Our Great Coach on this episode is Rod Macqueen.Rod is an Australian Rugby Union Coach.Rod started coaching in the 1980’s before taking over the NSW Waratahs in 1991. From there he went on to become the inaugural coach for the Brumbies in the newly formed Super Rugby competition.In 1997 he was appointed as the Head Coach of the Australian Wallabies, and the team goes on to win the 1999 World Cup, the Tri Nation series for the first time, the Bledisloe Cup 3 years in a row and then it culminates with being the first Australian team to win over the British & Irish Lions in 2001.Rod is also successful business owner and in this interview talks about the similarities between sport and business when it comes to leadership, culture and strategy.Some of the other key highlights of our discussion include:The journey of the Australian team towards winning the World Cup, and how he laid out the path to that victory by focusing the on 3 key elements of the journey; the beginning , the journey and the destiny.His views on the fine line between arrogance and confidence.How he used business plans to outline the vision for this teams, and a key part of that plan was the coaching succession plan to replace him.And The importance of empowering the players to make decisions, so that as the coach can look forward and try to see what is going to happen next.This was a terrific conversation with Rod, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Todays episode is on the topic of Learning , and it features audio quotes from 11 coaches that we have interviewed on the podcast.Join our Patreon community and help us build one of the worlds great leadership libraries at www.patreon.com/GreatCoachesIf you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at thegreatcoachespodcast@gmail.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is English cricket coach Kevin Sharp.Kevin Sharp is an English cricket coach and a former first-class cricketer.He played 432 professional games and scored nearly ten thousand first-class runs.After retirement, he became a batting coach at his former team Yorkshire where he helped to develop a number of players who have gone on to represent England including the current Test captain, Joe Root.He was also the batting coach for the English Womens Team which won the World Cup in 1993.In 2018 he was appointed as Head Coach of Worcestershire and that year they won T20 Championship.Kevin is a coach with a deep passion for helping others overcome, in his words, the mental anguish and pain that he felt as a young batsmen. He talks about the pain of living with the thought of underachievement in his career, and how this has spurred him on to become the type of coach who can talk confidently on both physical and mental techniques. In fact, it was another great coach, Anthony McGrath, who introduced me to Kevin, and shared his own experience of using Kevin’s tools as a player and now as a coach himself.He is spiritual and yet pragmatic, self-effacing, and yet assured enough to talk about the techniques he teaches and how they have helped people succeed at the most elite level.They key highlights for me in this interview areHow anxiety can be a good thing if it helps you focus your mind.The importance of finding a mentor or person that you can trust and talk to, to help you deal with the unexplored territory that might be holding you back.The self-talk diary that he now uses with players to help them exert control over their inner critic and build self-belief.And his love of developing junior talent, and the terrific story he shares about meeting and training the now England captain Joe Root for the first time.Kevin is the type of wise and calm mentor we all wish we could have in our life and I hope you get as much from this discussion as I did.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Todays episode is on the topic of Values, and it features audio quotes from 22 coaches that we have interviewed on the podcast.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Sue Enquist.Sue played softball at UCLA from 1975 to 1978. She was a part of the team that won the 1978 Women's College World Series and became UCLA's first All-American softball player.In 1980 she transitioned into coaching and retired with a career winning percentage of 83. As a coach her teams won 10 national championships, and her produced 65 All-Americans and 15 Olympians.She was also a coach for 1996 Olympic Gold medal winning team.In 2008 she was inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of FameSue is a coach who believes in the type of transformational leadership where, in her words, you are more collaborative, truthful and positive in developing skills. She believes that when people feel safe they will go for it when it comes to courage, and that your role as a coach is to be the eyes of the athletes development, and feed them with what she is seeing in their progress.She is also highly articulate, passionate and a firm believer in the importance of curiosity as a leader to ensure that your program is always changing and developing. She also explains that High performing teams have high standards, expectations, accountability and efficient failure recovery routines.Other key parts of the interview were:Her view on the importance of a next event mindset, in keeping failure small relative to your integrity and character.Her advice on managing our weak voice that comes up from our subconscious, and building on our strong voice.And How, as a white women of privilege, she feels that she must advocate for people who didn’t have the access to excellence that she did.This was a thought provoking conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as I did.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Todays episode is on the topic of Culture, and it features audio quotes from 20 Great Coaches that we have interviewed on the podcast.Join our Patreon community and help us build one of the worlds great leadership libraries at ⁠www.patreon.com/GreatCoaches⁠If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at thegreatcoachespodcast@gmail.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Indian National Badminton Coach, Pullela Gopichand.As a player Gopichand won his first National Badminton Championship title in 1996, and went on to win the title five times in a row, until 2000.In 1999 he won the Toulouse open championship in France and the Scottish open championship. And then in 2001 he won the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships.He started coaching in 2004, and in 2008 founded the Gopichand Badminton Academy.In the last 120 years, India has won 35 Olympic medals; Gopichand has coached 3 of these from the Academy he set up.He also coached players to win 4 World Championship medals, including 1 Gold and 15 Super series titles.Gopi is a coach with a deep appreciation of the role that mindfulness, passion and belief can play in shaping individual performance.He believes that your mental strength comes from the efforts you put in to being physically strong , and that this physical strength comes from your training, recovery, nutrition and overall lifestyle decisions.He is also driven to create change in the world around him through, sharing his learning on what is required to be a world champion with whoever is willing to put in the work and make the required sacrifices.Some of the other key parts of this interview were:His belief that science, not the athlete should drive the athletic system in India. And he describes this system as being coach-led, sport science driven and athlete centric.The importance of athletes managing their life outside of their sport, so that their mindset develops in a holistic way.And The importance of having people around you who don’t just tell you good things, but rather the truth that you have to hear.It took a long time to reach Gopi for this interview, and I am so glad I preserved. His approach to life and leadership resonated with me strongly, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much I did.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Todays episode is on the topic of Resilience and is brought to you by the world record holding Australian cricket coach John Buchanan.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Bill Sweetenham.Bill is an Australian swimming coach, who first started training athletes in the 1970’s in the rural Australian town of Mount Isa.His coaching career progressed quickly and he coached at his first Olympics in 1976, and was then Head Coach for Australia at the 1980, 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games, as well as the 1982 and 1986 Commonwealth Games teams.He then went on to be the Head Coach of the Hong King swimming team in 1991, and the Great Britain team from 2000 to September 2007. In his tenure with the Great Britain team they won as many medals at the World Championships as they had at all previous World Championships back to 1973.In all he has coached at 5 Olympic Games, 8 Commonwealth Games, and 9 World Championships, his swimmers have delivered 27 Olympic and World Championship medals and have broken 9 world records.Bill has an amazing presence, he fills the room with his energy and passion. He is a coaching guru in the truest sense of the word and in this interview we were also joined by 4 other elite coaches, who came to listen to what he had to say.And it was an absolute masterclass. He talks about meeting Nelson Mandela and the Great Boxing coach, Angelo Dundee. He shares stories of his successes and failures and reflects on what he has learnt from each. He is also challenging, forthright and motivating; I left with a soaring sense of energy after this discussion.There were so many highlights:The story he shares about meeting Nelson Mandela and the answer he gave him to the question of what lessons he learned while imprisoned on Robben island.His view that The coach sees what the athlete can't, and the athlete feels, what the coach cant and takes a marriage of both those attributes to produce a winning result.And The importance of investing in your past so that you can see your future.This was a life affirming conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Todays episode is brought to you by the world record holding Australian cricket coach John Buchanan.And it is on the theme of authenticity , which I experience as the desire to be my true, genuine self; but at the same time, in a way that is consistent with the role I have to fulfill and the values of the group that I am part of.It’s a tension that I often reflect on when I have decide how to communicate and engage with other people in the organization or team.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.