him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/craiganthonyharper/
    Listen to The You Project:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-you-project/id1342430567

    High performance is not about pushing harder. It is about building the capacity to perform when it matters and sustain it over time.
    Hosted by Andrew May, one of Australia’s leading experts in human performance, leadership and mental skills, the Performance Intelligence Podcast explores how leaders, athletes, coaches and researchers think clearly, manage pressure and consistently perform at their best.
    Drawing on more than 20 years working with senior executives, elite sporting teams and the Australian Defence Force, Andrew combines candid conversations with evidence-based performance insights and practical strategies you can apply.

    Episodes span leadership capacity, performance psychology, mental skills, energy management, strategic recovery, productivity and wellbeing.
    Listen to think more clearly, lead more effectively and perform at your best for longer.
    Get in touch through:
    Our website
    Book Andrew
    Follow us on Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook
    Watch this episode on Youtube
    If you enjoy the podcast, we would really appreciate you leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. It takes less than 60 seconds and really helps us build our audience and continue to provide high quality guests.
  • Performance Intelligence

    Mental Agility: Why it's so Important & How to Train it | Andrew May, Angela Poon, Jacqui Louder

    26/08/2026 | 56 mins.
    Some people get sharper when the pressure lands. The meeting turns hostile, the plan collapses, the number comes in wrong, and they are still thinking clearly while everyone around them has gone quiet or gone hard.
    That is Mental Agility.
    The capacity to move between demands, tasks, roles and relationships while staying grounded and effective when conditions change. It is trainable, and it is the capability every organisation is now asking for without ever having taught it.
    PQ founder, Andrew May, PQ COO, Angela Poon, and Sports Psychologist, Jacqui Louder, spent 6 months building mental agility into six layers. 
    What your brain does to you under pressure. 
    Why your body sets the ceiling on your thinking. 
    How your identity decides what an event means before conscious thought gets a say. 
    The six seconds that stop you saying the thing you regret. 
    How to actually retain what you learn. 
    The hardiness that has you growing through pressure instead of surviving it.
    Now, they are walking you through all six layers here, with one strategy from each you can use this week. Andrew brings you into his real life test of mental agility with a gripping story of being upside down, underwater, strapped inside a helicopter fuselage in the dark, with an instructor offering him a way out. 
    But what he does next is where mental agility shows up...

    00:00 The word everyone uses and nobody can define
    04:12 Your brain under pressure is not a character flaw
    07:21 What AI can't give you
    11:10 Elite sport, clinical psych, actual clowns
    14:24 Why an insurer is training this
    17:51 Leaving KPMG for a startup
    23:43 The three zones
    28:18 The brain runs on the body
    35:03 Why the same words land differently on different people
    39:14 Hanging up the bad day jacket
    46:55 Upside down, underwater, offered a way out
    52:25 How to work with us
    Learn more about a Mental Agility program for your team here or email us at support@performanceintelligence.com
    Contact Jacqui Louder here
  • Performance Intelligence

    Bite Size: A Debrief Won't Fix a Numb Team | Ex-SAS Soldier Harry Moffitt

    23/08/2026 | 7 mins.
    A suicide bomber walked into a crowded local event in rural Afghanistan, and Harry Moffitt's small medical team spent the day treating the dead and dying. By the afternoon his unit sat in near silence, exhausted and numb.
    Moffitt, who spent close to three decades in Australia's Special Air Service, reached for the one thing he carried on every deployment for exactly this reason.
    What happened next, in the middle of one of the worst days of his career, became one of the most effective group resets his unit ever experienced, and he says he has never seen anything else do the same job.
    You can find Harry at his website: https://harrymoffitt.com.au/
    Order a copy of Harry's book: https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781761563133/
    Connect with Harry at his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrymoffitt/
    Follow Harry on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harrymoffitt353/?hl=en
  • Performance Intelligence

    We Have Misdiagnosed a Generation of Exhausted Leaders | Andrew May on DLTOMI

    19/08/2026 | 1h 4 mins.
    You're probably treating recovery as the reward for hard work, when elite sport treats it as part of the work.
    Andrew May has spent more than two decades coaching in sport and business, and Andrew thinks we have misdiagnosed a generation of exhausted leaders. Call it burnout and you go looking for rest. Andrew says the shortfall is usually capacity, and the first move is measuring it rather than resting on it.
    Pod O'Sullivan had Andrew on Don't Let The Old Man In podcast and asked him the things he does not get asked on his own show. It was too good to leave over there, so we are bringing it to you here.
    00:00 The plan you don't have
    01:11 Burnout is not what you think it is
    04:25 Vitamin FLPJ: fun, laughter, play, joy
    06:52 The CEO who has never burnt out
    09:45 Train hard, push hard, recover hard
    12:25 What executive blood profiles show
    16:17 Your father, your son, and you
    18:45 The waterfront house and the crash
    23:47 The five metrics worth tracking
    30:17 You'd spend a year planning a renovation
    38:55 Wearables: who they help, who they wreck
    44:38 Why sauna beats cold
    50:21 The toast that explains burnout
    54:05 Three things to start this week
    01:00:25 What your 75 year old self would ask
    01:01:24 I've burnt out almost twice
    Listen to the original episode: https://pod.fo/e/5543c9
    Watch the original episode: https://www.youtube.com/@DontLetTheOldManInPodcast/videos
    Follow Pod on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/padraigbosullivan/
    Follow DLTOMN: https://www.instagram.com/dltomipodcast/
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About Performance Intelligence
The show that unlocks potential for everyday life. Mental Skills and Leadership Coach, Andrew May, talks to an all-star guest list of experts to unlock every edge of performance.
Podcast website

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