Inspiring Conversations with Gustavo Ruthes of Perfect Mind Mental Performance

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gustavo Ruthes.

Hi Gustavo, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My career started in sport. I studied Physical Education and Sport Sciences in Brazil, then moved to Canada and completed a master’s degree in Kinesiology focused on coaching, sport psychology, and physiology. I spent years teaching, coaching, competing, and working with athletes, which gave me an early interest in what allows people to perform well under pressure.
After spending three years as a varsity university soccer mental coach, in 2015 I founded Perfect Mind Mental Performance. This initially focused on helping athletes from all sports develop the psychological skills required for performance. Over time, that work expanded beyond sport. I pursued further training in counselling psychology and psychotherapy, which gave me a deeper understanding of the relationship between performance, mental health, stress, identity, and well-being.
Today, my work sits at the intersection of mental performance, psychotherapy, and human performance. I work with athletes, military and commercial aviation personnel, and professionals operating in high-pressure environments, helping them improve areas such as attention, emotional regulation, confidence, decision-making, recovery, and performance under stress.
The common thread throughout my career has been a fascination with human potential: not simply how people perform at their best, but how they can do so in a way that is sustainable and supports their overall well-being.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a perfectly smooth road. My career has been fairly unconventional, and much of it had to be built without a clear blueprint.
I moved from Brazil to Canada early in my career and had to rebuild professionally in a new country while continuing my education. I spent many years teaching and coaching while developing my work in mental performance on the side. When I started Perfect Mind, mental performance was also a much less established field than it is today, so part of the challenge was helping people understand what the work actually was and why it mattered.
Along the way, I have also had to navigate significant personal health challenges while continuing to work, study, build a business, and raise a family. That experience has probably deepened my perspective on performance as well. I have become increasingly interested not just in how people perform under pressure, but how they sustain performance when life itself becomes demanding.
Another challenge has been learning to grow without losing depth. My work has expanded from sport into psychotherapy, aviation, and other high-pressure environments, and every transition has required more education, humility, and a willingness to become a student again.
There have been plenty of opportunities that did not work out and periods where progress felt slow, but those experiences have shaped my career as much as the successes have.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Perfect Mind Mental Performance?
Perfect Mind Mental Performance is a human performance practice focused on helping people perform effectively under pressure without separating performance from well-being.
The business began in sport, where I worked with athletes and teams on areas such as confidence, focus, emotional regulation, routines, resilience, and performance under pressure. Over time, the work expanded into military and commercial aviation, high-stakes professions, and psychotherapy.
Today, I work with athletes, pilots, leaders, and professionals operating in demanding environments where attention, decision-making, emotional control, recovery, and mental readiness can have a meaningful impact on performance.
What sets my work apart is the combination of backgrounds I bring to it. My training spans sport psychology, coaching, teaching, kinesiology, psychotherapy, mental performance, and human performance. That allows me to look at performance from a broader perspective rather than treating mental skills, mental health, physiology, and context as completely separate issues.
The philosophy behind Perfect Mind is simple: there is no sustainable high performance without well-being. I am proud that the business has grown from a sport-focused mental performance practice into work across aviation, high-performance sport, and other demanding professional environments while still maintaining that principle.
Whether I am working with an athlete, a pilot, or a professional under pressure, the goal is similar: help people develop the skills, awareness, and habits that allow them to perform consistently while remaining healthy enough to sustain it.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
I tend to rely more on books, research, and conversations with interesting people than on any one app or productivity system.
A few books that have influenced how I think include Think Again by Adam Grant and Peak Mind by Amish Jha. I also read quite a bit in psychology, human performance, neuroscience, and behavioral science, so academic research is probably one of my most-used resources professionally.
For podcasts, I enjoy Adam Grant’s WorkLife, particularly when he explores decision-making, performance, motivation, and human behavior.
More generally, I try to stay curious across disciplines. Some of the most useful ideas in my work have come from connecting concepts from sport, psychology, aviation, education, physiology, and leadership rather than staying inside any one field.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.perfectmind.ca
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectmind.mp/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PerfectMind.MP/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gustavoruthes