Remember the movie Monster’s Inc.? The Monsters generate their city’s power by scaring children, but in the end they find that children’s laughs provide 10x the power. Creativity is the same… it is powered by joy and passion. Scaring children as a means to get them to not make mistakes only kills the passion, enjoyment [...]

As a coach and a parent, I get constant feedback on what works with children when giving feedback to them for performance on the soccer field or their behavior at practices. Unfortunately, many coaches fail at their ability to properly motivate and balance their criticism. I’ve seen coaches who constantly criticize their players (U9s) to [...]

By Dev K. Mishra, M.D., President, Sideline Sports Doc To recap: I don’t think there’s any better playing surface than a well-maintained grass field, but I’d prefer one of the newer varieties of turf fields over a poorly-maintained grass field any day.  Some people have also suggested that the interaction between the athlete’s shoe and [...]

I read a lot of soccer blogs, news, and watch a lot of soccer… not only the news channels, but probably 2-3, or 4 games on TV a week. I coach 5-6 days a week, so I am pretty submerged in the beautiful game. One of the articles I recently read was posted on 3-4-3, [...]

Getting shouted at makes you work harder, but kills your creativity, according to a new study published by the Journal of Applied Psychology (via Paul Kedrosky). The authors examine whether and how observing anger influences thinking processes and problem-solving ability. In 3 studies, the authors show that participants who listened to an angry customer were [...]

Hands down the best coaching course I’ve taken. The theory is extremely rich and provides a solid foundation for why  and how to create developmentally appropriate training sessions and youth programs. The week is definitely demanding because it gets coaches out of the normal “coach centered” approach of running a practice and introduces the concept [...]

By Dev K. Mishra, M.D. Here’s a revelation: eat the least processed food you can find. Right, that’s not a revelation. You’ve heard it before but it’s not an easy thing to do when feeding the typical American teenage athlete. But it can be done, especially if you try to stick to the 80/20 rule [...]

Dan Coyle is the bestselling author of “The Talent Code” a book that discusses and highlights the learning recipe he’s found necessary to create talent. Those things are: Deep Learning (10,000 hours) Immediate feedback Repetition Coaching to oversee and direct the learned behavior   Here is a quick video of his presentation for U.S. Soccer. [...]