It’s a question I was genuinely asked when I first started working in professional sport. And it wasn’t meant kindly.

I spent twenty years inside elite professional sport. Not as an athlete, but as a behind the scener. One of those people you walk past in the street with absolutely no idea who they are or what they’ve been doing that day. The ones keeping everything going, moving and performing, but always in the background.

I had the unique and privileged position of watching it all play out, literally, without ever putting my body on the line. And what I saw, day after day, season after season, is that so much of what makes elite performance work is simple. It’s applicable. And it’s available to everyone.

There is a lot of noise out there about how to do this stuff. Optimise this. Hack that. Follow this system. Actually? It’s really quite simple.

These principles are not reserved for the top 1%. Well, actually it’s more like 0.1% if you truly work out the stats for professional athletes, but that’s a conversation for another day. Everyone can have access to these tools. And that’s what I’m here for.

Every episode delivers one lesson from sport, one story from me, and one thing you can take away and use today.

You don’t need a stadium or a training ground to use the same principles that professional coaches use every single day. In professional sport, coaches don’t try to fix everything at once. They pick one skill, drill it until it’s solid, and then move on. That single focus builds confidence and that confidence is what carries athletes into competition.

It’s called the small wins principle, and it is just as powerful off the pitch as it is on it.

What counts as a small win?

Ticking one thing off your to-do list.

Making one positive choice about your health.

Sending that email you’ve been putting off.

They might feel insignificant in the moment, but your brain doesn’t see them that way.

Every time you complete something, even something tiny, you boost your brain’s motivation system. Do it consistently and it compounds.

The reason most people don’t feel that is because they aren’t tracking it.

So the habit is simple.

Keep a daily wins journal, note them on your phone, or stick a Post-it above your desk. Then go back and read them when you feel stuck. That’s when they do their real work.

A lot of people feel like they aren’t making progress not because nothing is happening, but because they’re only looking at how far they still have to go.

What small win are you going to notice today?

Want more lessons from sport that you can use in your everyday life? Subscribe so you never miss an episode and share it with someone who needs a little momentum today.

One of the biggest differences I noticed in elite sport was the speed of decision-making. Not reckless decisions, but clear ones. In high-performance environments, hesitation costs you, so people are trained to trust their preparation, make a call, and adjust quickly if needed.

What’s interesting is that outside of sport, people often believe better decisions come from having more information. More opinions, more reassurance, more analysing, more time to think. But very often, the opposite happens.

The more information people consume, the harder it becomes to decide, because too much information creates noise. And noise creates hesitation.

In sport, there usually isn’t time to endlessly overthink. You make the decision with the information you have, commit to it, and adapt if necessary. In life, a lot of people stay stuck trying to eliminate uncertainty before they move, but certainty rarely comes first. Usually, clarity comes through action.

A few things that genuinely help:

• Stop collecting endless opinions. Too much input weakens trust in your own judgement and often leaves people feeling even more uncertain than when they started.

• Make decisions with the information you already have. Most people already know far more than they act on, but keep searching for one final piece of reassurance before moving.

• Learn to adjust instead of endlessly delaying. People who move forward quickly are rarely people who get everything perfect first time. They’re usually people who decide, adapt, and keep going.

I think a lot of people are mentally exhausted not because life is particularly hard, but because they’re carrying too many unfinished decisions around with them.

What decision are you currently overthinking?

It was a good question and one I get asked often. Yes, I do miss match days. The atmosphere was always amazing, even if they were long and exhausting and I was, usually, without exception, the last to finish work.

But actually, working in professional sport is not as glamorous as I think most people imagine it to be. It certainly wasn’t for me anyway. You never really get downtime, you rarely get proper holidays and even when the athletes take time off, the reality is very often that the people behind the scenes can’t. It is relentless and unrelenting and, if I’m honest, there were moments where I probably didn’t realise quite how much I had normalised running on adrenaline and pressure all the time.

But equally, there was a buzz to it that is hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. And do I feel lucky for having done it? Yes, I absolutely do.

The atmosphere, the build-up towards a match day, the pressure, the shared purpose of everyone working towards one moment, one outcome, one event. There is something incredibly addictive about that environment and I genuinely loved being part of it.

So, why did I leave?

Aside from having children which made it much harder (I ended up working on my laptop on a cricket job five hours after giving birth to my first child), the pressures of always showing up, kidding myself I could do it all and still functioning like a human being took their toll.

And, as Covid hit, I lost a big contract almost overnight. At the time, I was working on the Six Nations, introducing players and press, coordinating networks and helping bring some incredible sporting moments together and honestly, that part was super fun.

But then Covid arrived and suddenly those contracts disappeared overnight.

And I think for the first time in a very long time, I really started questioning where I fitted and who I actually was outside of that world.

I had read so much over the years about athletes tying their identity to sport and I completely understood it, because I realised I had done exactly the same thing myself.

I had also experienced that crisis of identity when my dad died.

He was the person who introduced me to rugby in the first place. We spoke after every single game. Win, lose, good game, terrible game, we talked about all of it. Sport became such a huge part of how we connected that, when he died, sport never really felt the same afterwards. I was not sure how I was going to navigate it without him there with me.

And again, I found myself asking the same question: Who am I without this?

Around that time, I started meditating and, forgive me for sounding slightly woo woo here, but I genuinely had what felt like a complete epiphany. I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to start writing everything down.

All the lessons.All the experiences.Everything I had learnt after two decades in and around professional sport about pressure, consistency, mindset, performance, self-belief and what actually helps people sustain high standards over time.

Slowly, from there, I started creating content. Then downloads. Then courses. Then talks. But underneath all of it was one very strong belief that never really left me: That the lessons used in elite sport could genuinely help people navigate everyday life better.

Not just for athletes, but leaders, founders, professionals, parents and anyone trying to juggle pressure, responsibility, ambition and real life all at once.

Because I honestly believe that so many people are capable of far more than they realise, but they are overwhelmed, mentally overloaded, inconsistent, exhausted or simply trying to carry too much all at once without the right structure or support around them.

And I truly believe people can make their lives more streamlined, more productive, less stressful and build real self-belief simply by implementing the right principles consistently.

And that is really where Lessons from the Touchline was born.

I have developed digital courses, downloadable resources and talks already, but what I feel very strongly about now is creating something deeper. A space or programme that people can join from anywhere in the world, at any stage of life and learn these lessons alongside me in a way that feels practical, honest, supportive and genuinely transformative.

But it is incredibly important to me that I make it as useful, meaningful and transformative as it can possibly be and not just another “online course” that sounds good in theory but doesn’t really create change in real life.

So, if you have got this far reading, thank you. I genuinely appreciate it.

And if you wouldn’t mind answering the polls below, it would honestly help me enormously because I’m very close to launching something I care deeply about and I would love this Substack community to help shape it into something that really nails what people need most.

If there is something missing from these polls that you think people are really struggling with right now when it comes to performance, pressure, mindset or simply trying to hold everything together, I would genuinely love to hear it in the comments.

Some of the best conversations and ideas I’ve had over the last few years have come from people simply being honest about what they are finding difficult.

Thank you again for reading and for being part of this journey with me. It genuinely means more than you probably realise.

What I’ve seen work far better inside professional sport is having a clear way to reset before one difficult day starts affecting everything that comes after it.

In high-performance environments, there isn’t the luxury of carrying frustration endlessly into the next session, the next game, or the next decision. Things are reviewed honestly, lessons are taken from them, and then people move forward.

That doesn’t mean pretending things are fine or forcing yourself to “stay positive”. It means regaining a sense of control quickly so that one bad day does not become three or four.

In this episode, I break down four simple ways to reset after a difficult day, including:

* how to close the day deliberately

* why choosing one clear next action matters

* how to change your state properly instead of just distracting yourself

* and why high performers review, decide, and move on rather than replaying things repeatedly

A short, bitesize episode with practical ways to steady yourself and reset your thinking quickly.

A simple reset to try tonight

* Write down:

* what actually went wrong

* what was in your control

* one thing you would handle differently next time

* Decide one clear action for tomorrow morning.

* Give yourself proper space to process the day:

* no phone

* no distractions

* let your thinking settle

* Draw a line under it.

In professional sport, once something has been reviewed properly, people move on from it. That ability to reset quickly is often what keeps performance stable over time.

In reality, it moves. It drops. And when it does, most people try to think their way back into confidence.

In this episode, Kate Oram explains why that doesn’t work and what actually does.

Drawing on over twenty years working inside professional sport, this episode looks at how self-belief is built through action, not overthinking, and why high-performance environments remove the question of confidence altogether.

You’ll learn:

* Why self-belief drops — and why that’s normal

* How athletes operate without constantly questioning themselves

* Why action, not thinking, is what rebuilds belief

* How to simplify your approach when things feel off

* A practical way to reset and take your next step

This is a short, bitesize episode designed to give you something clear and usable straight away.

Practical reset (from this episode)

If your self-belief has taken a hit, don’t overcomplicate it. Start here:

1. Name what’s actually going on

Instead of saying “I’m stuck”, ask:

* What’s actually making this feel difficult right now?

* What would help me feel more supported this week?

* What do I need to let go of to move forward?

(You’re not stuck — there’s usually something underneath it.)

2. Shift from thinking to action

Ask yourself:

👉 “If I trusted myself today, what would I do?”

Then do one version of that.

Not perfectly. Just once.

3. Reframe the thought that’s keeping you stuck

Take one thought you’ve had recently, for example:

* “I’m behind”

* “I can’t stick to anything”

Then replace it with something more useful:

* “I can start small — right here, right now”

* “I can create systems that support me”

Say it out loud. Repeat it. Use it.

4. Choose one belief anchor

Pick a line you can come back to when things feel off:

* “I don’t need motivation — I need direction.”

* “My belief builds every time I take one small action.”

Keep it visible. Use it.

5. Do one thing this week

Not everything. Just one.

👉 One action that supports your belief👉 One system or boundary that supports your energy

That’s enough to start.

You don’t need to feel ready. You just need to begin again, with clarity.

After more than twenty years working inside professional sport, I’ve seen what actually makes a difference when pressure is high and things aren’t going to plan. It isn’t about waiting to feel confident or motivated. It’s about being clear in your thinking, having a sense of focus, and operating in a way that allows you to follow through consistently.

In this podcast, I’ll share lessons and observations from those environments, along with practical ways of applying them in everyday life. This includes how to build self-belief, how to stay focused on what matters, and how to create structure around your time and actions so things actually get done.

Some episodes will be slightly longer and explore ideas in more depth. Others will be shorter, bitesize episodes that give you something clear and actionable to use straight away.

If you are looking for a more structured and realistic way of approaching your work, your goals, and how you show up day to day, you are in the right place