Consistent Performance Will Always Come When You Prioritise Your Wellbeing.
Brooke Neal is an Olympian, mindset coach and speaker. She uses her experience in elite sport to inspire people to be healthier in their lives while pursuing their dreams to the highest level.
On the hockey field, she played 176 games for New Zealand over an impressive 10 year period. During this time, she placed 4th at the 2016 Olympic Games and won Gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Struggling with burnout, self doubt, grief and chronic pain, the hustle and grind approach of the high performance environment led her to breaking point, where she was forced to make a decision. Does she quit? Or does she find a different way to become one of the best defenders? Instead of working harder and putting in the most hours, she started her own business, practised daily mindfulness and became a yoga teacher.
Surprisingly, by finding more balance in her life, her performance on the field improved dramatically and she became known as ‘the rock at the back’. Now, she is able to share her tools and knowledge, and relate them to people in the business world, speaking at conferences throughout New Zealand.
‘Motivational and practical’ is what Brooke is all about. People are inspired from her story of struggle and perseverance, and they also leave fuelled to make actual changes in their lives for the better.
Talking Points
High performance - How can we sustain life at the top level and take it even further?
No matter whether you're an Olympic athlete, working in business or a full time mum, we all want to be performing at our best. The world is telling us to keep pushing and grinding - "never give up" - because that's what it takes to make it to the top. High performance - How can we sustain life at the top level and take it even further?
This is the quickest way to see results, but it often leads to a range of long term issues. Exhaustion, overwhelm, anxiety, burnout to name a few. Brooke shares her experience of what her peak performance looked like over a 10 year period, and how she was able to maintain a consistent performance on and off the hockey field.
She also draws on her team's methods of colour coding their weeks so they would be able to peak for key events, because it's impossible to keep training at the top level without rest and recovery.
Wellbeing - How can this be a competitive advantage and not just a luxury?
You know wellbeing is important, but where do you start? ‘Peak performance’ and ‘wellbeing’ tend to be separate conversations, but they are more intertwined than you may realise. When you’re tired or sick, you’re less likely to be resilient or cope under pressure. So, it makes sense that by putting wellbeing at the centre of everything you do, you will be able to perform more consistently at a high level.Wellbeing - How can this be a competitive advantage and not just a luxury?
This is the key to Brooke's success on the hockey field, even though a lot of people treat wellbeing as a luxury. We often don't address our overall health until there's an issue and we are in crisis mode. "I meditate when I'm stressed" is the perfect example. Why not meditate when you're not stressed, to prevent the stress in the first place?
Brooke shares her top wellbeing tools and encourages participants to draw on their own habits and routines that have worked for them in the past. She shares ways to actually track your mental, physical and social health through a weekly check in, and helps you build habits to get more out of your day.
Motivation - How can we keep going through low times?
We all go through periods of time where we are utterly uninspired, exhausted and find it hard to get daily motivation. Brooke refers to these periods as 'seasons', and she shares her experiences of how she rode the lows. Motivation - How can we keep going through low times?
Alexi Pappas talks about the rule of thirds. You’re supposed to feel good a third of the time, okay a third of the time, and not great a third of the time. If you feel roughly in those ratios, it means you are in fact chasing a dream. If you feel too good all the time, you’re not pushing yourself enough, and if you feel too fatigued, you might be burning out or having a mental-health challenge and need to reevaluate.
Brooke also shares how important mental fitness is and what you can do to train your brain. We always wait around to 'feel' more motivated, and this is where we get stuck. Action leads to motivation, not the other way around.
Stress - What habits and practices can we use to combat stress and deal well under pressure?
From the Olympic Games to becoming a mum, Brooke shares her most stressful times with authenticity and honesty. She also shares some powerful tools that she uses in these pressure situations, where there was not a lot of room for error and a lot of people were reliant on a good outcome. Stress - What habits and practices can we use to combat stress and deal well under pressure?
Stress is often seen as a bad thing, but putting ourselves in challenging situations for short periods is fundamental for growth. It's how we deal in those situations and how quickly we can calm down our nervous system afterwards that is the struggle.
If we are constantly acting from a place of fight or flight (imagine you're driving a car, and you have your foot constantly on the accelerator), this can lead to poor decision making and also long term health issues (in other words, that car is going to crash or run out of fuel!)
Video
Brooke Neal Showreel
Finding a speaker who can make a connection with a team of fifty diverse marketers, covering Boomers to Zoomers and everyone in between, is no easy task, but Brooke fits the bill perfectly. ... keep reading SkyCity
We had the pleasure of Brooke speaking to our Production and Supply Chain people. Brooke was engaging, genuine and gave our team some great insights on what it takes to be a high performer. The feedback from our people was extremely positive - they loved it and many were genuinely moved and inspired by Brooke’s presentation.
It was refreshing to listen to Brooke Neal speak at our Regional Meeting in front of 60 agents. Her journey of dedication, determination and her driving will to succeed resonated with our salespeople. The message both inspirational and motivating could easily be taken into the business world. Brooke delivered her story with energy, humour and a humility that was incredibly moving. The team thoroughly enjoyed listening to her.
Truly impressed with Brooke - her talk was incredible and she was a true pro in the lead-up. The feedback from attendees so far has been amazing.
Brooke has an outstanding presentation style and captivated our 2021 National Conference. A truly inspirational story and speaker with my highest recommendation.
Brooke’s presentation had staff in tears, students practicing mindfulness, and people are still talking about it week later. She really set the bar for other guest speakers.
Brooke’s presentation was superb. It provided a real insight into the good and bad of aiming for the highest standards in sport and life. The honesty and commitment she talked about was inspirational, as well as showing the importance of family and their support.
Impressive, articulate and easy to work with, Brooke Neal was an incredible addition to our conference programme. Her open vulnerability on mental health was inspirational and resonated deeply with attendees. In fact, in our post-event survey, delegates consistently highlighted Brooke's speech as one of the standout moments of the conference. Her ability to inspire and connect with a broad audience was truly remarkable.
Brooke has an exceptional energy and ability to connect with people. Her mana and leadership are very engaging. What truly impressed me about Brooke was her genuine commitment to our growth and success. She shared personal anecdotes and stories that resonated with our experiences, creating a sense of camaraderie and understanding. Her expertise in mindset coaching and wellness practices was evident as they provided actionable steps and techniques to enhance our productivity, focus, and overall well-being."
We had the privilege of hosting Brooke for our Breaking Boundaries in Well-being speaker event in Palmerston North. Brooke was engaging and enlightening to listen to, and her story of dealing with “not-enoughness” and burn out, changing to a mental-health first and self-care approach was both relatable to our audience and inspiring to those who are taking steps in this journey. Brooke had us hanging off every word and I would love to hear her speak again.
I wanted to say a huge thank you for your time. The session you ran was outside of what this team has done in the past and it was incredibly well received. Our survey results showed that you were amongst the top 3 favourite sessions (out of 20 sessions total)!
Brooke was an incredible speaker. She was so engaging and was so personable and easy to relate to. It was hard not to be inspired by her! I would love to hear her speak again.
Brooke captivated our team of a 100 right from the start, her engaging story telling was great, not afraid to show her vulnerability, it was emotional and had a certain realness which was quite refreshing. She managed to engage with the crowd, on a physical and mental level, I am sure there were many take aways for all. Overall this one hour session really resonated with our team, we received many positive reactions after the event, many thanks Brooke!
Brooke is an empathetic speaker with a natural ability to connect with her audience. Brooke was kind enough to share her journey of success with us and how she places wellbeing in the centre of journey to achieve personal success. This story alone is inspiring however what give Brooke the X factor is her authentic and engaging speaking style. From meeting, briefing, through to delivery, Brooke makes you feel like a lifelong friend and that immediate connectedness and trust, is something she can quickly establish with a crowd. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Brooke to any event and believe her words can help change lives.
Brooke was a fantastic speaker to have at our event focusing on diversity and inclusion at road transport workplaces. We had really positive feedback from attendees who thought she was really positive, relatable and they took away some great messages about wellbeing and midset. We also enjoyed hearing about her high performance and Olympic background.
Brooke was amazing and engaging - thank you again for recommending her. Our audience really enjoyed learning from her.
Great hearing Brooke's talk, I really enjoy working with her and only had positive feedback from attendees of the three events Brooke did for us.
