Pushing The Limits

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between those who just achieve moderately in life and those who do extraordinary things that others think impossible? Lisa reflects on what it takes to be a champion, to achieve greatness and to be extraordinary. What it will cost? An inspirational and motivating talk to make you want to reach beyond your comfort zone, to risk failure in the pursuit of success.

Phil Kingsley Jones is a Welsh legend. Comedian, Entertainer, Rugby Coach, Sports Agent and Manager, Business development manager, Author, Speaker, Coal Miner and Pie seller all describe this lovable rogue. Born in the Valleys of Wales he became an internationally acclaimed comedian touring with some of the biggest acts of the 70's and 80's from the likes of the Beach Boys, to Neil Sedaka to Cliff Richards to Lionel Ritchie and the Comodores to Dr Hook and Frankie Valli, you name them Phil worked with them. In the 1980's Phil fell in love with a Kiwi girl and moved to New Zealand where he went back to his early passion Rugby, later becoming a coach and Sport Manager. He was Manager to the legend that was Jonah Lomu who was one of the first Rugby professionals. Jonah was like a son to Phil and we hear of Jonahs early career and how special this man was. In this interview Phil shares his life philosophy, his wicked sense of humour and gives an open and candid insight into the roller coaster ride that has been his life so far. All with a very welsh chuckle.

Paul Rangiwahia is an artist on a mission. For years Paul's works have sparked intrigue and discussion for their quirkiness, their kiwiana style but now Paul has produced a very special piece of work called "The Mental W.O.F" which provides viewers with a daily dose of wellbeing. Made up of a set of 45 rules that Paul tries to live his life by, wisdom and principles to live a happy and fulfilled life. This artwork has gone viral and is encouraging and inspiring people all around the globe but Paul's journey to developing this set of principles has been through the school of hard knocks when two years ago his business failed and he was made bankrupt. He hit rock bottom before rediscovering his real passion for art and making this apparent disaster, which saw him lose his family home and everything he had worked for, into a turning point for good in his life. The Mental W.O.F was his start back to wellness and now he shares through his works and his speaking, his experiences and what is really important in life. You can see the Mental W.O.F or get your inspiring copy at www.paulrangiwahia.com

Lisa Tamati professional Adventure Athlete, Author and Fitness & Mindset Coach explains in this educational short podcast why you need to build a little more functional muscle and why that will help you burn fat. She dispels the myths of the fat burning zone and slow steady cardio workouts, and calories in calories out. Please like, subscribe and share this podcast with your networks and help us get the word out. You can also find us on itunes under "Pushing the Limits"

Mikki Williden has a Phd in nutrition and is an endurance athlete. she is passionate about maintaining good health and wellbeing through a whole food approach to nutrition, regular exercise, and a focus on optimising lifestyle factors that influence our ability to cope with the demands of everyday life. She is a Registered Nutritionist and Research Associate at AUT University. Mikki's by line is eat real food, enjoy real health she has worked with a vast number of people with different health and performance goals. She has a regular column in Bite Magazine, which is part of the New Zealand Herald and Kiwi Trail Runner magazine. She is also a Research Associate at AUT University, Auckland, teaching public health and sports performance nutritio and is part of the Human Potential Centre researching the effects of low carbohydrate, high fat diets on health and performance outcomes for adults, children and athletes.

Maz Quinn is New Zealand's best known and most successful surfer. A four-time winner of New Zealand's national surfing championships, and winner of the 1996 Billabong Pro-Junior Series, Quinn comes from a surfing mad family - his younger brother Jay and sister Holly have both won national titles, his mother is an advocate for Women's surfing and his father was a national official. During the 1990s, Quinn took part in the World Qualifying Series and in 1999 Maz became the first New Zealander to win a WQS event and in 2001 he became the first New Zealander ever to qualify for the World Championship Tour, in doing so becoming one of the world's top 44 ranked male surfers. In 2009, Quinn helped to stage the Quiksilver Maz Quinn King of the Groms, a national surfing event for youth. In this interview Lisa finds out from Maz what it's like to be on the world tour, what the pressures are like, how hard it is to qualify, the setbacks and successes along the way, how it feels to surf alongside legends of the sport like Kelly Slater and how he faces up to his fears when surfing the big waves. Maz opens up about how his parents guidance put him early in his life on the right road and what life has been like after the lights went down and the circus of the tour was over. He talks about women in surfing, the state of the tour now and what surfing holds for the future and hones insights from his sport for life.

Phillip Balmer has had more than 33 years of experience in the health sector with 20 years at the senior management or executive level and 15 years of that involved with commissioning or redesigning health care facilities. He is a strong strategic leader and is brilliant at leading change, he is very people-focused. His goal is to develop an engaged workforce who are empowered and capable to drive and manage change. In his current role he has responsiblity for 7500 employees and a 1.5 billion dollar budget. The role also includes overall responsibility of CMDHB hospital services. The combined size of Manukau Health Park and Middlemore Hospital makes it one of the largest emergency, ambulatory and inpatient facilities in Australasia. They also provide tertiary services in orthoplastics trauma, burns, and spinal services. Past roles include being Chief Operating Officer for the Bay Of Plenty District Health boad, Chief Operating Officer for the Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports medicine Hospital and many more roles. In this interview we look at the state of the Health system in New Zealand, what the future holds, how he hopes to improve the collaboration between hospital services and community based primary health organisations and his new project setting up NZ's best rehabilitation centre. We discuss managements styles and his approach to leadership, some of the major challenges the health sector faces in future. and much more.

Steve Stannard is a research academic and Professor in Exercise Physiology at the School of Sport and Exercise at Massey University. He has a PhD Human Applied Physiology and also a Masters of Nutritional Science, both from the University of Sydney. He conducts research at the interface of exercise science and human nutrition, and his work on fasting, endurance training, and nutritional impact on muscle recovery, is well regarded. Prof. Stannard is often sought by the media for public comment about issues relating to sports nutrition, and in particular, supplements in sport. In his younger years, Prof. Stannard represented Australia as a road-racing cyclist. Steve is still a keen Masters competitor in bicycle racing, but mainly in the wake of his children; his daughter recently represented NZ in the World Elite Triathlon Championships, and his oldest son represented NZ at the World Road Cycling Championships, both held in the USA. In this episode Dr Stannard cover a large number of sports nutrition and performance related areas from his cutting edge research. The difference between how men and women burn fat What the liver does and how you can train your liver to get "fitter" and to act as a better resevoir of energy when you are performing your sport. The effects of starvation on elite endurance athletes How endurance athletes use fat differently and how training your body not only train the muscle and cardio systems but also the efficiency of how you burn fat and how you can keep exercising even when you no food for 3 or 4 days. How important the brain is to your sports performance and how it effects the body. and much much more.

Sir John Kirwan KNZM MBE is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former player of both rugby union and rugby league. He scored 35 tries in 63 tests for New Zealand, making him one of the highest try scorers in international rugby union history, and was part of the New Zealand team that won the first Rugby World Cup in 1987. He also played rugby league for the Auckland Warriors in their first two seasons. He is the former head coach of the Blues in Super Rugby, and the Japan and Italy national teams. In recent years, he has spoken openly about his battles with depression and been honoured for his services to mental health. He has written two books on depression and mental health the first "All Blacks don't cry" details his journey through depression to wellness, offering help and tools for those suffering from this debilitating illness and the second "Stand by me" was written for parents of teenagers facing mental illness issues. Kirwan is married to Fiorella, Lady Kirwan, with three children Francesca, Niko and Luca. Kirwan speaks fluent Italian and good Japanese, a result of a playing career in Italy and coaching career in Japan. On the show he talks with Lisa about some of the tools he uses to stay, how we need to help our athletes transition out of the sport and back into life at the end of their careers, about what greatness is to him and how to deal with failure in life and much more.

Meet Annie Doyle, a Sydney-based, 56 year old dedicated old mother of two. Working hard as a Chief Financial Officer for a large disability organisation she somehow finds the time to also be a mountaineering machine who is on a mission to become the first Maori woman to climb the Seven Summits (The highest mountain on every continent and well regarded of as the Holy Grail of mountaineering) She's 6/7ths of the way there. Her transcontinental summit quest started when she reached the top of our very own Mt. Kosciuszko in 2005 and then Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro the same year, followed by Mt. Elbrus in Russia in 2006, Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina in 2007 and both Mt. McKinley in Alaska in 2009and Vinson Massif in Antarctica in 2013. Only Everest awaits her. Unfortunately luck hasn't been on her side…yet. In 2012 she positioned for her first attempt but bad weather made the Khumbu Icefall too dangerous, again she made another attempt in 2014 but the mountain closed following a tragic icefall avalanche that killed 16 Sherpas. In April this year, she was readying for her 3rd attempt, this time from the Tibetan side, but the sheer devastation of the catastrophic Nepalese Earthquake once again closed the mountain and rocked the climbing community to its core with the loss of so many lives. Annie's 7th summit awaits another season.