William Trubridge is 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.

In 2019 he crossed Cook Strait entirely underwater, in a series of 934 breath holds over nine hours and fifteen minutes, to draw attention to New Zealand's critically endangered Hector's and Māui dolphins.

When you’re 100 metres underwater, panic burns the oxygen you need to get home. So he’s spent decades building a system for not panicking — and it turns out the system works in a queue, in traffic, and in the conversation you're dreading.

WHAT'S COVERED

- Sailing the Pacific as a toddler — a boat was home until he was ten

- The poem he wrote on an Auckland dance floor a year before he'd heard of freediving

- Two failed world record attempts — and the word that made all the difference for the third

- Risk vs stakes — and why refusing every dangerous thing is itself massively risky

- What actually happened at 127 metres, and why his lungs stayed dry

- The mental immune system

- Why the muscles you breathe with decide how you feel

- Nine hours underwater across Cook Strait

FIND WILLIAM Website: https://www.williamtrubridge.com/ Instagram: @‌willtrubridge — https://www.instagram.com/willtrubridge/

The Rebellion — his work teaching the mental immune system: https://www.rebellionimpactgroup.com/

The Mental Immune System programme: https://mentalimmunesystem.com/

MORE FROM WILLIAM

Oxygen: A Memoir — https://www.williamtrubridge.com/post/oxygen-a-memoir-by-william-trubridge

Breathe (2011) — the documentary following his attempt to become the first person to reach 300 feet on a single breath, no fins: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103163/

Hunger & Heart is a podcast about the intersection of wild ambition and fierce compassion, hosted by Kaila Colbin.

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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.

This conversation is about the 39 years in between.

We talk about the two failed attempts at the same stretch of water between Ireland and Scotland — one she was elated by, one that broke her.

About being stung head to foot by jellyfish and somehow swimming on for seven more hours.

About looking back at the White Cliffs of Dover three hours into the Channel — and her utter despair at realising she'd barely moved.

About finishing her first channel crossing at 17 with nobody there to meet her.

And about carrying everything she’s learned from ultramarathon swimming — the grit, the resilience, the purpose — into one of the hardest jobs in the New Zealand public service.

WHAT'S COVERED:

- The three hours that nearly ended her English Channel swim

- Being obliterated by a shoal of jellyfish — and why she got out of the water happy

- How you keep going when you can't see any progress at all

- What a good coach actually does

- Night swimming, box jellyfish and the Channel of Bones

- Leading Oranga Tamariki — where she put her focus, and why she says you have to know your own reasons before you take a job like that

ABOUT GRÁINNE

Gráinne Moss (née Gunn) grew up in Bangor, County Down, and started swimming in an unheated saltwater pool fed by the sea. She swam the English Channel in 1987 in 11 hours 52 minutes, aged 17, becoming the first Irish woman to do it. She moved to New Zealand in 1998 and swam the Cook Strait in 2001, and completed the Oceans Seven in June 2026 with the Tsugaru Strait in northern Japan — the longest span between first and final swim in the challenge's history. She is Chief Executive and Secretary for Regulation at the Ministry for Regulation, and was Chief Executive of Oranga Tamariki from 2016 to 2021.

Visit Gráinne's blog https://grainnemoss.com/ for detailed accounts of her swims and follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/swimirishkiwi/.

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Hunger & Heart is brought to you by the Crusaders Leadership Programme™. Whether you're coaching under-5s or a professional team, we all want the same thing: to build cultures of trust, get the best out of our people, and grow players into leaders.

The Crusaders Leadership Programme™ lets you get up close and personal with some of the greatest rugby legends of all time — people like Sir Wayne Smith, Sam Whitelock, and Kieran Read.  You'll connect with a global group of ambitious, caring coaches from a range of codes and backgrounds, and most importantly, you'll gain skills and techniques to drive impact and outcomes for your team.  

The Crusaders Leadership Programme™ is a two-week high-intensity virtual experience.  It is delivered exclusively online, accessible from anywhere.

Hunger and heart Listeners get 10% off the full price of the program. Use the code HUNGER at checkout. Find out more: crusadersleadership.com

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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.

This week, he joins the podcast to talk about a career that started with a box of files inherited from a volunteer and ended up running the organisation behind the All Blacks — and about the decisions in between that he still thinks about.

That includes protesting the 1981 Springbok tour while his own family sat on the other side of it, taking Rugby World Cup matches away from Christchurch after the February 2011 earthquake, backing a coach the media wanted gone, and the review that put New Zealand Rugby's own culture under outside scrutiny.

WHAT'S COVERED

• How he ended up in sporting governance
• The 1981 Springbok tour
• Why New Zealand Rugby apologised to players it never selected
• The February 2011 earthquake, and telling a city it had lost its World Cup matches
• How the Crusaders went from last to first in three seasons
• Appointing Wayne Smith, and backing him when the results hadn't arrived
• The Respect and Responsibility Review
• What he looks for when he's assessing people for leadership
• The performance conversation he's never started too early

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