Victoria Pendleton

That's it.

I think I was reflecting on the things I've got up to since I retired from cycling and wondering whether there was something wrong with me.

And in the discussion, I thought it'd be a really interesting topic to kind of cover because I've always felt quite fearless.

And I think that's partly to do with growing up with a twin brother and thinking that anything he can do, I can do.

And I wanted to just explore how people can be maybe a little bit more courageous and make the most of this short and precious life that we have.

Oh, no, I've always felt fear.

I've just found good ways of hiding it and managing it.

So the book kind of explores through my experiences the things that, you know, the common fears that we have as humans, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of change, and really tries to use my experience combined with lots of experts, psychologists, neuroscientists, developmental psychologists,

to sort of discuss the research around these types of fear and hopefully how we can have key takeaways to overcome aspects.

Because I'm not talking about survival fear or, you know, the terrifying world that we live in.

I can't fix that.

But just ways in which perhaps we restrict the options that we had ahead of us, which is why I wanted it to be more about opportunity.

Yes, my brother was quite laid back.

We're a bit like yin and yang.

So when it came to training to sort of compete with the senior level, so moving in to ride with the men at 16, he was like, no, I don't think I'm going to do that.

You can do it.

Don't worry.

But my brother was, I guess when you're a twin, you know, you never go in

to anything alone you're always part of a team so even the first day at school you're like why are the other kids crying Alex and he's like I don't know so having that sort of partnership and having that unwavering support definitely gave me strength to to be maybe a little bit bolder and a little bit braver at times.

when you were in the Olympics I mean it's incredible really I've always had a lack of confidence in myself and I'm actually quite an introvert so I've kind of learned to work in an extrovert kind of environment almost you know having to be a performer but I've always lacked confidence had a lot of negative self-talk and if I hadn't put the work in and and work with Professor Steve Peters on the team and work with my psychology and you know the challenges that I kind of