This week on the Way of Champions Podcast, John O’Sullivan gets to chat with David Epstein, author of the internationally best-selling book The Sports Gene: The Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance and one of our FAVORITE all-time books. The book is a top 10 New York Times bestseller and was chosen as a best non-fiction book of 2013 by The Washington Post and Publisher’s Weekly. Runner’s World chose The Sports Gene as its book of the year, and the book was a finalist for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, the PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing Award, and the National Academy of Sciences Communication Award. It has been translated into sixteen languages.  In the conversation, John and David discuss:

• How his book debunked the “10,000-hour rule” that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in Outliers
• Is it nature, or nurture, or both when it comes to athletic development
• How Tiger Woods’ path was not the same as Roger Federer, Steve Nash or Lorenzo Cain
• How in some complex activities, practice actually pulls athletes apart rather than bringing them together, as those sensitive to learning improve faster
• How coaches and parents can help young athletes find their “true calling” in sports by creating and encouraging multi-sport environments
• Ways coaches can serve the individual needs of every athlete within a team environment
• How he is more concerned with doing things the way research says instead of how we’ve always been doing it.

Our first four episodes are now available for download from iTunes. You can listen to, subscribe and download by clicking here:

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You can buy the Sports Gene here: The Sports Gene on Amazon

You can find David on his website: The Sports Gene Website

Twitter: @DavidEpstein

Time is running out: Join John O’Sullivan, Dr. Jerry Lynch, Reed Maltbie, and other extraordinary coaches for the second annual Way of Champions Coaching Conference June 2-4 2017. Check out more here:

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