Coaching through collapse, with Ruth Adler.

What you’ll hear

Mid-season, four months from the Games, Ruth Adler’s star heptathlete stopped trusting her own body. Training numbers held; belief didn’t. Adler describes the seven days that followed — including the session she cancelled, the conversation she almost avoided, and the question that turned the fortnight.

The centrepiece is the reframing drill from the Adaptability Protocol, applied to elite sport: separating timing data from identity stories, then rebuilding the athlete’s self-talk lap by lap. She medalled that summer.

Marcus draws the parallel for managers: the struggling performer on your team is running the same corrupted script, and the coach’s moves translate rep by rep.