Playing The Inner Game – Details, episodes & analysis

Apply to work with me: https://www.michaelxcampion.com/

Five years ago, we reconnected, basically as strangers. Five years later, we’re best of friends and business partners.

When I decided to relaunch Playing the Inner Game in full HD video, leaving behind the lo-fi days of Zoom and audio only recordings, I knew exactly who the first guest had to be.

Benjamin Quinlan 

Back in 2020, we sat down for what was supposed to be a 90-minute podcast🎙️ 

I turned off the mics, but six hours later, we were still talking. 

And by the end of that night, he’d all but insisted I join him in building something meaningful together.

Today, I’m proud to be a Partner and Head of Corporate Training at Quinlan & Associates working with some of the world’s most respected companies, helping their leadership teams communicate with clarity, confidence, and charisma. 

In this episode, we go deep not only into our working relationship, but into:

• What it means to lead in a high-pressure world
• The often-unspoken issue of executive burnout
• How to sell advice in tough markets
• And how to build connection in both business and life

You’ll also hear from a man I deeply admire about what’s changed him most over the last five years… and what he’d regret not changing in the next five.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

And if you did, drop a comment down below and hit that like button!

For any Strategy Consulting or Corporate Training Enquiries you can contact visit https://www.quinlanandassociates.com/

Connect with Benjamin Quinlan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-quinlan-17b32416/

Connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelxcampion/

(00:00) Introduction

(00:40) What’s Changed Since 2020  

(06:03) Consulting Landscape Post Pandemic  

(09:10) The Evolution of Client Needs 

(13:25) How to Attract and Retain Top Talent

(18:24) The Reality of Executive Burnout 

(22:41) How to Manage Expectations

(30:11) The Art of Communication

(36:37) How to Build Instant Rapport  

(41:14) How to Deal With Over Communication

(45:54) The Art of Sales and Persuasion 

(54:52) Using Comedy to Fuel Business and Creativity  

(58:47) Pursuing Growth and Avoiding Stagnation  

(01:02:00) The Truth About Procrastination  

(01:04:16) How to Deal with Fear of Failure

(01:07:10) How to Build Confidence 

Apply to work with me: https://www.michaelxcampion.com/

I used to be too shy to speak in class.

Now I coach executives, founders, and venture capitalists, how to speak more persuasively.

This is the full story arc - from shy kid in Hong Kong to investment banker, to wine expert, to professional footballer, to entrepreneur, and now keynote speaker and executive coach.

35 minutes of missteps, reinventions, and sliding doors moments that mattered.

From folding t-shirts and waiting tables, to speaking on national TV and coaching execs you see on Bloomberg and CNBC.

It’s a touch vulnerable and quite personal, but maybe it’ll give someone out there the courage to jump and get in the arena.

That would be a win in my eyes.

I made it for anyone who’s ever:

•Felt like they were playing small

•Had something valuable to say, but didn’t know how to say it

•Or simply needed proof that confidence can be built, not inherited

This is the full story of how I learned to speak up, back myself, and why I’m passionate about helping others do the same.

I hope there’s something in it that resonates.

And if it does, please remember to subscribe to future episodes and leave a review! 

Connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelxcampion/

Sean Carter is the founder and Design Director at Carter Hales Design Lab. Sean’s an extremely talented graphic designer that’s been in the agency game for 30 years now and someone whose creativity and eye for detail that I really respect. Full disclosure, there will always be a part of me that is heavily indebted to Sean because he is the beating heart of the team that helped us create Four Fox Saké when it was still embryonic. I’ve had the pleasure of spending time at the design lab in Vancouver, and we also stood side by side on stage in Shanghai as we collected the award for “Best Luxury Alcohol Packaging Design in the World” back in 2016. This is a conversation I’ve been wanting to have for a long time, life got in the way, but I’m very happy that we got there in the end.

If you work in the fields of design, branding and marketing then the benefits of tuning in are obvious, but even if you aren’t involved in these worlds, there’s plenty in here to chew on with regards to creativity, self-expression, the relationship between commercial growth and personal growth, the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship (he is after all someone who has been eating what he kills ever since he left university), and why it’s imperative to take some risks, and stay out of the safe and mushy middle.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Links:
https://carterhales.com/ 
LinkedIn: @sean-carter

Mentions:
Four Fox Saké
The Wickaninnish Inn 

Host: Michael Campion
Coach & Speaker Profile: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]

My guest today is the inimitable Andrew Cox. He and I have known each other for a little while now and I’ve always admired his energy, enthusiasm, and zest for life which is also backed up with a great breadth and depth of knowledge, especially when it comes to the realm of health and fitness.

He is a director and co-founder of Joint Dynamics, a multidisciplinary studio that provides a bespoke approach to injury prevention, combining personal training, physiotherapy, massage therapy, and psychology with intelligent movement at its core.

We discuss the secret to his energy levels and what allows him to motivate his clients, some biohacking tips for better physical and mental health, the magic of reciprocity and what he calls ‘selfish benevolence’, the importance of playing to your strengths, of surrounding yourself with good people, principles for business and negotiation, and as you’ve just heard, why we all need a healthy amount of stress in our lives.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Links:
https://www.jointdynamics.com.hk/
Facebook: @jointdynamicshongkong
IG: Andrew Cox Movement Medicine

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]

I was recently invited to speak by the social entrepreneurship platform  Impact Circles on the topic of storytelling. How can we become more persuasive storytellers? How do we adapt the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves? Why is finding your 'WHY' so important?

As Dr Jim Loehr so eloquently put it: "The power broker in your life is the voice that no one hears. How well you revisit the tone and content of your private voice is what determines the quality of your life. It is the master storyteller, and the stories we tell ourselves are our reality."

I'll continue to share these shorter soundbites, in-between regular guest episodes, in the hope that some of you find them helpful. 

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]

"Don't sell your soul because you can't buy it back. Selling out is something I just can't do."

My guest this week is Justin Fornal and I’m incredibly lucky to have him. He’s someone who has lived and continues to live such an exciting and technicolour life that he very much resists categorisation. To describe Justin as an international explorer, cultural detective, award winning writer, filmmaker, culinary celebrity, and extreme athlete is about as close to the mark as you’ll get. In 2018 Men’s Journal simply ranked him as the #3 most adventurous person in the world.

As a cultural detective, in search of secret societies, lost rituals and ancient talismans, he has travelled to the far corners of the earth, living with hunter-gatherer tribes, meeting with witch doctors who (still to this day) believe in human sacrifice, and taking part in ritual exorcisms, so just be aware that some parts of our conversation are not for the squeamish or faint-hearted.   

Everywhere Justin goes, he always sets off with a deep respect for each culture that he interacts with, and sharing whatever he finds with integrity and a real commitment to the truth of a place, not adherence to institutional narrative. He is the Co-Founder of the History, Arts, & Science Action Network (HASAN) a non-profit organization that focuses on relic repatriation, historic justice, and documenting vanishing cultures. He’s also the co-host of TV show UNEXPLAINED AND UNEXPLORED, alongside one of my previous guests Emiliano Ruprah, a show that has been airing on the Discovery Channel and Science Channel since 2019.

Justin has also written extensively for National Geographic, VICE, The Explorers Journal, and Parts Unknown. I strongly recommend you read some of his articles which I’ve linked to below.

He is also an extreme open water swimmer and having swum 100 miles around the Whisky Island of Islay on Scotland’s freezing West Coast, he is currently planning the longest unassisted swim in history for Summer 2022.  The GREAT ARCTIC SWIM will be the first attempt to swim from Canada to Greenland across the Nares Strait.

Truth is, unless there’s a documentary made about his life, I’m not sure one CAN do Justin Fornal justice. The sheer depth and breadth of his experience makes keeping pace with him an impossible, yet very very enjoyable and joyous task. He truly is larger than life and a real polymath in every sense of the word. We start the conversation with him lighting up one of his rare pipes collected on his travels, before journeying through his culinary, cultural, and sporting adventures in that order. I hope that you find this conversation as interesting as I did.

Links:
https://justinfornal.com/articles
IG: @justin_fornal
https://greatarcticswim.com/
Weird Homes, Atlas Obscura

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are lookin

If you watched the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, or you're one of my listeners in Hong Kong, Siobhan Haughey will need absolutely no introduction as she is essentially a national treasure and the most recognisable celebrity in the country right now. Siobhan made sporting history last year,  winning two Olympic Silver Medals in the 200m and 100m freestyle events.  Not content with that she stormed to a new World Record in the 200m freestyle at the 2021 World Short Course Championships.
 
As a general rule I prefer to have guests who are a bit longer in the tooth. People who are further along in their journey through life. Age is not a proxy for accomplishment, but there is something to be said for having done a few more laps around the sun.

However, there are exceptions to every rule and this 24 year old is certainly one of them. The chance to learn from someone who is at the absolute peak of their profession so early in life, and a role model to millions, is an opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up.

She retains the infectious positivity and optimism of youth that makes her so likeable, but there’s also a very mature head set on those young shoulders. She’s given countless interviews since taking the podium at Tokyo 2020 and I wanted to make sure that this conversation had no sponsors, no corporate agenda, and that it went a little differently. I wanted to take a couple of off-ramps that might reveal a different side of her. I think that we succeeded. I thank Siobhan for being so open and generous in sharing how she is developing her inner game. Join us to find out what motivates this Olympian and what she is most proud of...

Links:
IG: @siobhanhaughey01
Wikipedia
https://www.scmp.com/topics/siobhan-haughey
https://about.arenasport.com/en/athletes/siobhan-haughey

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]

“I only loved doing well. I never really allowed myself to enjoy it. Enjoyment came through performance and feeling like I contributed to the team.

If I didn’t perform well I felt a huge sense of emptiness. I felt insecure. I felt pretty damn fragile a lot of the time.”

My guest this week is Nick Compton, former first class cricketer and England’s opening batsman. Nick had an excellent first class cricket career, making 194 appearances and clocking up 12,168 runs. He represented England in 16 Test matches, scoring back to back centuries against New Zealand, and was part of the dynamic duo with Alistair Cook that famously beat India on their own patch for the first time in 28 years. 

The cricket and football fans among you will no doubt recognise his surname, the entire Compton family has huge sporting pedigree. His Grandfather Denis is sporting royalty, famously playing both cricket AND football for England and Arsenal, was one of the finest cricketers to ever walk the planet, and has a stand at Lord's named after him.

Nick and I became mates at Durham University back in 2002 where we lived on the same corridor and despite not having been in touch for ages, I was delighted that he accepted my invitation to come on the podcast. He has had an exceptional career and been in the limelight for much of his life. More recently he has been spending more time behind the camera lens rather than in front of it, so I wanted to hear about his burgeoning professional photography career too and future plans.

Nick and I talk about what it takes to reach the top of elite sport, we talk about peak performance, mindset and visualisation, we talk about growing up in the shadow of greatness. He also generously shares the difficulties that he’s facing as he transitions out of sport, when his identity and self-worth have been so tightly wound around this one profession for so long.

I’m very grateful to Nick for not holding back and rendering himself somewhat vulnerable by revealing the various challenges he’s faced with his mental health over two decades. I know that he would have it no other way, but it always makes for a better episode when high-profile guests bring their authentic selves to the table. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Links:
IG: @nick.compton
Twitter: @thecompdog
https://nickcompton.com/
YouTube Highlight Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WueTSNtXJlE&t=1s

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]

"The first question you must ask yourself is - do you believe, or do you not? If you do believe - are you doing everything that it takes? We believe that if you’re in, you're in. With all of the consequences."

So many great answers on this podcast, but so many great questions to sit with too. The way in which Manuel has built up Pirata Group over the years has been truly impressive to watch. Even more so when you realise the consistency and integrity that runs through everything he does. 

There's something very special about sitting down in a restaurant when there's nobody else around.  Just you, the owner, a bottle of Malbec and honest conversation. We cover so much ground in this one, from his early rap career to getting fired as a dishwasher, how to scale culture, optimising for kindness, day architecture, the infinite game, why he always wins twice,  the 80/20 principle, and how pictures and notes from his journal manifested into the restaurants you see today.

Whether you're a food lover, entrepreneur, business leader, or just someone looking for more motivation to attack the day, there's plenty of gold in here for everyone. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

Shoutouts:
https://piratagroup.hk/
IG: @piratagrouphk
IG: @manuelpiratahk
LinkedIn: @manuel-palacio

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]

If there was one man I wanted to have on the show in the first week of January, right when people are busy making New Year’s Resolutions and setting health and fitness goals, then it was the man who whips superheroes like Wolverine and Deadpool into shape. He’s built like a Greek god, runs an ever-expanding health and fitness empire, is a loving family man, and possesses a rolodex that’s the envy of most people in Hollywood. His list of clients past and present is frankly ludicrous: Hugh Jackman, Ryan Gosling, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Sebastian Stan, Jake Gyllenhall, Emily Blunt, Cindy Crawford, Anne Hathaway just to name a few.
 
More importantly, Don Saladino is a man who loves to help and finds joy in serving others. He’s a natural giver, not a taker, which is a large component of why he’s enjoyed the success he has. The celeb clients are a nice draw for the podcast, sure, but they’re really just an indicator from the marketplace that the man is good at what he does, that he adds value, that he really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to strength and conditioning. More importantly, I know firsthand that the guy has a big heart, he’s opened up his home to my family when he didn’t need to which speaks volumes to the kind of man he is, and anytime you come across someone with that blend of kindness, positivity, and discipline, there’s always lessons worth unpacking.

A well-known celebrity trainer, Don founded Drive 495, has graced the cover of the iconic Muscle & Fitness Magazine, is on the advisory board of Men’s Health Magazine, and has appeared in the media countless times on the likes of Cosmo, People, US Weekly and the Today Show. He and I talk about the fundamentals of patience, passion, consistency, and plenty of hard work. Lots of hard work.

Shoutouts:
https://donsaladino.com/
Instagram: @donsaladino
Instagram: @jenny.campion
Instagram: @fourfoxsakeofficial
Instagram: @ouraring

Host: Michael Campion
Website: www.michaelxcampion.com
LinkedIn: @michaelxcampion
IG: @michaelxcampion
-----
Michael Campion is a Corporate Trainer, Career Coach, and Entrepreneur based between Singapore and Hong Kong. If you are looking for an Executive Coach or Guest Speaker please email the address below.
[email protected]