High-performance mind coach for the leaders of sporting and business organisations. Forty years in elite sport, twenty-five running Smart Mind.
The growing pains in a privately held business almost always trace back to the same place: the people behind the people. Elite sport has been solving this problem for decades.
Businesses don't stall because the CEO ran out of ideas or motivation. They hit a wall because the team structure hasn't kept pace with the growth.
Dave Diggle is a high-performance mind coach with 40 years in elite sport, coaching Commonwealth, World and Olympic medallists and their coaches. For the past 25 years, he has led Smart Mind, a high-performance consultancy supporting elite performers and leaders across sport and business. He built the sports psychology module inside the University of Sydney's postgraduate coaching degree and is its academic lecturer, a program that only admits coaches of national teams, or athletes who have represented their country. He was Mental Performance Coach to the Wallabies.
He brings those same frameworks to the boards and leadership teams of sporting organisations and businesses. The growing pains are similar. The path through them is too.
Based in Sydney. Speaks across Australia, Asia, USA, UK and Europe.
For CEOs, boards and leadership teams of privately held businesses, and the advisers who work with them. Each keynote runs 45 to 90 minutes and is shaped to the event and the audience.
What high performance looks like inside business: from the mindset that separates performing teams from busy ones, to the friction points that can build up, to the conversation about your people structure that's been sitting in the back of your mind.
Leadership when the clock is running and the stakes are visible. What elite sport knows about staying clear-headed, keeping a team functioning and making good calls when there is no time to make perfect ones.
When the market shifts, the opportunities are usually visible to someone on your payroll. Why many teams miss them, how to build a new objective around what your people are good at, and how to reshape the team to deliver it.
The journey from a founder with a product and a big idea to the person who pitches to global giants. Building the team around the founder along the way: the engineer who develops but can’t communicate, the banker who sees investment but not process, and the founder who has to become business-minded without losing what made the idea work.
Every company has one person who stands between what the business can do and what the client expects. How to build that person, whether it’s the founder or the successor, so they can carry both without dropping either.
How to make the calls that cost something, ethically and productively: what to weigh, who to involve, how to decide quickly, and how to hold the line once it’s made.
Half-day or full-day working sessions, facilitated by Dave, for leadership teams who want an expert in the room, working alongside them to tackle real challenges and build practical solutions.
A board-level working session focused on getting the right people in the right roles for the next stage of the business. Together, we examine strengths, capability, development opportunities and role clarity, including how the owner’s role may need to evolve.
Start with what the business needs to deliver, then look objectively at the capability of the team around it. Who is best suited to each role? Where can capability be developed? Which roles need to change? A working session on deliberately building the right team for the job, rather than shaping the business around the people already in place.
Tough conversations with owners and positional players about productivity, and how to have them so something changes rather than someone leaves. They are straight, respectful and built for the long relationship.
High-performance Mind Coach 40+ years in elite sport coaching Commonwealth, World and Olympic medallists, and their coaches and leadership teams.
Founder, Smart Mind 25 years, sporting and business environments.
Academic lecturer Sports psychology module, University of Sydney postgraduate coaching degree.
International gymnast (Great Britain) European, Commonwealth, World and Olympic level.
Podcaster Host of Brain in the Game, 100+ episodes on the mechanics of how a performing brain works and how to coach it.
Author 23 published books on problem solving, performance and learning, including a mental coaching book for athletes and over 20 children’s books.
Dave also hosts Brain in the Game, a mental-performance podcast now past 100 episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Each episode answers one real question from high performers, with a framework built from 40 years’ experience in the industry that you can use straight away. It’s the same voice audiences hear from the stage.
“We’ve had some fantastic feedback from our colleagues, who were captivated by Dave, who spoke with so much authenticity and honesty.”
“The executive coaching I got with Dave really transformed my life and my wellbeing and made me a better leader and operator. I recommend Dave’s work to people constantly!”
“You are so very good at what you do. I am testament to that.”
Growing pains in a business tend to share a common shape. The business has worked. The structure has worked. And somewhere along the way, the people stopped keeping pace with both.
Dave has spent 40 years working through exactly this kind of challenge in elite sport: with Commonwealth, World and Olympic medallists, with the coaches and leadership teams behind them, and with the organisations that make high-performance programs run. The framework he brings to the room has been tested there, in high-level coaching, in leadership teams and in boardrooms. It is practical and direct, and it meets people where they are.
His starting point is always the same: the businesses he works with are not hitting walls because people aren't working hard. They're hitting walls because of structure: who actually holds influence, who is in a seat that doesn't suit them, where friction has built up, and whether the culture is pointed in the same direction as the ambition.
Over 25 years through Smart Mind, Dave has brought these tools from elite sport into the rooms of privately held businesses. He doesn't approach it with a generic program. He arrives with the right questions, a sharp eye for what's actually going on, and a track record across both codes.
Every audience is different, so every talk starts with a conversation. Tell me who’s in the room, what you’re working towards and where the conversation needs to go. I’ll shape the session around your people, your objectives and the challenges in front of them. Send a short enquiry to discuss the brief, availability and fees.
Send an enquiryLeave your details and you’ll get a link to book a conversation with Dave, where he can hear about the room, what you’re working towards and the challenges in front of your people.
Dave's bio and speaking topics come with the reply.
