PODCAST · education
Sports Thoughts
by Wayne Goldsmith
Real talk on coaching, leadership and sports parenting from Wayne Goldsmith — 30+ years working with Olympic programs worldwide. Challenging conventional thinking. Building better coaches, better parents, better athletes. waynegoldsmith.substack.com
Episodes
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Hard Coach Or Soft Coach Is A False Choice.
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * The hard-versus-welfare debate is built on a false choice and it’s costing good coaches their confidence. * Both approaches get the athlete to try again. Only one makes them want to. * You can be relentless about standards while staying relaxed,...
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THE THINGS THAT UNITE US!
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * Facilities, money and equipment get named as sports’ biggest obstacles. Your real constraint is invisible. * The biggest problems I see in sport are personality conflicts and petty political squabbles. * The things that unite us are greater than the...
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Ten Second Coaching.
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * Nobody consumes anything in long form any more, including your players. * Connect, Engage, Inspire - ten seconds each and all three fit in half a minute. * Twenty athletes. Twenty minutes across a week. That’s the whole job. In the distant past,...
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Culture Is What You Do.
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * Value words are free. Any organisation can produce ten of them before morning tea. * A value only becomes real when it’s backed by observable, measurable, learnable behaviours. * Responsibility is about me. Accountability is about you. You need both…
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AI: It's Your New Assistant Coach!
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * AI is a tool. We have done tools before and we survived every one of them. * The brief you give AI determines the quality of the information you get back. * It will never replace coaches - but it can hand coaches their time back and that’s the real...
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It's Different Here!
Three important messages: * The crisis is no longer local - every sport in every country is reporting the same four problems. * The solution is no longer contested - fun, friends, families, experience. The research is in and it’s growing. * The hard part was never knowing what to do. It’s making…
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There Are No Ten Year Old Champions.
Three important messages: * The idea that every child is destined to be an elite athlete never made sense - and never will. * Success in junior sport isn’t talent. It’s retention. The only kid who can’t improve is the one who isn’t there. * After conversations with national bodies around the…
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The One Choice You Never Lose!
It's been too long since I made something just for you. This is one of the most powerful lessons I teach - and I wanted my paid subscribers to have it. Thank you for being here. By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * The one power we never lose is how we choose to respond to what happens…
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I Built the Coaching Course I Always Wished Existed
Three important messages: * We train coaches in physiology and periodisation and almost nothing in the part of the job that actually matters. * The experience of sport is delivered by coaches - so developing them is the whole game. * It’s live, it’s built for beginners and there’s a...
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The Best Way I Know to Educate Coaches.
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * The most effective coach development I’ve ever done isn’t at a course or conference - it’s coaching coaches in context. * Coaches learn three ways: by coaching, by working alongside other coaches and by solving problems in context. * The challenge...
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Coaching the Coaches!
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * Coaches can get information anywhere - your job is to create an experience they can’t get online. * The way most coaching courses are run actively works against learning. * Anything that can be made practical should be made practical. This one is for...
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Coach Education for The Real World.
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * Most coach education is built around delivering content, not around what coaches - and sport actually needs. * Participation and retention are sports’ biggest problems right now - and both come down to how the experience of sport is being delivered.…
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Join Your Own Team!
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * You already know exactly how to look after an athlete - you do it every day. * The advice you give your team applies, word for word, to you. * Stop being their coach for a moment and become a member of your own squad. One of the great things about…
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Stop Beating Yourself Up Coach!!!
By Wayne Goldsmth Three important messages: * You can’t change everybody - no matter how good you are. * You certainly can’t change everybody at once. * And no matter how you go about it, it takes time. I want to talk to all the coaches out there. And the message is simple. Stop beating yourself...
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Not Good Enough
By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * At 11, 12, 13, 14 our ability to predict senior talent is nowhere near as good as we think it is. * Worshipping early physical talent is one of the great mistakes in junior sport. * Our job is to elevate kids - not shatter them. This is my first…
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How Great Coaches Keep Getting Better
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: * Why most coaches stop improving after their first few years; * The four habits of coaches who keep getting better; * How to build a professional development system that actually works. The Plateau Problem: Most coaches improve rapidly in their first few years. Then they...
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The Three Skills Every Coach Needs to Keep Learning.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: * Why technical knowledge is no longer your competitive advantage; * The three skills that separate good coaches from great ones; * How to keep developing when no one is developing you. Technical Knowledge Is Now Free: Everything you learned in your coaching course is now...
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Who are you raising: the next someone else or the first them?
Your child isn’t the next Tiger Woods. They’re not the next Serena Williams. They’re not the next Michael Phelps. Your child is a wonderful, unique, potentially incredible human being — different from anyone who’s ever lived. You don’t want them to be the NEXT anyone. You want them to be happy,...
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When Athletes Become Coaches
Some of the best coaches I’ve ever worked with were elite athletes. And some of the worst coaches I’ve ever worked with were elite athletes. Being great at playing a sport doesn’t automatically make you great at coaching it. The Pros: What Former Athletes Bring Credibility: They’ve been there.…
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Stop Separating Skills From Stress
By Wayne Goldsmith Introduction: Your athletes look great in warm-up and drills but fall apart when it matters because you’ve trained them to only perform skills when they’re comfortable. Let’s try something different! Three Critical Learning Points: * The typical session structure — warm-up,...
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Drop the Weights. Build a Mental Gym.
By Wayne Goldsmith Introduction: We spend thousands of hours building stronger bodies and almost zero time building stronger minds. Three Critical Learning Points: * The brain is a “muscle”- “a mental muscle” — and like any muscle, it needs systematic training, not just occasional attention. *...
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3 Things You Can Do Right Now to Make You an Even Better Coach.
By Wayne Goldsmith With everyone trying to sell you everything — I thought I’d give you three things that will make you an even better coach. Three practical strategies you can do right now to enhance your coaching. And they’re free. I call them the 3 Ls of Coaching: 1. LOOK When an athlete walks...
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Talent Identification
Let’s talk about Talent Identification. Most countries, all professional clubs, and even a lot of schools do some form of talent identification. And most of them are doing it wrong. Let me explain. If you ask the world’s 100 greatest coaches this question: “What does it take to be great — to be a...
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Parents - Let them Go!
By Wayne Goldsmith “What can I do, Wayne?” — Signed, Desperate Parent I get this message all the time: “My daughter was a great gymnast at 8. Winning regionals at 10. Competing nationally at 11. Now she’s 15 and wants to quit. What can I do?” What they want me to say: “I can tell you how to...
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Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect
When you start out in coaching, someone will come in and talk to you about skills and technique and drills. And the traditional model goes something like this: Introduce a new skill. Demonstrate it. Get the kids to try it. Make it fun. Make it interesting. Get them engaged. Then — once they...
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Preparing to Win - When and Where It Matters
Your athletes can hit the time in training. They can execute the skill on Tuesday afternoon at the quiet local ground. They can do the task. But can they do it when and where it matters? After 10 hours on a bus. Sharing a room with teammates who stayed up all night on social media. Eating fast…
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TOP THREE COACHING TIPS
I’ve spent 35 years in sport. Most of that as a coach developer — a coach of coaches. Tens of thousands of hours with coaches who’ve achieved remarkable things: Olympic gold, World Championships, Grand Slams, professional titles at the highest level. Here’s my gift to you — the top three things...
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Why Aren't Kids Coming Back to Your Sport?
By Wayne Goldsmith Why aren’t kids coming back to your sport? The answer — and the solution — is standing on your sideline. Your coaches ARE the experience. Every session. Every interaction. Every moment that makes a kid think “I love this” or “I’m done.” You can have world-class facilities,...
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The ABCs of Sports Bulldust
There is no magic pill. No secret sauce. No one thing that guarantees success. The internet is full of people — usually selling something — telling you the “only” thing you need or the “best” way to do it. 30 years in this business taught me a simple filter for what’s real and what’s bulldust…
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Play Like Your Place: Why Copying Norway Won’t Work — And What To Do Instead
By Wayne Goldsmith This is part three of my trilogy on the Norway sporting success story. Part 1: Everyone wants to copy Norway — but you have to play like YOUR place. Part 2: I’d scrap all junior rep teams for under-14s. Part 3: So what SHOULD you do? Here’s my three-step framework: 1. Learn…
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Parents — sometimes you have to say NO.
Parents — sometimes you have to say NO. And mean it. We all love our kids. I’ve got eight — I get it. But I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve had with sporting parents whose child didn’t get selected in a team and who want to blame the system or the coach or the selectors or anyone and...
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One session to change their lives.
What would you do if you had ONE session with a team you don’t know, in a place you’ve never been, sometimes in a language you don’t speak, in a sport you don’t understand? I am very lucky. I get to travel the world and work with coaches, athletes, teams and sporting parents everywhere. Often,...
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Wayne. How do I coach "good"?
By Wayne Goldsmith Thanks for the incredible response to the "Good Boys Make Great Players" video. A coach wrote to me and asked, "Wayne. How do I coach "good"? Great question.My answer: Stop seeing them as athletes. Start seeing them as people who do athletic things.This re-framing of your...
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Good boys make great players.
I was visiting the Collingwood AFL Club here in Australia. Impressive facilities. Long history of success. Well resourced. Professional football team. They had a guy whose job was to take care of the players’ boots. Clean them, repair them, dry them. He’d been there for years doing the same job —...
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Facilities Don't Win Gold Medals
A lot of coaches, club committees and sports administrators complain that the reason their program, their team and their athletes are not competitive is due to poor facilities. “If we had a better court, our kids would be able to train and play better” etc. In 30 years in this business I’ve seen...
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There Are No 7-Year-Old Champions
There are no 7 year old champions, There are no sporting super-stars at 9 years of age. There are no “great” athletes at 11 years of age. Recently a sporting parent said something to me that I wanted to share with you. I promise you - NONE of this is embellished or made up. “Wayne. I need your...
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Stop Telling. Start Asking.
By Wayne Goldsmith n the old days, coaches talked a lot. We’d go on and on about what to do, how to do it, how many times to do it, why to do it. Now, athletes want something other than a “sage on a stage”. They want a coach who works WITH them — not AT them. They want more than telling and...
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Player Power.
Player Power doesn’t mean the players are in charge. It means they take ownership. Traditional coaching was simple: tell them what to do, yell when they don’t. Command and control. Modern coaching is different. The coach leads by painting a vision — telling the story of the team’s future with the...
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Close Your Eyes. What Do You See?
By Wayne Goldsmith I’ve delivered sporting parent workshops across six continents — from South Africa to South Korea, Canada to Fiji — since the early ‘90s. In every session, I ask one question. The most important question any sporting parent will ever consider: Close your eyes. What do you see?...
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First Time Coach? DON'T PANIC!
By Wayne Goldsmith So - you had to coach the local under 8 team because no one else would? As Douglas Adams would say - DON’T PANIC! There are millions and millions of people just like you all over the world - i.e. what we call “THE LAST ONE STANDING”. Let me guess. You took your kid to the local...
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The Coaching Moment
By Wayne Goldsmith Let’s talk about what I call The Coaching Moment. That moment when you’re talking with an athlete - it’s only you and them and there’s real connection. In that moment where the only person in the world who matters is that person - that athlete - standing in front of you - you...
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There is No Such Thing as Perfect Technique
By Wayne Goldsmith Every coach loves technique. They love talking about it, studying it, recording it and coaching it. But the technical model most of us have been using is overly focused on “perfection” - and is not focused enough on coaching the athlete to be able to effectively execute THEIR...
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Kids Today are Not Lazy...Kids Today are Not Lazy...Kids Today are not Lazy.
By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Kids today are not LAZY - please write that down 100 times. Lots of coaches and parents tell me that kids today are lazy, they don’t want to...
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Sports Thoughts - Welcome to 2026
Welcome to Sports Thoughts 2026. This year I’ve decided to focus on video posts. There’s way too many Ai generated text posts out there - so I’ve made the commitment to record a lot more video for my Substack community. There’s a lot going on in 2026 and I hope you’ll join me as a subscriber - or...
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STORY TIME 6: RUGBY IS ALL YOU KNOW
BY Wayne Goldsmith Welcome to Sports Thoughts Story Time. As a species we humans are at our best when we’re connecting with each other through story-telling. Story telling allows us to share more than the facts: it’s our opportunity to share our feelings, our emotions, our wisdom and our learning...
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YOUR KID ISN'T TALENTED
By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Three Important Things to Remember: * Talent is what people see on the surface - character is what creates champions; * The most "talented"...
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Teenage Drop Out - Stop The Drop!
By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Sport has a teenage drop out problem. Every sport. Every nation. Kids get to their mid-teens and the vast majority decide it’s time to drop...
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30 Years Experience in 1 Minute!
By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Over the past 30 years I’ve worked all over the world with some brilliant coaches. Worked with coaches in the USA, UK, Ireland, South…
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STORY TIME 5 - THE REMARKABLE DAVE TAYLOR
By Wayne Goldsmith Welcome to Sports Thoughts Story Time. As a species we humans are at our best when we’re connecting with each other through story-telling. Story telling allows us to share more than the facts: it’s our opportunity to share our feelings, our emotions, our wisdom and our learning...
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Getting Better at Coaching
By Wayne Goldsmith Sports Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Getting better at coaching comes down to a simple principle: think of yourself, your own learning, your own growth, your own improvement…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Real talk on coaching, leadership and sports parenting from Wayne Goldsmith — 30+ years working with Olympic programs worldwide. Challenging conventional thinking. Building better coaches, better parents, better athletes.
waynegoldsmith.substack.com
HOSTED BY
Wayne Goldsmith
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Sports Thoughts have?
Sports Thoughts currently has 67 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Sports Thoughts about?
Real talk on coaching, leadership and sports parenting from Wayne Goldsmith — 30+ years working with Olympic programs worldwide. Challenging conventional thinking. Building better coaches, better parents, better athletes. waynegoldsmith.substack.com
How often does Sports Thoughts release new episodes?
Sports Thoughts has 67 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Sports Thoughts?
You can listen to Sports Thoughts on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Sports Thoughts?
Sports Thoughts is created and hosted by Wayne Goldsmith.
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