Every Day Is Mindset Day | Ollie Marchon | Modern Wisdom Podcast 193

When the whole world's talking about hump day, I'm like, it's fucking mindset day. There's only a positive mindset today, so whatever that's gonna be, whether it's when I'm attacking the barbell in the gym, gonna attack my emails, if I'm feeling a bit, a bit low, it's like just, just do your best today 'cause you need a positive mindset. And if we're waking up Monday morning, feeling sorry for ourselves that we've got, got to go to work, like what the fuck are we doing?

You are a living breathing example that if you focus on integrity first, you end up with a competitive advantage. The game that no one is playing right now is the honesty and integrity game. Ollie motherfunking Marchant in the building. How are you doing, man?

Mate, great. It's about time. I'm doing very well.

(laughs)

I'm very pleased to be here. How are you doing, Chris?

I'm good, man. This is such a long time coming. The internet is waiting for this.

Mm.

You feeling ready?

Yeah, I'm, I'm born ready, man. I've been lit- literally looking forward to this all, all week. Um, I've just had a cold shower just to wake myself up, make sure I'm primed and ready, at my best. Um-

I love it, man.

... let's get stuck into it.

So first things first, you played rugby for England sevens, which was something that I only stumbled upon when you post, like, a throwback Thursday photo of a fresh-faced Ollie from a, a half a decade ago. Um, what are some of the ways that playing high level sport at a young age shaped who you are today?

It's a brilliant question. Um, firstly, address that bit. Yeah, I guess, I guess anyone that's sort of followed me o- of late, over the last two, three, four years, will only see me as, like, the fitness, the fitness guy. Um, but prior to that, my, my, my life was, the be all and end all for me was, was rugby. Um, I had a couple of spells as a, as a professional, uh, rugby player. Um, but my most successful one and in the h- I guess at the highest level was with England sevens. And that environment in itself is a very high-pressurized environment. It's elite sport. Um, there's nowhere to hide. The, the game itself is very demanding, both mentally and physically. Um, you... It's a bit like Formula 1 in terms of, like, a World Series. So you'll travel around, you travel around the world from place to place. Um, and you'll be away for sort of two to three weeks at a time, and then you'll be back in the UK in training camp for sort of six, six to eight weeks. Um, and during that time, uh, the way the, the way England sevens was set up is that we all l- sort of lived, or the players that had to commute in would live, uh, in a hotel in Teddington in, in London. So that environment, you, you know, you're, you're alongside the other players in, I guess, a, a nice hotel, but a player's digs for, to, to some, some degree. Um, you're in an environment where you're just eat, sleeping, breathing performance-based sport. Um, you're using every waking moment to try and just get a little bit better, understand the game a little bit more. It's a, you know, it's a f- it's a, it's a full-time, it's a full-time job. You're in the gym one minute, you're d- working on your skills the other. You might be doing some conditioning at other times. And then when you are away from, from home, that's, you know, quite tough as well because there's a fair amount of travel to do. There's acclimatizing to the different time zones. There is then being able to lead up to the, to the competition and, and, and the tournament o- over the weekend. So that's, uh, a new experience in itself. And then you're playing two to three games across a weekend or two or three days. So there's a fair amount of getting yourself up for a game, bringing yourself back down, having to recover, bring yourself back up, then, you know, spending, you know, sleeping, getting back up for day, day two. And anyone that's played rugby will know there's a fair amount of knocks, um, and when you're playing sevens, which is at high speed, it's almost... You're taking the guys that are like... just the best, best athletes, you know. They're, they're big, strong, quick, big engines, ro- very robust, very resilient, um, and you're putting them on a field where there's acres of space and just saying, "Right, like, game on." Um-