Brett Hawke is a former competitive swimmer and coach. He represented Australia at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics and won 7 international medals. As an Auburn Tigers swimmer, he earned 17 All-American honors and 9 NCAA titles. After his pro swimming career, he became an Assistant Coach at Auburn University. At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, he guided Cesar Cielo to victory in the Men's 50 Freestyle. Cesar's gold medal swim was the first in Brazil's history.  At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Brett helped guide Bruno Fratus to a Bronze medal in the Men's 50 Free. Today, Brett hosts the #1 swimming podcast in the world, “Inside with Brett Hawke” where he interviews some of the world’s highest performing swimmers (and humans). He is also the Head of Creator Acquisition at AnyQuestion!

One of the ways that I used to improve my confidence was by looking in their mirror actually forcing myself to look at myself in the mirror, I used to have problems in big crowds where I felt like everybody was staring at me and I was I wasn't confident in maybe my body image or my abilities. I was felt like I was too skinny or Too Short or not strong enough or Not, I don't know. I just felt like I was lacking something and that was just confidence through my teenage years, you know, going through that awkward stage. But one of the things I did to help Rectify, that was just look at myself, like stare at myself, and then start to give myself compliments. And I know this sounds weird. Okay, but and this takes time, but it's an exercise in building confidence. So I would start with, you know, trying to do Positive reinforcement, which would then help my imagery. In terms of the way, I was thinking about myself, the way I was feeling, I got to a point where I did start to look at myself almost like this Photograph here, where you've got this cat, looking into mirror into a mirror and sing a line and this took months maybe even Seasons but I certainly got to a point where I did feel like the person looking back at me. It was much stronger than the person looking into the mirror.

To improve my confidence I forced myself to look in the mirror and give myself compliments. This took time but eventually I was looking at a much stronger person in the mirror than the one looking in.

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What advice would you give to an athlete who struggles with confidence in their own swimming abilities?

Some confidence from me comes from repetition and experience. How often do you do something, how long have you been doing it for? What I would say to anyone lacking in confidence is what are you comparing yourself to. You should be comparing yourself to how far you've come, where you were in the beginning, and where you want to go. Keep your eye on the path, and it should be straight ahead. Stay focused on yourself. Keep working on those repetitions, and experience will come over time, and confidence will grow.

Confidence comes from repetition and experience. Compare yourself to how far you've come, stay focused on yourself and keep working on those repetitions. Over time, experience will come and confidence will grow.

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College is an interesting question. I'm going to relate it to podcasting. Okay, back in January of 2020. I've never done a podcast in my life. I had zero confidence and I needed people to kind of prop me up to help me believe that I could even possibly do something like that. Now, here we are in February of 2022. I have all the confidence in the world because of two things. I've got experience. Now, and I've done the work and and ultimately that's what I draw my confidence from is diving in headfirst doing the work necessary and gaining the experience. And I think you can relate that to anything in life. You want to be more confident in the 400. IM do the work, raise some 400 iambs, whether that be in practice or in Rice under race conditions, and then build your confidence through experience, and that's always been the way I've done. Done things.

To gain more confidence in anything, including college, the key is to do the work and gain experience. This will build your confidence and help you succeed.

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Has a fear of success ever hindered your performance or potential? If so how did you move past this?

Alicia, it's an interesting question. We don't often think about the fear of success. But certainly when I was competing at the Olympic trials, I mean, I'd had failure in that in 96 and by the time you have to wait to for it to come around again, it's another four years. And so year, 2000 the Olympic trials for the Australian team. I was very nervous and I was trying to figure out why I was so nervous. And part of it was, I didn't know whether I was capable of being an Being or worthy of being an Olympian and I had to kind of reconcile that before. The rice went off. I had to go through it in my mind that I was capable. I was worthy. I was good enough. I was born. I was put on this planet to be an Olympian and that's something like I said, I just had to reconcile and get past and once I did Embrace that, I was able to ease a lot of that tension and see myself as that person that I didn't know whether I could be. And it's an interesting way to think about it. But certainly we do get kind of overwhelmed with the idea of being more powerful than what we think we could be or better than what we think. We should be something that you just have to come to terms with inside yourself.

When preparing for the 2000 Olympic trials, I had to deal with fear of success. I had to come to terms with being capable, worthy, and powerful enough to be an Olympian.

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Physical education teacher 
Swim coach 
MSc Sports Nutrition 



How do you challenge your swimmers to develop their mental edge?

Petrus is a couple ways you can do this in the water especially is put them in uncomfortable situations, daily constantly, put them in uncomfortable. So right practices that you think are on the edge of their capabilities. Don't write for Comfort, don't write for, he's don't write for satisfaction right for putting them in places where they are challenge. Aged where they will grow. Will they where they have to dig deep and then also put them in competitive situations against each other. Not all the time, you know, have to do it every single practice, every single day, but certainly, there's got to be spots where they compete with each other in certain sets certain times where they even get up on the blocks during the week and they race each other, but these things are important to develop that mental Edge challenge them every day. They physically and mentally put them in competitive situations, that's going to bring out the best of them and prepare them for race day.

To develop mental toughness in swimmers, coaches should put them in uncomfortable and challenging situations daily, and also competitively race each other during practice. This will prepare them for race day and bring out the best in them.

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What are your mental strategies for coping with pain during tough workouts and competitions?

Lane interesting question and I think the answer is actually in the question, coping with pain. Okay. Learn to cope with pain. Confront, it face it. Don't run away from it. Don't don't fear it. Don't be scared of it. Okay, you understand this pain involved in growth, right? That's how you grow. You've got to go through some sort of transformation, some sort of pain. And what I would always say to my Fleets is confronted. Now wherever it is face on. If you know that this particular workout that is going to hurt, don't shy away from it. Don't run away from it, walk to it face. It head-on embrace it. That's what I say, embrace the pain and sometimes that might mean going Beyond where your, where you even know your body can go or your mind. You, you've got to open your mind to the possibility of what is actually. A possible. Now, I'm not saying be Reckless by any means pain. Can be an indicator that something dangerous or drastic is about to happen to, right? We don't want to go beyond that point. But the pain that's telling you that I'm uncomfortable. That's okay. It's okay to be uncomfortable Embrace that feeling, because that's how you're going to grow as an athlete.

Learn to cope with pain by confronting it head-on and embracing the feeling of being uncomfortable. Don't be reckless when it comes to pushing your body beyond its limits, but understand that some pain is necessary for growth.

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Sophie what motivates me in practice as a swimmer, as a coach challenge, I need challenge. I've got to be challenged. So when I come into practice as a coach, I'm thinking, how can I challenge the athletes today as an athlete? I'm thinking, how can my coach challenge me today? How can I challenge my teammates? How can I challenge myself? I've got to be challenged stimulate me, you know, challenge me make me think turn my brain on. Activate my systems. Push me to the edge. I need to be challenged and that's what motivates me. And I hope it motivates you to Sophie.

What motivates me in practice is being challenged. I need my coach to challenge me, make me think, and push me to the edge. This is what motivates me and I hope it motivates you too.

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How do you keep yourself motivated in the off season or when you have to train without your team?

Josiah. I don't know what you mean by offseason. Is there an offseason swimming? There's not once you get to the highest level, you're going to be swimming pretty much 12 months of the year. So there's a there's a winter season and then there's a summer season. So the winter season is generally your high school college season or summer season is going to be your Club, you know, you're you know representation at Major meets. If you're you know, in college you want. To be going to World Championships and Olympic Games and things like that. So there's really no offseason. Now there are breaks. Okay, and I think that's maybe what you're more alluding to is a break time. And what I would say is take your break, you know, mentally get away from the pool, do other things right? Like for me it was like I stay connected to the to the water to the ocean, but I went surfing. Right. My brakes. That was my time. Get away from the pool going surfing. Have a great time, keep fit, nothing wrong with keeping fit, nothing wrong with a bit of cross training, you know, athleticism, you know, to change up the things that you're doing. I'd go surfing and create a whole different type of athleticism from myself but enjoyment. And then there's also that desire to eventually want to come back and do what I love and so stay active. I would say get off the video games, get outside stay active, if you if your team isn't coming. Back for a certain amount of time and you do want to get back a little bit earlier. Then, the motivation should come from you wanting to get better. Right? And that's not all, you know, I was going to feel that every day. You don't wake up and be like, I'm super motivated today. Let's go. But the desire to want to get better that thought of who you want to be in the future should always remain and that's the thing that gets you out of bed.

There is no off-season when it comes to swimming as you are competing all year round. However, take the break to do other activities such as surfing to stay active and get away from the pool. The motivation should come from you wanting to get better and that thought of who you want to be in the future should always remain and that's the thing that gets you out of bed.

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Greg Bennett is the Co-founder and Chief of Staff at AnyQuestion. He is also the podcast host of, “One Moment Longer with Greg Bennett” which dives into what makes a world-class athlete and High Performer. Greg is a retired professional triathlete. Greg grew up in Sydney, Australia and found a passion for triathlon at a young age. He competed for Australia at the 2004 Olympics and has raced over 500 international races and won over 100. Greg has won multiple World titles, the worlds largest prize purse wins, and been awarded the International Triathlon Unions President trophy. He has been named one of the “Top 15 Triathletes of all time” (Inside Triathlon, 2011) and “Triathlete of the year” on multiple occasions (Triathlete magazine). Greg had a strong desire to become better and set goals, which helped him reach the highest level in sport and sustain it for almost three decades.

What daily reminders or affirmations do you use to stay focused on your goals and how do you use them?

Greg, I was lucky enough to spend a week with Maurice Greene just after he won the Olympics and this is something that has been burned into my brain ever since I met that man. Something I kind of remind myself every day. You know, it's nice to be number one at something, but you've always got to pretend like you're number two.

Maurice Greene's advice was to always act like you're number two, even if you are number one.

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What strategies do you use to keep yourself positive after a bad race?

Alright, what strategies do you use to keep yourself positive after a bad race? Well, I would say don't make it too big and don't minimize it. I mean, it happened and you know that you've had a bad race and it's important to acknowledge the fact that it didn't go the way you want it to. So I would spend either a couple of minutes just feeling bad about it, fine, you know. Even maybe analyzing it at some point. I'm not sure if analyzing it directly after the race is the best thing to do. Sometimes when you're at a competition and you've got other races coming up and you want to get over that one quickly, I would say allow yourself to feel bad about it. Maybe go down into the warm down pool, scream into the water, don't let anyone hear you. Maybe slap the water a little bit or go into the locker room and get in the shower and just kind of go over it and let it out. But at some point you've got to move on and I would say within 10-15 minutes you've got to move on to the next race and get focused on what you're doing. Now if you've got time to analyze it somehow, maybe go back, warm down and then sit with your coach and have a look at where did you go wrong. But at some point you've got to move on from it. So allow it to be what it was and then just allow it to be in the past and don't carry that baggage into the next race.

After a bad race, allow yourself to feel bad about it. Take some time to analyze the race and figure out what went wrong. Don't carry any negative emotions into your next race and focus on what you need to do in order to improve.

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We will delve into the science behind sports psychology, exploring concepts such as motivation, goal setting, visualization, and self-talk. By understanding the underlying principles that drive peak performance, you will be able to apply them effectively in your own athletic pursuits, whether you are a professional athlete, a dedicated amateur, or a passionate recreational sports enthusiast.

Lock the Cage: Make your Mentality your Greatest Strength

Brett Hawke

How do you improve your confidence?