Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!

#139 - Sleep Like a Champion: How Rest Fuels Peak Performance with Lori Oliver & Jill MacRae

• Mental Training Plan • Episode 139

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In this episode of The Coaching Minds Podcast, we flip the script on performance by focusing on the other 12 hours of the day—rest and recovery. Ben Carnes sits down with Lori Oliver and Jill MacRae, co-founders of The Inactive Company and creators of the Inactivator Sleep Mask, to explore the science of sleep and why most people are doing it wrong.

With powerhouse careers at Spanx, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks, Lori and Jill know what it’s like to push limits—and what it costs when rest is ignored. They share research-backed strategies, from small weekly sleep tweaks to blackout environments, and explain why better sleep can unlock creativity, decision-making, and game-day performance.

If you’re a coach, athlete, or high-performer who wants to recover faster, think sharper, and win more, this conversation will change the way you think about rest.

Highlights:

  • Why elite athletes and teams are making sleep a top priority
  • The Sleep 7 Playbook: small changes that make a big impact
  • How blackout & temperature regulation can transform recovery
  • Why “sleep is a workout” is the message every teenager needs to hear
  • Tools for coaches to integrate sleep into performance culture

Resources Mentioned:

🎧 Listen now: mentaltrainingplan.com/podcast

Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
mentaltrainingplan.com/athletes

Are you a COACH looking for an affordable year-round mental performance training program? Check out the MTP Academy available through our website:
mentaltrainingplan.com/teams

Speaker 1:

Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the official podcast of Mental Training Plan. Today's episode is all about performance, but not in the way that you might expect. We're talking about recovery, rest and the science of sleep. I'm joined by Lori Oliver and Jill McRae, co-founders of the Inactive Company. These two have spent decades experiencing building powerhouses like Spanx, coca-cola, starbucks, and now they're on a mission to help people sleep better, perform better and feel better. We're going to unpack what actually works when it comes to sleep, why most people are doing it wrong and how their product, the Inactivator Sleep Mask, is changing the game. Lori and Jill, welcome to the show. Appreciate you guys joining us today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Ben, for having us. We really appreciate you having us today.

Speaker 1:

So I'm not going to lie. I get. I get emails all the time from promoters that are trying to get you know so and so to come be a guest on the show. I delete most of them.

Speaker 1:

I was intrigued by this and I would say that sleep is kind of.

Speaker 1:

Sleep is one of those areas that in that little corner right over there on my whiteboard, we've got a little section of, like, future things that we're going to be exploring. Sleep, nutrition and hydration are over there and and and I've got I've got this book that I showed you when we were talking at the beginning uh, why we sleep, unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. And I had one of my former athletes, who was a pitcher at Ohio state university, called me one day, all excited, and he was like Coach Carnes, you've got to get this book. And I'm telling you he was he was legitimately pumped about it, like he had just found this way to unlock some kind of competitive edge. So, ladies, I would love to just kind of hear you know, maybe a quickly, briefly, a little bit about your story and how the heck you kind of hear you know, maybe a quickly, briefly, a little bit about your story and how the heck you kind of got into this field and where we're at now.

Speaker 2:

Before we tell you that, I just need to say that we call that book why we Sleep the Bible and Matt Walker. We were just with him at a global sleep symposium last month in New York, along with some other sleep experts, and it is a tremendous resource, so we validate the book even though it's not ours, that's fair.

Speaker 3:

So Lori and I met. We actually spent we mentioned earlier we spent about 25 years building powerhouse careers and you know we grew up professionally in the about 25 years building powerhouse careers and you know we grew up professionally in the nineties which was basically sleep when you're dead and you know, outperforming everybody, outperforming each other. Don't worry about rest. You were sort of you know kind of a pansy, if you said that you were ever tired. Plus, we're moms between us, with different partners. We have seven kids, you know, ranging in ages super active. We're both into fitness and we also bonded over SEC football because we went to the University of Georgia. So we were constantly on the go and while we were on the leadership team at Spanx we were traveling literally around the globe and we were exhausted all the time, tried everything you name it melatonin, gummies, we tried to outbuy each other on mattresses and pillows and really realized that sleep was like that, one elusive thing that we could never perfect.

Speaker 2:

The irony there was that we're both athletes and we're both health nuts, and so you know.

Speaker 3:

I'm not an athlete.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you are, yes, you are Jill's an Alta tennis champion. But we, but despite, you know, having hard workouts, we would still exhaust ourselves and then not get proper rest at night.

Speaker 3:

For a multitude of reasons. Right, everybody has their own reason why they don't sleep well. It could be stress, it could be hormones, it could be age, it could be diet, it could be whatever it is. But you really, we figured out really quickly that that was a game changer for us personally. And then, when we started to research it and talk about it, we realized it really is a key factor in performance and your body. You know everyone talks about rest and get a lot of sleep, but the truth of the matter is your body's working just as hard sometimes almost harder when you're sleeping for you than when you're awake.

Speaker 2:

Which is why we named the company the Inactive Company, because we really wanted to preach this message of the other. 12 hours of the day are as important, if not more important, than your active part of the day. Just because you're sleeping doesn't mean your body isn't working hard. It actually is and you have an opportunity If you sleep. The recommended for athletes it really is eight to nine, eight to 10 hours. For us, regular humans, seven to nine. But if you do get good sleep, quality sleep, every day, you are increasing your performance, your creativity, your decision making and lots of other factors the very next day.

Speaker 3:

Also, people can really relate to technology these days because we basically live on technology. So the inactive company is a nod to the fact that you really have to power down to power back up, reboot sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's fair. So you know, I'm not going to lie. Just in my profession, coming from the coaching world, before you know, before stepping out to do the mental performance training full time, two o'clock in the morning, breaking down film and to send notes, and it's like, oh, he's more dedicated than me. How come, why was I asleep when I could have been watching film and I could have been getting an edge on my opponent and I, you know all of these things in your mind, like where, where did that, where did that misconception come from? Was it, was it just a lack of knowledge? Was it a trying to gain an edge? And it just got out of hand. Like, why is there such a wrong mindset when it comes to rest and recovery, especially, like you said, even more so, like, with high performing careers?

Speaker 2:

There's been a rat race culture for decades and we are just now beginning to realize and we like to say wake up to the fact that that is not the magic formula. There's been research that has shown that if you watch film, for example, and then get your recommended good quality sleep, you'll actually know and process the content of those films better than had you stayed up and crammed and watched all night long. So you know, I think we're finally just we've sort of been waiting for this movement. But the movement is slowly happening where people are realizing I feel like crap if I don't get enough sleep. Why was I slower today?

Speaker 2:

I know I can do better. Why did I make that dumb mistake on the field? I know what I'm supposed to do. I know my body can do that. Why aren't I getting stronger when I'm lifting so many weights? Well, the answers to those questions are you're not getting enough sleep, because sleep is what helps your muscles regenerate. It helps your brain make the connections it needs to make to have creativity when you're awake and on the field, you know. So I think people do realize I don't have to feel this badly when I'm awake If I use the nighttime to really do my second workout.

Speaker 3:

There have been some eye openers, just like we have more research now on CTE and what's happening with brain injury. American Heart Association recently, in 2023, changed their super seven, which was the you need to do these seven things for a healthy heart, to call it essential eight, and now number one is sleep. So it used to be, you know, this triangle of diet, exercise and that's and working out. You know that was kind of the triangle. Now sleep is really one of the most important things. That is backed by all of the health care researchers. So there was this moment in time a few years ago where it started to shift.

Speaker 2:

We've been trained, I think, to be doers and obviously when you're sleeping you're not doing. You know you're in your mind, your mindset is nothing's happening and also nobody's watching when you're sleeping, and so you know we are a performance culture, we're a doing culture, and you don't have an audience when you're asleep. So I do think that plays into the answer to your question about why haven't we gotten this?

Speaker 3:

memo. That's true and that's a great point Lori's making, because that's another reason why we've resonated so well with some of the elite sports teams only the professional sports teams, but the school sports teams because the coaches are like we can't be in the rooms with them telling them to go to sleep. We need a tool to help them go to sleep, and so it's really resonated with these guys yeah.

Speaker 1:

So when one of my uh, one of my former athletes his name is ryan pepeo, he got drafted by the dodgers and plays down in Tampa Bay for the Rays now the the first thing that the Dodgers organization did when he got out to LA was throw a woot band on him and start tracking his recovery. And start tracking, you know, not not just sleep, but sleep is certainly a huge piece and a huge portion of recovery. You know, making sure that they were taking care of his body and he was taking care of his body. I mean, you know, here's this organization that's investing hundreds of millions of dollars into helping athletes perform at a high level, and the first thing they do is slap a whoop band on them. And then, the second thing, they started, you know, doing some, some mental performance training, which made my heart happy when he took a picture of a poster board that he had put together and said look, coach Carnes, doing the same stuff we used to do.

Speaker 1:

Um, talk, talk to me a little bit, maybe, about. You know, as this wave is starting to, you know, come up on your ability to focus and learn in 2013 how sleep fuels physical recovery In 2011,. It helps with decision making and reaction time In 2017, helps you balance your emotional system In 2019, like the research is really starting to pick up here a little bit. Like the research is really starting to pick up here a little bit and we're really starting to say, hey, we need to start paying attention to this. Talk to me. Talk to me a little bit about you know, as we move on past these early adopters, what's this start to look like as this becomes a little bit more and more commonplace?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think one of the problem but the potential sort of stumbling blocks maybe about it is that with more people, mainstream and otherwise, wearing whoops and other kind of tracking devices, some are telling us that they're getting a little more stressed out about sleep and that's impeding their sleep progress. You know they're actually getting less sleep rather than better sleep. So it's going to be tricky, as we navigate this new acceptance of sleep as a performance tool, to not get too stressed out about it and find for each athlete, for each human, to find their personal stack, if you will, that helps them prepare and then get better sleep. That will be the challenge.

Speaker 2:

We worked with the NFL and the NFL Players Association, and the athletes, for example, on injured reserve, told us that they don't really want the league to get their data, their sleep data. You know that's private information they would like. They'd rather they don't want anything to be held against them. If they didn't sleep well that night will they get fewer, less playing time, whatever. So what they told us was we really like the idea of tools that are simple, that are obviously drug-free and that are private, that just help us sleep. So I think that if people can simplify well, first identify their individual process that helps them warm up, as we call it, from sleep and then exercise a good solid sleep workout where they have long quality sleep, and then also just keep this mindset around it makes a difference and then track that difference. You know, as they wake up, see, see what they're getting. That will be the unlock.

Speaker 1:

Take us back, uh, maybe to the, the moment that sparked the inactive company. Let's talk a little bit more just about the organization that you guys are, the company that you're running. Now, what was it that you saw that said hey, this is where we need to direct our time and effort and energy.

Speaker 2:

Well, we worked with a lot of startups and also knew the history of a lot of big corporations that had made it. And the key principle to you know, finding a company and then developing it is to identify a big market and then solve a problem for the people in that market. And this is pre-COVID, when we really honed in on sleep. Like we said earlier, based on our own experience, feeling a little frazzled all the time and not feeling like we were performing optimally I was going out at 5 am and doing runs and then going to, you know, getting ready, going to work and then making dinner for three kids when I got home from work every night.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Rinse and repeat. When I got home from work, every night, rinse and repeat and I was exhausted. So the genesis of the company really was. Here's our personal experience, but here's what we know as marketing experts and as people that have been in the business world for quite some time. We found a product in a big market that had not been innovated in literally a hundred years. You know there were.

Speaker 2:

The solution for a sleep mask is deceptively simple, but we love that.

Speaker 2:

So what was out on the market were either these very thin, you know silky pieces of fabric with a piece of elastic around to keep it on your face, or stiff, hard foam masks, or kind of over-engineered chunky masks. And we said why isn't anybody doing something that can help a wearer achieve 100% blackout, regardless of the size of their head, the shape of their face and their features? Because we knew that, based on research, complete blackout is the single most important thing that you need to get a good night's sleep. And then we said the second most important thing is temperature regulation. How come nobody's made it easy and just simply built in a temperature regulation device? Because especially athletes all told us we're so hot we sleep all the time. And that wasn't even with a nod to the fact that your circadian rhythm, as you begin to wake up, your body temperature begins to rise. So you know, we wanted to start just taking the problems that people were telling us around why they couldn't get sleep and solving them with a simple, affordable, portable, portable tool, exactly.

Speaker 1:

What do you think's most misunderstood about sleep?

Speaker 3:

most misunderstood about sleep. I think you need to identify your own sleep habits. That's what's most identified. I mean and I am now I'm preaching what I talk about, right, I'm preaching to the choir.

Speaker 3:

I never slept Well, lori will tell you. I was a horrible sleeper. I was always proud of the fact I'm like I don't really need a lot of sleep to run, and then I got really sick. I actually got pneumonia and was still super busy. And then once I figured out that I could sleep when it worked for me my routine at night. I have my own routine.

Speaker 3:

I'm also a creature of sunlight and heat, so if I can wake up and see the light of day after I've slept a good solid seven hours and I have a great fitness routine going and taking care of myself. I haven't been sick in two years and that was a game changer for me, and I think people need to realize you don't have to do what she's doing or you're doing. You need to do what works for you. But what works for you is also sleep. The other thing is, you know it's in our DNA. We were born and made and created to sleep, which is why you can't replace that with any sort of supplement, tonic or pill. You have to sleep and I think, once people accept that as well, you need to sleep in order to perform, it's a. It's a complete game changer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I know one of the things that you guys talk about is small weekly changes rather than a giant sleep overhaul. So if I'm a, if I'm a coach or I'm an athlete that's listening to this and I'm thinking, all right, well, maybe this is, you know, maybe the this competitive edge is I need to get a little bit more sleep so I recover a little bit better, so I, you know, can recharge and be performing closer to 100%, rather than just walking around like a zombie at 75% all the time. What's that look like? Where's that come from? What's the science behind that? Why do you guys go for the small weekly changes?

Speaker 2:

Well. So we developed a Sleep 7 playbook that was very closely aligned to the cognitive behavioral training for insomnia which is kind of the current premium solution for insomnia. It's CBTI. You can look it up, but what it stresses are these simple tools and also I think your audience is probably familiar with James Clear Atomic Habits and simplifying, you know, creating a habit that works for you and keeping it simple. So that's kind of based on those two science backed processes for and applying those to sleep we thought was the easiest and best way for people to say I'm not going to let it stress me out, it's not that big of a deal, I just need to find my couple things that get me ready to go to sleep.

Speaker 1:

What are maybe some of those seven evidence-backed strategies? What's that look like? What's a pragmatic or takeaway here for some of the audience?

Speaker 3:

Well, we actually have the seven steps on our website too. We have, you know, sort of fashioned them into a sports analogy. So the first thing we say is go long right. So set your sights on seven to nine hours. Don't even set your alarm for anything earlier. So if you got to wake up a little earlier, then you got to go to bed a little earlier as well. You want to that seven to nine hours aiming period so that you can. It's not gonna happen overnight, no pun intended, but as you start to train yourself.

Speaker 3:

Secondly is a safe space right. Your bed is for sleeping and not for eating or binging too much Netflix or doing anything else. And I'm just as guilty as anybody else of having a snack and answering emails. I literally had to stop doing that. Third is to blackout.

Speaker 3:

So you know the inactivators helps with that as well, Because not only does it give you darkness, it's also a little bit of a Pavlovian signal to your brain. So when you see it, your shoulders start to drop, your body starts to say oh, it's, it's time for bed. Like I can actually start getting into my routine now. The fifth is like get a buddy, you know, talk about it. It's amazing that you're actually having these conversations with your athletes and your audience and it's okay. It's okay to say I'm tired and I need to sleep, so really have that. And then you know, track it whenever you can. A lot of the athletes that we work with actually keep little notebooks. If they're not wearing technology, they're actually keeping notebooks because they want to understand some of their best days and how they perform the best, either pre-season, in-season, post-season. They'll go back to that and think you know, a, some of them are really superstitious, but B, they want to understand how they prepared, and sleep is now a big part of that as well.

Speaker 1:

What's a good resource if folks are wanting to maybe take that next step. Maybe they're stuck in some bad sleep habits and it's like all right, I know I need to do something about this. Where should they start this week?

Speaker 2:

So we like well, first of all, go to inactivecocom and buy a sleep mask for yourself, buy the inactivators, because that is easy. And just back to don't get all stressed out. You know you realize that you need to sleep better. That is a great one thing, because you can't be on your phone, as Jill was kind of alluding to earlier, if your eyes are covered, was kind of alluding to earlier if your eyes are covered. So wearing a sleep mask is going to help train your brain but then help your body physiologically to sleep better. So that would be an easy thing.

Speaker 2:

The next thing is realize that the way that you sleep and your performance actually starts in the morning. So getting out and getting morning sunlight is another simple thing that you can do to set your circadian rhythm and get yourself ready to have a successful night of sleep that night and then notice the change the next day. So I think that you know why we sleep. The book is a great resource tool and just get one simple thing and that's. You know I'm, you know I sound like we're. It's simple, but it's not easy.

Speaker 1:

Like it's so simple to tell a kid, hey, you should go to bed and you should get, you know, eight to nine hours of sleep so that you can perform at your best in this game tomorrow. But then when that kid goes upstairs and they get that message or that DM or that you know whatever just got posted by whoever, now all of a sudden it's not so easy to be able to, to just set that phone down. I mean, it's almost like they're, they're literally having to choose their their own rest and their own recovery over their friends, their social life, their, you know, whatever it is. They're afraid of missing out on things like that.

Speaker 1:

If you were a coach who was maybe trying to hammer this message home to a teenager who maybe already feels a little bit invincible to begin with, like, let's be honest, when we were, when we were teenagers, we didn't have you didn't have that same feeling of I'm at work all day, I've got to come home, take care of three kids, I got to make dinner, I got to, you know, keep laundry going or whatever other household things have to happen on a daily basis. You know how, how do you, how do you send that message to the teenagers that this is going to help you perform better and we have to start taking this more serious.

Speaker 2:

I think you. That's why we like structuring sleep as a workout, because kids can relate to you need to do 12 reps, three sets, to reach, you know, your maximum bench press potential, whatever Like like. They understand the math there Once. If a coach can frame this in a similar way and say I'm going to give you a tool, put this on every night, be consistent, go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends, wear this and let's start there and see how you feel I'm going to. I'm going to be watching and set a goal. You know, like let's or let's evaluate your game day performance. There's also research that shows that, all things being equal, two teams play against each other in a game. The team that slept better the night before will win. So I think just talking to kids in terms of sleep as a workout is a good first step.

Speaker 1:

Love that, All right. Well, thank you guys so much for taking the time to come on here today. If folks are wanting to take that next step, tell us just one more time the website, contact info, social media, like what's the best way for them to get connected with you guys and learn a little bit more about what's going on, what those seven tools are, what next steps look like.

Speaker 3:

Well, our website is inactivecocom, Super easy. And then we're the inactive company on all social media.

Speaker 2:

We do give team discounts If anybody wants to buy. You know a doable product and consider it performance equipment. And one last thing, ben we do put logos of schools on the side of the mask at their request, and they are handing them out and telling these players that this is part of your performance equipment package and that also has been a huge help to get kids to realize I need to use this.

Speaker 1:

Love that Well. Thank you guys so much. It's been wonderful to hear your story and I am I'm not gonna lie I feel like this is something that is is worth looking a little bit more into and something that that I could see. You know, moving forward needs to become a little bit more of a priority across a whole lot of different spaces. So thank you guys so much for your time today.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, thank you. We appreciate it.