Sport

I have learnt that situations in themselves are not inherently stressful. Our perception of situations is what creates stress for us. Some players thrive in the biggest sporting occasions and others struggle to cope.

My advice to young players today is really simple, you have to be the best you can on the pitch, but also to educate yourself, show an interest in the world, and not let football restrict you. The way football is going, it will become more tactical, more strategic and so the more you open your brain, the better you will be.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

I came to the conclusion that clubs would be better of promoting strategies that induce home-advantage rather than fighting for higher ticket price because the incremental value of each point lost is higher than the value of those more expensive tickets. If you drive your home advantage, your revenues go up!

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

My mother passed away 10 years ago; and she was always someone who pushed me to get educated, and to work on my academic side. She always made me remember that football could be temporary; what if I broke a leg? What if I lose my ability to play? She never wanted me to give-up my dreams, but to be smart and hedge my bets.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

As a player, you are your asset. You have to manage and keep your performance- as an athlete- at the highest standard. This is key…. after all, you can't market something that's not working or performing well.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

A practitioner is the person who goes out and breaks the limits of the mind, the soul, the body. A practitioner listens, and understands that the voices who say things cannot be done are theorists.

Ultramarathon Runner, Navy SEAL, & Motivational Speaker

When you're a child, you define your team as those wearing the same jerseys and your team's goal is to defeat anyone wearing different jerseys. But as you get older, your notion of what constitutes a team evolves.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

Sports taught me that, rather than be blind followers of rules, we need to constantly question them as to their purpose and validity and be bold enough to change them if they don't serve our value of fair play.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

So, the lesson I eventually learned was to distinguish between which teams are sincere in promoting true teamwork, and which are jingoistic self-serving pretenders. Teamwork does make the dream work, but not every team is worthy.

NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion

If you do not pull your socks on tightly, you're likely to get wrinkles in them. Wrinkles cause blisters. Blisters force players to sit on the sideline. And players sitting on the sideline lose games.

Legendary Basketball Coach & Teacher, Won 10 NCAA National Championships

Until James DeGale won a World Title, no-one who'd won a gold medal for Britain in the Olympic Games had ever won a professional World Title, which is quite amazing when you think about that. Think of the guys that didn't even get to the Olympic Games like Naseem Hamed, Nigel Benn, Eubank, Joe Calzaghe, Tyson Fury, Ricky Hatton. Sometimes the greatest boxers get overlooked- or maybe it's because of whoever is picking the amateur team… or maybe there are politics involved…. Sometimes you may just come across guys who are hungrier!

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

Anyone can have a good trainer; you can learn the moves and get fit. Any boxer or athlete can get super fit – the edge is mental ability – It's having the self-belief. If you're not right in the head? You'll never do it. I've seen guys getting beaten mentally. Mike Tyson beat a lot of fighters mentally before they even got in the ring, Tyson Fury does the same thing – they get in people's minds.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

To be a great fighter you obviously have to have talent, but what really matters is dedication and discipline. I've seen so many guys with talent where I've thought, 'this guy's going to be a world champion…' but they've not had the dedication. They've not given what you had to give, which is everything. To succeed as a boxer, you have to dedicate your life to it… it's a very short career for a professional fighter.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

This is nothing to do with the 0.000001% who go on to be professional fighters – it's about the 99.9% of people who train because they enjoy it, and connect with it – and who apply the lessons they've learned to deal with the setbacks, failures, victories, challenges and tests they're going to get in work and life.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

Fighting crosses demographics. You can come to one of our gyms and find a barrister rolling with a security guard. If you go to the polo club, it's usually a single demographic.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

I tried to remain as emotionless as possible – remaining as much of a scientist as I could be, going with the evidence. I felt that although I didn't have a coach on hand in Ireland, and even though the sport of MMA was very small, I had mountains of evidence I could study.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin