Supporting Champions 006: David Fletcher on adversity
Supporting Champions Podcast 006 David Fletcher
In this episode I talk to David Fletcher about his career as a swimmer, researcher and expert in the area of adversity.
Show notes;
Early aspirations as a swimmer, but experiencing near misses as an athlete and academically
Transfer of desire from swim background to early success in studies
Father as a science role-model, searching and sharing academic papers
Importance of internship in sporting environment
Importance of breadth of experience beyond own area of specialism
Interest in the stresses that athletes experiences
Stresses changing based on growth of high performance system
Uncovering poor organisational behaviours that adversely influenced sporting performance
Seeking legal advice due to controversial nature of athlete interviews - sticking to your guns about unearthing and communicating stresses
Identifying stresses and how some used stressful experiences as fuel for determination
Organisational stresses - leadership styles, not being listened to, overuse of pressure training and how it spilled over
How it is unethical not to prepare athletes for the pressure of top competitions
How leadership behaviours permeated down to grass-root levels
Adversity as a stimulus for growth - so it needs to be; - Relevant, e.g. penalty shoot-out - Progressively adaptable - Agreed
Appropriate and inappropriate consequences to contravening agreed behaviours
Role of early adversity as a fuel for focusing on sporting goals
Theories emerging - life adversity coinciding with sporting success, and finding sport as a sanctuary
Caveat that sport doesn't protect person from mental health response to adversarial events
How best to support when people experience adversity; 1) give them space; 2) supporting people when they are ready to disclose - provide inspirational opportunities; 3) when a vase breaks consider creating a new mosaic rather than re-building as it was
Adversity gives you honesty to review deeply
Different personality traits required to succeed in sport vs life
Re-emergence of 'issues' wen sport is not there
Are we doing enough to support coaches?
Lessons for everybody - Anything worthwhile will have its challenges - Importance of anticipating stresses and preparing for them - Importance of support network - Importance of disclosing and being open to sharing stress response
Future directions in area of adversity
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