Consistent Performance Will Always Come When You Prioritise Your Wellbeing.
Brooke is an Olympian, mindset coach and franchise owner of a wellness hub called O-Studio in Hamilton. She uses her experience in elite sport, motherhood and business 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 where burnout and fatigue is already here. "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 can we do 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 can we do 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. It affects all aspects of our life - from sleep, to the way we breathe, eat and move.
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
Brooke's address to the 180 senior syndicate students was right on the button. Her friendly, bubbly, warm personality shone through instantly and she had the kids engaged for the whole hour. ... keep reading Richmond School
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.
Her presence was captivating, and her message seemed to resonate with everyone in the room. Her ability to connect with the audience and her honest discussion about mental challenges in sports made a lasting impact. Attendees left with a better understanding of the importance of mental resilience and practical strategies to improve their own mental toughness. We are grateful to Brooke for sharing her experiences and wisdom with us.
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.
Brooke was amazing and engaging - thank you again for recommending her. Our audience really enjoyed learning from her.
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 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 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.
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)!
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.
Brooke has an outstanding presentation style and captivated our 2021 National Conference. A truly inspirational story and speaker with my highest recommendation.
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. Combining a natural warmth and empathy to a deep and authentic passion for her subject matter, Brooke is a fantastically engaging, entertaining and informative speaker. Feedback from the team was that Brooke was by far the most enjoyable guest speaker of the year, easily tailoring her content to ensure relevance to their working practices.
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.
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.
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.
