Sir Graham Henry has the best win record in All Blacks history - but there was a moment in the early stages when he almost walked away from it all.

Kaila Colbin spoke with Sam Dakin. For two years, the same question repeated in Sam's head a thousand times a day. He had no idea what was happening to him.

The Yukon 1000 is the longest paddling race in the world, and Jon Frith is the man who decides who is allowed to start it. More than 1,500 teams apply. Just 30 make the start line. They paddle 18 hours a day, sleep for three and once they're out past Dawson City, they're on their own.

Kaila Colbin talks with William Trubridge. One of the greatest freedivers of all time. He’s set 18 world records. Won six world championship titles. In 2016, he became the first person to reach 102 metres on a single breath with no fins and no rope.

This conversation is about the 39 years in between. At 17, Gráinne Moss swam the English Channel — the first Irish woman ever to do it. At 56, she became the 45th person on Earth to complete the Oceans Seven, the seven hardest channel swims in the world.

Steve Tew was chief executive of New Zealand Rugby from 2008 to 2019, and ran the Crusaders and the Canterbury Rugby Union from 1996 to 2001. He is now Director of High Performance at High Performance Sport New Zealand.

Mark Sorenson won two world championships by the age of seventeen. But at twenty, despite playing the best tournament of his life, his team lost the final.

Mike ‘Crono’ Cron spent 15 years with the All Blacks — more than 200 tests, two World Cups, and a reputation as the best scrum coach in the game.

90 minutes into a 1,367km swim down the length of New Zealand, Jono Ridler turned his head to breathe and saw a large shark a body length away. He got out of the water for 20 minutes, then got straight back in — and kept going for another 89 days.

At 8,200 metres on K2, in deteriorating weather and near the summit, Peter Hillary made what he calls a “bravely independent” decision: he turned around and descended alone into the storm. The rest of the group stayed together and pushed for the top.

Sir Wayne Smith — aka “The Professor” — is one of the most decorated coaches in New Zealand rugby history. In this conversation with Kaila Colbin, he opens up the systems behind decades of winning.

He found the cable-box switch that unlocked adult content when he was just five years old. For the next three decades, porn was Dr Luke Sniewski’s coping mechanism for loneliness, stress and fear - through a professional football career in Italy, a burnout that ended his training business, and relationships that all ended the same way.

Dillon Boucher was so sure he'd made the 2000 Olympic team that his wife had already booked her flights. But when they announced the squad in alphabetical order — by the third one he knew he hadn’t been selected.

Nobody is born good at hard conversations. Not even the people who teach them.

Sir John Kirwan is one of New Zealand's greatest All Blacks — but, while he lived the life of a champion, his mental health suffered.

Dame Farah Palmer wasn't the most talented athlete in the room. She was nearly invisible at her first university orientation week. And then… someone from the rugby club noticed her.

What does it take to hold professional athletes to the highest standards - without ever raising your voice?

Rob Hamill is one of New Zealand's most storied and decorated rowers - a silver at the World Championships in 1994, the winner of the first ever Atlantic Rowing Race in '97, and a man who has lived a life most people couldn't imagine. But beneath the athletic achievements is a story that shaped everything.

He lost his dad to suicide, surfed for 40 hours straight and built one of Australia's most powerful mental health movements — one wave at a time.

Sarah Kessans came to New Zealand for a two-year postdoc. Thirteen years later she's still here - an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury working across synthetic biology, space research, and agricultural climate science.