Way Of Champions Podcast

Daniel Coyle is the New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code, The Culture Code, The Little Book of Talent, The Secret Race (co-authored with Tyler Hamilton), Hardball: A Season in Projects, and other books.  Winner (with Hamilton) of the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prize, he is a contributing editor for Outside Magazine, and works as a special advisor to the Cleveland Indians. Coyle lives in Cleveland, Ohio during the school year and in Homer, Alaska, during the summer with his wife Jen, and their four children. In today's episode, a replay from 2018, Coyle discusses the three principles of the world's best team cultures: safety, vulnerability, and shared purpose. He shares stories ranging from the NBA to the Navy Seals, including these highlights: Show Notes How a little girl and a tennis ball sparked The Culture Code NBA Coach Greg Popovich does two things: he tells you the truth and he loves you to death How one great team "Pounds the Rock" What is safety and why do great culture

Shay Haddow (@shayhaddow) is an expert coach and speaker on confidence and mindset for female athletes. Having worked with hundreds of youth female athletes and college teams from across the country, she’s empowered girl athletes to build unshakable confidence so they can live and play to their fullest potential.  As the host of the Alpha Girl Confidence Podcast, and Author of She the Confident, Shay is widely regarded for her insights on confidence and mindset by parents and coaches around the country.  After overcoming her own struggles with confidence throughout her club and collegiate soccer career, Shay knew that it was her life's purpose to provide female athletes with the mentorship that she wished she had when she was younger. Shay has dedicated her life to empowering female athletes of all ages to uncover their greatest superpower of all, allowing them to break free from their limitations and achieve their biggest dreams, on and off the field or court. Way of Champions Conference 2021 This weeks podc

Owen Eastwood (@oweneastwood) is one of the world's most sought after high performance coaches. He is currently working with the England Men's Football (soccer) team during the 2021 Euros, and has worked with organizations such at NATO Command, South Africa Cricket, Scotland Rugby, the Royal Ballet, and Team GB. Today we discuss his fantastic new book Belonging: The Ancient Code of Togetherness, in which he sets out the thinking behind his methods of unlocking success, and how they can be adapted to different groups and teams. In the process, he discusses evolutionary science, personal development and philosophy, as he draws on notions of belonging, of shared vision and the spiritual wisdom of his ancestors. We discuss both the biology and psychology of togetherness, fear vs challenge mentality, and how high performing groups follow a path whereby they: Find their identity story Define a shared purpose Vision their future success Share ownership Turn diversity int a competitive advantage. Owen shares numero

Christian Lavers is a former attorney turned soccer coach, and today is the president of the Elite Clubs National League, a nationwide, highly competitive league where over 90% of the girls involved move on to college soccer, and the fledgling boys league is already attracting some of the top teams in the country. Christian is a top coach and a leader through the ECNL in building a player first environment and always asking "how can we make the experience to the top players in the country even better." In our discussion today, we cover many topics from creating that player first environment to practice design, effective coaching, and his hopes for the future of soccer in the US. You can learn more at www.theecnl.com or follow Christian on Twitter @CLavers1. Welcome to our New Sponsor GoodSport! GoodSport™ is a natural sports drink that delivers superior hydration backed by science with a delicious thirst-quenching taste. And what’s really cool about it, is that it’s made from milk. It turns out, milk is packe

This week on the podcast we delve into an incredibly important topic, the mental health and well-being of our athletes. With the recent withdrawal of one of the world's top tennis players, Naomi Osaka, from the French Open due to depression and social anxiety, this topic has been in the news a lot recently. There have been two distinct camps; one that says you make millions of dollars so suck it up and play, and the other that recognizes that just becasue these athletes are so exceptional in one area of their life does not mean they are not struggling in others. One of the people leading that discussion recently on CNN and the BBC is our friend Dr Jarrod Spencer. Dr. Jarrod Spencer (@jarrod_spencer) is president and founder of Mind of the Athlete, LLC, a sports psychology company committed to improving the emotional health of athletes (www.MindOfTheAthlete.com). He is the author of Mind of the Athlete: Clearer Mind, Better Performance and the co-author of the book the The Sky Is NOT The Limit: Discovering the

This week, in order to celebrate Christian Pulisic becoming the first American male to win the Champions League, we dig into the archives for our interview with his father Mark. Mark is a former collegiate and professional player and coach, and our talk took place soon after Christian completed his $73 million transfer to Chelsea of the English Premier League. Since then, Christian has hit some incredible heights, and experienced some devastating injuries and extreme disappointment, yet came through it all to become a Champions league winner with Chelsea one week ago.   Today we speak about a variety of topics, including what it was like to raise Christian, how many times Mark and his wife Kelly said no to great opportunities, how they limited his competitive team practices to 2 sessions per week, dealing with pressure, Christian's goodbye in Dortmund, and so much more. We trace Mark’s professional career and his short stint coaching in Germany and what were the major differences with coaching youth players i

Carlo Cornacchia is a long time friend and coaching collaborator, and has both played and coached at the highest levels the game of soccer has to offer. He played professionally in Italy for clubs such as Napoli, Atalanta and Cagliari, and the last few years he has been a part of legendary coach Claudio Ranieri's staff at Fulham in the English Premier League, Nancy in France, and both Roma and Sampdoria in Italy. They recently wrapped up a 9th place finish in Serie A with Sampdoria, punching far above their weight and budget during the most trying of seasons.  In our chat today, Carlo and John discuss how players and the game have changed from his playing days, what are the qualities of exceptional coaches such as Ranieri, how to connect with players at any level, and how young coaches transitioning from their playing days must pay their dues, and "taste the mud" as he says. What is great about Carlo is that not only has he coached internationals in front of massive crowds on the world's biggest stage, but he

Joe Sagula has spent the last 40 years as an NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball coach with the University of Pennsylvania and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. During that time his teams have won over 800 matches and 17 Conference titles. He is a 9x ACC and Ivy League Coach of the Year and ranks 15th all time in Division I wins. More importantly, Joe is an amazing guy, who is focused on creating a culture of love and respect, constantly reinventing himself, and creating a transformational experience for the kids he coaches. In this weeks episode we discuss love, power, vulnerability, culture, being a lifelong learner, joy, and so much more. Buckle in and get ready to take some notes! This week’s podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sports Refund. Many of you probably buy trip insurance, every winter I buy ski pass insurance, to make sure that if I get injured I can get my money back on that expensive investment. Well, many of us spend thousands of dollars on our kids sports club fees, but what

This past week, John has been assisting his local competitive soccer club with their annual tryouts, and like most years, tryouts are a trying time! How do you balance the "as many as possible, as long as possible" philosophy with facility shortages, lack of trained coaches, and the fact that competitive teams and leagues require different levels of commitments than some are willing to make? How do athletes prepare mentally to perform their best? How can parents support their kids during this time? How do you support the child who gets cut or moved to a new team? And how can coaches be humane and empathize with their players and parents while at the same time make the difficult decisions they are called to make? We have never covered this in depth on the podcast before, so we figured we would give it a shot this week. Please let us know what you think! This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sports Refund. Many of you probably buy trip insurance, every winter I buy ski pass insurance, to make

Resilience is quite the buzzword these days, but what is it exactly, and how do we develop resilience in ourselves, and model it for our children? Clint Schumacher is a husband, father, lawyer, HS football coach and author fo the great new book Second Wind, all about the 14 decisions we get to make about whether to be resilient or not throughout our lives. In this weeks talk John and Clint break down a few of these major choices we get to make, such as viewing obstacles as opportunities, preparing the child for the path, and more.    Schumacher is passionate about building teams that are resilient, engaged, and motivated. He has the unique experience of both working to solve complex legal problems and coaching young athletes to succeed. He has studied, applied, and taught the principles of resilience set out in this book. They work. He has completed a marathon, climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, won a bellyflop contest, and finished deep in the money at the World Series of Poker, and has many years of experi

This week we dive into the archives, back to episode 31 where Mark Bennett visited us for the first time. This podcast was a game changer for me in terms of how I coach, communicate with athletes, build accountability, and more. It was so fun to do the editing again and listen to this one. Get ready to take some notes! Mark is a former British Commando & senior instructor within the Army Physical Training Corps who served 22 years before turning down promotion in order to leave the services & pursue his passion full time. During his Military career Mark was the senior instructor running the commando training wing & was the first person to redesign the preparatory training to focus on developing mental robustness within soldiers to increase the pass rate on one of the toughest courses in the British Army. ​Mark works as a consultant, trainer, mentor & coach to various corporations, professional & national sport organizations, teams & Universities around the world, as well as Schools &am

Asia Mape is a 4x Emmy Awards winning sports journalist and producer, and the founder of the incredible website "I Love to Watch You Play." She has covered five Olympic games, two Super Bowls and nearly every major sporting event in the world. She has also interviewed hundreds of the top athletes, and has first hand knowledge of what it takes to perform at the highest level. A former college basketball player and mom of three athletic girls, Mape has dedicated the past few years to providing parents and coaches with the latest information on coaching, parenting, nutrition, sleep, and everything youth sports. You can follow her on social media, (@iltwyp) and get instant access to all her latest posts.  Here are also some of her best articles: Kids Tell Us The Truth About Sports Parents 17-Ways I'm going to be a better sports parent Why it sucks to be the parent of a good athlete The crucial lesson parents must learn from Covid In our conversation today we cover so many items, from the origins of ILTWYP,  t

Kate Leavell is a speaker, workshop facilitator, and author of the brand new book Stick Together with Jon Gordon. She is a former NCAA and high school coach, corporate sales consultant, and Coaches Education Trainer for US Lacrosse, and now works with teams and leaders across the country to boost performance, connection, and energy as one of the lead trainers for the Jon Gordon group. She is passionate about teaching strategies that turn a powerful vision into reality, while unifying teammates around their purpose and mission. She is also the author of Confessions of an Imperfect Coach as well as a sports parent. In our conversation today, we discuss her great new book and its simple principles about how great teams come together through shared purpose, ownership, love, inclusion, and much more. Stick Together is a great book for teams coaching staffs, and other groups to read and reflect n together, and Kate delivers this message with great knowledge and passion.  This weeks podcast is brought to you by our

The children are listening, they are paying attention, and they need us more than ever. That is what our guest this week John Yeager is telling us. John Yeager is a positive psychology consultant and performance coach who works with coaches and athletes at the youth, high school, college, Olympic, and professional levels. As a former elite athlete, John was both collegiate and professional Lacrosse Player and is a member of the New England Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He has also been a coach and currently is the chief education officer at Yeager Leadership, his presentations and training programs have motivated and inspired audiences around the United States. He works with many college teams and athletes, as well as corporate leaders. His brand new book  which he co-authored is called The Coaching Zone: Next level Leadership in sport and its really good. It talks about self awareness,  what he called “The Team Dance” and a concept I really like, how to build psychological capital with your athletes. I just want to

Mary Harvey is currently the CEO for the Centre of Sports and Human Rights and has dedicated herself to making sport better for athletes of every age. She enjoyed an illustrious playing career in soccer, winning the 1991 World Cup and 1996 Olympic Gold with the US Women’s National team, and since then has spent years in the corporate ranks and sport governance. She is A former senior executive at FIFA (2003-2008), where she became involved in the reform process at FIFA by launching the #WomeninFIFA campaign with Australian Moya Dodd.  The campaign was successful in achieving gender inclusion as a core tenet of the reforms passed in 2016. Mary has served as a sport envoy for the US State Department’s Sports Diplomacy Division on several occasions, including missions to Iraq, Jordan, Canada and Mexico. On these missions, the key objective was engaging key stakeholders via sport outreach to promote acceptance and integration of diverse groups. Mary also serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the G

Every once in a while we do a flashback to an oldie but goodie from the archives, and we decided to do that this week because it was spring break here in Oregon, and I was headed out with some friends to tech free cabin up by Mt Rainier in Washington, and I realized last second I needed a book to read. So I grabbed one off the shelf that I had not read in quite a while, yet it is one I talk about at almost every single presentation I do. It is called The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, and this book is truly required reading for coaches. Why? Everyone has these defining moments in their lives that they vividly recall. But these moments are not an accident. Science actually tells us which type of moments people are most likely to remember in any experience. Some are extraordinary and some are terrible. As coaches, we do not get to choose which moments our athletes recall, but we do get to choose the moments we create in order to ensure what we leave our athletes with are exceptionally positive moments.

This week on the WOC Podcast we ae so excited to welcome back Joe Baker from York University in Canada, along with one of his PhD students Sandy Mosher @sandymosher. You can follow Joe at @bakerjyorku on Twitter. This was a very challenging podcast, as you all know what an advocate I am of sport sampling and Joe Baker did much of the early research in this space. Joe’s research focuses on optimal human development, largely to understand how someone gets to, and stays at, the highest levels of performance. He is one of the worlds foremost experts in talent identification and skill development, and his book Developing Sport Expertise is a must have for any talent developer. He looks at various psychosocial and environmental factors influencing athletic skill development across a range of sports with a goal of  building better theory/models and construct superior learning environments. Sandy Mosher is a PhD candidate studying under Joe at York, and her recent article with Joe and Jessica Fraser-Thomas entitled “

This week on the podcast we are joined by someone who knows a ton about building and sustaining championship environments. I am talking about Brett Ledbetter. Brett is a performance consultant, author and speaker. His work focuses on character development, priority alignment, behavior management and self-awareness. He’s authored four books: What Drives Winning, What’s Really Important, What Drives Winning Teams and What Drives Winning Environments. Brett has also given three TEDx talks: "What Drives Winning," "Building Your Inner Voice" and "How to Stop Comparing and Start Competing." He is the co-founder the "What Drives Winning" conference with hall-of-fame coach Becky Burleigh, producing five conference events with top minds in sports. Brett currently works with several Division 1 athletic departments––including Gonzaga, Oregon, Florida and Oklahoma State to name a few––that hire him as a thinking partner for athletic directors, coaches and athletes. He also applies his high-performance training within edu

This week we welcome back Lindsey Wilson (@lindseypositiveperform) of Positive Performance Training and host of the Inner Game Podcast. She was on with us back in Episode 112, and she is so incredible we had to have her back on. Lindsey was an amazing athlete, an All-American basketball player at Iowa State, a WNBA draft pick, a professional player for many years, and now is not only a mindset and inner game coach for some top, top teams, but her goal is also to help coaches at every level not be intimidated by helping their athletes with the mental game. As she says, she wants to move you from “Ummmm, I don't know how to be a mindset coach!” to “Okay, it’s not perfect but I can do this!” This is often the biggest frustration coaches have - not being able to really reach someone that is struggling mentally. It’s also the thing most coaches talk about as the most rewarding… when it goes well. But how do you actually sit down and help an athlete or a team with their mindset? Get ready to take some notes as we d

This week on the podcast, we are airing a replay of a man who needs no intro, 8x NBA Champ and current Golden St Warriors coach Steve Kerr. We are replaying this today because Steve will be one of the presenters at our 2021 Way of Champions Virtual Conference, joining fellow coaching legends Quin Snyder, Cindy Timchal, Anson Dorrance, Jenny Levy, George Mumford, and more TBA. You can discover more about the event here: https://changingthegameproject.com/2021-way-of-champions-conference/   In our discussion with Steve, John and Jerry ask: What makes a great coach? How do you build a championship culture? Why should a coach ask their team, “How can I be better for you?” These questions and so many more are answered in this fantastic episode with one of the best coaches in the world.   Highlights from the Discussion: How an NFL Football Coach helped Coach Kerr develop a coaching philosophy How to get players to buy in to core values of a coach What do effective coaches have in common? Authority and Hum