Explore every episode of the podcast Inner Game Academy Podcast

In this episode, Luke, Martin, and Rob dive deep into the parent-child dynamic in sports, exploring how post-game conversations, expectations, and communication shape young athletes' experiences.

🔥 Topics covered:

• 🚗 The "Car Ride Home" Dilemma – How post-game conversations can impact a child’s confidence and love for the game.
• 🧠 Managing Expectations – Why high parental expectations can lead to pressure, disappointment, and performance anxiety.
• 🎤 Parenting Styles in Sports – Lessons from Luke and Martin’s experiences with their fathers and how it shaped their approach.
• 🏆 Academy Pressure vs. Joy of the Game – The dangers of putting status over development in youth football.
• 💬 Effective Communication – Small language shifts can make a huge difference in supporting young athletes.
• 🎭 Role-Playing Parent Responses – Practical scenarios on how to handle post-game emotions and conversations.
• ⚖️ Balancing Coaching & Parenting – How to avoid over-coaching while still being a supportive parent.
• 📖 Future Plans – Luke’s vision for a children’s book series on life lessons in football and an upcoming masterclass at Sunderland’s training ground.

Your words as a parent or coach can fuel confidence or create pressure—learning how to communicate effectively makes all the difference.

Listen now and if you want to take your child's journey to the next level, apply for them to be mentored by Luke & Rob inside the Inner Game Academy by clicking the link below.

https://rob294920.typeform.com/innergameapply

In today's episode, Luke & Rob discuss how hard it is to be your true self in and around new environments.

We discuss:

• The importance of staying true to oneself
• Luke's personal story about maintaining authenticity despite teasing from teammates
• Not changing or losing oneself to fit in
• Luke's experience of losing authenticity on the football pitch
• A valuable lesson learned from the experience
• The importance of self-discovery 
• Luke's journey of questioning his identity and rebuilding himself

Our Brand new 6 Week Pro Accelerator program has now started and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, we talk about expectations.

One of Rob's favorite sayings is "Expectations will screw you" so how do we get a handle on our expectations are they a good or a bad thing?

We discuss:

• Are expectations good or bad
• What were Luke's expectations and how they made his performance suffer
• Why Luke thought he had to perfect
• Why you need to change your language 

Our Brand new 6 Week Pro Accelerator program has now started and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, we have performance nutritionist Richard Allison.

Richard worked for Arsenal under Arsene Wenger and Mikel Arteta.

We discuss:

• Where do footballers go wrong with their foods 
• How to get the basics right when it comes to fueling for performance 
• Should you be having supplements if so what ones?
• How much water do you need to drink, and what happens if you're dehydrated 

Our Brand new 6 Week Pro Accelerator program has now started and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, we have Rotherham's Jordan Hugill, we love Jordan's mindset and how he deals with adversity so we discuss:

• Jordan's journey and how he made it into professional football 
• Why Jordan worked behind a bar and was on jobseekers before he got his chance at Preston 
• How Jordan deals with judgment and adversity 

Our Brand new 6 Week Pro Accelerator program has now started and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, Luke & Rob discuss what it takes to be a great leader and captain.

we discuss:

• The best captains Luke's played under and why
• What it takes to be a great captain
• Do you need to change if you do have the captain's armband on?
• Why captains need energy 

Our Brand new 6 Week Pro Accelerator program has now started and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In this episode, Luke discusses his pre-season does he keep training or does he rest?

We discuss:

• Luke's past experience of being fear-driven and not finding a balance between rest and training
• Why you should be taking a break for the body and mind after a long football season
• Luke's recommendation of a 10-day to 2-week break before gradually starting a pre-pre-season training program
• Discussing the challenge of determining when to start training again after a break
• The importance of being in touch with one's body and allowing time to assess readiness before resuming training
• Luke's advice to prioritize rest, recovery, and listening to one's mind and body
• Highlighting the need for a structured program leading up to the start of the season
• Acknowledging the pressure some players feel to do more than their teammates and encouraging focus on individual needs rather than comparison
• Stressing the importance of finding a balance between pushing oneself and listening to one's body

Our Brand new 6 Week Pro Accelerator program has now started and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, we talk about confidence for performance.

Is it the most component of performance?

We discuss?

• Is your confidence outcome orientated?
• Why Luke bases his game on intentions
• Where does Luke get his confidence from?

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting soon and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, we talk about how to deal with failure.

If you play football, then "failure" comes as a part of that package.

We talk about:

• Why failure is just learning
• How Luke deals with failure 
• Why there is no quick fix to getting over setbacks
• How you can take lessons to move forward 

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting soon and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, we have Boreham Wood manager Luke Garrard, he also runs Boreham Woods Academy.

We discussed:

• How your mindset changes from a manager to a player
• Why football is 80% psychological 
• Why he believes in people over players

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting soon and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In this episode, Luke & Rob discuss how to deal with pressure.

We discuss:

• What can we do pre-match and post-match to help with pressure
• Luke's experience of Wembley and how his body shut down
• Why the stories we tell ourselves can build pressure and how to deal with them
• How does Luke deal with pressure and how you can implement this right now

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting at the end of April and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review, and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, Luke & Rob discuss how to deal with football trials. It's come up a few times in the academy so in this short episode we will give you some tools to help you be less nervous so you can be in a challenge state and not a threat state we discuss:

• How did Luke deal with trials when he had them 
• Why do we make the occasion bigger than it is and makes us negative and play safe 
• How to be in a better state of mind when you go into a trial 
• Why you might need to change word "trial" into this word instead

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting at the end of April and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review and share this with your friends.

In today's episode, Ali Al-Hamadi talks about his experience with coming through the academy with Swansea City,  joining Wycombe Wanderers, and signing for AFC Wimbledon.

We discuss:

• How joining the Inner Game Academy has helped free his mind and helped him score goals
• Dealing with the pressure of what others think
• How to deal with the stress of trials
• Why you need to focus on the outcome, not the process

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting at the end of April and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review and share this with your friends.

In today's episode we have sports psychologist Keval Patel we talk about dealing with fear and anxiety in football.

We discuss:

• Why accepting that you might have a bad game is actually positive 
• How to focus on the opportunities, not the obstacles 
• How you can lose enjoyment for the game when pressure is increased

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting on the 10th of April and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review and share this with your friends.

In this episode we have Adebayo Akinfenwa, this was recorded from a special live we did and he said so many golden nuggets we had to release it as a podcast episode.

We discuss:

• Confidence how do you create it
• Has Akinfenwa ever struggled with confidence
• How do you deal with pressure

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting on the 10th of April and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review and share this with your friends.

In today's episode,  Rob & Luke talk about adversity & build resilience.

• How to deal with setbacks in football
• Can you train resilience and how do you do that?
• How to control your controllable's

We have a BRAND NEW 6-week pro accelerator program starting on the 10th of April and we'd love to help you give you the best chance of becoming a professional footballer, all you need to do is to go to:

www.innergameprocourse.com

To see the details and apply, limited spaces are available.

If you liked this podcast please, subscribe, review and share this with your friends.