Rachael Blackmore is a star of horse racing in Britain & Ireland and one of the world’s highest achieving sportswomen. But it wasn’t always like this - in her own words her amateur career barely got off the ground and she only turned pro at the age of 25 (much later than many other jockeys) in an attempt to kickstart her progress.  Even then, her first winner took a while to arrive and she had plenty of opportunities to doubt herself. Rachael's story is one of persistence and patience, both in persuading leading trainers to give her a chance on decent horses and retaining her belief that she had the ability to succeed.

She has since ridden well over 400 winners from more than 3,500 rides and starred in the last two Cheltenham festivals (the Olympics of jump racing), with an incredible 6 winners last year and three more, including both the Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle, when the crowds returned post-COVID this year.

A trailblazer for women in her sport - albeit much too humble to speak of her achievements in those terms - in 2021 she became the first woman to win the Grand National in its 180 year history and followed that up this year as the first female winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. 

This episode is not just for horse racing fans but anyone with an interest in top-level sport and high performance. Rachael discusses her training methods, how she analyses a race in advance and then adapts as it unfolds in real-time, the toughness required to deal with falling off a horse (regularly) at 30mph and the pressures and expectations that come with success. We also explore what makes a great jockey, how she has improved during her career and the addictive nature of riding winners...

Sir Nigel Wilson has been the CEO of Legal & General since 2012, having joined the company three years earlier as Finance Director. Prior to that, he had a diverse career, spanning academia & technology at MIT, a spell at McKinsey, retail at the great management school that was Dixons in the 1980s, property at Stanhope and a long stint as the CFO of UBM, the events and exhibitions company. He has also sat on or led a wide variety of governmental and non-profit commissions & advisory groups, covering fields ranging from “Building Back Better” to Social Care, Life Sciences, Climate Risk and Executive Pay.

As an investor I got to know Nigel early on in his time at L&G, when the share price was down at 50p. Since then, he has presided over more than a decade of double-digit earnings growth, a dividend that has risen from 6p in 2011 to over 18p in the year recently finished, and a share price that has gone up more than fivefold since 2009.  

He is one of the most optimistic CEOs I have come across, a quality that is not as common among his peers as you might expect.  I also find it fascinating (and heartening) that he only truly discovered his professional purpose and mission in his mid-50s when he joined L&G. We talk about his mentors, his desire to be “on the pitch” doing rather than in the stands observing, and how his motivation has changed from when he first took on his current role, as well as why investors in the UK still seem to underestimate the company’s potential. 

You can detect the influence of his background in academia when he talks about how he thinks about complex challenges, working collaboratively with colleagues & stakeholders and engaging in what you might call “successful failures”, where progress is made even if the original target is not hit. A very talented athlete, he also discusses how he has learned to manage himself better through changes to sleep, nutrition and training, and how his working life has evolved post-pandemic

In this special episode, I focus on the most simple & effective strategies to improve your sleep, based on what I have learned during my training as a Sleep Coach, and also what I have found works in real life with my coaching clients – investors, CEOs, senior professionals, all of whom are living very busy lives and many of whom struggle with insufficient or low quality sleep.

I am firmly of the view that sleeping well is the single best way to improve your mood, your energy levels and your brain function, as well as being hugely positive for your long-term health. Just think of how you feel after a good night’s sleep, compared to how irritable & lethargic you are when your sleep is poor. In my view, it is the best legal performance enhancer there is…

Among the topics covered are:

- Prioritising sleep & giving yourself the right “sleep opportunity"

- Being consistent with your bedtimes

- Using modern technology to track your sleep & adapt your behaviour

- How alcohol & caffeine affect your sleep & how to mitigate this

- Food & supplements to promote sleep

- Winding down in the evening

- Making your bedroom environment as sleep-enhancing as possible

- What to do (and not do) if you wake up in the middle of the night

Steve Davies