Explore every episode of the podcast The Inner Game Podcast
Dive into the complete episode list for The Inner Game Podcast. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Title
Pub. Date
Duration
Your Best Player Is Pressing. Say These 3 Words. | Zach Allen
24 Oct 2026
00:34:14
Want to trust yourself under pressure? Take the free Inner Game Performance Profile: https://join.theinnergame.app/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=performance_profile&utm_content=ep04
Coaches: help shape the next version of The Inner Game with Tim Gallwey and Bob Bowman. The founding coaches cohort gets full access and a private community. Application only: https://theinnergame.app/founding-coaches?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=founding_coaches&utm_content=ep04
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Zach Allen wasn't a first-round pick. Today he's a Denver Broncos defensive lineman, a 2025 first-team All-Pro, and he has led the NFL in quarterback hits two years running. After he signed a $102 million extension, offenses had a game plan for him for the first time, and for four weeks, in his words, he was losing his mind. Then a coach told him three words: less is more.
He picked up The Inner Game of Tennis because Tom Brady called it one of his favorite books of all time, and looking back, it explained his best games, including one he played sick on no sleep.
In this episode he explains the ten-minute exercise behind his best year yet, why he films every rep and watches it as a mirror instead of judging it in the moment, why he never writes "don't" in his notes, the perspective trick he learned from J.J. Watt, and, partway through, he coaches me out of my own rut.
00:00 Intro: Pressing After a $102 Million Contract 01:42 Why an All-Pro Picked Up Tom Brady's Favorite Book 02:04 Sick, No Sleep, Best Game: How to Play Out of Your Head 04:23 Tim Gallwey's Untold Story: Why Coaches Over-Explain 06:10 Game Film as a Mirror (and Peyton Manning's Lesson for Coaches) 08:42 Calm on Game Day, Worked Up All Week 10:10 Why He Never Writes "Don't" and How He Resets on the Sideline 12:53 Jiu-Jitsu, Tennis and Rick Rubin: The Same Lesson 15:15 The NFL Roller Coaster: Best in the World to Getting Cut 16:18 What Tom Brady Knows That Talented Quarterbacks Don't 17:24 The Inner Game for a Team: When to Correct a Mistake 19:13 When the Stakes Are High: How to Get Back on Track 21:15 The 10-Minute Thursday Exercise Behind His Best Year 21:55 "Less Is More": Pressing After the Big Contract 24:15 Why Athletes Don't Open Up to Team Psychologists 26:55 The Best of the Best Demand to Be Coached 27:31 Pressure Is a Privilege: J.J. Watt's "You Would Kill for This" 29:40 Zach Coaches the Host 30:35 Not a First-Round Pick: Brick by Brick 32:14 Discipline Comes From "Disciple"
I Spent 20 Years Studying Excellence, Here’s What The Best Have in Common | Brad Stulberg
17 Oct 2026
01:13:46
Want to trust yourself under pressure? Take the free Inner Game Performance Profile: https://join.theinnergame.app/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=performance_profile&utm_content=ep03
Coaches: help shape the next version of The Inner Game with Tim Gallwey and Bob Bowman. The founding coaches cohort gets full access and a private community. Application only: https://theinnergame.app/founding-coaches?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=founding_coaches&utm_content=ep03
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Brad Stulberg was a triathlete with a power meter, a heart-rate monitor and a race-day problem: methodical in training, nothing on the day. Then a coach gave him The Inner Game of Tennis. He never turned pro. He became a writer instead, and he says he still writes the way that book taught him to race. Today he coaches pro athletes, surgeons and founders on the mental side of their craft, and his book The Way of Excellence is the closest thing I've read to a modern evolution of the Inner Game.
In this episode he explains why AI will make you good but never great, why there's no gold medal for the most complex routine, the one equation behind all growth, how his own coach fixed the job he'd started to resent in a single sentence, and the day he told his wife his brain was broken.
00:00 Intro: Hustle Culture, Pseudo-Excellence and the 47-Step Routine 01:16 What Excellence Actually Means (Tim Gallwey + Brad Stulberg) 03:58 Great in Training, Bad on Race Day: How The Inner Game of Tennis Fixed His Performance 07:21 Flow State, Consistency and Creative Work: What Sport Teaches You 17:06 AI Is Ultra-Processed Food for Your Brain (How to Use AI Without Losing Your Edge) 27:41 Why Knowledge Work Burns You Out: Hard Work vs. Mindless Work 32:08 Stress + Rest = Growth: How to Train Hard Without Burning Out 34:11 Hustle Culture Is Pseudo-Excellence: Why Your Morning Routine Isn't Working 36:57 What a Mental Performance Coach Actually Does (and the One Sentence That Fixed His Burnout) 43:56 Work-Life Balance Doesn't Exist: The Minimum Effective Dose for Work and Family 46:50 Depression and OCD at 30: "Yesterday My Brain Was Fine" (and Tim Gallwey's Untold Story) 55:49 The Pursuit of Excellence: Result vs. Process (Excellence Is Not an Identity) 59:49 Overthinking, Self-Talk and Comparison: Performance = Potential + Interference 1:03:07 Youth Sports Are Broken: "Elite? Your Kid Is Eight" 1:07:07 Choose Excellence Over the Algorithm: Brad's Final Advice
How To Prepare for the Moments That Might Break You (Pete Carroll's Method)
10 Oct 2026
00:53:42
Want to trust yourself under pressure? Take the free Inner Game Performance Profile: https://join.theinnergame.app/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=performance_profile&utm_content=ep02
Coaches: help shape the next version of The Inner Game with Tim Gallwey and Bob Bowman. The founding coaches cohort gets full access and a private community. Application only: https://theinnergame.app/founding-coaches?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=founding_coaches&utm_content=ep02
Pete Carroll was introduced to Tim Gallwey's work in 1973, as a graduate student who had just started coaching. He has used The Inner Game for more than 50 years since, through USC, a Super Bowl win in Seattle and five or six years teaching his program at Microsoft, and for most of that time he kept it to himself. In this episode he explains why, and partway through he catches me in the middle of my own negative self-talk.
A masterclass in coaching, self-talk and mental performance, from a head coach who won a Super Bowl.
He breaks down what he told himself in the two or three seconds after losing the Super Bowl, why he believes grit can be taught (and the phone call where he told Angela Duckworth so), and why, after all these years, he says he still needs to be coached up.
You'll learn how to prepare for the moments that might break you, how to stop choking under pressure, how to overcome adversity, and how to train the voice in your head before your next game, race or big moment.
00:00 Why Pete Carroll Still Needs a Coach 01:01 How Pete Carroll Found The Inner Game in 1973 03:39 The Mental Method He Kept Secret From Football 05:12 The Order His Head Coach Gave Him (He Did It Anyway) 08:49 How to Take a Risk Without Acting Out of Fear 12:32 Pete Carroll's Biggest Heartbreak: Looking Like the Team Mascot 15:42 What Competition Really Means 21:26 Can Grit Be Taught? Pete Carroll vs Angela Duckworth 29:55 "I'm Either Gonna Die or Go to Jail": The Power of Vision 34:54 Self-Talk Is a Skill. Train It. 40:42 "Did You Just Hear Yourself?" Negative Self-Talk Caught Live 43:31 What Pete Carroll Told Himself After Losing the Super Bowl 46:02 P = P + I: Why the Voice Gets Louder Under Pressure 50:07 Why Everybody Needs a Coach (Even Pete Carroll)
What Is the Voice in Your Head Costing You?
03 Oct 2026
01:19:34
Every great performer has a moment they almost lost to their own head. On The Inner Game Podcast, we take them back to it and get the exact words that were running through their mind.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. New episodes every week. Most mental performance content tells you to step back from pressure. This show is about stepping into it.
Fifty years ago, Tim Gallwey wrote down the formula: performance = potential − interference. You've already done the work. Your potential isn't the problem. The voice that judges, corrects and tightens you up at the worst possible moment is. Every episode, people who've lived it, including Pete Carroll, Bob Bowman, George Mumford and Brad Stulberg, go back to the moment interference nearly beat them and tell you exactly what they said to themselves to get through it.
You won't just hear what the best think about pressure. You'll hear what they did in the moment, so you can do it in yours. Step into the pressure. Learn from the best. Be ready when it counts.
What Is the Voice in Your Head Costing You? | Trailer
01 Oct 2026
00:01:10
You've already done the work. This show is about being able to reach it when it counts.
50 years ago, Tim Gallwey wrote down a formula that explains almost every time you've come up short under pressure: performance equals potential minus interference. Almost everything you've been taught about getting better is aimed at your potential. Almost none of it is aimed at the interference: the voice that judges, that instructs, that tightens you up at exactly the wrong moment.
That's what this show is for. Each guest has been beaten, or almost beaten, by their own interference. We take them back to the moment it happened and get the actual words that were in their head when they overcame it. Not more theory. How to actually apply it.
What you'll take from every episode:
The moment pressure almost won, told by the person who was in it The exact words they used to get through it A way to step into pressure instead of backing away from it
Train your mind for your next event with The Inner Game app. https://join.theinnergame.app/?utm_source=inner_game_podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=performance_profile&utm_content=ep01_qr