Simon Mundie on Champion Thinking

Simon Mundie is on a mission to have discussions that reveal something important about life and how best to live it. He’s the host of the Life Lessons Podcast, and that’s where he uses that vehicle to learn from some of the best performers in the world about how they are not just successful at their craft, but what they’ve learned along the way, and even some of the dark sides that come with high achievement. And he really is someone who has used sport as a metaphor for life. His podcast doesn’t just interview some of the best athletes in the world, but it also is a platform where he gets to sit with some of the best thinkers, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists to try to unpack and discover what living a truly meaningful, successful life is all about. He has spent time in the sports world as a journalist. He worked for BBC Radio, where he covered sporting events like the World Cup and the Olympics. So, he’s been around some of the highest achievers in the world, and he often found that our obsession and focus on results was actually quite shallow. His interest in sport as he became older was actually around the metaphors that exist within the games. So, this conversation gets into a lot of wisdom, a lot of ideas around enlightenment, a lot of ideas around meaning and purpose and what will cause us to truly feel like we’re living our best lives. So, it’s a deep conversation, it’s a rich conversation.

Simon had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“I am actually not a big fan of the word [champion]” (4:55).

“I think it becomes problematic when we look at people who are described as champions and consider them to be special or different, and therefore consider ourselves or others to be less than” (6:10).

“We are all unique with our own skills and value” (6:45).

“We are not better or no worse than anyone else” (7:00).

“So often people are incredibly identified with their thoughts, the voice in their head, they think that’s who they are” (9:30).

“Thoughts and thinking are coming and going, but this ‘aware’ mind is always there and is aware of any thoughts that come and go” (10:10).

“A thought… has a beginning and an end” (10:35).

“I’ve always been interested in the deeper questions” (18:10).

“There’s nothing that anyone needs to fix. It’s just the belief that there is” (19:15).

“Sport is a metaphor for life” (21:00).

“Sport is just a way to illustrate these deeper truths and deeper implications” (21:40).

“We are not separate. We are connected” (22:45).

“On the human level we are individual, unique, and discrete, but on the being level we are one and the same” (24:50).

“We are different expressions of one life” (25:40).

“Spirituality is the recognition that at the deepest level we are not actually separate” (25:45).

“Anytime [“problematic”] feelings come up, it’s an opportunity to allow them to be there and then they lose their strength” (31:30).

“A lot of trauma can stay in the body” (41:20).

“That capacity to be able to cry is a really important way of actually releasing stress and tension from the body” (42:55).

“Attention is like the stretching of awareness towards an object” (45:55).

“What we all really want is peace of mind, is contentment, is fulfillment” (49:25).

“Peace and fulfillment and contentment are not things that come from outside ourselves; they are already at our source and then they can be revealed by, for example, being in flow when your sense of self disappears” (49:40).

“Culturally, we tend to think of success as achievement” (50:15).

“Don’t be too quick to judge other people” (1:02:45).

“We have to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions” (1:07:40).

“I’m going to take risks. I’m going to put myself in situations that are uncomfortable. I’m going to ask people for stuff until they say no” (1:12:20).

“I’m going to put myself out there and really try and create opportunities, and then see what life throws my way” (1:13:30).

Additionally, I’d encourage you to check out Simon’s podcast, The Life Lessons Podcast, on any platform. I’d also highly encourage you to purchase Simon’s book, Champion Thinking. Lastly, you can find Simon’s website here and connect with him on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Simon for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.