Coaching Coaches

This show will bring you interviews with the world’s most-respected coaches, best-selling authors, & top leaders to give you insight into their philosophies, lessons, & mindsets. Subscribe to the newsletter here: coachingcoaches.substack.com/subscribe

Paul Oyer, Stanford – Economic Value of Tradition, Reckless Spending in Sports, & The Most Insane Stat You’ve Ever Heard 01/17/2023

Francesca Gino, Harvard - Steve Kerr, Exploring Your Curiosities, & Embracing Your Rebellious Side (w/ Oliver Winterbone) 12/13/2022

Daniel Coyle - The Culture Playbook: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups & How To Apply Them To Your Own Team (w/ Oliver Winterbone) 09/24/2022

SPECIAL: Jeff Seder – The Best Moneyball Story of All-Time (via The Meb Faber Show) 08/15/2022

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: Moneyball For Your Life 06/14/2022

GUEST INTERVIEW: Preston Greene and Shane Perkins – The Mindset of A World Champion 10/26/2021

David Shaw, Stanford Football Head Coach: Developing Players On & Off The Field 03/30/2021

Michele Gelfand, Author & Cultural Psychologist: Is Your Culture Tight or Loose? 03/16/2021

Becky Burleigh, University of Florida Soccer Coach: Who Are You Becoming As A Result of The Chase? 03/02/2021

Anson Dorrance, 22x National Champion UNC Women's Soccer Coach: Leadership, Competitiveness & Character Development 02/16/2021

Travis Wyckoff, Kingdom Coaching: Helping Coaches Become Better Leaders 02/09/2021

Travis Wyckoff, Kingdom Coaching: Helping Coaches Become Better Leaders 🚨 ------ My guest today is , founder of , a consulting business for coaches to help provide the tools, strategies, and skills you need to transform how you lead yourself, lead others, and win in all areas. He also hosts the podcast called which I was recently a guest on. Previously, he coached college baseball for 11 years and spent six years leading on a church staff. In this episode, we discuss the transition from coaching college baseball to starting Kingdom Coaching. He explains the different ways he works with coaches, whether it is one-on-one coaching, staff coaching, Tribe Membership, or cohorts. We spend a lot of time around leadership, a topic he is incredibly passionate about. After his time spent working with some of the top coaches, like Tim Corbin and Anson Dorrance, he distills a great leader down to character, emotional intelligence, clarity, psychological makeup. Where to connect with Travis: | | or email him at [email protected] Resources Discussed: End of Episode Questions: 1. What’s 1 book every coach should read? 2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? Dabo Swinney 3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? Be more present with others 4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong? Be yourself – no, be the best version of yourself 5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this? Be a continuous learner 6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it? One season while coaching was really hard with poor pitching and tough to handle as the team went through it. He overcame it via grit. Favorite Quote: “John Maxwell talks a ton about: your leadership ability will determine the lid on, in my case the people I'm working with, it'll determine the lid of your program. So if your leadership is growing, if you're a really excellent leader, your program is going to rise. If not, you will put the lid on your program based on what your leadership capacity is.” /episode/index/show/coachingcoachespodcast/id/17656085

Ethan Kross, University of Michigan Professor: Harnessing Your Inner Voice (w/ Oliver Winterbone) 02/02/2021

Ethan Kross, University of Michigan Professor: Harnessing Your Inner Voice (w/ Oliver Winterbone) 🚨 ------ My guest today is , one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. He’s currently a professor at the University of Michigan, where he founded the . He’s also the author of , which is the focus of our conversation today. In this episode, we learn about what coaches can do to help reframe the negative self-talk we have with ourselves and help our players do the same. Ethan walks us through examples of how he would handle different situations, including coaching a player who is reluctant to take advice, helping a player deal with negative self talk when enduring a slump, or why he would encourage players to have routines like tennis great Rafael Nadal. From time to time I am going to have others co-host episodes with me and today I’m joined by . Oliver is the Director of Coaches and Executives at Wasserman, one of the premiere talent management companies in the world. He previously spent five seasons in the front office of the Oklahoma City Thunder in various roles, most recently as Director of Player Development. Before that he worked for the University of Florida Basketball program from 2010-14 which is when we got to know each other. Show Notes: (1:28) - Episode begins with a story of Rick Ankiel (6:12) - Ethan gives an overview of topics he covers in the book and what ‘chatter’ is (10:30) - Ethan explains the three buckets of tools to help coaches handle negative self-talk or help players handle negative-self talk (12:59) - Ethan explains how to use distanced self-talk (16:09) - Best practices to coach a player experiencing anxiety while playing (19:55) - The benefits of rituals (24:55) - How rituals performed as a group help shrink the sense of self and make us feel part of something bigger than ourselves (25:25) - How coaches should advise players to use rituals for their advantage (28:20) - Why it’s important to have a chatter “Board of Advisors” and choose who you go to for help and support carefully (32:20) - How coaches can help address both the emotion and cognitive parts of someone’s problem (35:15) - How social media contributes to our negative self-talk and advice on handling the upside and downside of social media (45:30) - How to give unsolicited advice or coach a player who isn’t receptive to listening to you (48:38) - How ‘touch’ helps us work through difficult times (54:55) - How experiencing the emotion of ‘awe’ can help us handle chatter and feel part of something bigger (58:00) - How to learn to treat ourselves kinder (mentions ) (1:01:25) - Advice for parents to encourage positive behaviors around chater (1:05:31) - End of episode questions End of Episode Questions: 1. What’s 1 book every coach should read? 2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? Jim Harbaugh 3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? Spend more time with his children 4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong? Vent about your problems 5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this? Be cognizant of the power of the mind can have on performance 6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it? He received a threatening letter about work he published. He used his chatter toolbox to overcome it Favorite Quotes: “We don't want to rid ourselves of negativity. What we want to do is prevent the negative thoughts from morphing into the chatter, into the negative cycle of thinking and feeling that's unproductive and never ends.” “Rituals, we often do them with, especially in the sports context, with other other players and coaches, and they have a broader meaning, right? There's this strength, this significance. It's not about just me. It's about all of us together and when it's about the team, not just me, that makes our own concerns feel a little bit smaller. So there's a shrinking of the self that occurs when we engage in these kinds of collective rituals that are very prevalent in sports.” “And so what I tell people is to be really deliberate about who you choose to go to for chatter support. Like, I think really carefully about this in my own life. There are lots of people who I love very much and who love me who I don't go to for help because I know they're just going to make it worse or they're not going to help. And so there are other people that I consistently go to for support and they help. So I like to think of this as you’re building a board of advisors for help in different domains that you might need it.” “When an athlete engages in a structured ritual, that gives them a sense of control. They're putting things in a particular place, they're creating order. And that provides us with a sense of order that can be alleviating.” “Look, negative self-talk on its own isn't a bad thing. Like, it's, I think, a good thing to be able to review your life and review the negative things so you can learn from them.” “You know, you'll see LeBron James, there was a an incident ten years ago (“The Decision”) where he's facing a really tough decision. He says, “All right, I don't want to make an emotional decision, LeBron James got to do what is best for LeBron James.” Or you see Tiger Woods coaching himself through a difficult stroke using his name. And so a lot of people stumble on this technique, I think without really understanding how it works. We've now I figured out how it works and it's something that we can coach other people to use.” /episode/index/show/coachingcoachespodcast/id/17781857

Coby Karl, South Bay Lakers Head Coach: The Curious Leader 01/26/2021

Bret Burchard, NBA G-League Coach & Founder of ChampionShift: Developing the Mindset of A Champion 01/12/2021

Dana Cavalea, Former NY Yankees Strength Coach: Championship Habits from Yankee Greats 01/05/2021

Dana Cavalea, Former NY Yankees Strength Coach: Championship Habits from Yankee Greats 🚨 ------ My guest today is , who spent 12 years with the New York Yankees, many of which were as the Director of Strength and Conditioning & Performance Enhancement. He won the 2009 World Series and was named the top strength coach voted by his peers during the same season. He is also the author of . During the episode, we discuss what it was like to be called by Yankees GM Brian Cashman at the age of 23 to be promoted to the Head Strength Coach, why certain players have the right mental make-up and routine to succeed over time, how he helped young players work through failure, and what Mariano Rivera said the secret was to his success. He also touches on how GM Brian Cashman handled the team meeting during the 2009 season after they lost 10 straight games, which turned the season around, and what other lessons he learned from guys like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Andy Pettite. Show Notes (1:40) —Episode begins with how he was hired to be the head strength coach for the New York Yankees when he was 23 years old (3:00) — How he built trust with the players at such a young age (4:30) — How players handle failure in baseball (6:15) — Lessons from Joe Torre (7:45) — How he helped young players handling failure for the first time in their lives (9:55) — Lessons learned from Andy Pettite (11:00) — Why some players were driven because of their rough upbringing (13:05) — Why Derek Jeter didn’t think everyone deserved equal treatment (15:50) — Mariano Rivera’s routine (22:10) — How Yankees GM Brian Cashman handled a meeting during 2009 when the team was in the middle of a 10-game losing streak (24:45) — End of episode questions End of Episode Questions: 1. What’s 1 book every coach should read? 2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? John Calipari 3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? Take his health and fitness to another level 4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong? You can’t be great at everything; you have to figure out what you’re great at and excel in that area. 5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this? Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you don’t know anything, but just because you’re young and you think you know everything doesn’t mean you do. 6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it? He and Joe Girardi had philosophical differences on training and his contract wasn’t renewed after his final season as a result but he knew there would be something else for him afterwards. Favorite Quotes: “What makes him (Mariano Rivera) tick is he isn’t worrying about public applause and he’s not worried about public opinion. He just focuses on what it is that he was hired to do. And that was to pitch and get hitters out.” “When you work under a guy like Joe Torre, it’s like having a grandfather /mob-boss as your manager.” “You can have a difficult conversation with a player, but you always have to make that player leave feeling good about themselves, and that’s what Joe (Torre) did a great job of.” “If you show up with the intent of being successful and being competitive, you have a great chance of being successful because you’re competitive.” /episode/index/show/coachingcoachespodcast/id/16630349

Craig Custance, The Athletic's Editor-In-Chief for The NHL: Inside The Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches 12/29/2020

Craig Custance, The Athletic's Editor-In-Chief for The NHL: Inside The Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches 🚨 ------ My guest today is , who is The Athletic’s editor-in-chief for the NHL and the author of , where he explains his 18 month journey to meet with nine of the top hockey coaches in the world to interview them about their philosophies while watching the most important game of their coaching career. Craig explains the different ways the coaches were able to connect with their players, some of the different motivational tactics, how they grew as coaches during their career, and how they all were risk takers who embraced lifelong learning. Show Notes: (1:10) — How he developed the idea for the book (4:30) — What themes he saw between the coaches he followed (8:10) — Bob Hartley’s path from a factory worker to hockey coach (13:10) — Mike Sullivan and John Tortorella (19:40) — Mike Babcock’s coaching philosophy (23:30) — The coaches’ concise and direct communication with players (28:52) — Ken Hitchcock’s evolution as a coach (32:30) — Ron Wilson’s philosophy, which differs from most coaches in the book (35:25) — Claude Julien’s motivational tactics (41:00) — Joel Quenneville using other coaches and players to speak to the team (46:00) — Dan Byslma’s use of a motto for the team (48:30) — How speaking with these coaches impacted him personally (54:40) —Best practices for coaches to develop good relationships with the media (58:25) — End of episode questions End of Episode Questions 1. What’s 1 book every coach should read? 2. Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? John Cooper, Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach 3. What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? Drink less to improve overall health. 4. What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong? Everything in moderation is fine. 5. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this? Figure out what you want to do and reverse engineer your path to get there. 6. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it? When ESPN laid off over 300 people in May, 2017, he was lucky enough to not be laid off, but it was eye-opening. /episode/index/show/coachingcoachespodcast/id/16533101

Nick Nurse, Toronto Raptors Head Coach: Lessons From an NBA Champion 12/22/2020

Vikram Mansharamani, Fortune 500 Consultant: The Importance of Thinking for Yourself 12/15/2020

Nancy Lieberman, Former Former WNBA & NBA Coach & Executive: Rucker Park, Muhammad Ali, & A Hall-of-Fame Career 12/08/2020

Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal Sports Reporter: The Hot Hand in Sports & Life 11/24/2020

Annie Duke, Former Poker Champion & Decision Strategist: Improving Your Decision Making 11/17/2020

Matt McCall, UMass Basketball Head Coach: The Transition From Assistant Coach To Head Coach 11/10/2020

Kevin Eastman, Corporate Speaker & Former NBA Coach & Executive: Why The Best Are The Best 11/03/2020

Jim Schlossnagle, TCU Baseball Head Coach: Mastering the Mental Game 10/27/2020

Fran Fraschilla, ESPN Commentator: Lessons From College & International Basketball 10/20/2020

Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt Baseball Coach: How A 2x National Champion Built A Culture of Sustained Excellence 10/13/2020

Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt Baseball Coach: How A 2x National Champion Built A Culture of Sustained Excellence My guest today is , the head baseball coach at Vanderbilt University. Coach Corbin has built Vanderbilt into one of the most prominent programs in college baseball, making the College World Series four times and winning the National Championship in both 2014 and 2019. He’s also coached 15 players at Vanderbilt who ended up being selected in the first round in the MLB draft, including David Price, Sonny Gray, and Walker Buehler. In this episode we learn why he made the Vanderbilt baseball team become the first college baseball program to build an alumni locker room, classroom, and nutrition center. We also discuss why he doesn’t believe in goals, what he looks for when recruiting players, and his relationship with other elite coaches including Penn State football coach James Franklin. Finally, we hear how he endured the tragic death of Vanderbilt freshman and former 1st round draft pick Donny Everett in 2016 right before the post-season, and what he learned about grief and resiliency. --- Subscribe to our FREE newsletter --- (1:34) — What he focused on when he was first hired at Vanderbilt in 2003 (3:05) — What standards and values he prioritizes (4:20 )— Why 60% of his former players contributed to a fundraiser for baseball facilities in 2016 (the national average is 2–3%) (6:45) — Why he prioritized building an alumni locker room, nutrition center, and classroom for his team (10:52) — What he looks for in prospects when recruiting (15:32 )— What common traits his best players have had (19:08) — How he ensures all 40 players put the team first (21:45 )— What “VandyBoys” stands for (23:35 )— Why he doesn’t have slogans and quotes for the program (25:40) — Why he doesn’t have goals for individual players and the team (27:40) — How he handled the tragic passing of his player Donny Everett in 2016 (33:06) — The experience of coaching for Team USA (37:00 )— His relationship with University of Michigan head baseball coach, Erik Bakich (39:55) — His relationship with Penn St. football coach, James Franklin (41:38) — The impact of winning two national championships (44:35) — His thoughts on personal growth (47:00) — End of episode questions What’s 1 book every coach should read? He doesn’t read a lot of books, prefers to listen to Jim Rome and podcasts like Finding Mastery by Michael Gervais Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? Geno Auriemma, Brad Stevens, Erik Spoelstra, Billy Donovan, Chip Kelly What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? Keeping his mind sharp and staying relevant to the players What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong? When someone says, “this is a grind,” he disagrees. The grind is a terminal illness; this is a sport and he is being paid to coach college baseball. What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this? Whatever position you are in, make it the best you possibly can. Do whatever you can to make the experience and the environment as good as you possibly can. Modeling what you do and being the greatest form of integrity is very important as a teacher and a coach. What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it? Handling the passing of his player, Donny Everett, and he leaned on his wife to get through it. He emphasizes the importance of having a life partner who can challenge and help you throughout your life. Favorite Quotes: “I think rules are for people who can’t follow directions; I think standards are for people who aspire to do special things.” “Every choice has a consequence, and those consequences have outcomes. And I think when it gets down to it, it’s trying to help them with those decision-making processes they have during the course of day. And those decisions are small in nature but they lead to more positive outcomes if you do them well.” “I think a lot of the time goals setup expectations and expectations get us in trouble sometimes. If you’re putting parameters around your life, you’re just expecting life to move in a directional, certain way, and that’s just not the way it is.” “Those thoughts of winning and the torturous thinking of winning is more debilitating than prospering. I’ve found it not to be healthy in so many different ways.” /episode/index/show/coachingcoachespodcast/id/16369355

Welcome to the Coaching Coaches Podcast 10/05/2020

Coaching Coaches

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