Episode 110: For the Long Run: How to Perform at Your Best Without Sacrificing Your Wellbeing with Jessica Spendlove
What if performing at your best didn’t have to come at the expense of your health?
For so many ambitious and driven people, looking after ourselves can become something we continually plan to return to later.
Once the deadline has passed.
Once the project is finished.
Once life becomes a little less demanding.
But what if our wellbeing isn’t separate from our ability to perform? What if it’s actually the foundation that allows us to keep doing the work that matters to us?
In this episode of It’s a Mindset, I’m joined by Jessica Spendlove—speaker, coach, advisor and author of For the Long Run: Build Your Daily Operating System for Energy, Recovery and Wellbeing.
Jess has spent 15 years working at the intersection of wellbeing and high performance. Her career began in performance nutrition, working with hundreds of elite athletes, Olympic medallists, seven professional sporting teams and the Special Forces. Today, she brings those lessons into her work with corporate leaders, high-performing teams and organisations.
Together, we explore why even some of the best performers in the world are still working to master the fundamentals, and why the increasingly complicated world of protocols, optimisation and extreme routines can make wellbeing feel harder than it needs to be.
Jess shares her philosophy of upgrading rather than overhauling. Instead of measuring ourselves against an ideal routine—or even a previous version of ourselves—she encourages us to create rhythms that suit our current season and can be maintained on our busiest days, not only our best ones.
We also discuss why knowledge alone doesn’t always lead to change. Drawing on her experience in professional sport, Jess explains how our environment, systems and relationships can influence our behaviour far more than another piece of information.
Connection is another important part of the conversation. Jess explores why sustainable wellbeing includes our relationships, values and sense of purpose, and what can happen when achievement begins to take priority over everything else.
Jess and I first met at a speaker training workshop with Sally Prosser, and it was lovely to reconnect. I continue to be blown away by Jess’s drive—particularly knowing that she wrote this book while navigating business and motherhood with a very young daughter.
Yet what I found most interesting was how that season shaped the book itself. Rather than presenting a rigid formula, Jess has created an approach that recognises that our capacity changes and that sustainable performance needs to leave room for the reality of our lives.
This is such a thoughtful conversation about ambition, energy, recovery, relationships and redefining success so that we can continue doing meaningful work without losing ourselves in the process.
Key Episode Takeaways:
- Sustainable high performance isn’t about lowering your ambitions. It’s about building the foundations that allow you to pursue meaningful goals without continually sacrificing your health and wellbeing.
- Upgrade rather than overhaul. Extreme routines and short-term challenges can be difficult to sustain, while one or two consistent changes can help create momentum and greater capacity over time.
- Your approach needs to work on your busiest days—not only your best ones. Jess encourages us to stop benchmarking ourselves against an ideal routine or a previous season of life and create rhythms that reflect our current capacity.
- Even the highest-performing people in the world are still mastering the fundamentals. Nutrition, sleep, movement, stress management, recovery and connection remain central, regardless of how advanced someone’s performance environment may be.
- Knowing what to do isn’t always enough. Our systems, environment and relationships can make healthy behaviours easier to follow and often matter just as much as information or motivation.
- Connection is part of wellbeing. Our relationships, values and sense of purpose affect how well we live and perform, and success can feel increasingly empty when it takes us out of alignment with them.
- Our definition of success can evolve. Jess reflects on moving beyond externally driven achievement and considering the kind of life she wants to live, the person she wants to be and her capacity to enjoy what she is creating.
About the Guest:
Jessica Spendlove speaks, coaches and writes about sustainable high performance and wellbeing. She is a keynote speaker, advisor and author of For the Long Run: Build Your Daily Operating System for Energy, Recovery and Wellbeing.
Across her 15-year career, Jess has worked with hundreds of elite athletes, Olympic medallists, seven professional sporting teams, the Special Forces, corporate leaders and high-performing organisations. Her work helps people embed wellbeing as a foundation for sustainable performance and leadership.
Jess is also an Associate with Monash University’s Corporate Education program and host of the Stay at the Top podcast. Through her speaking, coaching and writing, she is working to change the narrative so that success is achieved not at the expense of our health, but because of it.
Show Resources:
Learn More About Jessica’s Book, For the Long Run: https://jessicaspendlove.com/book/
Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaspendlove/
Follow Jessica on Instagram: @jessicaspendlove
Follow Emma on Instagram: @emmalagerlow
Visit Emma’s Website: https://www.emmalagerlow.com/
Learn More About Emma’s Book, Worthy & Wealthy: https://www.amazon.com.au/Worthy-Wealthy-Discovering-Abundance-Fulfilment/dp/1998528022
If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share it on your Instagram Stories and tag us @emmalagerlow and @jessicaspendlove.
Yours in Sustainable Success, Emma. X.
