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Chapter 13
Dr Pete Lindsay and Dr Mark Bawden
Mathew Syed Introduced me to Pete and Mark, two of the most important people in sports psychology, who have a passion to help as many people as possible to reach their potential.
Mark was leading the psychologists at the English Institute of Sport in 2012, where there were twenty-five looking after all the Olympic and para-Olympic sports. The conundrum they were grappling with was how they could affect rapid change because for the London Games, it was going to be an important in terms of getting results.
Because of the work, they did over this period, strengths-based thinking along with how you create change fast was born and they have now made performance psychology accessible to people and spreading it further afield. They created Mindflick in 2013 with Andy Strauss and have completely changed my mindset.
By Harvey Thorneycroft
Chapter 13: Dr Pete Lindsay and Dr Mark Bawden
I first met Matthew Syed in June 2011 over a cuppa in Richmond where he was based, and our office was located. I had always loved reading Malcolm Gladwell books and came across ‘Bounce’ which was published in 2011.
Matthew Syed references Gladwell in the first part of this book, as well as Anders Ericsson, Carol Dweck, to prove the point that purposeful practice, intrinsic motivation and a little luck create world-class performers. I completely subscribed to this philosophy having been part of Ian McGeehan’s squad that would eventually see the Club win the ultimate prize in European Rugby. I was keen to seek him out and, in those days, you could phone him on his mobile which was on his website.
Matthew did a lot of corporate events for us in those early days, and he was very unusual in as much as he was one of the most magnificent orators with the ability to answer any question put to him. However, he would start the event off playing table tennis. I got this idea from a video that I saw of Nick Higham, presenter of the BBC News’ weekly “Meet the Author” programme doing an interview with Matthew in Silverdale Road in Reading, where he grew up. Matthew was able to play table tennis whilst answering questions posed by Nick Higham. He was consciously able to answer the questions put to him whilst unconsciously playing a complex game of table tennis. I can remember the first time that I saw this former Olympian play and for any of us who think that it is not a proper sport, any doubts were blown away. There was a reason he achieved what he did in his sport and went on to be such a success in every other facet of his life.
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