Ash Barty’s Mindset Coach Explains How To Be Your Own Champion

Ash Barty is unstoppable, taking out the singles title at this years Australian Open, making history as the first Australian to do so in 44 years. 

In her acceptance speech, with sheer elation, she said, “She couldn’t be more proud to be an Aussie.”

In celebration of her unstoppable reign, we revisit the episode where her mindset coach, Ben Crowe. Crowe, who also has 2022 Australian Of The Year and tennis star, Dylan Alcott on his books, explains how we too can adopt the mindset of a champion. 

Tom Tilley:

What were you (and Ash Barty) both focusing on to start with? 

Ben Crowe:

We started working together about three years ago for Wimbledon 2018.

There are two questions that any of us have to answer. The first one is “Who am I” and separate the person from the persona and really determining that self-worth independent of whether you win or lose a game of tennis and kind of celebrate your imperfections and find that unconditional self-worth and own your story. 

Then you can go off to the second question, which is “What do I want?”, you know, not just as an athlete, but also as a human being.

Tom Tilley:

How did you do that with Ash? Where was she at? 

Ben Crowe:

(It was about) letting go of that not enoughness story that we all have you know, that not good enough or smart enough or successful enough or whatever it is and create a more positive affirmation based version of our life story written by our inner fan, not our inner critic.

Then when you can celebrate your perfections and find that unconditional self-worth as Ash did, you can let go of so much baggage. You can still work on what you want to achieve as an athlete, set these goals and dreams out in the universe, but not put any expectations or promises or guarantees that they’ll actually happen. And that’s okay.

When you can get into that place, it’s quite liberating and quite exciting as well…

Click the link below to hear the full episode!