OM DENNE EPISODE
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Haley Perlus, a sport and performance psychologist, keynote speaker, executive coach, and author who helps leaders, athletes, and high achievers perform at their best when the pressure is highest.
Haley's story starts when she was 12 years old, standing at the top of a ski race, moments before competing. Her coach pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and told her he had bet on her to win. For some people, that kind of pressure would create fear, anger, or anxiety. For Haley, it created confidence. She saw it as belief.
That moment became one of the defining moments of her life and eventually led her into the world of sport psychology.
In this conversation, we talk about pressure, trust, confidence, mental toughness, performance, parenting, sports, surrender, identity, and what it really means to train your mind before life demands it from you.
Haley explains why pressure is not something we simply have or avoid. It is something we train for. We are either training ourselves to be overwhelmed by pressure, or we are training ourselves to use it as energy.
We also talk about why winning does matter, why the result is not the only thing that matters, and how learning to trust your preparation allows you to let go when it is time to perform.
About the Guest
Dr. Haley Perlus is a performance psychologist, keynote speaker, executive coach, and author.
Drawing on a Ph.D. in Sport Psychology, along with her own background as a competitive athlete and coach, Haley translates the mental strategies of elite performers into practical tools for business, leadership, sport, and everyday life.
She has worked with organizations including Marriott, NASA, Starbucks, Deloitte, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Air Force, and her insights have been featured by ESPN, Oprah, Business Insider, and HuffPost.
Haley is also the author of Personal Podium, where she shares a framework for building confidence, resilience, and sustained high performance under pressure.
Her work helps athletes, leaders, and high achievers understand that mental toughness is not something you are born with. It is something you can train.
Key Takeaways
→ Why pressure can become confidence when it is built on trust
→ How Haley's ski coach changed her life by showing belief in her before a race
→ Why the mental game of performance applies to sport, business, parenting, marriage, and life
→ Why nerves and excitement can often be the same energy with a different story
→ How great coaches train people to interpret pressure differently
→ Why energy is contagious and can shape the people around us
→ How mentors, coaches, and parents can transfer belief into someone else
→ Why high performance requires high health
→ Why pressure does not automatically strengthen or overwhelm us — our training determines how we respond
→ How we are always training our response to pressure, whether intentionally or unintentionally
→ Why anxiety is often the story we tell ourselves about uncertainty
→ How letting go of certainty can create more curiosity, openness, and possibility
→ Why identity matters when athletes or leaders are moved into a new role
→ How trust helps us stop forcing the outcome
→ Why humility is required when your value is not always the most visible part of the team
→ How giving to others can create deep personal fulfillment
→ Why mental toughness is not about controlling the outcome, but showing up with whatever shows up
→ How surrender, faith, and open hands can release unnecessary pressure
→ Why "main character syndrome" creates pressure we do not need to carry
→ How nature and active meditation can help us reset emotionally
→ Why winning does matter — but it is not the only thing that matters
→ How accepting the importance of winning can actually make the pressure lighter
→ Why trust in training, strengths, communication, cooperation, and strategy allows us to release the result
→ How athletes carry powerful skills into business, even when they do not realize it
Closing Thoughts
This conversation with Haley reminded me that pressure is not the enemy.
Pressure reveals what we have trained.
It shows us whether we trust our preparation. Whether we trust our strengths. Whether we trust our team. Whether we trust the work we have already put in.
So many of us try to control the result because deep down, we are not sure we can handle what happens if the result does not go our way.
But Haley's message is powerful because she brings us back to trust.
Trust the training. Trust the process. Trust your strengths. Trust the people around you. Trust that you can respond to whatever shows up.
Winning matters. Results matter. Performance matters.
But they are not the only things that matter.
How we prepare matters. How we show up matters. How we handle pressure matters. How we recover from loss matters. How we lead, parent, compete, and live when things do not go according to plan matters.
The goal is not to eliminate pressure.
The goal is to train ourselves to meet pressure with confidence, presence, resilience, humility, and trust.
Because when we stop forcing the outcome, we finally give ourselves the freedom to perform.
