Stacey Marinkovich: Space And Time To Think

Welcome to the Great Coaches: Leadership & Life newsletter, this time coming to you just in time for your Monday morning commute.

Every month, we share new podcast episodes featuring interviews with Great Coaches from across the world of sports. Our interviews delve deep into the careers and leadership of our guests, seeking new insights to help us all lead our teams, communities and families better.

We also frequently share additional content and insight from our interviews across our social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Youtube, and TikTok. You can learn more about The Great Coaches, follow our channels and explore our website from our new Linktree page.

Clear Conversations With Stacey Marinkovich

For this week’s podcast episode we were joined by Australian netball coach Stacey Marinkovich for a fantastic interview filled with a number of great and practical leadership insights.

Several of those insights were related to mindset and mentality, which long-term listeners will know are topics that we often discuss in our interviews and special episodes. Stacey brought her own perspective to the discussion, sharing her insights on the power of clear conversations and how they can be used to mitigate the self-talk that can circulate in athletes’ minds and have a negative effect on their performance.

Of course, self-talk and negative mindsets aren’t experienced solely by athletes; our conversation also turned to Stacey’s ways of ensuring that she brings her best self to the court, and she shared how mentorship has helped her to develop as a coach. Together with her mentor, Stacey has worked on feeling a sense of control and becoming comfortable with showing vulnerability — steps that have lead to better ‘buy in’ from her team.

We also discussed the ‘thriving mentality’, and how it helps to ground you in the moment by focusing on being present and not on the consequences of potential mistakes.

If you haven’t already taken the time to listen to Stacey’s episode, then make sure to catch it this week — it’s a great one.

Listen Now: Apple | Spotify

This Week’s Guest

Stacey Marinkovich is an Australian netball coach and former player, who previously played in the Australian National League for the Queensland Firebirds, Perth Orioles and West Coast Fever before retiring in 2009.

In 2012 Stacey returned to West Coast Fever as an Assistant, working for the legendary Norma Plummer. Two years later she was appointed as the team’s head coach, going on to guide them to their first ever grand final during the 2018 Suncorp Super Netball season and earning the Joyce Brown Coach of the Year award as a result.

In 2020 Stacey became the head coach of the Australian national team - the Australian Diamonds - and she has since led them to a gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2023 Netball World Cup.

On Serial Insecurities

In each issue of the Great Coaches newsletter we share a different short lesson on leadership, inspired by the insights and ideas shared by our podcast guests.

During this week’s interview with Great Coach Stacey Marinkovich, she spoke about the work that she has done to become more comfortable with vulnerability as well as the impact of negative self talk on performance.

We often speak about how self-doubt and insecurities impact athletes and team members, but they’re also issues experienced by coaches and leaders — even the very experienced, highly-regarded ones that we interview here on the podcast. Whether you’re at the very beginning of your leadership career or have many, many years under your belt, it’s likely (and normal) that you’ll go through periods of self-doubt and wonder whether or not you’re living up to expectations, requirements, and your own potential.

In fact, imposter syndrome often impacts highly-successful people, leading them to doubt whether their accolades and achievements were truly ‘earned’. If you were to bring up these doubts with your mentor, colleagues, or the leaders you respect, you may find that the majority of them have felt similarly at some point in their own careers.

In this clip from our special episode on Serial Winning Coaches, former Team GB coach Professor Sergio Lara-Bercial speaks on the ‘liberating’ experience of learning that some of the world’s most successful coaches have dealt with the same insecurities and doubts that he himself experiences.

If you’ve been dealing with some of these issues, take the opportunity this week to share them with your mentor or someone whose career you respect. Alternatively, this could be a great time to be candid with a younger or less-experienced leader who would benefit from knowing how normal their self-doubts actually are.

If you’re looking to further develop your own leadership skills and ability, then make sure to head over to our website. For an annual cost of just $4.50 USD, Great Coaches members can access more than 1,800 clips, 30 special lessons, and more great content designed to help them become better, more effective leaders.

Special Episode: On Shared Wisdom

Dr David Turner is always popular when he appears on the podcast, and recently he joined us for a special episode on Shared Wisdom alongside a fellow teacher and some students from the UK’s Anglia Ruskin University.

This was a really great conversation, delving into the ways that ARU students apply the leadership principles and ideas they have learned to real-world situations. The students also turned the tables on us a few times, putting Dr David Turner and I on the spot with some challenging-yet-enjoyable questions.

I hope you’ll enjoy this special episode — special thanks to Wleed Mazhar, Kye Buckle, Becky Marshall, Beth Parsons and Eloise Pemberton for taking part!

Listen Now: Apple | Spotify

Craig Bellamy: Inside The Storm

I always enjoy sharing book and film recommendations with you all, and this is one terrific documentary about an iconic coach.

Filmed over the course of the 2024 NRL season, this documentary goes behind the scenes at Melbourne Storm to explore the leadership and life of head coach Craig Bellamy.

Featuring a number of appearances by other Great Coaches such as Andrew Johns and Roy Masters, this documentary condenses more than 900 hours of filming into a feature-length coaching masterclass.

The Youtube trailer below may only be available to those of you in certain regions, but you can also learn more about the film here.

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