You have rehearsed it in the shower. You have written the message and deleted it. And every time the moment arrives, you find a reason it can wait until next quarter.

That conversation is still making decisions for you. It decides who gets the promotion, which project quietly dies, and which good person leaves without ever telling you the real reason.

Tim Duggan spent 3 years inside one question: how do you get better at conflict? He built a media company out of a website he started in his twenties, hired hundreds of people, sold it, and was still terrible at the hard conversation. He thought he was good at it. He was not, and it took him years to work that out.

So he went to the people who are: Adam Grant. Oxford negotiators. Accredited mediators. An executive producer of The Real Housewives, which turned out to be the most useful conversation of the lot.

What he came back with is a map. 4 terrains, and every conflict you are carrying right now sits on one of them. The move that works on one will detonate on another.

Andrew puts it under load. The leaders who can run a profit centre and have never been taught to disagree. Performance Intelligence's own work on psychological safety and constructive challenge. And a live test Tim has not seen coming, where he places a conflict still playing out in public onto his own model, no notes, no preparation.

Listen to this one before your next difficult conversation, not after it.

00:02 — Why are we so bad at conflict?

03:38 — How our families teach us to avoid difficult conversations

07:02 — The moment Tim realised avoiding conflict was costing him

09:01 — What “swallowed words” do to us — and why silence isn’t really silent

11:32 — The counterintuitive question: what happens if you don’t have the conversation?

18:50 — The four terrains of conflict: summit, arena, minefield and swamp

27:27 — What happens when emotion takes over and the “amygdala hijack” kicks in

34:27 — The RISA test: should you actually have the fight?

37:36 — Why psychological safety doesn’t mean avoiding uncomfortable conversations

44:05 — The hidden conflict behind the return-to-office debate

47:26 — The Conflict Simulator: Tim analyses Justin Langer, The Beatles and Kyle & Jackie O

58:52 — How do you actually end a conflict? Resolve, repeat or release

Contact Tim: https://timduggan.com.au/
Order Tim's book: https://timduggan.com.au/book/clear-in-tension/
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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.

A young player once told Gilbert Enoka that his advice was rubbish. On the field, when a referee makes a call he disagrees with, he wants to throw a punch, and no amount of mindset work was going to change that in the moment.

Enoka, the All Blacks' mental skills coach for 23 years, did not argue the point. He gave the player a simple physical structure instead, and the player's own frustration rating dropped within seconds of trying it. It is the example Enoka now uses to explain why he believes structure, not mindset, is the most underrated lever in high performance.

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.

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.

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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.