The Athlete Development Show

There are two types of people in the world - managers, and leaders. Managers work hard to maintain the status quo that their jobs and reputations were built on. They seek comfort in the certainty of the way things have always been done. Leaders, on the other hand, seek change. They imagine a better world, and are driven to create it.My guest on today's show is, without doubt, a leader. His name is Dr James Vaughan and he is an UEFA A licensed football coach and coach developer. James' work, which challenges old ways of skill development, calls for cultural change on and off the football pitch. Practically speaking, Jame views football as an emergent feature of the sociocultural ecology, with sociocultural constraints influencing playing style and creative development.In this wide-ranging conversation, Jame shares his journey from getting cut at age 16 from a football centre of excellence in the UK, to moving with his family to the other side of the world, to earning a PhD in Sports Coaching from the University of Queensland, to now, living and coaching in Sweden. We pick the story up talking about how James thinks about  making important change.Enjoy!Sign up for Craig's newsletter (Beyond the Game) at athletedevelopmentproject.com/newsletterGet Craig to speak at your club or school here. Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

James Leath (@jamesleath) has been coaching student-athletes for over 20 years. He has a master's degree in performance psychology and has worked with companies like IMG Academy, MINDBODY INC, and Under Armour. He currently works with EXOS Human Performance in the US. James has a new book out, entitled "Team Building Activities for Athletes: How to master the art of building a successful team culture through intentional activities." I love the book and wanted to bring James on the pod to tell us all about it. Click HERE to grab some of James' awesome activities for free!Enjoy!Sign up for Craig's newsletter (Beyond the Game) at athletedevelopmentproject.com/newsletterGet Craig to speak at your club or school here. Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

On the show today, I'm winding the clock back to December 2021 to when I sat down with Professor Arne Güllich. Arne is a sports scientist and researcher at Technical University of Kaiserslautern, in Germany. He's published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, including his latest paper "What Makes a Champion? Early Multidisciplinary Practice, Not Early Specialization, Predicts World-Class Performance", and has coached across multiple levels in sport for number of years.In this conversation, Arne and I discuss his research findings on talent development, coaching, how to develop motivated, self-determined young people, and much more.Enjoy!Sign up for Craig's newsletter (Beyond the Game) at athletedevelopmentproject.com/newsletterGet Craig to speak at your club or school here. Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

Today I'm stoked to welcome Dr Balin Cupples, head of performance at the One NZ Warriors. What I love about Balin's story, and why I brought him on the show, is the insight he brings at the intersection between science and practice. Balin has a strong academic background, having earned a Bachelor of Education, a Master of Education, and not long ago a PhD from the University of Sydney. But he also grew up playing the game and made a handful of NRL appearances for the Wests Tigers Rugby League Club in his early twenties. In this conversation, Balin shares his PhD research findings, which investigated what successful talent development environments look like in schools.Enjoy!Sign up for Craig's newsletter (Beyond the Game) at athletedevelopmentproject.com/newsletterGet Craig to speak at your club or school here. Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

In this episode of the Curious Mind, Dave Wright, founder of Player Development Project, and I reflect on our summer break in Aotearoa, including how our emotions affect the experiences of our children and athletes. We also dig into:Social status, the ego and the risk of adult intervention devoid of awareness;Praise versus affirmation;The monkey mind;The importance of role modelling;Getting comfortable with risk, and;Getting clear on the outcome we are looking for.Enjoy!Please submit your questions for our next Curious Mind by flicking Craig a message here.Sign up for Craig's newsletter (Beyond the Game) at athletedevelopmentproject.com/newsletterGet Craig to speak at your club or school here. Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

This week, I'm excited to be talking with Young People's Lead at Athletics New Zealand , Fiona Maisey. It's a relatively new role for the organisation, yet super important considering 82% of registered participants in the sport are under the age of 18. Fiona brings a diverse background to the position, including many years practising as a nurse, parenting 4 boys, and a passion for music. We dig into all of this on the show.We also talk about Fiona's efforts to create young people friendly environments, including the importance of finding your tribe, why time is such a valuable resource for building meaningful relationships, retaining teenagers in the sport, avoiding athlete entitlement, what fun really looks  like for young people, learning how to lose, the importance of gratitude, coaching the person, and much more.I've always loved athletics. There's something about how it tests the fundamentals of human physiology  - speed, power, endurance - that really appeals to me. So I'm really excited to bring Fiona on the show to share with us her thoughts on development and where the sport of athletics is headed in the future. Enjoy!Sign up for Craig's newsletter (Beyond the Game) at athletedevelopmentproject.com/newsletterGet Craig to speak at your club or school here. Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

Host one of Craig's talks at your club or schoolSign-up to receive Craig's free newsletterBen Old (@_oldie8) played his football in Auckland as a kid before moving to Wellington as a 16 year old to join the Wellington Phoenix. After 3 years playing for the Academy he signed a deal to play professionally for the first team and made his debut as a substitute in the team's 3–0 win over Western United. Ben went on to make 25 first team appearances in his maiden season, starting 12 of them. Ben also represented New Zealand at the 2019 U-17 World Cup in Brazil and was a travelling reserve for the OlyWhites team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I first met Ben when he joined AD, the Athlete Development programme I was leading at AUT Millennium in Auckland. He was just 9 years old at the time.  In this conversation, we cover a wide range of topics including how Ben handles the pressure of playing in front of 35,000 fans and where this skill came from, the importance of disciplined practice and how Ben learnt to work hard, and being a child golf prodigy. Ben also talks about his recent hernia operation and what he has learnt about his body as a result of it, and we go deep into some of Ben's core beliefs, including his perfectionistic streak and how he has learnt to challenge it. Ben's reflective nature and level of awareness at such a young age is inspiring and is bound to serve him well in his career. You'll notice a real willingness to be vulnerable in the conversation, which I love and I think we can all learn from. Enjoy!Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

On the show today, I'm winding the clock back a couple of years to when I sat down with Dr Katie Cunningham to talk about joy.  Dr Katie Cunningham is an Associate Professor of Literacy and English Education at Manhattanville College and the author of "Start With Joy: Designing Literacy Learning for Student Happiness". In her book, Katie describes 7 pillars at the heart of joyful literacy experiences - connection, choice, challenge, play, story, discovery and movement. I love how each pillar transfers beautifully to athlete development, and the idea of "starting with joy" continues to have a big impact on my work. Enjoy!Support the show

Host one of Craig's talks at your club or schoolSign-up to receive Craig's free newsletterWelcome to episode #04 of The Curious Mind,  our new format of The Athlete Development Show released monthly where Craig sits down with co-founder of Player Development Project and coach Dave Wright to discuss your questions. Please submit your questions for future episodes by flicking Craig a message here.On the show today, Dave and Craig cover a bunch of questions including how to foster your child's inner drive, or whether in fact your should even worry about it, how to decide what development programme you should sign your kids up to for healthy development, whether or not young athletes should lift weights, how much running is too much for a 9 year old, and much more.Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show

Host one of Craig's talks at your club or schoolSign-up to receive Craig's free newsletterWhat really is talent? And how do we measure it?My guest on today's show suggests we are a long way off answering either of these questions with any certainty and so we should stop trying. Instead, we should focus on designing sporting environments that support every young learner.Dr. Joe Baker (@bakerjyorku) is Professor and Director of the Lifespan Performance Laboratory at York University, Canada.His research considers the varying influences on optimal human development, ranging from issues affecting athlete development and skill acquisition to barriers and facilitators of optimal aging.Joe works with high performance sports teams and organizations around the world in their quest for international success.In this episode we dig into Joe's latest book "The Tyranny of Talent: How it compels and limits athlete achievement… and why you should ignore it."We also chat about common human biases and how they affect coaching, the problem with splitting development into participation and performance pathways, first principles of athlete development, why collaboration in research is so important, combating early specialisation, and much more.Enjoy!Connect with Craig:Instagram: instagram.com/drcraigharrison/Facebook: facebook.com/drcraigharrisonTwitter: twitter.com/drcraigharrisonSupport the show