Karen is joined by Saskia Clark, MBE, Olympic and World Champion sailor, and one of Britain’s most decorated athletes. Across three Olympic campaigns, Saskia earned both silver and gold medals, building a reputation not only for her competitive success but also for her ability to thrive in the high-pressure world of elite sport.
In this episode, Saskia reflects on the mindset required to perform at the very top, from sustaining resilience across four-year cycles to mastering the “boring but relentless” habits that underpin high performance. She shares what it takes to win when everything is on the line—how to balance technical skill, physical discipline, and tactical clarity with the emotional intelligence and self-awareness needed to lead within a team.
It’s a candid conversation about ambition, setbacks, and growth. Whether you’re navigating the world of sport, business, or leadership, Saskia’s insights offer practical lessons on teamwork, goal-setting (or “path rocking”), and the power of authenticity in pursuit of excellence.
Karen Falcon (Host, Performance & Development Lead at Tenzing):
Hello, and welcome to The Ascent. I’m Karen Falcon, Performance and Development Lead at Tenzing — a private equity firm passionate about the human stories between high-growth businesses and their teams. Guy, Tenzing’s co-founder, and I speak with driven and insightful founders, CEOs, and high performers. Previous series focused on the tech world; now we’re looking beyond. We talk through the highs, the lows, and everything in between — what fuels people, how they build standout teams, and how they keep pushing boundaries. No topic is off-limits, and every conversation is packed with lessons you can apply to your own journey.
Karen Falcon:
Saskia, you’ve had over 16 years in the Olympic programme. What are some of the things you loved about that world?
Saskia Clark:
I really loved that world, and leaving it I found really difficult. It’s a nice way to live your life in four-year blocks with very definite end points. The moment where you have to deliver your goal is very clear.
It took me a long time to work that out—turning up every day, the routines you have, when you have to be “on” and when you can switch off. It’s quite set in stone, how you live that life. And I loved the international competition scene. You get regular checkpoints—regattas every month or six weeks. It’s very in-your-face feedback, coming from everywhere.
You live in a four-year cycle, but also in yearly cycles with World and European Championships, and in monthly cycles with training blocks and events.
Karen Falcon:
How’s that for living? What’s it like?
Saskia Clark:
I’m not sure I could go back to it now. But essentially it was all I knew as a young adult. If you’re not just going through the motions and making the same mistakes—which I definitely did at times—but you’re reflecting properly on your work every month or so, it’s a really rewarding way to live.
The rewards come when you start doing it well. The feedback loops give you information you can use, which you can then turn into performance gains.
Karen Falcon:
And when you’re in a rut?
Saskia Clark:
You need a few things. People around you to show you the mirror. Deep down you probably know when you need that, but to the outside world you still have to project competence, that you’ve got it all together.
In my sport, I was always in a team of two. And for sure, I’ve buried my head in the sand at times, avoiding questions I didn’t want to face. But that just delays the inevitable. If you wait too long, the reckoning comes at an international regatta. If you don’t perform, you lose funding, and suddenly things are out of your control.
If you face those questions early, you can stay in control. You’ve got to make sure the pen you’re holding for the narrative of your life—you’re actually ahead of it, writing it yourself, rather than reacting when it’s too late.
In sport, people often say, “control the controllables.” That’s true, but it can be an oversimplification. For us, it was also about being clear on which rocks we were going to turn over and which we’d deliberately leave unturned.
For London 2012, we had just 18 months to prepare. We didn’t have time to turn over every rock, but we knew which ones mattered most. That gave us clarity and reduced stress. It’s about making a plan and being pragmatic about the things you can’t control. If you know you’ve made those decisions consciously, you don’t have to waste energy worrying about them.
Karen Falcon:
You started sailing from a young age and had that dream goal of the Olympics. How did you turn that passion into a profession? When did you know the Olympics was the goal?
Saskia Clark:
That dream goal is really important as a kid, or whenever you want to make change in your life. But on a day-to-day level, it can be overwhelming. As an 18-year-old with a blank sheet of paper, setting out to win a gold medal—you don’t even know what you don’t know.
My first Olympic campaign wasn’t successful. It lacked direction. It was just two talented young athletes assuming talent would be enough. It isn’t. Talent is only the starting point.
Through years of mistakes, I realised you need a more workable goal. For London 2012, we built something different. We described in detail what we thought a winning team would look like for that week in August. We were based in Weymouth on the south coast, preparing for that very specific event.
We broke it into four areas: technical, psychological, physical, and tactical. Each day, even on off-days, there was something we could work on or think about. It wasn’t vague; it was deliberate. That approach made us world number one, dominant even—but more importantly, it gave us clarity for the Olympics.
Karen Falcon:
You’ve called it “vision,” not goal-setting.
Saskia Clark:
Yes—“goal-setting” felt retro. We called it our vision: a live, motivating document that evolved as we learned more about competitors and venues. It identified strengths, weaknesses, and priorities for that exact moment in time. For Rio, it became our “what it takes to win” framework.
Karen Falcon:
What about teamwork? How did you and your partner align?
Saskia Clark:
Teamwork was everything. Our strength was becoming more than the sum of two people. That required self-awareness, vulnerability, and clear communication—sometimes painfully so.
We had to acknowledge weaknesses, cover for each other, and step up when needed. Over time, we built set plays and modes of operating depending on conditions: calm and patient on steady days, reactive and sharp on frantic ones. Agreeing what those modes looked like prevented breakdowns under pressure.
We created a team of three: my helm, myself, and our coach. Communication became a deliberate strength, but it wasn’t always that way. In the first two years of the Rio cycle, we actually got worse before we got better.
Eventually, we learned to make really accurate observations, distil them down, and decide who in the team was responsible for communicating and making decisions at any given time. We became process-driven.
That freed up brain space. Set plays got us consistent results—a fifth, or a top-three finish. Then the extra space we created through structure allowed us to spot opportunities, the “magical things,” that could blow a race apart and win it.
Karen Falcon:
You were very overt about different types of day, based on what you’d observed—the course, the weather, the tide. You knew how you and your teammate would need to show up and how you would communicate with each other.
I think that’s fascinating, because it’s a step towards: “this is how we need to show up, and we can be clear on what we expect of each other—not just expect, but what we’ve agreed to give and receive from each other.”
Can you elaborate more on those modes you had? Maybe share one or two and what they allowed you to do?
Saskia Clark:
Different wind conditions required different energy levels.
There’s one type of steady wind where patience is key. You don’t have to spook the herd—you can let your competitors lead you to a decision. That’s calm, detail-focused sailing. It frees up brain space for technical speed.
Then there’s the opposite: fast, frantic conditions where you have to react quickly and make snap decisions. Those days required energy and sharpness. But that communication could get snappy—we’d talk over each other. If you don’t agree in advance on what that looks like, you risk polarising the team and unravelling the project.
We had those conversations in the office. We agreed on what “calm days” looked like, what “frantic days” looked like, and how we’d contain each other in those spaces.
Sometimes on calm days you risk being too relaxed and need sharpness to execute technically. On frantic days, you risk overhyping yourself. We knew how to pull each other back into the right zone. That was deliberate, based on our combined 10–15 years of experience.
Karen Falcon:
That absolutely fits with what you’ve said about authenticity. I think of it as being professionally authentic—you have to be yourself, but also have a responsibility to the people you’re working with.
In those different conditions, you have to show up authentically to learn how you respond. Once you know that, you can craft it together. Sometimes a phrase or cue helps you and your teammate bring out the best in each other.
Saskia Clark:
Exactly. In a two-person team, your energy affects the other person’s ability to do their job. In past campaigns, either I or my teammate was a distraction to the other.
With Hannah (my teammate in Rio), we agreed what resets looked like. If she needed three seconds to rant, I knew not to spiral because we’d agreed she’d be back on it. Without that agreement, I’d have thought she was distracted and I’d have spiralled too.
We even had input from our coach, who gave us an outside perspective while living the journey with us.
Karen Falcon:
That’s so important. It reminds me of an Altitude Academy session with conductor Lee Reynolds. He talked about how every person brings their own weather. That weather affects the room, and over time, the climate.
Saskia Clark:
Yes, exactly. Everyone brings their weather. You can’t always control the climate, but you can be aware of the impact you’re having.
I think Hannah and I did a great job of that, but we weren’t perfect. Socially and culturally it’s hard to call people out all the time. But I learned to recognise triggers in myself and stop spiralling, even if my teammate wasn’t at her best.
The key is noticing quickly. Like with conversations: if you realise early it’s gone off-track, you can pull it back. The longer you leave it, the harder it gets. Same in sport—self-awareness lets you catch yourself before you go down a rabbit hole.
Karen Falcon:
Through these campaigns, you must have learned so much about yourself. What stands out?
Saskia Clark:
You learn that different athletes have different motivations. For me, sailing gave me identity in my family. My motivation wasn’t necessarily “I want to be Olympic champion.” It was: I want to keep getting better and better.
Other athletes just want to rip people’s heads off and win everything. Those are very different mindsets, and they can gel or clash in a team.
I’ve also been guilty of letting perfection be the enemy of good. Instead of just getting something 70% right and improving from there, I sometimes waited for perfection. But in sport, 70% plus iteration can be enough to win.
Another big lesson was emotional control. My issue wasn’t tantrums or crying—it was internal self-blame. I’d dwell on mistakes mid-race: “Why didn’t I do better? I’ve made that mistake before.” Even losing 10–20 seconds to that thought process was disastrous, because those were seconds I wasn’t making clear, emotion-free observations for the next decision.
In sailing, world-class decisions are built on facts and observations. If you let emotion cloud that, you’re already down the wrong path. Of course, experience adds judgment to facts—but emotion, especially negative emotion, can be damaging.
We often celebrate athletes who look stoic, or who respond aggressively, but those are still emotional responses. For me, emotional control was about staying steady enough to make clear decisions, not letting frustration or self-blame derail me.
Karen Falcon:
Thank you, Saskia. That was a wonderful reflection on a life lived at the highest performance level—one that required relentlessness, discipline, and often no talent at all.
Saskia Clark:
(Laughs) Exactly. Without talent, Karen, you too can achieve it!
Karen Falcon:
Thanks, thanks. So yes—make the most of the things that don’t require talent, and then add a spattering of huge talent on top.
Let me finish with three questions. First: who do you learn from?
Saskia Clark:
That’s changed over time. As a young athlete, I devoured autobiographies—Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent, Lance Armstrong. I loved them.
Now I prefer learning from flawed people who show vulnerability and share how they overcame challenges. That feels more authentic and workable. There are lots of great podcasts like that now.
I still love the science of psychology, but over the last 15 years I’ve shifted toward authentic, lived experiences and practical solutions. And you can’t beat a good ski-lift chair chat for learning. Oh, and Karen Falcon—I learn from her all the time.
Karen Falcon:
What qualities do you think are most important for someone who wants to get better?
Saskia Clark:
As a young athlete: be coachable.
As a senior athlete: be tenacious.
You have to fail constantly in order to learn about yourself, your team, and your sport. There’s no nicer word for it—it’s failure. But you have to reflect, with yourself, teammates, or coaches, and understand why. And you can’t keep failing the same way.
Olympic campaigns are very public. Even within your friends and family, failure feels public. So you need the tenacity to keep getting back up, and the openness to learn every time. Otherwise, you wall yourself off and stop developing.
Karen Falcon:
And finally—what’s your favourite book?
Saskia Clark:
The Kite Runner. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced every single human emotion reading one book. I sobbed and sobbed.
Maybe it resonated because in my career I had to be emotionally controlled. That book broke me open. It’s an incredible story—a triumph of a human over adversity.
Karen Falcon:
Do you remember where you read it?
Saskia Clark:
At home, thankfully—not on a plane. Otherwise I’d have been sobbing my eyes out in public.
Karen Falcon:
Thank you, Saskia. An amazing deep dive into your experiences. And I love your passion for “path rocking”—knowing which rocks to turn, which to leave, and which to come back to.
It’s been really lovely to talk to you.
Saskia Clark:
Thanks, Karen.
Karen Falcon (closing):
What an awesome chat with Saskia. Fascinating to hear how she approached decision-making with her helm and coach. What struck me was how thorough they were in deciding which stones to turn over and which to leave unturned.
In an environment of gains and losses, being deliberate with the choices you make is key.
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Bye for now.
