Sports Thoughts

About Sports Thoughts

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 (https://waynegoldsmith.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Wayne Goldsmith

Category

education · sports

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 May 2025

Latest episode

27 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

68 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   27 Oct 2026

   Give Your Best To Them.

   By Wayne Goldsmith Three important messages: * High performance isn’t something you get out of people. It’s something you give to them. * Culture is what you do - and what people do screams louder than anything on the walls. * The only athlete who can’t get better is the one who isn’t there. I was honoured to be the first guest on the new Coaching Life Podcast with Liz Pickworth, Editor-in-Chief of Coaching Life. Thank you Liz - it was a terrific conversation and a privilege to help launch the series. Liz introduced me with a line I wish I’d written myself: “Performance isn’t something you extract from people - it’s something an environment either permits or prevents”. That thread runs through the whole conversation. Here are the big ideas - and the full episode is above. Performance: give your best to them: Most performance leaders are solving the wrong problem. They’re trying to get more OUT of people. Motivation sessions, resilience classes, incentives for buy-in, self-help books for Christmas. Let’s be honest - none of it works. And we usually try it when it’s too late, or almost too late. It’s not about getting the best out of people - like you’re squeezing the potential “juice” out of them. It’s about giving your best to them. Doing your best for them. Building on three immensely important words: WE - NOT - ME! Real high performance is still tough. In my NRL work I need to be able to walk up to someone a lot taller, a lot bigger and earning a lot more money than I do, look them in the eye and say “It’s not good enough. You need to do better”. They listen. Not because I’m tough - but because we’ve built a relationship of trust, honesty and love. They’re thinking “Wayne would only be saying this because he wants me to be successful. He believes in me”. That’s the difference. Culture: what you do screams louder: Culture is what you do. Not long ago I went to pitch a coaching program to a corporate client. From the moment I walked in I was cataloguing what I saw - starting at reception. The two people on the front desk welcomed me, offered me a coffee, chatted about the cold weather and made me feel like I belonged. Before I’d met a single executive, I already knew a lot about that organisation. What people do screams at you far louder than anything they say - or anything they’ve plastered on the walls. Honesty, integrity, humility, courage... I’ve seen every value statement you can imagine. They mean nothing unless people genuinely live them. Coaching: coach with them, not at them: For too long we equated high performance with being hard - telling and yelling. You can be demanding. You can be uncompromisingly committed to excellence. But you don’t have to be a ratbag about it. The phrase I use: you can be HARD without being a BAST-HARD. We’re no longer coaching athletes. We’re coaching WITH athletes - connecting with them, engaging them and inspiring them to take ownership of their own destiny. Several coaches I know - whose athletes won gold at the Commonwealth Games this year - coach exactly that way. It matters even more with teenagers. Kids and sport are a bit like kids and cars. At 7, 8, 9 and 10 they sit in the back seat on their device and go wherever mum and dad take them. At 11, 12 and 13 they move up to the front - where are we going, who’ll be there? By 15 and 16, the aim is to hand them the keys. It’s their sporting journey. Too many coaches still talk to a 15 year old the way they did when that kid was seven. So the kids look at their lives - school, a part-time job, a first boyfriend or girlfriend - and decide which relationships they still need. “My coach doesn’t listen to me.” And they’re gone. Experience: the athlete who isn’t there: There’s only one athlete who can’t get better - the one who isn’t there. If they’re not coming, their height, speed, strength and talent don’t matter. Our primary responsibility as coaches is to create environments where kids fall in love with the experience of sport - so they keep coming back. Kids don’t hate sport. They fall out of love with the experience we’ve given them. And we’ve prepared coaches for that job in the strangest way - teaching first year university physiology to the person coaching Ipswich under 9s. It’s like training dentists by putting them through a carpentry course. We haven’t coached coaches to coach. Coaching is the art of inspiring change through emotional connection. As I heard a long time ago: if I want to change a life, I’ll become a coach. If I want to change the nation, I’ll coach the coaches. Summary: Liz finished by asking for one piece of advice. Be voracious in your learning. Learn at a rate equal to or greater than your athletes - or you’ll very soon become irrelevant. But my favourite is this. Remember the one person who believed in you when you were growing up - an auntie, a teacher, a coach - who made you feel anything was possible? You’re that person now. Not long ago I was at the wedding of an athlete I coached thirty years ago. Afterwards she asked “Coach, can I just have a moment with you?”. She told me I was the first person who had made her believe in herself. Every coach has that power. Take it seriously. Three Practical Applications For Your Coaching: * Give before you ask. Before you ask more of your people, ask what more you can give them - belief, time, honesty and support. * Review the same way - win or lose. Win by 350 points or lose by 300, the Sunday review is the same: what worked, what didn’t and how do we get better? Learn fast. Move on quickly. * Hand over the keys. As your athletes grow, shift from telling to asking - from coaching at them to coaching with them. I’d genuinely love your comments on this one. Thanks for reading, listening and watching. Wayne Wayne works with federations, clubs and organisations on high performance, culture and coach development, and mentors a small number of coaches each year. wayne@moregold.com.au Further reading: The Talent Myth and Leading Without Leading on Amazon - The Coaching Course Sport Needs Now - coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/coachingcoursenow Thanks to Liz and the team at THE COACHING LIFE. Check it out https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-fi95a-1b8996d This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit waynegoldsmith.substack.com/subscribe (https://waynegoldsmith.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   1 Sept 2026

   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, smiling and at ease. That’s not softness. That’s a coaching skill. I was talking to a coaching colleague the other day about what I think is the biggest challenge coaches everywhere are wrestling with right now. I think it’s this: How do you balance hard work, discipline, dedication and consistency with an environment that’s increasingly focused on wellbeing, welfare and mental health? And what I keep seeing is coaches treating those two things as a contradiction. I’m a hard coach Or I’m a welfare coach. I’m a tough coach who demands the work Or I’m a soft coach who doesn’t push athletes. Colleagues, that’s the wrong way to look at it entirely. They’re not exclusive. They’re linked - if you’re prepared to think about your coaching differently. The Stereotype: what we think a hard coach looks like: Let’s start with the picture in everyone’s head. The frowning coach. The loud voice. The yelling and screaming. Not listening to kids. Not engaging with athletes. Just standing there, demanding. Some of us grew up with that and a lot of people still think that’s what a hard coach is. Those days are well and truly over. There are still pockets of it around the world, but increasingly it’s the minority. You just don’t see many coaches working that way any more. But here’s what a lot of people got wrong when that style disappeared. They assumed the toughness went with it. It didn’t. There are coaches out there right now who are enormously demanding, challenging, completely uncompromising - and they do it with respect, with care and with love alongside a total commitment to excellence. Two Ways: same outcome, completely different journey: Let me show you what I mean. An athlete is working on a skill. They have a go. You know it isn’t good enough and you know it isn’t as good as they can do. And you believe it matters that they do it again. Old coaching sounds like this. Is that the best you can do? You’re going to do it again. And you’re going to keep doing it until you get it right. (Possibly with a few expletives in there). And we used to say - now that’s a hard coach. No. Times have changed. Here’s the same situation. I like the way you had a go at that. I think you’re improving. What do you think? Let’s try it again - but why don’t we do it this way? What do you think will happen then? Is there another way we could do it and see if we can get it working a bit better? What do you think? Yeah? Yeah. Let’s have another go. Both of those achieve exactly the same outcome. The athlete does it again. Comply Or Own: the only difference that matters: So if the outcome is identical, what actually changed? In the first one, the athlete felt compelled to comply with what you told them to do. In the second, they’re doing it because they want to learn. Because they’ve got skin in the game. Because they own that piece of their own growth. They’re working with you. They don’t feel coached at. In old coaching, every failed attempt pushes your voice up a notch. Is that the best you can do? Are you kidding me? There is no need for any of that! Fifth attempt and it sounds like this. Look - I know you’ve given it everything you’ve got. I feel it’s really important we get this right. What do you think? Yeah. Let’s have another go. I am still being completely uncompromising. I’m still setting very high standards. I’m still telling my athlete we have to hit this, because it matters. I’m just bringing them along on the journey. Whose Journey: the bit that changes everything: It is their journey. That’s the whole point. I’m a guide. I’m a mentor. I’m a director. I’m a facilitator. But ultimately they’re the one on the journey and my job - and your job - is to present information, learning, feedback and ideas in a way that makes them want to learn. Coaching with them. Not coaching at them. Summary: I have this discussion constantly - the one where somebody tells me coaching has gone soft and there’s no room left for a relentless commitment to excellence. I disagree completely. We still need athletes who can push themselves to extraordinary levels. In elite and professional sport the standards are still high and they keep shifting upwards. What’s changed is how we coach them to get there. You do not have to be a hard coach or a soft coach. You can be the most demanding, challenging, committed, dedicated coach in your sport, determined to succeed at the highest level - without ever raising your voice and without ever being sarcastic. You can be uncompromising on your standards and completely relaxed, at ease and smiling while you hold them. The two things live together perfectly well. Three Practical Applications For Your Coaching: * Record yourself at your next session and listen back. Not for what you said - for what happened to your voice on attempts three, four and five. Volume is a habit and most coaches have no idea they do it. * Replace “do it again” with “what do you think?” Same standard, same repetition, completely different ownership. The demand doesn’t move an inch. The athlete moves a long way. * Write down the one standard you will never compromise on. One. If you can’t name it, your athletes certainly can’t - and softness isn’t the absence of yelling, it’s the absence of a standard. I’d genuinely love your comments on this one. Thanks for reading, listening and watching. Wayne Wayne mentors a small number of coaches each year and works with clubs, federations and schools on coach development. wayne@moregold.com.au (mailto:wayne@moregold.com.au) Further reading: The Coaching Course Sport Needs Now - https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/coachingcoursenow (https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/coachingcoursenow). For sporting parents: Raising Athletes - https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/raisingathletes (https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/raisingathletes) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit waynegoldsmith.substack.com/subscribe (https://waynegoldsmith.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   1 Sept 2026

   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 things that divide us. It’s one line, and it works in every country I’ve used it. Ask anyone in sport what their sport needs to be bigger, better, more successful and you’ll get the same three answers. * Facilities. * Money. * Equipment. I understand why. You can see them. You can price them. You can put them in a grant application. If we had a bigger pool, we’d have more swimmers and the club would thrive. If we had a new grandstand, a new weights room and new change rooms - we’d have more players and better players. Colleagues, in most cases those are not your real issues. The Real Constraint: things you cannot put in a grant application: The biggest problems I see in sport, anywhere in the world, are personality conflicts and petty political squabbles. You know exactly the sort of thing I mean. Two people who don’t like each other and don’t speak and who quietly put obstacles in each other’s way. Club A hates Club B for a reason that neither Club A nor Club B can actually remember. The coaches never collaborate or even acknowledge each other at competitions. A state won’t deal with the national body. The national body won’t communicate with the state. Two states won’t work with each other. I’ve seen every one of those, on every continent I’ve worked on. Ireland: the hardest room I’ve been asked to bring together: A few years ago I was in Ireland and I was asked by the GAA to bring their clubs, their parishes and their regions together to talk about how they could work collaboratively in the interest of the sport. It was always going to be a tough ask. There are some very deep historical and very passionately held reasons why some adjoining parishes and counties don’t get on. But it’s not an Irish problem. I’ve seen the same thing in Australia. In Canada. In New Zealand. In England. People decide, for whatever reason, that their petty politics and their personality conflicts matter more than the things that actually matter in sport. One Line: what I use to get them in the same direction: So how do you get a room full of people who don’t like each other to work together? I use one line: The things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us. Then I make them do the work. Don’t tell me why you don’t like them. Don’t tell me what she said one day, or what he didn’t do, or what happened in 1997. That’s rubbish. Tell me what unites you. Rugby: what the list actually looks like: Take rugby. What unites everyone connected to the game? * We love the game. * We want every kid in the country playing it. * We want them to learn to be skilful. * We want them to fall in love with the experience of it. * We want them still playing in their fifties. * We want them bringing their kids back. And their grandkids. * We want them to get everything out of this game that we got out of it. That’s the list of what unites them. And the “divides us” list? “We don’t like you.” Put those two lists side by side and the argument is over. Honesty: you don’t have to become friends: Let me be clear about what I’m not asking for. We may never come together and buy each other a beer. We may never go to each other’s weddings. We may never go to each other’s birthday parties. And that is completely fine. Collaboration is not friendship. You don’t have to like someone to want the same thing for the sport you both gave your life to. Summary: Sport around the world is in crisis mode right now. Participation is falling. Retention through the early and mid teens is a serious problem. Finding and keeping coaches, officials and volunteers is genuinely difficult. The cost of sport keeps climbing. And if we’re still fighting among ourselves through all of that, it’s like throwing punches with one hand while hitting yourself in the head with the other hand. You cannot present the sport you love in a positive light while you’re beating up people inside it who share your values and your love of the game. It just doesn’t work. Those petty political issues don’t only fail to help. They’re a constraint. They’re actively getting in the way of the experience you say you want to provide for kids and families. The things that unite you are greater - much, much greater - than the things that divide you. Three Practical Applications For Your Coaching: * Name the club, region or body you don’t get on with - then write down why. Actually write it down. Most people get halfway through the sentence and realise they can’t remember the original grievance. * Now write the “unite” list. What do you both want for the kids in your sport? Put the two lists side by side on the same page. That’s the whole exercise and it takes about ten minutes. * Start with one shared thing, not a merger. A joint coach education night. A combined come-and-try day. One thing you do together that neither of you could do alone. Collaboration is built on a result not on a reconciliation. Thanks for reading, listening and watching. Wayne Wayne works with federations, states, regions and clubs on bringing fractured sporting communities back together - the work that doesn’t fit in a grant application. wayne@moregold.com.au (mailto:wayne@moregold.com.au) Further reading: The Coaching Course Sport Needs Now - https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/coachingcoursenow (https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/coachingcoursenow). For sporting parents: Raising Athletes - https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/raisingathletes (https://coachwayne.gumroad.com/l/raisingathletes) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit waynegoldsmith.substack.com/subscribe (https://waynegoldsmith.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

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