Jake Humphrey

Would you tell us some of the successes then that you had in that club environment beyond the obvious of seeing Adam and his emergence?

I'm interested in some of those other human stories.

I love the idea of the guy coming to fit your gas boiler.

What are the sort of stories that still light you up and can keep you warm at night?

Brilliant.

I think there's a really incredible skill that you have, Mel, that you've taken some of these kids at 12 years of age and now you're dealing with adults now.

and you still have the ability to put their relationships at the front and centre.

Would you explain a little bit about, because there's lots of parents that listen to this or teachers, is there a difference in terms of engaging a child in many effects as opposed to dealing with an elite Olympic athlete?

So there's some brilliant parallels there with, say, reading about what Bob Bowman did when he developed Michael Phelps's character, so the story of him

deliberately breaking his goggles before a race to see how he could cope with the adversity of of having to swim without them or you know turning the lights off or not giving him a drink of water that as an outsider you might appear cruel or you wonder why you're doing it and you've explained why have you ever done anything like that with adam to develop his competitive instincts and his ability to deal with adversity

It's really, really good.

What's your greatest strength and what's your greatest weakness?

And finally, what's your one golden rule for living a high-performance life?

I loved that episode.

I'm lucky enough, I've known Mel for a number of years, but when she recounts that story of her and Adam having to scramble over the fence and getting him to dive into an algae-covered pool, I thought that was just a great example of how you can train people in not the fact.

but how you react and the fact that when Adam had his kit stolen in Rio and he was still able just to adapt and move on from it so quickly to still go out there and deliver such a phenomenal performance that's a great example of

what a coach can do.

Well, listen, if this episode's moved you, please share it with a coach, a parent, a manager, or basically anyone who's responsible for bringing out the best in someone else.

That's exactly who Mel made it for.

It's been a real treat to listen to this episode with Mel.