Clean Break Chats

What separates a high-performing team from one that's just going through the motions? According to this week's guest, it usually comes down to three things most organisations never get right: clarity, identity, and the psychological safety to actually fail without consequence.Rich Turner is a high-performance coach, sports scientist, and what he calls a Corporate Athlete. He's spent years taking the lessons of elite sport - the debrief cultures, the marginal gains mindset, the psychology of team identity - and applying them to the messy, complicated reality of corporate teams and leadership. The result is a coaching approach that's refreshingly honest: high performance isn't a moment, it's something you have to be able to sustain.In this conversation, Rich, Rich and Andy get into what the best teams actually do differently, why your identity as an individual - and as a collective - can quietly cap your potential without you even realising it, and why the absence of feedback loops in most workplaces is quietly killing performance. They also explore the self-determination theory, the loneliness of being a solopreneur, why autonomy and purpose matter more than most leaders think, and how the lessons from sport translate - and sometimes don't - into a corporate environment.Oh, and Rich Turner has just made the England Over 35's hockey squad for the World Cup in Rotterdam. So there's that.A wide-ranging, genuinely thought-provoking conversation that will resonate whether you lead a team of two or two hundred.Use code CB10 for 10% off Authentic Brew.

Fair warning: this one goes places. If you've just discovered Clean Break Chats, we'd like to apologise in advance - and also assure you that we do occasionally talk about serious things. Eventually.EP48 starts with Andy somehow surviving 110K in seven days on trails (his legs have not forgiven him), detours through Rich's manic solo parenting Thursday, a heartfelt rant about the alcohol industry's genius trick of making you feel stupid for doing the thing they engineered you to do - and somehow ends up at lactate threshold, heart rate reserve, and race-day pacing strategy. It's a journey.In between: Andy's first supermarket alcohol aisle visit in seven months, the "productive life" reframe that reframes everything about turning 50, Jane - a 70-year-old in their coaching group quietly nonchalanting her way through 2hr 20min long runs - and a midlife health update from Rich that involves neither cancer nor a crisis, but does involve ointment.There's also Andy's A&E dash with daughter Lily the night before flying to Spain, the father-son running bond with Johnny ahead of his first half marathon, and a teaser for a marathon experiment Rich refuses to explain yet.It's honest, warm, funny, and yes - occasionally about haemorrhoids. But stick with it. The good stuff is in there too.Use code CB10 for 10% off Authentic Brew - natural energy, mood-enhancing, and probably better for you than whatever Rich needs from the pharmacy right now.https://www.authenticbrew.com

When Martyn Davies stopped drinking 8 years ago, he had one question that wouldn't leave him alone. What would a comedy club look like without alcohol?The answer he got from the industry he'd spent 20 years in? Laughter. At him. Nobody's going to come to a comedy club without a drink. You need alcohol to laugh.He did it anyway.This week Rich and Andy sit down with Martyn - founder of Sober is Fun and the London Alcohol-Free Comedy Club - for one of the most honest, warm, and at times raw conversations we've had on the podcast. Martyn takes us right back to the beginning: the 90s rave scene, a party lifestyle that lit him up on the outside while quietly falling apart on the inside, and a 27-year relationship with alcohol and substances that eventually took him to a very dark place. Behind closed doors, isolated, pushing away everyone who loved him - until his brother staged an intervention in their parents' front room with printed-off emails and their mum sat on the sofa.That Saturday evening, Martyn said yes to getting help. It changed everything.He talks about his month in rehab, what it really took to build a life in recovery, his recent ADHD diagnosis and how it re-framed so much of his story, and why giving back - to the rehab, to an addiction charity, and eventually through Sober is Fun - became the foundation everything else was built on.And yes, we do get into running. Because of course we do.If you've ever been told your idea is ridiculous, or you're in a place right now where you can't quite see the way out - this one's for you.SOBER IS FUN WEBSITE - https://www.soberisfun.co.uk/

We've all heard of the comfort zone. But what if it doesn't actually exist? This week, Rich and Andy make a distinction that changes everything - it's not a comfort zone, it's a familiar zone. And familiar isn't the same as comfortable. It's just easier than facing what's underneath.They explore how alcohol keeps people locked in cycles they know are hurting them - the Sunday bottle of wine, the Monday shame, the white - knuckling through Thursday - and why that loop can run for years without anyone around you even noticing. Then the conversation goes deeper. Andy opens up about his ADHD diagnosis and the uncomfortable truth that for neurodiverse people, alcohol isn't just a social habit - it's often self-medication. When your brain is running 40 tabs at once and never truly quiets down, a drink that silences the noise isn't a reward. It's a relief. And that's a very different thing.They also get into dopamine, rejection sensitivity, the post-marathon crash, and why going alcohol-free takes far more courage than most people give it credit for.If you've ever felt like you were outrunning something but couldn't quite name what - this episode is for you.