ZEPP FM | Sport psychology for athletes, coaches & future sport psychologists

Grzegorz is one of only very few sport psychologists who work in Poland with athletes, teams and coaches – both in able-bodied and in disabled sports. It took us several months to finally schedule a date for our interview because he is so busy travelling and working with his teams, that it’s hard to get ahold of him. However, we made it – and I’m more than happy that it finally worked out!

Grzegorz studied psychology and sport psychology in Canada, Germany, Finland and Poland, and one of his first lecturers, Prof David Cox from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver/BC, Canada) was such an inspiration to Grzegorz that he decided to focus on sport psychology and try to inspire others the way Prof Cox inspired him. From what I know about Grzegorz and where his journey lead him so far, I’d say, that he’s on a very good way to be an inspiration for athletes, coaches as well as current and future sport psychologists.

In today’s episode – which is longer than regular episodes – Grzegorz and I talk about his experiences in sport psychology, his purpose for working with able-bodied and disabled athletes, what strategies he teaches athletes to better deal with stress, what we can learn from athletes (especially disabled athletes), the worst advices he regularly hears being dispensed in sports, what advices he would give future sport psychologists to enter this amazing field – and much, much more!

I really enjoyed talking with Grzegorz and we’ve already planned to do another episode on sport psychology - specifically, how and which movies can help coaches and teams to learn from such movies. No matter if you’re an athlete, coach or (future) sport psychologist – this episode is full of great experiences, stories and advices!

Nick Symmonds is a two-time Olympian, who competed for the United States in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. With 7 NCAA titles, 9 U.S. titles, a silver medal at the World Championships and a personal best of 3:59.68 for One Mile, he can be pretty satisfied with what he achieved during his active career.

However, Nick doesn’t enjoy the good life after a successful sporting career, he goes on and sets new goals for himself for the future. Not only did he co-found RunGum, a company producing chewing gums with energy boosting ingredients, but he strives also to climb the seven summits within the next couple of years. His goal is to be the first person on earth to run the mile under four minutes and summit Mt. Everest.

In this episode, Nick talks about how he dealt with stress prior and during competitions, why discipline and dealing with obstacles is so important and what characteristics he developed while being an Olympic athlete that help him achieve his goals today in business and in mountains.

Thank you, Nick, for sharing your personal insights with us!

Every year I’m reading many books to see what I can learn from them for me personally and for my work with students, athletes, coaches and other clients. A couple of years ago people started asking me which books I read, which books I can recommend, or which books I frequently give away as presents. After telling the same things over and over again, I founded my personal book club, where I review one book a month. The topics range from autobiographies, over leadership and motivation to Zen Buddhism.

Last year was the first year when I decided to choose the top books I read that year – and I wanted to continue this in 2018 as well. Thus, in this episode I’m reviewing the what I consider the five best books I read in 2018 and which I recommend to many of the athletes, coaches, students and clients I’m working with! However, I’m not only reviewing these books today, I’m also giving them away for free to one lucky winner.

The books I recommend in today’s episode are The obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday (3:27), Quiet by Susan Cain (15:44), Mindset by Carol S. Dweck (25:04), Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn (36:48), and The daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman (44:43). I’ve put the time stamps in brackets so you can easily navigate to the next book if you’re specifically interested in a certain book. I hope that you’ll benefit from these books as much as I did!

Still, one of the very few sport psychologists working in eSports is Ismael Pedraza from Colombia. After playing football himself he realized during his studies of sport sciences how important the mental side of the game is, and he started to specialize in the field of sport psychology. Although he never really played video or computer games himself, he identified a huge demand of mental preparation in eSports, what lead him and some colleagues to found The Mental Craft – a company devoted to help athletes, teams and coaches in eSports improve their performances through sport psychology.

Ismael has been working in eSports for the last three years, which is an amazingly long time, because sport psychology wasn’t really popular in eSports a couple of years ago. While working with Misfits, one of the professional teams in the European League of Legends Championship Series (EULCS), they became the first Western team to take any games off of the then reigning World Champion SK Telecom T1. If – like myself - you’re not familiar what eSports competitions look like, you can get a great insight in the following video. I think, it’s somehow really fascinating.

In this episode, Ismael talks about his experiences in eSports, how he entered eSports as a sport psychologist, and how he thinks athletes, teams and coaches in eSports can benefit from sport psychology. Moreover, he gives some great advice for any sport psychologist who thinks about learning more about eSports and what is really necessary to know about eSports and the different video games in order to be able to successfully work in eSports. One important aspect he mentioned here was, that it can be even beneficial not to know anything or too much about eSports, and how this “not knowing” can set you up for a successful career as a sport psychologist in eSports.

Sylvain is not only a very good colleague of mine - he is one of the most successful early career researchers in sport psychology and especially emotional intelligence. Talking to Sylvain about his passion for research and how athletes can benefit from his knowledge was truly inspiring for me.

Every time I’m travelling to scientific conferences and Sylvain is there as well he is some kind of a celebrity. People want to talk to him, learn from him and are interested in his current experiments. Everyone wants to know what he identified, how they can become more emotionally intelligent themselves or how they can help their athletes to achieve this.

When I asked Sylvain, whether he could imagine sharing something he knows about emotional intelligence I thought that emotional intelligence refers only to a person being able to identify what is going on in the people around him or her. Like a coach who has to be empathetic and understand all of his athletes in order to create a trusting relationships with them. Man, was I wrong. Emotional intelligence is way more than that – and I am so glad I talked with Sylvain and that he cleared many things up for me!

This episode is full of knowledge, practical tips how to become more emotionally intelligent deal better with stress before, during and after competition – or every other situation that stresses you. ...and if you want to know what Sylvain would have told Zinedine Zidane before headbutting Marco Materazzi in the 2006 FIFA World Cup final, this episode is for you!