Justin Brown | Inner Life of Leadership

I started writing a weekly newsletter in January of 2020. Every Tuesday at 6am, eastern it goes out to athletes, coaches, and leaders in some of the most high performing environments in sports.

If you would like this latest edition subscribe at the link in my bio.

At any given time, we're either striving or stewarding.

You can tell by your inside game:

Striving brings angst, stress, and worry.

Stewarding brings enjoyment, contentment, and peace.

Happy Fearless Warrior

Performance = Potential - Interference

Tim Gallwey wrote that in the 1970s long before training your mind in elite sport was popular.

What is interference?

Anything that hinders or blocks our mind/body's ability to play freely, focused, and up to the standard.

There's obvious "interference" elements that come with trying to be the best in the world at something.

- Media
- Fans
- Attention
- Outside expectations

Often we like to think that "outside" interference is what hinders performers the most.

In working with some of the best coaches and athletes in the country I've actually found it's the interference from within that becomes the most debilitating.

- Trying to live up to impossible self-imposed expectations
- Inability to accept our less than perfect execution - all the time.
- Our own "goals" we create out of thin air
- Our relationship with the scoreboard.
- Our self-beliefs and internal narratives

These things cause more problems for performers than anything external ever could.

The interference from within is often the trojan horse than takes us down.

How can a performer fight it? Are we doomed? Is it possible to be truly interference free in the pursuit of greatness?

This past summer, Alexander Zverev shows us a possible path. In the final of the 2026 US Open, Zverev was serving for championship point and didn't even realize it.

He was so in the moment, focused on playing one point at a time, that he forgot the score.

After winning the point (and the U.S. Open) Zverev returned to the line to serve again - not realizing the match was over and he was champion.

That is what interference free performance can look like. And it's built the more we learn to completely exist in the present moment.

Championships, Goals, Rankings, "Chasing Success" - it's all interference.

As the great tennis player Andre Agassi said, "The only thing that is real is how you choose to engage with your life today."

Stay The Course