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I work with Orgs who have a 'performance first' focus. I’m here to help my teams win as often as humanly possible. I come from a High Performance sport background where people are not prevented from having input if they have expertise/strengths that others do not. I am passionate about team processes (particularly incorporating task focused communications), and creating happy and effective high performance environments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIz3GLw1DcI
I want to be valued and treated as a member of the team. The way I work is to be embedded with the players and coach. I am helping my team constantly improve in all areas. I prefer to watch scrims and officials live (or as close to live as possible), with comms available (because about 90% of my work with a team in game is to do with comms). It means I can correct behaviours immediately I hear problems. This leads to the fastest improvement.
I do not like being ‘the consultant who gets called in when there is a problem’ - this is grossly inefficient in my opinion. I’m in esports because I like to have fun, and I don’t find it fun to sit on the sidelines. If this is the way you want a sport psych to operate, please don’t even ask me to trial and that will save us both time.
I don't know any strategies or how to play the game (except in its rudimentary form) - I don't need to - my job is to make the players better, not me.
I work closely with my players - they mean everything to me. They know they can always trust me for honest advice on all matters as I always have their interests foremost in my mind. The Org has to trust me that I am here working for the team's best interests, and that should be in the Org's best interests too.
Nearly 40 years of traditional sport psychology practice
I created resources for athletes to use (trademarked the name 'Pocket Psychology' in 2006 for the videos that players could download to their phone to remind themselves of good thinking thoughts and behaviours), and I wrote an ebook 'Sport Psychology Tools for Every Coach and Athlete', and turned them into an online course that sells worldwide on a platform called Udemy.
My eldest son has retired now from elite gymnastics, but for many years he was my 'exhibit A'. He had ambitions to be an Olympian until he landed badly in a trampolining accident and was out of the sport for 2 years in 2012. He came back from a spinal injury - had 2 vertebrae fused in his neck and was extremely lucky not to be a paraplegic - but it meant he was now out of ‘the Olympic cycle’ and so he retired in March 2020. I have worked with my son and his teammates at the Victorian High Performance Centre (State gymnastics), working with Olympian and Commonwealth Games gymnasts. I also have assisted Olympians in other sports - athletics, rowing - and a Paralympian in swimming but I collaborate with athletes/players and coaches in a wide variety of sports, from elite to recreational level.
My favourite experience in traditional sports was working for VicSpirit, the Victorian (State) Women's Cricket team in 2010/11. There is nothing better than being allowed onto the hallowed ground and down in the rooms with my players at the mighty Melbourne Cricket Ground - it’s awesome!
I introduced psychological testing to the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1997, and assisted the recruitment of players for Carlton, North Melbourne, Richmond and St Kilda for over 12 years.
I have taught psychology and research statistics at university from undergraduate (ie Bachelor's degree) through to postgraduate studies (ie PhD) at Monash, Deakin and Victoria University (the latter within the Department of Sport and Exercise Science) from 1988 to 2021, and I give guest lectures to various other universities in Australia and overseas.
My 'major claim to fame' is that I created the very first Masters degree in Sport Psychology in Australia at Monash Uni, in 1992. As a result of having a post graduate pathway, the Australian Psychological Society (APS) recognised sport psychology as a specialist profession within psychology and granted only those eligible (who have completed the requisite qualifications of at least a Masters plus 2 years of supervised practice) to be able to call themselves a 'sport psychologist'.