S2 Ep7: Ollie Phillips

TritonLake, as title sponsors of the Ireland Sevens programme, brings you TritonLake Perform – a podcast series that will explore the intersection of sport and business, and in particular, the necessary ingredients when it comes to creating and maintaining a dynamic high-performance culture. Hosted by TritonLake founder and CEO, Conor Smyth, guests on TritonLake Perform will come from the worlds of sport and business, with particular focus on businesses operating in the countries where HSBC Sevens World Series Events take place - many of which are key markets for TritonLake. In this episode, Conor sits down with former 7s World Player of the Year, Ollie Phillips, who speaks about his time as one of England’s most successful 7s players while also playing 15s rugby in the Premiership and Top14, to struggling with his identity post-rugby as he broke multiple Guinness World Records and took on extreme challenges. Ollie is now the Founder and CEO of Optimist Performance, helping individuals and teams improve their performance across the board. Phillips started out at the Newcastle Falcons academy, he learned his trade alongside rugby legends Jonny Wilkinson and Carl Hayman, while also playing rugby 7s with England. This led to him being voted the 2009 World Rugby 7s player of the year. Ollie enjoyed pushing the boundary of staying contained to either 7s or 15s rugby, and in 2009 he switched Newcastle for Paris when he joined Stade Français, going on to be voted the best overseas player in France in 2011.  Throughout this episode, Ollie talks about the challenges he faced both in rugby and during his daring exploits, including a career-altering injury that prevented Ollie from captaining Team GB 7s in the Olympics, and a life-or-death scenario while up Mount Everest. These experiences served as a catalyst for his evolution into a sought-after motivational speaker and coach when he founded Optimist Performance.  Finally, Ollie shared his advice on becoming a leader in a high performance environment, where he hones in on owning and amplifying people’s super strengths as they are the reason that have gotten you into the position you are in today.