Newcastle Falcons' Jonny Wilkinson: "Who I am is constantly changing... there’s no fear of failure"

Regarded as one of the world’s most sought-after rugby speakers, Jonny has since become an authority on mental resilience, high performance, and personal transformation.

In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, he reflects on the principles that fuel elite performance, from the clarity of intention to the power of reinvention in the face of adversity.

Q: What specific physical and mental skills are needed to thrive as a rugby player?

Jonny Wilkinson: “It’s the same as any other job or profession. It simply requires you to be fully present, clear, aware, and ready. And I guess it comes down to what “ready” means. That means sort of strong—owning the space you stand in—but also having a relaxed sort of spontaneity and creativity about the way that you move.

“And in terms of mental, it’s about the clarity of being able to have the same space—the space of absolute intention about what it is you want to achieve—but also the adaptability and flexibility and creativity to find the best way to get there according to what’s happening around you. So it’s exactly the same as anything else.

“Maybe there’s a few things that are different, like running into people—that doesn’t happen in every profession. You know, there’s a certain amount of training that goes into that. But from a physical perspective, mental perspective—it’s the same thing.”

Q: What drives your motivation to keep pushing forward, especially in tough moments?

Jonny Wilkinson: “I think the side of motivation that makes it most simple is when you’re motivated about finding out or exploring your absolute potential—of what’s capable for you and what’s possible—everything else becomes... everything else falls underneath that umbrella.

“So if you go to the very top, everything else is infused by that same passion. You have that passion and energy for deeply revealing what life can be for you. Nothing else can take that away. And in fact, everything else only stirs it and sparks it.

“The greater the challenge—such as losing or things not going your way, the unexpected, the unintended, the sort of strong, resistant emotions—all those kind of things become just a greater trigger of that passion. Because you become more excited about celebrating challenge.

“You become more excited about investigating your resistance. You become more excited about those limits and what might be on the other side. So in fact, actually, it’s a certain degree of invincibility, whereas if you get what you want, that’s brilliant—but when you don’t, that’s even better.”

Q: How do you build mental resilience and maintain psychological fitness?

Jonny Wilkinson: “The idea of resilience belongs to a certain fixed identity that says, “This is who I am. These are my dreams. These things are right. These things are wrong. These things are bad. This is a good life. This is success, this is failure.” If something doesn’t fit with that or knocks me back, then what I have to do is get back up and fight for what I originally decided.

“It seems to be a courageous concept and all those kind of things. And there’s a definite degree of persistence in terms of needing to get back out there and express yourself. But the version of resilience I have is very different—in that understanding that who I am is constantly changing. And if you’re in control of that change, then that’s your resilience.

“Because what’s underneath who I am cannot be touched. That doesn’t mean resilience—your self-worth, your potential, just your being—cannot be impacted by anything external. It’s on a different level. And as a result, if you’re able to touch that space, what it means is that you can be creative with who you are.

“And so, therefore, who you are faces challenges. You’re able to adapt, recreate, re-invite, reinvent who you are to come back brand new and fresh, which is a completely different idea to resilience, which is this idea of a fighter taking more and more bruises, getting back weary and fighting on.

“Whereas what you’re doing now is you’re coming back completely brand new and fresh with all the same learning you’ve had before, but just able to attack it with a childlike passion and enthusiasm and with a youthful kind of teenage exuberance, vibrancy—but with the experience of an older person. But you do it fresh.

“And that’s the concept of people talking about how life gets hard as you get older. It does if you’re remaining as the same person—because you pick up your knocks and that gets older. But who we are is just an idea. And if we’re in control of that idea, then that’s your resilience.”

Q: What’s your approach to handling pressure and anxiety, both on and off the field?

Jonny Wilkinson: “This is a lot of the exciting opportunity about this topic—the very nature of becoming entangled with your ideas of who you are. That level of infinite being becomes tangled with a finite idea of “who I am”. And as a result, what happens is you lose.

“It feels like if I lose—I liken it to wearing a shirt. If you’ve put a shirt on and suddenly you become that shirt, like a lot of sportspeople do, and they put a shirt on and you become that shirt. So then when you retire at the end of your career, you feel completely lost because you can’t take that shirt off. And now you’re walking around the streets wearing your sports shirt without a game to play, and you feel completely lost.

“You don’t fit in. It’s a bit like you become a fixed plug and someone moves the socket and gives you a new socket you don’t fit into. You just can’t charge. You can’t feel those experiences.

“And when you become entangled with that shirt—the idea of taking it off or someone taking it off you—you know, injury, not being picked for your team, the end of your career, retirement—all those kinds of things, it feels like the end of me. And as a result, that shirt is full of your reputation, your wins, your losses, your “this”, your “that” and everything.

“And as a result, in every situation—because you don’t have experience of being anything more than the shirt—you’re trying to save the shirt, you’re trying to survive. And therefore, in every experience the mind has no choice but to explore the question, “What about me?” in everything. “Will I be okay?”

“And therefore that survival is pressure. Pressure isn’t inherent in the world. There is no such thing as pressure. It’s not a real thing. It belongs to when you’ve got caught up with who you are and you can no longer afford to lose who you are. Now, you’re under pressure.

“But if you’re able to explore every experience and you remain curious, knowing that—like we said before—if I get what I want, it’s going to be amazing. If I don’t, it’s going to be even better. Where’s the pressure? There’s no such thing. Where’s the fear of failure? There’s no such thing as failure.

“When you understand that real challenge is what triggers deeper shifts of revealing potential, then you want challenge more than you want success. And as a result, there’s no such thing as pressure or fear of failure.

“But fear of failure, a lot—it’s now being bandied around as being a real thing that exists because everyone’s tangled up with their identity, knowing that. Okay, we understand this—pressure and physical survival, definitely. If you haven’t got anything to eat and you haven’t got any money to get food or you’re running away—the pressure of running away from a predator or physical survival...

“What we’re talking about here is mostly psychological survival: what people think of me, what will people think of me if I lose this, letting people down—all this kind of stuff. And that’s where pressure exists. It exists in those ideas. It doesn’t exist in the world.

“And sort of exploring those ideas is what allows you to realise the difference between anticipation and the beauty of nervousness, and that kind of on-edge feeling of really living, versus being anxious and fearing failure. It is really just one definition away. It’s one experience away of just realising that I’m bigger than my shirt—and I can take it off at any time. And I can put a new one on as well.”

This exclusive interview with Jonny Wilkinson was conducted by Chris Tompkins of The Motivational Speakers Agency.

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