Sports Thoughts

By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * You already know exactly how to look after an athlete - you do it every day. * The advice you give your team applies, word for word, to you. * Stop being their coach for a moment and become a member of your own squad. One of the great things about the last few years is that more and more people are talking openly about coaches’ health, coaches’ wellbe...

By Wayne Goldsmth Three important messages: * You can’t change everybody - no matter how good you are. * You certainly can’t change everybody at once. * And no matter how you go about it, it takes time. I want to talk to all the coaches out there. And the message is simple. Stop beating yourself up. Stop being so hard on yourself. Stop being so demanding of yourself . Be a little bit kind to yours...

By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * At 11, 12, 13, 14 our ability to predict senior talent is nowhere near as good as we think it is. * Worshipping early physical talent is one of the great mistakes in junior sport. * Our job is to elevate kids - not shatter them. This is my first video post in a little while. I’ve been travelling and doing some other things, but we’re back to regular s...

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: * Why most coaches stop improving after their first few years; * The four habits of coaches who keep getting better; * How to build a professional development system that actually works. The Plateau Problem: Most coaches improve rapidly in their first few years. Then they plateau. Same sessions. Same methods. Same results. It’s the old saying: It’s not ten years of experience....

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: * Why technical knowledge is no longer your competitive advantage; * The three skills that separate good coaches from great ones; * How to keep developing when no one is developing you. Technical Knowledge Is Now Free: Everything you learned in your coaching course is now available online. For free. You can pick up your phone and learn anytime, anywhere and mostly without payi...

Your child isn’t the next Tiger Woods. They’re not the next Serena Williams. They’re not the next Michael Phelps. Your child is a wonderful, unique, potentially incredible human being — different from anyone who’s ever lived. You don’t want them to be the NEXT anyone. You want them to be happy, healthy and caring. Following their heart. Pursuing their dreams. Living a long, fulfilled life. If they...

Some of the best coaches I’ve ever worked with were elite athletes. And some of the worst coaches I’ve ever worked with were elite athletes. Being great at playing a sport doesn’t automatically make you great at coaching it. The Pros: What Former Athletes Bring Credibility: They’ve been there. Done that. Won that. Athletes listen differently to someone who’s walked the path. Empathy: They know wha...

By Wayne Goldsmith Introduction: Your athletes look great in warm-up and drills but fall apart when it matters because you’ve trained them to only perform skills when they’re comfortable. Let’s try something different! Three Critical Learning Points: * The typical session structure — warm-up, drills, skills, THEN conditioning means skills are only ever practised fresh. * If athletes only own skill...

By Wayne Goldsmith Introduction: We spend thousands of hours building stronger bodies and almost zero time building stronger minds. Three Critical Learning Points: * The brain is a “muscle”- “a mental muscle” — and like any muscle, it needs systematic training, not just occasional attention. * Mental conditioning belongs IN your training sessions, not in a separate “sports psych” add-on lecture. *...

By Wayne Goldsmith With everyone trying to sell you everything — I thought I’d give you three things that will make you an even better coach. Three practical strategies you can do right now to enhance your coaching. And they’re free. I call them the 3 Ls of Coaching: 1. LOOK When an athlete walks towards you, make a conscious decision to look directly into their eyes. With some athletes that can b...

Let’s talk about Talent Identification. Most countries, all professional clubs, and even a lot of schools do some form of talent identification. And most of them are doing it wrong. Let me explain. If you ask the world’s 100 greatest coaches this question: “What does it take to be great — to be a champion — in your sport?” The answers will include: * Resilience. * Commitment. * Dedication. * Persi...

By Wayne Goldsmith “What can I do, Wayne?” — Signed, Desperate Parent I get this message all the time: “My daughter was a great gymnast at 8. Winning regionals at 10. Competing nationally at 11. Now she’s 15 and wants to quit. What can I do?” What they want me to say: “I can tell you how to motivate her to stay and make the Olympic team.” What I actually say: “Let her go. Tell her you love her. Su...

When you start out in coaching, someone will come in and talk to you about skills and technique and drills. And the traditional model goes something like this: Introduce a new skill. Demonstrate it. Get the kids to try it. Make it fun. Make it interesting. Get them engaged. Then — once they understand the movement — get them to do it over and over and over again until they “master” the technique....

Your athletes can hit the time in training. They can execute the skill on Tuesday afternoon at the quiet local ground. They can do the task. But can they do it when and where it matters? After 10 hours on a bus. Sharing a room with teammates who stayed up all night on social media. Eating fast food because nothing else was open. In front of more people than they’ve ever seen. On a ground they’ve n...

I’ve spent 35 years in sport. Most of that as a coach developer — a coach of coaches. Tens of thousands of hours with coaches who’ve achieved remarkable things: Olympic gold, World Championships, Grand Slams, professional titles at the highest level. Here’s my gift to you — the top three things I’ve learnt from that living library of coaching genius: 1. Learn something new every day. The best coac...

By Wayne Goldsmith Why aren’t kids coming back to your sport? The answer — and the solution — is standing on your sideline. Your coaches ARE the experience. Every session. Every interaction. Every moment that makes a kid think “I love this” or “I’m done.” You can have world-class facilities, brilliant programs and big marketing budgets, but what the coach says and does on Tuesday night determines...

There is no magic pill. No secret sauce. No one thing that guarantees success. The internet is full of people — usually selling something — telling you the “only” thing you need or the “best” way to do it. 30 years in this business taught me a simple filter for what’s real and what’s bulldust: RED FLAGS: * Absolutes — words like always, never, must, only, best = probably rubbish * Big promises — m...

By Wayne Goldsmith This is part three of my trilogy on the Norway sporting success story. Part 1: Everyone wants to copy Norway — but you have to play like YOUR place. Part 2: I’d scrap all junior rep teams for under-14s. Part 3: So what SHOULD you do? Here’s my three-step framework: 1. Learn from your legends. Stand on the shoulders of giants. Your sport has a legacy — people who figured out what...

Parents — sometimes you have to say NO. And mean it. We all love our kids. I’ve got eight — I get it. But I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve had with sporting parents whose child didn’t get selected in a team and who want to blame the system or the coach or the selectors or anyone and everyone they can find. Instead of saying: “You didn’t make it this time. I love you. I’ll be right here bes...

What would you do if you had ONE session with a team you don’t know, in a place you’ve never been, sometimes in a language you don’t speak, in a sport you don’t understand? I am very lucky. I get to travel the world and work with coaches, athletes, teams and sporting parents everywhere. Often, coaches will invite me to visit their training sessions and spend time with their team. This can vary bet...

By Wayne Goldsmith Thanks for the incredible response to the "Good Boys Make Great Players" video. A coach wrote to me and asked, "Wayne. How do I coach "good"? Great question. My answer: Stop seeing them as athletes. Start seeing them as people who do athletic things. This re-framing of your coaching is essential because you shift your focus from talent, skills, winning, losing, performance etc....

I was visiting the Collingwood AFL Club here in Australia. Impressive facilities. Long history of success. Well resourced. Professional football team. They had a guy whose job was to take care of the players’ boots. Clean them, repair them, dry them. He’d been there for years doing the same job — and he loved it. I asked him: “ You’ve seen some of the game’s greatest players over a long time. What...

A lot of coaches, club committees and sports administrators complain that the reason their program, their team and their athletes are not competitive is due to poor facilities. “If we had a better court, our kids would be able to train and play better” etc. In 30 years in this business I’ve seen kids in Africa train in dirty swimming pools with no starting blocks, lane ropes or backstroke flags -...

There are no 7 year old champions, There are no sporting super-stars at 9 years of age. There are no “great” athletes at 11 years of age. Recently a sporting parent said something to me that I wanted to share with you. I promise you - NONE of this is embellished or made up. “Wayne. I need your advice. My kid plays sport and he’s great at it. Everyone tells us that he’s a champion. I want to help h...

By Wayne Goldsmith n the old days, coaches talked a lot. We’d go on and on about what to do, how to do it, how many times to do it, why to do it. Now, athletes want something other than a “sage on a stage”. They want a coach who works WITH them — not AT them. They want more than telling and yelling. Questions are a powerful coaching tool. Why? Because when you ask an athlete a question, they stop,...