It was a cold December evening in 2022, the kind where the wind cuts through your coat and the darkness settles in early. I should have been out on the pitch, under the bright floodlights of the Stadium of Light, with the roar of the Sunderland fans in my ears.
But instead, I was at home, staring at the walls of my basement, my shoulder wrapped in a thick bandage after the surgery. The surgeon had been clear: I’d be out for at least 12 weeks.
But I was determined to push through it. I’d always prided myself on being strong, on being the guy who could shoulder—no pun intended—any burden.
But this time was different.
The pain was more than just physical.
It felt like my entire world was slipping away.
I’d always believed I could power through anything, but as the days dragged on, the weight of it all began to crush me.
I’d sit in that basement, alone with my thoughts, and sometimes the only sound was the clock ticking on the wall. Every tick felt like a reminder of what I was missing, of the time slipping away.
My wife saw it first, the cracks in my armour.
One night, when the silence became too much, I broke down.
I didn’t see her slip away to make the call, but before I knew it, my phone rang. It was Rob, my friend, and coach.
He didn’t beat around the bush, didn’t give me the usual platitudes. Instead, he started asking me questions—direct, probing ones that cut right to the heart of the matter.
“How much certainty do you have right now?” he asked.
I stared at the floor, the truth pulling at me. “Zero,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“And how much uncertainty?”
“Ten,” I replied, the number echoing in my mind like a drumbeat.
“How significant do you feel?”
I paused, the weight of the question settling on me. “One,” I finally admitted.
“And how much connection do you have?”
“Two,” I said, my throat tightening as I forced the word out.
Rob was silent for a moment, letting the numbers sink in. Then he said something that stuck with me: “Well, we need to get these numbers up, don’t we?”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, a plan of action. And that was the moment something shifted.
In that basement, on that cold December night, the Inner Game Academy was born.
What started as one of the darkest moments in my life, a breakdown that had left me feeling broken, soon became a breakthrough, not just for me, but for young players across the country.
We believe that ‘mindset’ is the missing link for most players.
It’s how you deal with adversity and mistakes.
It’s the way you see the world not just on but off the pitch.
That’s why Luke and Rob created the Inner Game Academy to give younger players the tools they never had when they were younger.
Join us on this exclusive program and let us give you the tools and systems we never had so you can get an advantage on and off the pitch.
Luke & Rob