Listen on the web, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher

This week on the Way of Champions Podcast we welcome Dr. Mark Williams. Dr. Williams is an academic and one of the world's leading authorities on expertise and its acquisition in sport. We dive into many great topics from his book The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made, including The difference between performance and learning, how to teach decision making for athletes, and early speacialization versus early engagement.

Dr. Williams has published 18 books and written over 500 scientific articles on how people become skilled and achieve success in sport and across other professional domains. He has worked across the globe as a consultant with numerous Olympic and professional sports and has vast experience as a scientist, author and educator, and as an applied sports scientist.

Highlights from the Podcast:

• The driving force to writing The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made
• The difference between performance and learning
• How do we incorporate getting feedback as coaches?
• The importance of the role of "vision" in an athlete's performance
• What are some ways to teach decision making for athletes?
• Dr. Williams explains the "challenge point" and how to approach it
• How to create situations at practice to help develop individual athletes
• Early Speacialization versus Early Engagement

More about The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made

THE BEST deconstructs the myths, like the notion that 10,000 hours of practice are needed to make it to the top, and explores the hidden power of the mind to reveal how athletes really think and process information during high octane competition. it gets inside the minds of champions, deconstructing what athletes see during matches and explaining how they do what they do.Drawing on examples and lessons from throughout the sporting world, this is for anyone who wants to know what it takes to be the best.

The Way of Champions Podcast is brought to you by Sports Refund. When kids sign up to play youth sports there are always fees involved. And parents pay those fees so their child can be on the team, not the injury report. That’s why I love Sports Refund, and parents will too. Sports Refund is low-cost sports fee insurance – NOT health insurance, sports fee insurance. So if your child becomes injured or sick and can’t play, you get your fees reimbursed for that lost time, from one game to an entire season. It’s that simple. This product not only saves families wasted fees, it saves injured athletes the stress of feeling like they’re wasting their parents’ money. The fees come back until the player comes back. So they can focus on fully recovering and making a healthy return to the game. Sports Refund has options for individuals and organizations. Ask your club if they offer it, or visit SportsRefund.com/Game to learn more and sign up today. That’s SportsRefund.com/Game. Can’t Play? Don’t Pay. With Sports Refund.

…and get FREE access to ALL of our online courses.If you love the podcast, we would love for you to become a Podcast Champion, (https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions) for as little as a cup of coffee per month (OK, its a Venti Mocha), to help us up the ante and provide even better interviews, better sound, and an overall enhanced experience. Plus, as a $10 per month Podcast Super-Champion, you will have access to never before released and bonus material, including:

• Downloadable transcripts of the podcasts, so you don't have to crash your car trying to take notes!
• A monthly discussion with John, James, Jerry, and other special guests talking about the previous month's episodes and answering some of the FAQs we received that month
• A code to get free access to our online course called "Coaching Mastery," usually a $97 course, but yours for free for becoming a patron.
• Access to an online community of coaches like you who are dedicated listeners of the podcast, and will be able to answer your questions and share their coaching experiences.

Thank you for all your support these past two years, and a special big thank you to all of you who become part of our inner circle, our patrons, who will enable us to take our podcast to the next level. https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions