Adrian Kelly: The lifestyle coach with a 'Success Complex'
In Episode 17 of the Running Tales Podcast, part of the Everyday Athlete Podcast Network, we spoke to lifestyle and sports coach, Adrian Kelly
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How do you find transcendence in running?
Does that feeling of deeper fulfilment and purpose come through winning races? By pushing your boundaries to the extreme? Or via an inner peace and acceptance of what sustains you?
These are all questions that renowned sports and performance coach, Adrian Kelly, tackles in his new book, The Success Complex.
Adrian’s exploration of what success means, and how people can find it, is a million miles away from his own life as a struggling student three decades ago.
Languishing at the bottom of his class and lacking purpose, Adrian experienced the sting of failure first-hand.
Since then, he has become an award-winning lawyer and forged a new life as a coach whose work centres on mental resilience.
Over the years, Adrian has enjoyed participating in a host of sports, notably baseball but also running, and has developed a series of practical solutions to help athletes at all levels achieve their goals.
In The Success Complex, he challenges common misconceptions about those core skills vital to overcome challenges, mixing stories of historical figures such as Napoleon with those of modern sports stars.
The book looks at how athletes can redefine success and overcome mental limits and explores the balance between hedonic – the thrill of the win - and eudaimonic – finding a lasting purpose – happiness.
On the podcast, we spoke to Adrian about:
How athletes of all levels can reach transcendence” in sports— a state where they can go beyond individual wins to find deeper fulfilment and purpose
Reframing success beyond winning, leading to deeper growth and purpose
The essential skills that help athletes break through psychological barriers
The balance between “hedonic” happiness (momentary thrill) and “eudaimonic” happiness (purpose-driven satisfaction)
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Key points:
The beauty of finding balance
How can we balance doing a job we love with practicalities like paying the mortgage?
It’s a question that always buzzes through my mind when people talk about chasing their dreams or leaving the day job behind to do something they love.
Adrian told me that success is different for everyone and the number one thing to do is spend some time thinking about what you want out of life and what success means to you.
I was taken by another part of our chat when he told me that the seemingly impossible can be achieved by working back from where you want to be to build a bridge of possibility.
But he also made the great point that success is so often a fleeting thing and finding that greater feeling of a comfortable happiness can be more important than endorphin hits.
His advice resonates across life and also into the world of running. I’d highly recommend checking out The Success Complex and, of course, having a listen to our interview with Adrian in full.
The joy of winning - together
“What’s most important is that we win together, it’s what we can do for other people”.
I was really struck by this comment from Adrian towards the end of our chat. We live in a corporate world, where although we may laugh at the excesses of the ‘80s, the Gordon Gekko-style ‘Greed is Good’ motto still rules supreme.
Many businesses may hide it away these days, pushing forward value propositions and inclusiveness mantras that they don’t always follow. But greed is well and truly there, whether that be in an organisation railing against equal pay because it hurts their bottom line (while outwardly saying they are worried it could lead to a loss of jobs) or the individual who portrays themselves as a charitable person but bulks at the idea of having to pay tax to improve our roads, the NHS or the social care system.
Selfishness is not working for the human race. It might be for Donald Trump or Elon Musk or pretend man-of-the-people Nigel Farage. But most of us suffer due to the greed of others.
Is it time to make a change - in your life or society in general?
I’m not sure my takeout is exactly (anything like!?) what Adrian was advocating, but our conversation was certainly thought provoking - and this was just one small aspect of it.
Out chat included plenty of good advice for athletes looking to improve their mental performance or anyone looking to find success in life generally.
I’d love to hear what you made of it.
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I loved listening to this chat. There was so much that I took away and anybody that listens to this episode will take away as well.