Port Adelaide veteran Travis Boak has revealed how he overcame challenging periods throughout his career and captaincy.

Boak will go down as one of the Power’s greatest ever players, having played more games than anyone else in club history.

As well as holding the games record (which at 374 is still rising), Boak has made the All-Australian team three times, won the club best and fairest award twice and is a three-time winner of the Showdown Medal.

Boak also served as captain of the Power from 2013-2018.

But despite starring on the field and presenting as a model professional, Boak had his challenges off the field.

Speaking to Hamish McLachlan on Unfiltered, Boak revealed he struggled with validation before reading Daring Greatly by Brené Brown completely changed his perspective.

“I couldn’t put the book down, it was something that changed my whole perspective on everything,” he said.

“During my captaincy and a lot through my career, I cared so much about what people thought ... you play a bad game, you look online at some comments and they say ‘you actually played alright’ or whatever it was to give yourself a bit of validation.

“Everything was external, everything that I was trying to get was from somewhere else.

“Now I read Daring Greatly and the whole thing is about the man in the arena, so every judgement from the outside — there’s no way it should affect you at all because it’s all about inside and what you do.

“If you’re out there competing then you’re putting yourself out there and the people in the stands that have an opinion of you, that doesn’t matter.”

Boak also opens up on the heartbreak of losing four preliminary finals with Port Adelaide.

You can watch the full episode of Unfiltered with Australia’s best sports interviewer Hamish McLachlan featuring former Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak, at 9.30pm straight after The Front Bar, on Seven & 7plus.