Way Of Champions Podcast

Eric Potterat, PhD, is a clinical and performance psychologist and a leading expert in individual and organizational performance optimization. Eric retired as a commander from the US Navy after twenty years of service, during which he helped create the mental toughness curriculum used during Navy SEALs BUD/S training. Eric spent several years as the director of specialized performance for the Los Angeles Dodgers and has also worked with Red Bull athletes, the US Women’s national soccer team, the Miami Heat, and numerous Olympic athletes, first responders, business leaders, and NASA astronauts. He is the co-author of the new book Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World's Top Performers, which we unpack today. on the podcast. You will hear stories about the US Navy SEALs, the USWNT at the 2019 World Cup, Olympic Gold Medalist Nathan Chen, and more. REGISTRATION FOR THE 2024 WAY OF CHAMPIONS CONFERENCE IS OPEN! Save $100 if you sign up prior to June 30, and save 50% per pers

Mark Johnson (www.ironstring.com) is a sportswriter and sports photographer. He has covered cycling and endurance sports since the 1980s. His work often focuses on the business of pro cycling—a topic that frequently intersects with the sport’s long history of doping. Along with U.S. publications like VeloNews, his work is published in Cycling Weekly in the UK, Velo in France, Ride Cycling Review in Australia as well as general-interest publications including the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Mark has bicycled across the United States twice and completed an Ironman triathlon. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, the author also has an MA and PhD in English Literature from Boston University. VeloPress published Johnson’s first book, Argyle Armada: Behind the Scenes of the Pro Cycling Life, a documentary in words and photos of a year with the Garmin-Cervélo professional cycling team.  Today we discuss his amazing book Spitting in the Soup: Inside the Dirty Game of Doping in Sports. A

Ian Goldberg is the Founder and CEO of iSport360, a youth sports technology company that is changing the culture in youth sports for over 4M people.   Ian’s career started at the White House where he worked for the economic advisors to two US Presidents and then spent more than half of his career in digital product management and sales for early-stage technology companies.  Outside of his role leading iSport360, Ian is an Advisory Board member for the National Alliance for Youth Sports and is the Editor of the largest sports parenting newsletter in youth sports reaching 4 million people each month.  But most of all Ian loves his role as a #girldad and as a volunteer sports coach for his two daughters. Amy Masters is a sports mom, coach, and club administrator. She has been coaching youth sports for more than 10 years. She started Jr Lions Field Hockey, the youth recreation program for the Hunterdon County community growing it from 40 players in year 1 to 150 players by year 3. A few years later, she saw the

Dr. Mitchell Greene (@greenepsych) is a nationally recognized licensed clinical and sport psychologist, whose success over the past 15-plus years is his ability to tailor personalized solutions to his client’s problems. Dr. Greene works primarily with athletes pursuing high performance goals, or coaches and athletic departments looking to educate their student-athletes on mental health and performance enhancement strategies. Typical clients are either college (or college-bound) student-athletes or elite or pro level competitors. In 2023, Dr. Greene published Courage over Confidence: Managing Mind Chatter and Winning the Mental Game, a book based on his years of working with high-performing athletes who struggle with managing doubts and negative thinking. His book has spent time as a top 5 “Youth Sport” and “Sport Psychology” Book on Amazon. Athletes and teams have purchased Dr. Greene’s book as an off-season guide to help them train their mind for competition, as well as an in-season resource to improve their

Wells Thompson is a former Major League Soccer Player and the Founder of Soccer Resilience, an mazing resource for players and teams to build inner strength and help athletes think better so they can perform better. Wells was an all ACC player at Wake Forest and the 5th pick in the 2007 MLS Super Draft. he played for the New England Revolution, Colorado Rapids and Chicago Fire, winning the 2007 US Open Cup, 2008 Superliga, and 2010 MLS Cup. He was also the 2011 Colorado Rapids Humanitarian of the Year. In our chat you will hear such amazing self-awareness, vulnerability and authenticity from Wells as he details his journey of struggles, substance abuse, self-doubt and more as a professional athlete. It is an amazing conversation with an amazing human being. You can connect with Wells at www.soccerresilience.com.  PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS!: Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and man

This week we are joined by The Performance Doctors, three leaders dedicated to creating the optimal environment for your athletes to thrive. They are Dr Michael Mantell, Dr, Darin Davidson, and Dr. Brendan Meany.  For nearly 50 years Dr. Michael Mantell has focused on how improving mindset climate positively influences optimal performance, helps people disturb themselves less, and creates lasting positive behavior change. Since earning his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1976, he’s been riveted on alleviating suffering and accelerating peak efficiency, from serving as Chief Psychologist for San Diego’s Children’s Hospital and the San Diego Police Department, to supporting elite amateur and professional athletes, to giving psychology away and making it public throughout national and international media. He is best known for his international best seller Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.    Dr. Darin Davidson is an Orthopaedic surgeon and polyvagal informed coach focusing on promoting health, wellbeing,

Stephen Rollnick provides consultancy, mentorship and training on the subjects of motivation, change, teamwork and Motivational Interviewing. Stephen is also a clinical psychologist with many years of experience in service provision and in the training of practitioners. This work, much of it on motivational interviewing (MI), has taken him into diverse cultures and settings. He has now retired to focus on training, writing and consultancy, in the fields of healthcare and sport. Check out his amazing book for coaches, Coaching Athletes to Be Their Best: Motivational Interviewing in Sports (Applications of Motivational Interviewing) https://amzn.to/3gCzolA. Also, you can visit his website at https://www.stephenrollnick.com/ Highlights from the Podcast: – What is the difference between a guide and an instructor? – Going from directing to empathizing for motivating athletes – The processes of motivational interviewing. – What is the “ask-offer-ask” strategy? – Dr. Rollnick explains the “righting reflex” – What is

Congratulations to our friend Tara VanDerveer, the Head Coach of the Stanford Women’s Basketball team, who recently became the all-time winningest coach for men and women in NCAA basketball history, surpassing former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Coach VanDerveer is a 3-Time national champion coach, a 5 time national coach of the year, has been to 14 Final Fours, coached the 1996 US National Team at 1996 Olympics, and has been named Pac-12 Coach of the Year 17 times! She is also one of only nine NCAA Women’s Basketball coaches to win over 900 games, and one of ten NCAA Division I coaches – men’s or women’s – to win 1,000 games. Coach VanDerveer was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. In this discussion from our 2021 Way of Champions Conference, which has never before been publicaly released, Coach VanDerveer shares her thoughts on the power of coaches to influence their athletes, teams, staff, and even society as a whole.   You can connect with Coach VanDerveer on Twitter here and Stanfor

A highly-respected coach and educator, Theresa "Tree" Beeckman (@tbeeckman13) is the president and founder of Tree Roots Culture Consulting and Camps LCC. She possesses more than two decades of coaching experience at a variety of levels and has built a championship pedigree with success at numerous stops. The longtime collegiate coach served as an assistant coach at NCAA Division I Central Michigan for five years, helping the Chippewas to the school’s first-ever Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament Championship in 2011. In her tenure at CMU, she also directed the squad on an interim basis in her final campaign. Beeckman was the top assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at perennial NCAA Division II power Ferris State for six years before moving on to Central Michigan. While with the Bulldogs, she helped lead FSU to two NCAA Tournament appearances and six-straight Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) Tournament bids while becoming one of the top assistant coaches in the country afte

Aaron Cusack is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching and PE at Plymouth Marjon University in England where he program leads an MSc in High-Performance Sport Coaching.  Coupled with his academic career, he is also a football coach with over 20 years of experience in coach education. Formerly a trainee youth player with Plymouth Argyle, Aaron turned his passion to coaching at 22 and spent 13 years as an academy coach working in Plymouth Argyle’s Academy. During this time there, Aaron completed his UEFA B license and Youth Awards before progressing on to complete the prestigious UEFA A License and the Advanced Youth Award, the highest practical coaching qualifications achievable in Europe.  Aaron has helped with the development of several players now plying their trade in the professional game ranging from League Two all the way to the Premier League as well as Internationally. He has also worked as a coach educator for The FA and as a Technical Coach for the England Girls Pathway.  In 2019, he started his own co

Dr. Ben Freakley has coached individuals, teams, and organizations on the psychology of performance, team dynamics, and well-being. A former NCAA Division I athlete, Ben has been an NCAA Division I men’s soccer coach, mental performance coach for special operations forces (75th Ranger Regiment), general manager for a sports club with over 1100 members, and head of mental performance for the Toronto Blue Jays (MLB). he holds his Doctorate in Sports and Performance Psychology, and is the founder of Ready, Set, Resilient (www.rsrcoaching.com). In our discussion today, we discuss motivational interviewing, numerous ideas that coaches can immediately use to have better training sessions and gain more insight from their athletes, and the importance of building a values based culture.  Connect with Ben directly at bencfreakley@gmail.com.  PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS!: Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers

Coach Levi Nelson is a long time football coach and teacher, and holds a doctorate in Sport and Performance Psychology, two master’s degrees, and he also currently serves as a college professor and coach developer for USA Hockey. In His new book LEAD: A Coach's Playbook on How to Positively Impact the World Through Love, Effort, Attitude and Discipline he describes the importance of formulating your own coaching philosophy and guides you through the process he used to find his own life’s mission to positively impact the world. Coach Nelson shares proven methods from the field of sport and performance psychology and best practices from his own experience as a head football coach and certified trainer for the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) on practical ways to implement the characteristics within LEAD to your own coaching practice.  Grab the book: https://a.co/d/aPHYNFi Twitter: @RLeviNelson email: coachlevinelson@gmail.com   PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS!: Programs such as UNC socc

Alan Kirkup is a former professional soccer player with Manchester United, and then spent multiple decades coaching in the US. He was head women's soccer coach at SMU, Maryland, and the University of Arkansas before joining Becky Burleigh at the University of Florida for nearly two decades. He compiled over 250 wins as a head coach, leading SMU to a Final 4 and making the NCAA tournament every year he coached at Maryland. He is currently the women's technical director at Lexington Soccer Club and head coach of their USL Women's professional team. Today on the podcast we discuss his playing career, all the lessons learned as a collegiate head coach, and making the transition to assistant coach at the University of Florida.  PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS!: Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and many other champions are using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE book with their athletes. Schools and club

For over 25 years, Paul McVeigh (@PaulMcVeigh77) has been an elite performer in two of the most competitive industries on the planet; elite sport and performance psychology. As a thought leader in business, performance psychology and as a published author, he’s dedicated his career to understanding what makes humans ‘tick’ and how it affects the way they think, feel and act. As a Premier League and International football player for Tottenham Hotspur, Norwich City and Northern Ireland, Paul competed with and against the best players in the world on a daily basis which has shaped his understanding of his methodology of high performance. As a world-renowned expert in elite performance, Paul’s credibility comes from his unique combination of reaching the pinnacle of elite sport as well as being the first Premier League footballer to qualify with a Master’s Degree in Psychology. Paul specializes in implementing the mental tools required to elevate the performance of leaders and teams from organizations across

Dr. Cassidy Preston (@cassidypreston) is a Mental Performance Coach for professional athletes and high-performers like surgeons, hedge fund managers, and CEO’s. The challenges he faced as an elite hockey player created a passion for finding a better way to work on the mental game. He has dedicated his life to helping his clients use practical and personalized strategies that deliver repeatable and reliable results.  After completing his PhD, Cassidy founded CEP Mindset and built a team of coaches that utilize his approach and system. The team has quickly become one of the largest Mental Performance Coaching firms in the world - that has coached 10,000’s of athletes and high-performers to improve their mindset and achieve Consistent Elite Performance. His recent book, Mindset First, provides a new way for elite athletes and high-performers in all areas of life to mentally prepare. The concise and practical strategies in this book are the accumulation of Dr. Cassidy Preston’s personal, academic, & professio

Dr. Michael Gervais (@MichaelGervais) is one of the world’s top high-performance psychologists and leading experts on the relationship between the mind and human performance. Dr. Gervais has spent his career being called on by the best of the best across the worlds of business, sport, the arts, and science when they need to achieve the extraordinary. T0day we discuss his brand new book The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What People Think if You.  Dr. Gervais is also the founder and host of the Finding Mastery Podcast, the co-creator of the Performance Science Institute at USC, and his work has been featured by NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, ESPN, NFL Network, Red Bull TV, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Outside Magazine, WIRED, ESPN Magazine and more. Among his notable work, he has trained over 50,000 Microsoft employees, helped Red Bull Athlete Felix Baumgartner manage his mind and body under pressure for his record-setting skydive from 128,000 feet. As a sport psychology consultant, he was a membe

Maureen Monte (@maureenemonte) builds winning teams that unite, overcome obstacles, and achieve big goals. She has a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and an M.S. in Leadership and Business Ethics, and is a Gallup-certified StrengthsFinder subject matter expert. She provided leadership development training for executives as an adjunct professor at Cornell and delivers leadership training to the University of Michigan’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and Rochester University’s MS in Sports Leadership. A former captain and MVP of her high school basketball team, Maureen has 30 years of corporate experience, was Engineer of the Year for IBM, has launched two companies, provided consulting services to 20,000 professionals on global teams, and worked with over 2,000 athletes and coaches, including multiple national and Olympic teams. Maureen brings a “Moneyball” approach to the inside game of high performance. Every person has an internal motor that fuels their external greatness. Using the StrengthsFinder to

J.P. Nerbun (@jopnerbun) is a bestselling author, leadership coach, and founder of TOC Culture Consulting, a leading global sports-consulting and leadership coaching business. His mission is to support leaders and their teams to achieve their full potential through 1:1 coaching, consulting, and community. Nerbun's impressive scope spans across sports, education, healthcare, and business, with a proven track record of guiding leaders at esteemed institutions such as Stanford University, Harvard University, University of Texas, the USGA, PWC, and Chick-Fil-A.  In 2019, he published his first book, Calling Up: Discovering Your Journey to Transformational Leadership, which has received critical acclaim. In 2022, he published The Culture System: A Proven Process for Creating an Extraordinary Team Culture, a groundbreaking book offering a framework for developing team culture. In 2023, he launched The Culture System Online Training Platform, which has been praised for being one of the most applicable online coach e

This week we welcome George Mumford, author, psychologist and Mindfulness & Elite Performance Expert. Named Phil Jackson’s ‘Secret Weapon’ to winning eight NBA Championships, George’s passion is teaching mindfulness to high profile sports, business and academic teams alike; from the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks, to senior global executives and systems. John and Jerry dive in with George on his new book Unblocked, and how to develop inner strength and grwo through adversity. George has helped elite performers such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant find their greatness, and he can help you find yours.  You can connect with George on Twitter or on his website at georgemumford.com. Be sure to also check out his bestselling book, The Mindful Athlete. PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS SOON TO GET THEM BY THE HOLIDAYS!: Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and many other champions are using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE bo

Dr. Lauren McHenry is a certified mental performance consultant through the Association of Applied Sport Psychology and national certified counselor. As a former Team USA and professional athlete, Lauren understands the pressures, expectations, and emotional highs and lows in the world of elite and collegiate sport. She is the founder of McHenry Mental Performance, LLC and Thriving Through BeingTM. As a consultant, Lauren serves athletes, sport parents, coaches, and sport organizations across the country to optimize performance without compromising well-being. Lauren created Thriving Through BeingTM to help coaches thrive through quality relationships with athletes, colleagues, and parents with an evidence-based, easy-to-access course that offers practical and immediately applicable strategies. Lauren’s work—much of which informs the Thriving Through BeingTM course—has been published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and the Routledge Handbook of Mental Health in Elite Sport. In today's episode, we s