How do you develop a growth mindset? on innerdrive.co.uk
- Teach people their brain can change and don't praise natural talent
- Develop by: praise effort, seek different strategies, encourage learning over comparison against others, praise those who seek feedback. encourage persistence, encourage courage and curiosity, maintain high standards.

Adopting external focus of attention increases sprint performance in low-skilled sprinters, by Porter et al 2015
- Focus on movement effects rather than body parts, significant increase in running speed
- Verbal instruction important part of training environment
- Structure verbal instruction to focus on outcome of movement rather than the movement itself

John Buchanan on alloutcricket.com
- Coach must understand self inside out
- Never compromise on a principle - provide consistency
- Essence of coaching is in relationships

Awesomeness of getting feedback on feedback, on talentequation
- Don't overdo it with feedback, especially with new players
- Pick your moment for quick, specific, 1-2-1 feedback
- Allow space for implicit learning

Gregor Townsend: Years of Learning, on The Scotsman
- Failure is an integral part of success
- Trust and effort crucial
- Winning is about improvement

Creating a Culture of Excellence, by Terry Condon
- To fix problems: i) Acknowledge there is one; ii) find a way to better understand it
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" - Einstein
- OBLIGATION INHIBITS PASSION
- FOUR PILLARS OF PERFORMANCE essential for motivation and engagement of people, will increase productivity, performance, resilience and retention
1. AUTONOMY = freedom and flexibility to carve own path
2. MASTERY = transparent environment that rewards personal and professional excellence
3. PURPOSE = adds meaning to their life
4. PLAY = alongside peers and have fun
- John Wooden: Use sport to promote values in people that lead to success in any realm. Recognise and reward expression of these values ABOVE ALL ELSE. Wait for success to show up.
- Wooden trained athletes for life THROUGH basketball, not basketball FOR life.
- The person is more important than their results
- Must separate winning from wellbeing

Excel in youth sport kids need couch time, on theconversation
- young athlete with the 'best' of everything fails to develop most important skill = the ability to thrive when challenged = perseverance and resilience
- Individuals that are challenged and supported thrive at high level

Leadership Game Plan from Coach K on inc.com
- Cultivate ownership mentality (team create and drive standards)
- Embrace team's feelings. UNDERSTAND, APPRECIATE, TRUST
- Never stop innovating

35 Secrets of Brilliant Coaches, on huffpost
- Cherish the person over the athlete
- Respect and communication
- Obsess with fundamentals
- Always move forward
- CREATE TALENT RATHER THAN FIND IT
- Separate learning from practice

Constraints-led Coaching - Why?, on tdgolfcoach.com
- Constraint = boundary encouraging learning to emerge with certain behaviours
- Constraint can be on the task, performer or environmental
- Learn by doing rather than being told

Southampton Way: Potential into Excellence, on YouTube
- Clear progression pathway from Academy to 1st Team
- The progression pathway is evident in all aspects from changing rooms to pitches etc.

The Nowhere Men, by Michael Calvin
Chapter on Miguel Rios which inspired my meeting with him documented here in Coaching Conversations #8
- Miguel Rios talking about a coach "It's all so vocal. He should be positive, let the game develop"
- MR on Barcelona and their focus on ability, not age. The importance of physical literacy: coordination, balance etc
- MR "ideas met with resistance because coaches are wedded to winning"
- Hosting workshops with parents to help understand the process and how to help the kids
- "objective is to not make boys feel like they're under pressure every time they are on the pitch"

Challenge Point...., by Guadagnoli and Lee (2004) in Journal of Motor Behaviour
- Skill improvement traditionally linked to the amount of practice
- Limited opportunity for practice and potentially small gains in expertise increase importance of maximising the benefit of training
- Challenge Point Framework = learning is intimately related to the information available and interpretable in a performance instance which, in turn, depends on functional difficulty of task
- Nominal Task Difficulty (NTD) : perceptual and motor requirements
  Functional Task Difficulty (FTD) : how challenging the task is relative to skill level of the individual performing it
- Task with given level of task difficulty, the individual of any skill level is likely to perform at predictable level..
therefore an increase in NTD comes expectation that performance decreases and rate of decline in performance more rapid for lower skilled individual.
- Information comes from action plans (expectation of success) and feedback
eg. For an easy task with high expectation of success, feedback from success provides very little information
eg. For a tougher task with less assured action plan (decreased expectation of success) means feedback provides information regardless of success or not
- Practice leads to redundancy - more practices leads to better expectations so less information to process
- As FTD increases, so too does potential available information (learning)
- Increased FTD = more information generated in performance of task, therefore increased potential learning benefit BUT only to a point. After that point, too much information to be processed and used effectively (amount of information exceeds the individual's capability to process efficiently)
- Increased FTD as performer ability also increases maintains optimal Challenge Point for performer
- CONTEXTUAL INTERFERENCE. Block practice increases performance but Random practice increases retention.
Individuals with differing skill levels: low levels of CI better for beginner skill level, higher CI better for highly skilled individuals

Darren Roberts Q+A, on PropelPerform
- athletes are athletes and people are people = it's the environment and paradigm which drive differences
- 4 key things to improve:
1. ENVIRONMENT - go somewhere with people who are better
2. EMBRACE CHAOS - Decision making, unpredictability and anxiety like in competition
3. BE STRONG - be robust, fix other stuff along the way
4. CIRCUS TRAINING - right way to challenge
- Injuries = NOT rehab, just a different training phase = focus the athlete on what they CAN do, not what the injury prevents them from doing

The Gentleman's Game - Dan Cater, on theplayerstribune.com
"After the game is over, all we'll have are these memories that we share"

Living and Learning with NZ Rugby Winners, on Irish Examiner
- key thing of the Crusaders is CULTURE
- Culture is "first competitior". It is also one of the few things that is 100% under your own control and within budget
- The players are charged with growing and enriching the culture, they must own it. To help this they held Culture Sessions: greeting everyone, integrating new members etc.
- Focus on togetherness. eg Management take part in fitness
- The importance of Story Telling: pick something from history that is relative to the situation. Helps provide a theme for the season that players can identify to (capture hearts and minds). Can also have training activities that tie in to it.
- Peer led coaching : help your teammate with weaknesses
- Feedback from players is discussed, challenged and if it is to be integrated then player presents to the group
- New skills = LEARNING PHASE: Passionate mistakes and Ordinary mistakes.
- Training is harder than competition
- GET COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE

The Antifragile Athlete, by Martin Bingisser on hmmrmedia
- Antifragile based on Nassim Taleb's book "Antifragile: Things that gain from disorder"
1. VARIATION: need stress from variation to improve. Poison in small doses develops immunity
2. BACK TO BASICS: don't add on in order to fix. Flexibility = antifragile
3. KNOWLEDGE FOUND ON FIELD
4. TIME IS THE BEST JUDGE: basics not fads
5. IGNORE THE NOISE: don't always respond/interrupt

54 Mistakes of a Start-Up CEO, cbinsights.com
- Always work on culture
- Work with employees to draw up a 'Culture Code'
- 1v1 feedback is crucial
- 360 degree feedback: open forum to question 'leader' as well as others
- focus on a good onboarding process for new people

Edward de Bono '6 Thinking Hats'
White = information, data, facts
Yellow = the positive view
Black = caution, difficulties and dangers
Red = feelings, intuition and emotion
Green = creativity and new ideas
Blue = process control, summaries and conclusions

Coaching Cues That Actually Work, stack.com
3 aspects of coaching:
i) Instruction and Feedback = two ways, cue body and movement process or reference action outside the body. The latter is far superior
ii) Practice Design = effectiveness of random practice. Try to include 'purposeful struggle' so that players learn to overcome the struggle
iii) Intrinsic Motivation = Tap into self-determination theory. 3 components Autonomy (give them choice), Self-Efficacy (more powerful if athlete comes up with own coaching cue) and Social Interaction

5 Lessons I've Learned as a Performance Analyst, on thevideoanalyst
1. Network
2. Don't waste time with doubters
3. Push hard and know when to stop talking
4. Don't forget the basics
5. Value your work

Rich Shuttleworth Saracens CPD
- give players time outs that they can call
- Feedback crucial to player improvement, ensure it is positive
- Don't be an artificial stimulus (eg huddle to highlight what they are not doing)
- Focus on principles (eg go forward and support) rather than patterns
- Use of analogies helps learning - eg support runners 'keep the heart alive'
- Focus on core skills like awareness, decision making and scanning
- Don't worry about execution, focus on the decision making

Reflection as a coach development tool, on coachgrowth
- Reflection helps turn experience into knowledge
- Reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action
- Helps to improve WHAT and HOW
- Reflection consolidates understanding of problem and helps you to invent better solutions
- Critical Incidents: cause coach to understand event by examining underlying trends and motives
- APPRECIATION - ACTION - REAPPRECIATION
or
IDENTIFICATION - SIMILARITIES? - FRAME AND REFRAME - CONSEQUENCES OF SOLUTIONS - CONSEQUENCES DESIRED
or
DESCRIBE - INFORMING - CONFRONTING - RECONSTRUCTING

Understanding the Experience, by Peter Jackson on ijebcm
- Reflection works because it helps to:
i) Balance learning by experience and generate new learning
ii) Objective stance
iii) Perspective of overall goals in relation to actions
iv) Develop capability to react more quickly and effectively to future challenges

Reflective Practice, by Cropley et al (2012) on SCUK
- Coaches operate in complex social and ambiguous environments
- Role is beyond prep for athletes to managerial, admin etc all underpinned by ability to develop and manage interpersonal relationships
- Many approaches to learning are valued to help coaches develop theoretical and practical knowledge required to be sensitive to, and better cope with, the peculiarities, intricacies and ambiguities of coaching
- We don't habitually learn from experience but instead experience has to be examined, analyzed and considered to shift knowledge
- NGBs should create opportunities for coaches to reflect with others

Reflecting on Reflection by Knowles et al (2006) on tandfonline.com
- too often reflection has a negative focus. Reflect on positive and negative experiences that also consider competitive process and their role within it

Reflective Practice by Irwin et al (2005) on tandfonline.com
​- most important resource to coach development is a mentor

The Influencer, on Grantland
- Chip Kelly: Coaching is one thing and one thing only - creating an environment that provides players with the opportunity to be successful

Efficient use of time by Chip Kelly, on fishduck.com
- Focus as a squad on what do we stand for? In attack and defence.
- Identify what you want to be and ensure it is visible in everything you do
- In training, prepare against the vision of what you want to be
- As a coach your knowledge is sometimes irrelevant, matters most what the players know. As a result a coach must communicate in a way that allows players to execute
- Use any players who are off-task to coach and analyse their teammates
- No such thing as "half-speed". You either go at TEACHING SPEED or GAME SPEED

Sports Psych: Role of Momentum in Sports Performance, on pponline.co.uk
- In sport, psychological momentum defined as "bi-directional concept, affecting either probability of winning or probability of losing as a function of the preceding event".
- Reversing momentum: what did we do well before the momentum swing? Can we get back to it? Or has the opposition solved the problems we posed and should we change game plan?
- Reversing momentum: key is players identifying the problem and working out how to fix it
- Stay focused on the moment, maintain positive body language, maintain high intensity/effort

A qualitative exploration of the psychological contents and dynamics of momentum in sport by Briki, Hartigh, Hauw and Genigon (2012)
- Psychological momentum found to develop through processes of amplification that sometimes decreases efforts if win/loss seems inevitable

How psychological and behavioural team states change during positive and negative momentum, by Hartigh, Genigon, Van Yperen, Marin and Van Geert (2014)
- Research not provided insight into HOW psychological and behavioural states actually change during positive and negative momentum
- Negative psychological changes during negative momentum STRONGER than positive in positive
- During negative momentum team effort and cohesion decreases
- Negative events have a bigger impact
- a history of progress or regress particularly played a role when behind
- losing having been close to goal (winning) has a disproportionally strong psychological impact compared to losing when never close. Therefore, almost attaining outcome makes counterfactual outcome more salient.

Psychological Momentum: Why success breeds success, by Iso-Ahola and Dotson (2014)
- Initial success critical for psychological momentum and has three types of effect: intensity, frequency and duration
- PERCEPTION of self and opponent at centre of Psychological Momentum

Understanding motivation to enhance quality of coaching, by Mallett
- Extrinsic motivation can be split to: Non Self-Determined (coercion and obligation) and Self-Determined (acceptance and valuing)
- BEHAVOURS OF AUTONOMY SUPPORTIVE COACHING:
1. Provide choice within reason
2. Provide reasons for task
3. Demonstrate respect for feeling and perspective
4. Allow athletes to work independently and help problem-solve
5. Provide competence feedback that contributes to positive behaviour change
6. Avoid control behaviour such as coercion and bullying

Creative beards YouTube: 4 Insights into Coaching
1. ORGANISATION: gives athletes structure to work with. Agree/Declare/Query - what is expected?
2. ENCOURAGEMENT: positive coaching is made up of tangible, honest compliments
3. PERSONAL COACHING: recognise all athletes
4. TRANSFER OF RESPONSIBILITY: less instruction and have open questions. Reward the choices they make.

Ten Years On - Where's Coaching At? on sportnz.org.nz
- LEARNING (not qualification) helps coaches become better
- Understanding people and self-awareness is crucial
- Coaches learn better with informal instruction
- Coaching aims to figure out how and why players tick and then acting/responding accordingly
- THE ESSENCE IS IN UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE
- Coaches inspire by CARING about their athletes
- Athlete-centred coaching = Enable people to learn; Enable ownership of vision and common purpose by team; take responsibility
- Self-determination theory says increased motivation is felt if feeling CONFIDENT, have AUTONOMY and SENSE OF BELONGING
- Enable success, make it fun, give athletes choice and control amid common purpose of the team will see increase in effort
- "They are creating robots in the States and UK because of standardised expectations and competencies. Coaches have to self-reflect and figure it out"

Constraints led coaching approach, on threekings.org.nz
- Constraints led coaching is to take a particular aspect and isolate it in a small sided game
- Games are better for long-term learning

Oregon Ducks coaching philosophy = NO YELLING

Whenever I have a free moment I am trying to catch up on various columns, articles, research papers etc - anything that may be able to help me learn and improve as a coach. I scribble down notes in my trusty note pad so that I can refer back to them. However, a few weeks ago I had a slight panic when I managed to leave my bag in a taxi - my main concern was for my two notebooks (one for reading, one where I plan/record/reflect on all my coaching sessions). Thankfully, TFL came through and I was able to get my bag back. However, it occurred to me that I needed to bring my notes into the digital age in case I was to misplace my bag again in the future. They aren't exhaustive or summaries, merely the small bits that I took from the reading. If I found it interesting, then maybe others might so this is the first blog entry comprised of some of my reading notes. 

Firstly, I must thank Jamie Taylor (blog here), Sporticus (blog here), Si Nainby (blog here) and Stuart Armstrong (here) among many many others for their posts, their sharing of articles and papers. All have contributed greatly to my reading and learning since I became a coach full-time in January 2014. This 'series' of blogs will pale in comparison to the work they do, however hopefully it may contain something of interest for some coaches.

by Damien Hughes on Liquid Thinker
- the story of Sir Alex Ferguson who used Bill Beswick when talking to his players about three bricklayers. The first bricklayer is solely interested in building the wall and getting it finished. The second bricklayer is there because it is his job and he wants to earn the money for building the wall. However the third bricklayer sees the bigger picture and takes pride in building a cathedral so that he has something to show his kids. The players were then asked which bricklayer they would be in the upcoming training session and season. 

10 Creative Rituals You Should Steal, on Dailygood.org
- Number 10. Engage in 'morphological synthesis' whereby you segment your thinking process into parts. Pick four to five adjectives or characteristics and brainstorm (eg for me, how might we adapt to not winning any scrum or line outs for the whole season). It encourages you to flip between extremes and explore the outside boundaries so that you can see your sport more creatively.

Telegraph article on New Zealand and Gilbert Enoka
- When thinking clearly and your attention is fully engaged then you are able to make your best decisions. This is referred to as BLUE HEAD THINKING.
- Distraction and intrusive thoughts = RED HEAD THINKING
- Under pressure, ability to think clearly decreases so you rely on emotion and instinct. Therefore you don't pick up on the necessary cues to make good decisions.
- Moving from RED to BLUE requires an anchor to refocus attention and re-engage in the moment. All the NZ players have an individual anchor.
- Culture breeds mental strength - nourish who you are, where you came from and what you are about to become.

Greg Schiano Article on MMQB
- Modern athletes require constant motivation and stimulation. Coaches need to be able to live within this organised chaos.
- As part of this, Schiano bought into the Chip Kelly philosophy of no meetings lasting longer than 30mins to ensure they are focused and efficient.
- Real success is leaving a legacy
- "I didn't know what I didn't know, which is dangerous"

No Days off: Nick Winkelman on blog.champssports.com
- "I'm the driving instructor. My job is to teach them how to drive their car more effectively."

The Power of Positive Coaching - Pete Carroll, on MMQB
- Carroll has a clear vision of how he wants to run the programme
- he seeks relentless competitiveness and the constant quest to identify and maximise the uniqueness of every player and coach.
- commitment to a NURTURING environment that allows people to be themselves whilst still accountable to the team
- Treat each day/session as if something positive is about to happen
- The importance of FUN and COMPETITIVENESS
- Sessions themed to specific aspects of the game
- Can you explain your coaching philosophy in 25 words or less?

The Essence of Pete Carroll's "Win Forever Philosophy", on Seahawks.
- winning forever more important than winning the next game. Constant focus on COMPETING, MAXIMISING POTENTIAL and MAKING THE MOST OF OPPORTUNITIES.
- Help players and coaches to realize potential and be as good as they can be.
- "To accomplish the grand, focus on the small"
- Win forever = ALWAYS COMPETE.

Always Compete: Examination of Pete Carroll's Philosophy, on fieldgulls.com
- The benefit of always competing = FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL
- Approach every game with the intensity of a Championship game. This approach tries to avoid an overreaction to the result such as a decrease in motivation after success.
- The ultimate expression of his philosophy would be that players continually play one way - as if they are about to play a Super Bowl.
- Carroll stresses the importance of TRUSTING THE PROCESS. Don't worry about future events, focus on having best day possible today. Let go of the past both positive and negative.
- Training must be as fun as possible with a competitive element and to build confidence

The Seahawks Success Formula, on Forbes
- less focus on winning/losing, more focus on being at one's best - PROCESS OVER PRODUCT.
- 'Training is where we become/make us'

Pete Carroll's Positive and Profound Approach... on NBC Sports
- Belief system comprises of three rules:
1. Always protect the team
2. No complaining, no excuses
3. Be early
- BUILD CONFIDENCE, GAIN TRUST
- No such thing as a big game
​- Confidence and trust lead to focus.