"Talent doesn't need trauma - talent needs turbulence" - a conversation with Mauro Van De Looij

Mauro van de Looij is a sports coach and performance psychologist from the Netherlands. He has worked as a youth coach at PSV Eindhoven and Willem II Tilburg and he teaches Performance Psychology at Fontys University of Applied Psychology. Mauro coaches athletes, trainers, students and teachers and also supports sports clubs, schools and companies in coaching and talent development.

Mauro joins me to talk about his book 'https://amzn.to/3xJyG36' which is a book that is dedicated to supporting coaches to understand more about how they can unlock young athletes potential by recognising the psychological elements that are too often overlooked and can be so impactful on a young players career. 

In this conversation we cover: 

- How his own experineces dealing with pressure shaped his approach to coaching. 
- How he got rid of the Relative Age Effect by not playing in age group teams. 
- How we coined a new term - 'talent needs turbulence'. 
- Why so many coaches would say to him "I wish I got this on the coaching badges". 
Buy the book using this https://amzn.to/3xJyG36 (it helps to support the show.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.

Ready to explore these ideas further? Join The Guild of Ecological Explorers – a community of practitioners committed to deepening their understanding of ecological dynamics and constraints-led approaches. Head to www.thetalentequation.co.uk and click the 'Join a Learning Group' button to become part of this transformative conversation

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to the Talent Equation Podcast.If you are passionate about helping young people
to leash their potential and want tofind ways to do that better, then
you've come to the right place.The Talent Equation podcast seeks to answer the
important questions facing parents, coaches,and talent developers as they try to help

(00:23):
young people become the best they canbe. This is a series of unscripted,
unpolished conversations between people at the razor'sedge of the talent community who are
prepared to share their knowledge, experiences, and challenges in an effort to help
others get better faster. Listen,reflect, and don't forget to join the

(00:44):
discussion at the Talent Equation dot codot UK. Enjoy the show. Hi

(01:17):
everyone, Stewart here Before we getinto today's podcast, I wonder if I
can ask you to do me afavor. I'm hoping that I can get
the podcast to grow to a wideraudience, but further it goes, the
more people that it can impact.I often get letters of messages on social
media from many of the listeners whooften talk to me about the impact it's
had on them and the people thatthey work with. Sometimes that impact goes

(01:38):
as far as family members and relationshipsthat you hold. I'm hoping that I
can get that message out called wideraudience. Now. Obviously the more people
that listen, the more impact theshow can have, but also the more
people that subscribe and download, thenthat helps me to invest in the show
and put out more content. Asyou know, my podcasting of late,
it's been a little bit sporadic,say the least, and that's partly due

(01:59):
to the fact that I've been strugglingwith capacity. Now I'm hoping to be
able to enlist some help so thatI can improve the quality and improve the
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your help. To please share itfar and wide. You know, use
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(02:20):
encourage them to sign up and listen. Now, I've got loads of ideas
for a new ways to take theshow. I want to bring on new
co hosts other than the world famousFlow the Dog. I want to do
some live streamed episodes that people caninteract with and do Q and as live
Q and a's, and I'm alsothinking about doing live podcasts from conferences as
well as bringing on some big nameguests. But I can only do that
with your support. Every single subscriptionis a massive benefit. Now, if

(02:44):
you want to go a bit furtherthan that, then there is a Patreon
page, and if you go tothe Patreon page, there's opportunities for you
to buy me the equivalent of acup of coffee. If you're are to
do then that's amazing and that's massivelysupportive, but it's not essential. The
main thing is if you could justtake the time to share it on your
social media channels or share the sharethe episode with somebody that you know,

(03:04):
and if you find some value init, then pass it on to others
and pay it forward. And ifyou can do that, I'd be enormously
grateful. Thanks in advance for yoursupport. I'm delighted to be joined today
by probably the most patient man inthe world, Marrow of Vandaloi, who,
in fairness has has suffered many postponementand cancelations of this podcast because it's

(03:29):
been in the opering for several months. But anyway, Marow, I'm delighted
to welcome you and profuse apologies formy lack of schedule planning. Thank you.
And as I say, patience isa virtue, right so already already
it is a virtue. So Iwonder if I could just start the ball

(03:51):
rolling by just getting your your backgroundand your story and the journey you've been
on, and then I'll start withand start talking about this excellent piece,
this excellent piece that you've written.The coach makes the difference, and I
would love to delve into a fewbits and have a conversation if that's okay,
Yeah, that's okay. Great.So my background, well, I

(04:15):
think, like most of the youngat least boys, but now for girls
the same I think like most ofthem, I wanted to become a professional
football player, and I got intoan academy myself at the age of twelve
thirteen, and then I hit awall, not literally, but yeah,
more or less on the psychological side, with the pressure. It was too

(04:40):
much for me to handle. Atthe time, I was already very interested
in how people were doing, whythey were doing the things they were doing,
So I think that's one of thereasons that got me into the psychology
department. So I went to studypsychology child psychology first and Utrecht the Netherlands,

(05:00):
and then I went on. It'squite kind of a funny story.
I was. I was quite atypical student, just doing the things what
need to be done, not reallylooking ahead. And then one day someone
told me, hey, what areyou going to plan on do for your
masters? Because I was already atthe end of my bachelor And then I

(05:21):
said, I don't know, let'sjust check. I typed in into google
sports and psychology, the two thingsthat I love, and yeah, it
happens. It turned out to bethat there was a master track in Amsterdam
University of Armsterdam for the third year, and I enrolled myself into this.

(05:42):
It's this master and then we hadto do internship, we had to do
a thesis and I got the opportunityto do this with the Youth Academy of
pece V Einthoven And yeah, itwas a great time, a lots lots
of learning. And you know whenI was speaking in two thousand and thirteen,
believe and back then he yeah,it was even more. How do

(06:03):
you say skepticism of psychology and alot of people saying, well, I
didn't have that back in my day, so who are you? You know?
So that was for me, veryvery how do you say, a
challenge from which I learned so much, because you really had to be at
the top of the game to beyeah, be invited by people to talk

(06:26):
about, you know, individual thedevelopment, team, development, et cetera.
And luckily for me, there werealso people very interested in this and
one of them gave me the chanceto become a professional youth coach with the
piece of bed Oven Academy, whichwas kind of funny because I didn't have
any coaching badges. I didn't haveany coaching experience as a football coach,

(06:50):
so I was fresh and yeah,amos Mark, he gave me the opportunity,
so I'm still very thankful for him. So then I went on to
be a coach for for years withPSV. Also did some work on the
culture, especially also with the parents, so we started to do YouTube clips
instead of those nights for parents,because yeah, those nights were for everybody

(07:12):
opinion in the ass in terms ofgetting a planning wise organized, et cetera.
So we we we started with YouTubeclips so that everybody could see what
we were doing, what we wereaiming for, and they could look at
in their own time and as manytimes as they would wish. And obviously
that we were also running around thecampus so if they had any questions then
the door would be open. Thenalso some sessions with the coaches on the

(07:38):
psychology, psychological part of the youknow, developing place. How do they
learn what environment do they need inorder to to you know, to come
to the best fruitation that they canbe. Then I went to william Today
and Tilburgh also in the Netherlands.Frank your own further of them. I

(08:01):
came from that academy and yeah,that was that was that was really cool
because I was ten times a weekon the pitch from the youngest squads to
the to the elder squads. SoI learned so many things and there were
so many good coaches around the JavierRabanal was from Spain. He he came,
he came in Bostian again was mywas my boss over there, and

(08:26):
yeah, I got to do somany things that besides the training aspect and
the coaching aspect, I was alsointo the culture with all the people involved
within the club at youth academy,How are we going to create a culture
in which it's it's all about developmentof the of the places and of the
teams and of the staff. Evenso, I was giving sessions on sleep,

(08:48):
on food, on the mental sideof the game with with teams throughout
the ages. And I was alsoresponsible for the talent recognition, so the
scouting part of the of the academy. So from the ages of eleven until
sixteen it was my cup of tea. And we had restrained ourselves because we

(09:11):
strongly believe in the growth mindsets sothat you are able to develop yourself.
And you know, it's quite hardto foretell where people are going with their
qualities, et cetera. So youknow, we didn't want to foretell,
but we did believe that if wehave the plays, we put them in
the right environment, and if they'revery motivated and committed to developing themselves,

(09:33):
then we believe great things can bedone. So we had ourselves constrained with
people or younger plays only from Tilburg, the city and a couple of villages
around this, so we got ridof the birth month, the relative age
effect, I should say, becausewe made a formula of how do you

(09:56):
have coaches and scouts look towards players. Not that it's an end to itself,
but it was quite Yeah, itwas quite interesting that you saw our
teams being quite stable in terms ofthis instead of very unstable with only players
born in January because the cutoff datein the analys is January. And yeah,

(10:20):
that's that's That was quite a while, quite a lot of things,
very interesting things as well to do. And then there came a point that
I thought, yeah, well there'sI don't see any way to improve myself
here. There's no i'd say pathfor me to to grow into. And
the club was very honest with meas well, because I would have wanted

(10:41):
to be the become the coach thatcould help players from the youth academy towards
the first team. But yeah,the club didn't didn't see that to be
working. And then I switched toFonta's University of Applied Sciences and I became
a teacher in psychology and throughout thoseyears in and being a football coach.

(11:03):
Yeah, what I really loved aboutbeing a young kid on the pitch.
And it's always dangerous to say thingslike this, I know, But what
I really loved was the fun thatI had on the pitch and the things
I learned on the pitch which Icould use on the pitch, but also
outside of the pitch, like receivingfeedback, giving feedback, setting goals for
yourself, dealing with struggles, etcetera. And that's what I wish for

(11:26):
every yeah, for every kid ideally. And I saw that a lot of
coaches were struggling with with how theycould do this, and then a lot
of clubs asked me to go therefor sessions and that's one night, and
then a lot of people came wouldcome up to me after such a session.

(11:48):
They would say, Oh, it'svery very inspiring. I'm very enthusiastic
right now, and I got somegreat tools to go out there and to
apply in my training sessions or mycoaching around games. Yeah. Probably you
also know that that's not a verysustainable way to develop coaches. So I
thought to myself, if I reallywant players to develop to the fullest,

(12:11):
I have the most fun time theycould possibly have, then the trainer,
the coach is very important, andmaybe a more sustainable way is to write
a book about it. I loveto read. So yeah, then that
idea was born, and first itcame out in the Netherlands and Dutch,
so that's three years ago from now, and since one year a little bit

(12:33):
more, I've been busy getting itout in in English. So that's quite
a quite a big story already.Yeah, yeah, there's a long that's
that's a good story actually and reallyinteresting. Lots of elements in there.
One thing I just wanted to sortof like reflect on a little bit was

(12:56):
your experiences. Are you know,a culture where the coaches are very skeptical
of psychology? I think that's insome quarters that's still probably the case,
but I know things have moved onquite considerably. But it's interesting like how

(13:16):
my experience, I think from youknow, from from where I've looked,
from the where you would you know, a chat. The book is very
much to sort of build the gapI think where very little coach education centers
on what you could call the software. I would argue it's actually the hardware,
but you know, so very littlecoach education spends time talking about what

(13:41):
drives the individual from a motivational perspective, from a learning environment perspective, from
a development experience, it's very muchfocused on the technical and the tactical and
the physiological, and so you've verymuch centered in that space. And it's
interesting though, how even now there'sstill not very much coach education coued on
those areas. I know it's improved, but it's still not a lot.

(14:03):
And still I think there's a degreeof skepticism generally speaking the defaulting coaches.
I look and I think, ah, right, we're back. So so
generally the default in coaches tends tobe if there's a problem, there's either
a technical or a tactical solution toit. Rarely is it that we look

(14:28):
for the psychological or the mental emotionalsolution in consolet or separately. So is
that was that a big driver foryour motivation to actually sort of put some
information out there into coaching space that'svery focused on the psychological, emotional,
mental elements. Mm hmm, Yeahit was. And it's yeah, obviously,

(14:48):
because I studied psychology, I wasquite a bit biased. But it's
really funny that you say it's it'sa lot about the technical, the technical,
physical, because almost every time whenI go out to clubs and we
do a session, then people comeup to me afterwards and they say to

(15:09):
me, I wish I got thisduring the coaching badges ed coaching education,
because I didn't receive anything on this. So it's and I can understand because
well, the games it's quite difficult, et cetera. And yeah, if
you know how to give a trainingsession and you have the content, et

(15:31):
cetera, it's very helpful. Butwhat I found out in my own experience
and then with reading books and biographiesof the biggest coaches at least so Alex
Ferguson, Louis var hal Beb,Guardiola Young Club. And now that's why
I love podcasts as well. It'sbecause you get into the heads of the
people that you normally wouldn't get.Yeah, you couldn't hear the thoughts,

(15:54):
et cetera. But in my experience, so when I began at Beers,
there were so many good coaches outthere, so many coaches with a lot
of experience, and even they hadbeen playing on the highest levels, so
they had I don't know how manycaps for the Dutch team or how many
professional games they played, but thefunny thing what happened is that they were

(16:17):
the better. The better coaches atleast they know more of the game than
me at the moment. But thena lot of people in the club,
they would come up to me duringthe season, during the seasons and they
would tell me, your playings arereally developing, really very very good,
and the way you play with theboys, it's it's exactly what we want.
And so then it got me thinkinginto how is that possible? Because

(16:41):
I'm I don't have the most knowledgein the technical side, the technical side.
I was doing my badges, etcetera, and I was thinking about
it with the coaches and I was, you know, talking with them and
exchanging ideas. So I was developingmyself in that but I was nowhere near
the level of other coaches out there. But my play is that were developing

(17:03):
at such a high rate that thepeople would come up to me. So
it got me thinking and then Ithought, how is this possible? And
then it kind of struck me thatit I think, it's what's what's most
important, and it's it's it's forthe Dutch coach, professional coach. He
has his own podcast and he saysthe same thing. He says, the

(17:25):
way you treat people is ten timesmore important than whatever tactic you're using,
et cetera. And the likes ofGuardiola Club also say this in that biography.
Is that I read Lous Verrales,famous obviously for his total human principle,
so he says, behind every player, there's a person that you need
to get to know that the personblah blah blah. So it was my

(17:45):
own experience, together with what Iread about the big coaches, that I
thought, yeah, I think it'sso important, and it's there's so much
yeah, so few information about thisbecause there's a lot of sides talking about
method methodology, training sessions. Ifyou train train like this, you're like
Guardiola your next cimon et cetera,which is very good. But but then

(18:10):
the same thing, Yeah, it'sit's not the most important thing according to
a lot of people on high levelsand low levels and in my experience.
So then I thought, there thisis a gap. I'm going to write
a book and then I I alsogo backed up in this by a couple
of publishers in the Netherlands. Theysaid, this is really a niche so

(18:32):
and then we we we went forit and yeah, so far there's a
lot of positive feedback on it.So that's that's great that the coaches,
you know, they send me messageson Twitter and LinkedIn or sometimes via email
saying what they've learned, what theypicked from it. And also on when
when we're in the sessions with theclubs. The one thing that that stands

(18:56):
out that comes back every time,whether whenever we do a session, that
coaches say, I never knew aboutthe role of autonomy. So giving autonomy
to plays, giving them choices insteadof telling them to do everything and everything,
And I think that's that's wonderful,because yeah, autonomy, the need
for autonomy, it's it's one ofthe basic human needs. And if we

(19:18):
can fill in the fill in thoseneeds in the right way, then chances
are you will get the best outof the people. And it won't necessarily
mean you're going to win matches,but at least you get the most out
of the people. And that's Ithink, yeah, that at least what
drove me as a coach. So, uh, the other bit that I

(19:38):
thought was interesting in your introduction thatlinks to this is and I love this
point about autonomy and actually that thatwas going to take me where we went
to. So I heard you saya couple of things. One of them
was that obviously your own personal experienceis within academy as a as a young
I imagine adolescents, or we wereyounger than that. No, I was.

(20:00):
I was twenty four when I started. Okay, twenty four when you
started? I mean as a coachor as a player? Oh, as
a coach, yeah, as aplayer, I was around twelve, twelve,
thirteen twelve, Yeah, and yeah. I heard you talk about,
you know, the pressure that youexperienced and so and then I also heard
you talk about the you know,the desire to create a culture with a
growth mindset. So I do wonder, because often we're motivated by our own

(20:23):
experiences. Is that is that adriver for you in terms of the environments
that you've wanted to create as acoach, which is the environment that you
didn't get that you may have beenable to thrive or do better within,
rather than one which was extremely highpressure and one in which you found it
very very difficult to perform within.M Yeah, that's that's a big driver.

(20:48):
I I have to say, Ihave to be honest that I think
the person who you know put themost pressure on me was myself. So
I I I didn't have the tools, et cetera to to deal with this,
because yeah, I think every playerhas and what level and what environment
you're going to create, there's goingto be pressure because yeah, there's it's

(21:11):
it's your dream, it's important foryou to develop, et cetera. Yeah,
but what is a big drive forme is to to create the culture
in which the chances are high.Is that every player in that culture is
going to get the most out ofthemselves. And for me, it was
it was sometimes quite difficult to toaccept that I I didn't get the most

(21:36):
out of myself because yeah, Ifelt Yeah, like I said, I
felt quite a lot of pressure.And like you said, it's sometimes also
researchers mesearch, so that's true.That's true a case as well. But
I think it's it's yeah, it'sone of my driving points two to Yeah,

(21:59):
howdly say that to help other athletesby inspiring coaches, et cetera to
have a feeling that whatever their dreamis, if they don't make it,
then they can look into the mirrorand say, well, at least I
did everything I had in my controlfor it, and I got everything out
of it. Didn't work out,but it's fine with me. And I
had a bit of struggle to acceptthis because I felt I didn't took everything

(22:23):
out of it. Yeah, nowyou touched on something there that I think
is really important. When you usedto reference this this the word tools,
so that that has been research conductedin the past that talks about how difficult
and traumatic experiences are important to athletedevelopment. Again, there's some there's some

(22:52):
big question marks about this personally,but anyway, open up. There are
some question marks about this, butthere is an association with traumatic childhood experiences
and super elite athletes, not acorrelation, but an association, and the
assumption being and the famous the famousarticle written about this or paper written about
this was the title talent need Trauma, which I don't agree with. But

(23:22):
this notion was this idea that actually, these are formacy of experiences that people
learn from and then they developed thetools as a result. Now that only
worked for those that respond in thatway, and they have to have a
supportive environment around them in order.And this was found in the research by
the way that death happened to bealso that where those individuals had these traumatic

(23:48):
experiences, they also had support aroundthem to be able to respond to those
traumatic experiences. And the traumatic experiencesweren't always board related, they're sometimes outside.
But anyway, idea, the supportis there now. And you've talked
about tools. So I've sort ofoften spoken about this particular research and I'm
quite critical of it, and Italk about the fact that I don't think

(24:11):
talent needs trauma, talent needs tools. And I've had several individuals on the
podcast in the past, people likemust Of us Aka and Jamie Edwards who
work with young athletes and academies orthey talk about, you know, the
kind of talent point theory, soto speak, and creating the right environments,
you know, so you want theright amount of challenge and the right
amount support, and you want tocreate that kind of environment. And Jamie

(24:34):
Edwards when he was on the podcasttalked about this notion of He said that
we often send young people into thesetalent pathways, you know, at quite
formative age, like you know,in your case, you know, eleven
twelve, but we do so withoutnecessarily an environment where the staff in the
environment don't really understand the kinds oftools that they need to provide to young

(24:56):
people in order to help them thrive, and likewise, the young people themselves
don't have the tools and there's noone to help give them those tools.
So he describes it as it's likeyou're asking young people to climb everest wearing
like a light raincoat. They're justnot equipped for the journey. And I

(25:18):
think that that's if there's a kindof a big theme within this show,
it's this idea that we as coachesand practitioners need to become much more well
versed in these elements, these sortof psychological, emotional, mental developmental elements
in order to provide this kind ofenvironment for young people, but not just

(25:41):
an environment, provide the young peoplewith the kind of tools they need to
operate within your environment and any environmentthat they might next go on to.
And so you talked about the growthmindset, and I think this is the
power of the construct around the growthmindset, which is it's centered around the
notion of providing young people with anenvironment where those tools will be developed.

(26:07):
So it's not necessarily they have tobe taught as such, sometimes they do,
but it's more around the environments roaringthese resources out of young people by
being intentional in design. Sorry,I've gone off on a huge runt,
but i'd just be interesting to getyour reflections on that. Yeah, I
think you make you're making a greatpoint because as with a lot of things

(26:30):
in life, and I don't wantto be too philosophical, but it's whenever
we find something, we tend togo all the way and then sometimes a
bit too far, too far out, I think, because I do think
there's some some point in having peoplelearn how to deal with setbacks, struggles,
et cetera, because you're going toyou're going to be confronted by them,

(26:53):
and then it's very important that youknow how you could do this.
And so so I think what you'resaying, I don't think it has to
be so big with we that weneed trauma. I think in order to
deal with trauma, it's, yeah, you have to have experienced very very
small bits so that you gradually couldlearn how to deal with them, deal

(27:18):
with the setbacks, deal with themistakes, deal with you know whatever,
and then you're able to if ifthat's going to be trauma, then then
you're you're you know, you're you'reyou're capable of dealing with it. Now.
I didn't I didn't experience it astrauma by the way, but for
me it was it was a bittoo to too difficult at that moment.
And what we try to do isI remember one game when we we we

(27:45):
played away, we played in theDutch League, the highest level, and
we we played a very very veryvery good game with the boys is the
way we trained, the way wewanted to play. We were giving it
all. We we had more chancesthan your position, but they were better
in finishing, so they scored moregoals. And then the boys that were
very disappointed and they were going intothe smuglike, yeah, we will never

(28:07):
win and we gave everything and they'rebigger and they're faster, blah blah blah
blah blah. And those are momentsI think are very key for a coach
to to you know, help themsee the picture and how to deal with
those moments. So I think there'sa lot of ways you could do this.
The way I did was I toldthem, well, first off,

(28:27):
it starts with giving everything you've got. Did you do this, Yes,
you've done this, So then thatthat's the starting point and the most important
point because that's what you control.Fully. Then if you do this,
then odds are bigger that you're goingto develop yourself so that you're able to
perform to the highest level that you'recapable of, and then that will bring

(28:51):
higher chances to winning the game.But it's not a if you give everything
then you will directly win. There'sgoing to be opposition. They want to
win as well, they have gooda well, et cetera, et cetera.
So those kind of I don't Idon't know how how you could say
this, but cause and effect relationshipsto to get them across to the players
to help them deal with this.But also there's some great work now from

(29:12):
David Yaeger from the I don't knowexactly what the university is from, but
he's also doing work on the growthmindset. But also he's coupling it with
another mindset about stress and how youperceive stress is very important in how you
deal with it. So if youthink stress is bad, then you want
to avoid it, then you knowa lot of things happen, probably not

(29:33):
in your best interest. But ifyou see stress as something like, oh,
I'm stretching myself, I'm I'm I'mhere out here just getting ready for
the for the for the game,et cetera. Then a lot of things
will be probably in your best interest. So I think those kind of things.
But also what's very important. WhatI found to be very important as
well, is that my boss Boston, he was the head of academy,

(29:56):
and he told me, malow,I'm going to evaluate you not on the
amount of matches you win, buton the amount of progress your plays making
your team. And if someone isputting the the aim like this and very
very explicit on this on the developmentof the plays, well that's that.
That's big. That's that helps somany coaches because a lot of coaches that

(30:18):
I I I honestly think most ofthem want to work in this way.
But I also know stories from headof academies that also say, well,
for us, it's all about developingthe plays. And by the way,
it's it's up to everyone and todecide whether focus on but be honest and
clear about this with the players andtheir parents. But sometimes there will be

(30:41):
head of academies that would that wouldsay the same, are we're all about
developing. But then come Monday andall the youth and youth teams won in
the weekend, that would be cakefor every youth coach. Yeah, what
is the signal you're you're signaling toeveryone? Yeah, those things really really
happen. That's so great though,that you had somebody like that, because

(31:04):
there's a symbiotic relationship between the coachform of life and then the athletes experience.
People miss this. They just assumethat because you stay to a coach,
that you've got to do this iswhat I'm going to do or whatever,
or you you provide so like,for example, the cake example of

(31:25):
the good one rewards. Right,So if you say it's about developments,
but then the coaches that win mostget promoted or get the next job,
and this, that and the other, then you send in the wrong signals.
So to have somebody who is goingto be as committed to that and
say actually, this is about developmentand all those sorts of things, very
few people do that. Yep.Interestingly, though, your point about this
is why I like about the growthmindset stuff, because you're right, it's

(31:48):
not about like I think it's asdangerous to create a smooth journey as it
is to as it is to createsomething that's overly taxing. Those two extremes
are too too much. So itjust made me think actually, and I've
just coined the phrase, which is, instead of talent needs trauma, maybe
we should say talent needs turbulence.So you have to be intentional about this.

(32:12):
And this is one of the thingsthat Carol Dweck, I'll never forget
it when I was fortunate enough tomeet her at a conference that I organized
once where she said, I've saidthis before on the show, which is
she said nobody comes home from workand says, honey, I've had the
most amazing struggle today. But whatI love about the growth mindset is it's
not about making things easy. Ifanything, it's making things challenging, but
it's actually engendering in young people theidea that challenge, difficulty, and failure

(32:37):
are something to be looked for,not avoid it. Yep. And I
think the danger is often and Iknow I was guilty of this and have
been guilty of this, is wecreate environments for young people which where we
remove all obstacles in order to makeit as easy as we possibly can.

(32:57):
And in actual fact, I thinkwe all to be more intentional in creating
the right level of destabilization in orderfor those individuals to be able to then
not only grow, but also learnfrom those experiences and help to boster that
kind of environment around personal improvement.Yep, exactly, I think so too.

(33:17):
So I do like the phrase tellingneeds turbulence, and yeah, it's
it's in those little things as well. It's like when we were playing a
game, it's it's all way youfocus yourself on. And I think it's
very it's very helpful if a headof academy is so explicit on what he's
going to evaluate you on, andit's on the progress of the players instead
of winning the matches, et cetera. But for us coaches as well,

(33:42):
if if someone is playing in thegame and he or she uses the weaker
foot, then what do we reactto this. If we are going to
say we want to develop, thenwe you know, we give constructive feedback.
Okay, great that you try withyour left food or your right food,
whatever the weak food is next time. Blah blah blah blah blah.

(34:02):
But if we're all intentional about winningand if that's what's most important, then
you say, don't do that again, use your best food, because then
also are that in the moment andon the short term, there will be
success and a lot of times.We are also discussing the role of winning
and youth academies when we go outto clubs and then these things come up

(34:25):
like okay in those small moments.So that's also the culture, I think,
because in those small moments, thenyou you signal to place what you're
all about. And everybody when they'recalm, when they're when they're rational,
they will say more or less thesame things. But I think it's up
to what you're doing in the momentswhere the things happen that decide okay,

(34:47):
what what what? What are youall about? So when someone is making
a mistake, when someone but alsothe other side, like you said,
when when someone is doing everything correctlythat the that week in week out,
that the best player on the pitch, then in my head, some bells
are going to ring. And that'salso funny because sometimes coaches would come up

(35:07):
to me and they would tell meyou're kind of funny, and then I
would ask them how do you mean? And then they would say, you
just send your best players every Saturdayto the to the higher teams, And
I said, yeah, isn't thatwhat it's about. I want them to
develop, I want them to toto stretch themselves. So if if I
could also have a player in myteam and then everything goes smoothly for this

(35:30):
player, he would help us winprobably or at least he would raise the
chances. But I don't think that'sthe most important thing in the youth academy.
So I would I would always bevery happy if if coaches would come
up to me, and sometimes thatmeant I would send up four players.
Yeah, but it would make meso proud if I would go to see

(35:52):
the matches and then talk to thecoaches afterwards, and then they would say,
well that it happens sometimes that Iwould say one of your players was
the best on the pitch today.That will make me so proud because then
they're stressing their levels. And thenbecause that's the most important thing, we
can give them feedback. But thebest feedback they can get is the Yeah,
the most authentic feedback is the waythey're playing the game. And if

(36:15):
they feel I can play in ateam in a higher age group and I
can be performing at my highest level, even at the best. Yeah,
I don't think any feedback from mecould top this, and I wouldn't.
I would never want to top it. Because that's what it's all about.
Yeah. Yeah, you remind meactually about why one of the reasons why

(36:36):
duek is so against the idea ofpraise because it can be such a dangerous
thing praise because sometimes it shows whatwe value. And if you praise performance,
which is very easy today and youcan get very easily sucked into praising
performance, then you're sending out thesubtle message that it's the outcome that's important,

(36:57):
not the process of and the struggle. So I have to remind myself
along a lot, you know,about actually recognizing though, you know,
recognizing the moments of failure that arehave value. You know, like when
somebody's trying something out and drawing thatout to say, look what they tried

(37:17):
to do didn't work out, butlook what they tried to do a great
We like that, right, AndI think that's a really important part about
going back to your point about establishingthe culture, particularly for young people.
What we don't want them to dois to get drawn into a mentality that
I need to be able to deliveroutcomes for coaches in order to receive praise
and potential selection. And I'm goingto talk about selection because you've got a

(37:40):
great section in the book about selection, and I think that's a really important
thing to get get across, isthat actually the value of a young person
in this environment is for them toactually be what's there's a great video,
isn't it fail harder? You know, kids come along and look what I
can do? Yeah, fail harder? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And
that's on the one side, butalso on the other side, if everything

(38:02):
is going too easy for someone,then he or she is not developing as
well. And then and but that'salso funny because and sometimes parents would come
up to you and they would say, oh, my boy, couldn't he
go go up a age level aswell? He was one of the best.
But then there's five parents there,and there's only fifteen boys in the
team, so that makes one thirdof the team the best. Yeah,

(38:23):
that's that. That's also funny.So what yeah, what we try to
do every time is just to lookfor, okay, who's who, who
do we think needs to be stretchedin the upcoming match, and that person
would go up with the higher team. And then what you also say about
the praise, because again those arethe small moments in which you can signal

(38:49):
about the culture that you're in.What we almost always tried to do was
what I what I mentioned before andin the example with the plays, with
the giving all the effort that youhave, that will raise chances of performing
and developed, developing, and thatwill raise chances of winning. So what
we tried to do in every matchwas we would focus on certain I think

(39:15):
you could call them either process ofperformance goals. So we would keep track
of them, how many times wegot in the in the in the box
of the opposition, how many timeswe could find someone in midfield free on
the ball with his face towards thegoal of the opponent. And we would
keep score of this so that everytime, whenever we would be we will

(39:38):
be either down or we will bewinning, we could always look back on
the process and we could say,hey, but we're we're having trouble,
We're I don't know, we're onenail, but we're having trouble finding the
free men on the midfield. Whatshould we do? How can we do
this? And we would always tryto make them think about this, so

(39:59):
about the process and have them seehow it links to because in the end,
the players do want to win,and that's that's perfectly fine with me,
but I have to be there tohelp them, you know, see
how how they could raise those chances, but also how they could raise that
chance of becoming a professional football player. And there's only one going to be,

(40:21):
you know, promoted. It's notentire teams who go up. So
I would always elaborate with them whatmy reasons were to promote some people to
a team a higher age group.But we what we would also do is
to put players down in age groupbecause physically they weren't ready for the you
know, the the turbulence in thein their own age group. And that

(40:45):
was kind of a hassle at leastin the beginning. But we yeah,
we we explained it to the boys. We explained it to the parents,
and the boys quite quickly grasped itand accepted it. But the parents sometimes
had their troubles and their doubts.That that doubs. But I think also
that signals to them what it's allabout for us. So you just touched

(41:07):
on this and I wanted to justdraw it. Draw your drawer, like
ask you about it. Really,as you mentioned earlier on this idea around
getting rid of the relative age effectby not having young people in their birth
year necessarily more basing it around theirprobably I imagine their stage of development and
maybe about their physical development, psychologicalmaturation and all these these factors. And

(41:31):
in the book, actually, youknow, you actually have a section on
selection and you know, getting selectionright and not necessarily selecting the best,
the so called best, but actuallybeing more intentional about selection to create the
right level of developmental experience. Andyou know, so sometimes it might be
that this player goes to another teambecause they need the stretch this week.

(41:53):
Sometimes it might be something else,but it sounds to me like that how
you were approaching this. You werecreating an environment where where you got rid
of these artificial notions of age andyou put people into teams. Sometimes it's
about giving them an easier ride,isn't it. Sometimes you want them to
have a bit of confidence by playingat a level that's sort of slightly below

(42:14):
them, where they can do morethings and be more expressive, and then
sometimes you want them to get somestretch where those things are going to be
more difficult. Yeah, exactly,because sometimes what we saw on team level
but also on individual level, isthat whenever there's too much turbulence during the
game, then you're not going intolearning mode, you're just in surviving mode.

(42:36):
And then yeah, players don't learnas much as they could or that
we wanted to. So to usthere was also kind of different from the
other clubs. What we were doingis we wouldn't care less about the competition
or the level we were playing becausewe thought we will be playing in a
level that suits the level of ourplay is best. And then with the

(42:57):
extreme side, so that the reallybest play and the players who have a
lot of difficulty on this level,we have to come up with solutions for
them to keep them developing as well. So for the plays on the one
end, it's going up, theplays on the other end is going it's
going an age group down, becausethen that would be able to develop their
qualities. Because every player has hisor her qualities and it's up to us

(43:20):
to make sure that they get achallenge that matches more or less their quality
so that they can make the nextstep. Kind of a side step is
that your club. Was asked whenhe became coach of Liverpool, he was
asked, how can you deal withthe pressure of Liverpool because the pressure here
is quite big, isn't it Andhe said, yes, the pressure here
is quite big. But he said, I came from Minds. I became

(43:44):
manager there and the pressure it's it'sit's, it's there, but it's not
too much, so I could learnto deal with that amount of pressure.
Then I became coach of brusha Dormundand the level of pressure is higher there,
but then I could learn this aswell. So so then he said
at Liverpool the pressure is higher thana Dotmund. But because the step now

(44:04):
is for me to do, becauseI had the previous steps taken, it's
durable for me. And it's thesame for our youth players whenever they're going
to develop, if the steps aretoo big. And sometimes you see this
with the relative age effect that theboys same age playing each other, but
one is one I don't know,one time taller than the other one.

(44:25):
That's not really a fair context anda fair i say challenge for both of
them. So for both the playerwho's taller and for the player who's smaller,
it's not the best challenge for them. So yeah, we would try
as hard as we could to makesure they would be challenged right, because
then also they would have the mostchances of feeling competent in what they're doing.

(44:49):
Because whatever the players are going todo, we thought that's very important
for them to feel that they areable to do the things that they feel
competent. So that's also a veryimportant thing for us as well. And
yeah, again what we looked forin the player was that they had a

(45:10):
well being, so they were theywere feeling well, and that were involved,
so they were motivated to come totrain, to play, et cetera.
And those things we would focus on. If there if there would be
something wrong with these we would gointo into talking with them, with the
parents, et cetera, to seewhat was going on, because we believed
whenever the well being and the involvementis is all right, then the rest

(45:34):
will follow naturally and it's up tous to create the situations for them yet
that they could develop themselves and thosein those ways. So I think that's
that's very important as well for talentselection, that if you want the players
because sometimes we we we think ofthem in the end, if if you

(46:00):
want to be a professional football player, you have you have to reach a
certain level because otherwise, yeah,you can't you can't participate but at the
youth age, you're not already therebecause otherwise you would already be in the
first team. So you have todevelop yourself to that level. And I
think it's up to us to makesure that chances are that that everybody reaches
our own top and then we cansee at the adult level if that's enough

(46:24):
for you, yes or no,or if you need a couple of years
more, if it's not the casethat it's going to happen for you.
But if we're going to yeah,you know, pig the tallest players,
and we we use yeah, wegive them the playing time, et cetera,
then yeah, then sometimes we're notlooking really for the for the Yeah,

(46:49):
I don't know for the level thatyou need in the end, because
at the moment they can win thegames for you. They they will,
they will be stronger in jewels,so they to them. It doesn't matter
if the ball is not completely handledthe perfect way, because they can use
the body. But when you're smalland you have to play against bigger children,

(47:10):
you need to have the yeah,maybe not the perfect handling of the
ball, but quite quite well handlingof the ball, because otherwise you're losing
the ball and I think that wetried to look for those plays who were
very involved in the game, whowanted to learn, and then we would
pick them. So what we woulddo is we would ask all the players.

(47:34):
So that's also finally what we didis normally professional teams, at least
in the in the Netherlands, theyhave scouts, you know, they wander
around all the clubs in the neighborhoodlooking for talent. And we minimize the
amount of scouts. One is becausewe were only focusing on Tilbur and the
cities around at Tilburg, the villagesnearby, and we would organize telling days.

(48:00):
So we would organize days for boysand also girls born in a certain
year, so for example two thousandand six and if you want to,
you know, to show us whatyou've got, you like football, et
cetera, then you can come.So we organized those telling days and then
we had we asked the players andprobably the parents sometimes because yeah, for

(48:22):
the players it's sometimes maybe not it'sdifficult to fill in all the forms.
But we ask for the hide,for the how much kilograms, they would
weigh a lot of those things andthen we in the formula we had we
would match this everything also the amountof years they would they had been playing
football, because if you have aplayer who's been playing one year and the

(48:43):
player who's playing for four years,that's there's going to be a difference.
But yeah, what's the difference aboutbecause they had to play for four years?
You know, he has more experience, so probably he is better than
the one of one year playing experience. So that we could would be in
the mix, and then you know, the the boys will be playing and
the girls as well, because therewas girls sometimes as well. But yeah,

(49:06):
the boys could come into the academy, so for the girls it was
only an experience. But then wehad the boys roughly with the more or
less the same backgrounds, playing witheach other on certain fields, and then
everybody because that's very difficult if yougo to look for talent, everybody's going
to, you know, look andcompare players with each other. So if

(49:29):
you then can create this or atleast try to optimize for situations that players
are better able to compare with eachother, then we found and the relative
hfect would go would disappear. It'sfascinating. I do. I do sometimes
wonder why you know, so manyorganizations persevere with you know, the arborrary

(49:52):
cut off point of a calendar date, even though we know how limiting it
is. The other thing I wantedto just pull on as well, just
as we sort of have to drawthis to a close, is you talk
about winning. Because by the way, I think the book is much more

(50:13):
than I mean I described it earlieron. As you know you're looking at
the software side. I think it'smore of a like a talent manual because
it talks a lot about the waysin which you would best developed talent.
Yes, focused on the developed developingthe kind of psychological, mental, emotional
qualities in individuals to help them navigatea talent environment. But fundamentally it's like

(50:36):
it speaks to one half of thetalent equation. So talent equation is the
reason the sallegquation was even created withthe idea of trying to balance off the
fact that, you know, wespend a lot of time looking at the
you know, the kind of thevery visible physical quality technical, tactical,
physical, et cetera, et cetera, but we spend much less time exploring

(50:57):
you know, the what you mightcall the left of double qualities, such
as you know, motivation, drive, determination, commitments, dedication, all
of which are developable to a lesseror greater extent, and we make a
sessment decisions not based on that.And yet what we whenever again, you
look at athlete biographies and what youalways see or nearly always see, and
again this is reprospective, is generallyspeaking, that the gen you know that

(51:20):
the athletes that that are the mostdriven, the most committed, the most
dedicated, willing to kind of worktheir way through struggle and challenge and actually
embrace struggle and challenge and all thosesorts of things are the ones that actually
genuinely make it, even if they'renot necessarily the most athletic or most so
called gifted specimens at an early stage. So that's what I love about this
book. You're speaking to that side, which I love. Right, it's

(51:44):
the other side of the equation,the other fifty percent. If it's not
more, it's more than fifty percent. If you talk about winning, and
I think winning is really important froma cultural perspective. You've got a lovely
little passage from Johan Crae about theidea that the only team in a club
that should be worried about winning isa fir because every other club, every
other team is in somehow linked linkedto developments, and that actually, if

(52:06):
you're focused on winning, you areactively working against development. I've said this
before that competition can be absolutely canceroustowards athletic developments, particularly because it fosters
this different outlook. And so wheneverI see coaches out there on social media
sort of lauding their record, Ijust want to say, that makes you

(52:29):
a bad talent coach. You're abad well done. You've just earmarked yourself
to be a bad development, abad developer of talent by actually putting out
there what your record is. Butanyway, I never do that, but
I sometimes want to. I thinkit's it's it's always a case of well,

(52:50):
what that they're doing behind the scenes, So maybe how do you say
that they're they're they're doing great jobwithin of behind the scenes, But then
they also do this So but Ithink yet the role of winning, it's
it's so important. We can learnso many things from what we see.

(53:12):
So what we see as football ismost probably the Premier League, the Premier
Division, so top class, topflight football, and there's a lesson to
be taken from there, but noteverything can be taken and copied and pasted
into youth academies. So up there, it's very it's it's it's interesting because
again in the podcast, Alex Postor, he is the is the podcast host.

(53:36):
It's a Dutch podcast, and hePastor, he has years of experience
as a professional soccer coach, afootball coach, and he gets the big
name. So Arnostet, for example, who is now going to Liverpool,
has been on the show. RonaldKuman, our Dutch national team coach,
and he asked all the coaches howimportant is winning winning for you? So
would you rather win in an uglyway or would you rather lose in a

(53:58):
fantastic way? And then all dayall the coaches say I would rather win
in an ugly way. But thenthey are able to come back to this
and then Pastor ask them the questionlater on in the show, so whenever
would you feel the season would bea success to you? And then it's
it's so interesting because then every coach, at least in the episodes that I've

(54:21):
listened to, then they go andsay whenever we performed at a maximum level,
and then Postor sometimes ask them thequestion, and even if that means
that you don't reach the goals thatyou wanted so that you got promoted,
you didn't, you didn't relegate,you got European football, et cetera.
And then they say, even then, because we want to perform maximally and

(54:45):
if that's what we've done, whatmore can we ask for? So even
if you're all about winning so onthe highest level, they are because if
you lose three times then there's goingto be trouble because of the press,
et cetera. So I can understandresults of being very import there. But
even there they say, if youask them, it's all about performing at
the maximum level. And I thinkthat's worth a lesson to use and to

(55:08):
bring back into youth academies and notso much the winning side and their players
want to win fantastic, But Ithink our job as coaches to prepare them,
to learn them how they can developthemselves, how they could even learn
to win if they become older.So for example, in under twenty one
squads, et cetera. But yeah, like Joan kive and and Vim Young

(55:30):
say, only the first team hasto care about winning and the rest has
to care about developing the place toget to the highest level. Yeah,
I love it. I love it. Hey, listen. I wish we
could talk longer, and it maywell be that we come back and explore
some of the other chapters in afollow up session. But I know that

(55:50):
a lot of people will be interested. So the coach makes the difference develop
your vision on leadership, talent,motivation, and selection. I know we've
talked a lot about football, butI know you've written this very much for
all sports coaches. That even saidthat on the on the cover available through
Amazon. I'm assuming yep, ye, yes, And well, what about
if people want to get in touchand find out more, or you know,

(56:13):
maybe you want to work with youor kind of pick your brains or
whatever it is. What's the bestway for them to to reach out.
That would also that I would lovethat if that would happen, they could
go to the coach makes a differencedot Com that they can learn more about
the book, et cetera. Ihave a LinkedIn, so yeah, my
name on LinkedIn, then then youwill find me. But also I have

(56:34):
the coach makes a difference on LinkedIn. That might be a bit easier because
given my name and then yeah,they can find out and I'm always open
to talk. I have a chat, exchange ideas, et cetera. And
thank you as well for you foryour time and for your interest in the
book and in talking about these topics. And whenever we can find the time,
maybe next year after certain cancelations again, then I will be read patient.

(57:01):
Yeah, I know, I'm tryingto get better at that. I'm
trying to get better at that.But yeah, no, I mean,
we haven't done it justice in thetime we've had available. But but I
think what we've done is we've delvedinto a couple other kind of key areas
and like I said before, youknow, it's a manifesto for talent development,
and I think there are there's alot. What I love about it
actually, by the way, isis not it's you know, it's not

(57:22):
just kind of a you know,kind of a textbook, so to speak.
It's actually got some really nice personalstories in there. You're pulling from
different sources, You're pulling from differentcoaches and their experiences, and it creates
a really nice picture around what isquite often a challenging subject. And we
definitely need to get into that ina little bit more detail. So anyway,
I'm sorry I've got to run off, but really appreciate you coming on

(57:45):
to chat to me, and Ilook forward to part two. But I'm
going to promise part two in acouple of months time. Great. Yeah,
thank you for your time, andit was it was fun to be
here. I hope everybody could understandbecause my inns is not no that's good,
but yours are excellent actually, andit's a hell of a lot better

(58:05):
than my Dutch. So I appreciateyou coming on there. I thank you.
Thanks, thanks for listening to theTalent Equation podcast. If you like
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(58:28):
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