Supporting Champions Podcast 006 David Fletcher

In this episode I talk to David Fletcher about his career as a swimmer, researcher and expert in the area of adversity.

Show notes;

Early aspirations as a swimmer, but experiencing near misses as an athlete and academically

Transfer of desire from swim background to early success in studies

Father as a science role-model, searching and sharing academic papers

Importance of internship in sporting environment

Importance of breadth of experience beyond own area of specialism

Interest in the stresses that athletes experiences

Stresses changing based on growth of high performance system

Uncovering poor organisational behaviours that adversely influenced sporting performance

Seeking legal advice due to controversial nature of athlete interviews - sticking to your guns about unearthing and communicating stresses

Identifying stresses and how some used stressful experiences as fuel for determination

Organisational stresses - leadership styles, not being listened to, overuse of pressure training and how it spilled over

How it is unethical not to prepare athletes for the pressure of top competitions

How leadership behaviours permeated down to grass-root levels

Adversity as a stimulus for growth - so it needs to be; - Relevant, e.g. penalty shoot-out - Progressively adaptable - Agreed

Appropriate and inappropriate consequences to contravening agreed behaviours

Role of early adversity as a fuel for focusing on sporting goals

Theories emerging - life adversity coinciding with sporting success, and finding sport as a sanctuary

Caveat that sport doesn't protect person from mental health response to adversarial events

How best to support when people experience adversity; 1) give them space; 2) supporting people when they are ready to disclose - provide inspirational opportunities; 3) when a vase breaks consider creating a new mosaic rather than re-building as it was

Adversity gives you honesty to review deeply

Different personality traits required to succeed in sport vs life

Re-emergence of 'issues' wen sport is not there

Are we doing enough to support coaches?

Lessons for everybody - Anything worthwhile will have its challenges - Importance of anticipating stresses and preparing for them - Importance of support network - Importance of disclosing and being open to sharing stress response

Future directions in area of adversity

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