A number of years ago, a famous scientist who made massive contributions to the world of expertise science and skill acquisition passed away. Anders Ericsson's research was pioneering in suggesting that talent and expertise was less about innate abilities or inherited gifts, and more about practice—specifically, what he termed "deliberate practice."
Ericsson defined deliberate practice as something quite effortful that required focus and intensity, usually with another individual (coach or teacher) providing feedback or support to guide the development journey and it was not necessarily fun.
This research grabbed a lot of attention. Quite a few popular science books were written at the time that espoused these ideas—the notion that talent is not primarily genetic. Daniel Coyle's "The Talent Code" was particularly influential for me. Another book that really popularised the idea was Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers," which received widespread acclaim and was a best seller
However, one thing Gladwell did in that book was problematic. He coined the phrase "the 10,000 hour rule" based on one of Ericsson's findings that the average amount of time spent by experts on deliberate practice equated to around 10,000 hours. Gladwell, being the storyteller he is, turned this into a sort of magic number—as if you would be counting down the days on your fridge at home (although I've heard that there are parents who actually do this!).
Like....9,999 hours... and then the next day, gold medal time. Of course, that's preposterous, and Ericsson never suggested that.
The problem was that everybody became fixated on practice volume rather than practice quality. The bigger message around deliberate practice for me was about the level of intention, focus, and access to quality feedback. When you look into the biographies of successful sports people, access to that kind of support—whether through a knowledgeable parent, sibling, or coach—seems to feature very heavily.
I've subsequently spent much of my career thinking about how we can find ways to make coaching better and more accessible. How can we help coaches be as inclusive and skilled as they can be and how we can provide better access for more young athletes from a broader range of backgrounds?
Before he died, Ericsson lamented Gladwell's contribution. Whilst he obviously valued the fact that Gladwell popularised his research and made it part of the mainstream conversation around expertise and talent development, he also felt that his work had been misrepresented. he wrote about this in a famous letter, the title of which speaks for itself "The dangers of delegating education to journalists" where he writes..."In fact, the 10,000 hour rule was invented by Malcolm Gladwell (2008, p. 40) who stated that “researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”...."Gladwell cited our research on expert musicians as a stimulus for his provocative generalization to a magical number."
The Power of Narratives
At the same time that the 10,000 myth was gaining popularity, there was a proliferation of sports organisations adopting 'player pathways' and 'development programmes' that seemed to be influenced by the idea that volume of training required them to engage young people in dedicated, focused training earlier and earlier - the so called 'race to the bottom'.
The rationale was that if young people were going to "make it," they needed to focus and put much more time into their activity earlier to get the volume in. What we then saw was many sports, particularly those where young people perform at relatively young ages, implementing training protocols that involved high volume, asking young people to make increasing levels of sacrifice in pursuit of a performance goal or dream because of the requirement to "get the reps in."
What I was left reflecting on was how important messaging is. Sometimes the central, nuanced discussions and arguments within research are lost because a compelling narrative from a good storyteller takes root in the popular consciousness. As a result, what was potentially a really good idea starts to lose its impact, people question it, contradictory research emerges, and nobody knows what they're doing.
I was particularly taken by the research at the time because it focused on practice quality, not quantity. It suggested to me that if we could provide higher quality coaching experiences earlier—really positive experiences for young people that are enriching—then they would have better opportunities if they decided to step into a journey of self-actualisation through sporting performance.
But that message seemed to get lost.
Three-Word Slogans and their impact
The impact of simple phrases is remarkable. We've seen this throughout the socio-political landscape—with Brexit's "Get Brexit Done" or more recently in America where we see Elon Musk's DOGE searching for "waste, fraud and abuse." Three words seems to be the magic number that can be repeated ad nauseam, capturing the public consciousness regardless of the facts behind it.
These kinds of slogans and narratives—like the "10,000 hour rule"—grab attention, becoming kitchen table conversations. I hear people talk about ten thousand hours all the time, which shows its enduring legacy in popular thought.
Recently, I travelled to Essex to deliver a workshop for coaches. I met with a couple of coaches beforehand who are part of my learning community, 'The Guild of Ecological Explorers', which meets monthly for in-depth conversations about coaching through an ecological lens. (If you're interested in joining, head to the website and click "join a learning community"—we have a couple of spaces available.)
One of the coaches brought up a piece of research titled "The rocky road to the top: Why talent needs trauma." He was reading it because he coaches a very successful team, that sometimes find things a bit too easy. He wanted to create challenge and difficulty, and this paper seemed relevant.
That particular paper was written by someone who is not particularly fond of me or my work. He took issue with my message about the "War on drills" (another 3 word slogan!) and believes that I shouldn't be making arguments like this. I should have a more nuanced stance.
Which is ironic really, when his most cited work has such a provocative, attention grabbing title... "talent needs trauma"—three words that capture the imagination. People can quickly understand what it might mean without having to delve into the details of the research. The political commentator Alex Andreu writes about the three word slogan in The Byline Times, in an article that lamented the reduction of medical guidance during the Covid-19 Pandemic to 3 word slogans like 'hands, face, space'...
"Three-word slogans come from the world of advertising, in which a good strap-line can add a halo of values to a brand. “Just do it”, “every little helps”, or “I’m loving it” are great at being memorable – but are they the appropriate vehicle for passing on detailed information?"
I believe that this narrative and slogan has contributed to a performance narrative that has led to a proliferation in sports culture, particularly in talent and performance contexts, where the well being of children and adults has been downgraded because of the belief that extreme measures are required to reach elite levels. Beyond mere difficulty or challenge, we've seen what most would consider poor or even abusive practices that don't properly consider the needs of young athletes become normalised and justified.
Spend anytime reading reports like 'The Whyte Review' which was commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England to look into widespread reports of abuse in gymnastics and you will see horrific stories of young people being forced or coerced into things that do not take their best interests at heart. These stories range from extreme physical, mental and emotional abuse, to body shaming and marginalisation. There are also stories of 7 year olds being 'encouraged' to commit to 20 hours+ a week of training or 'they will never make it'.
Products of the environment
But in most cases I have a degree of sympathy with the coaches....don't get me wrong...some of them were just cruel, some of them should never have been allowed to work with young people. But the majority were a product of their environment. An environment that was happy to treat people as a means to an end...that used slogans like 'talent needs trauma' as a way to defend the indefensible.
So it is no surprise that this culture exists...if you want to progress in coaching and move up the ladder...you need to adopt these approaches or you will be over looked and ostracised.
There's an association in popular thinking around the identity of a performance practitioner being someone who is uncompromising, demanding and exacting. When coaches are very athlete-centred, they're often derided as being "fluffy brothers" or "woke intruders," terms that Andy Pitchford spoke to me about in this podcast about his research.
I've seen this several times where key people in organisations have the perception that performance is "a different kind of beast" and that practitioners in these environments need to behave in certain ways. I've seen friends released from coaching roles because their approach was about nurturing and helping people thrive in supportive environments. They were let go because the organisation explicitly said they needed someone who was "more performance-focused". The irony being that they got results too...better results that the more 'performance focussed' coaches who replaced them!
In the performance realm, someone like Gareth Southgate took a nurturing approach to athletic development and team building. Despite his teams performance improving immeasurably by competing in the latter stages of tournaments with regularity, there's still discourse suggesting "if he'd been tougher, they'd have won."
Performance coaches that take a more human centred approach can get results and the athletes are happier...but they are still treated with suspicion and they are quickly dispensed of by decision makers who should really know better.
Being human centred carries a lot of risk...
It seems to me that the messaging around "talent needs trauma" has taken root in the sporting system consciousness and contributed to an implicit acceptance within the performance world that athletes need tough and traumatic experiences to progress into the elite realm. The coach who mentioned this research to me was smart enough to know it's not about getting out "bull whips and cattle prods" to extract performances from athletes. But it showed me how impactful this kind of messaging can be and how it can take hold in popular consciousness.
There's a real issue in sports research where researchers need to take great care over how they articulate their findings. They should be responsible in ensuring their conclusions and presentations don't result in potentially negative consequences.
Ericsson had his work misrepresented by someone else, which wasn't necessarily his fault. But if you're a researcher who takes your own research and tries to popularise it using catchy terms that grab public attention, you have to be responsible and accountable when people utilise that language.
I've noticed that quite a lot of people in the public sphere who make outlandish claims respond quite defensively when there's pushback: "Don't you dare misrepresent me! I never said that! That wasn't my fault! I didn't make that claim!" I've seen this happen in this space as well, where people get defensive and say, "That's not what the research says. They're misrepresenting it. Read the research."
Most practitioners skim-read research—they aren't academics who can thoroughly unpick it all. They look at the title, read the abstract, and come away with the message: "We need to get tougher." Then suddenly we see athletes having extremely negative experiences and a performance culture that prioritises challenge and difficulty over wellbeing.
A Better Way Forward
This performance narrative is being increasingly challenged by organisations like The True Athlete Project. Sam Parfitt and Lawrence Cassoe-Halsted (who spoke to me on this podcast) have a different manifesto for performance sport, questioning traditional approaches.
And now we have seen the emergence of new slogans it isn't "medals at all costs" anymore, but rather "medals with morals".
Many organisations are struggling with this shift because they're having to unshackle themselves from established performance narratives. Some are finding it difficult to recruit performance coaches because coaches are scared or concerned. I know of organisations focusing on ethics and integrity in coaching development, and I'm doing quite a lot of work myself around ethical coaching practice.
I've coined an alternative phrase: "talent needs turbulence." Yes, there is definitely value in helping people solve problems and navigate difficulties. But it's not trauma—and if it is trauma, then I'm out. 'Turbulence', however, I can get behind 100%.
I am currently working with several organisations to unpick the ethical elements of coaching practice and to give coaches more frameworks and thinking tools to help them navigate the complexity of coaching. Please get in touch if you would like to start an exploratory conversation about some of these themes.
So there you have it—my thoughts on narratives and messaging. I've received criticism for saying "ditch those drills," but I stand by it. I'm not a researcher, but I am a practitioner and advocate for a different way of doing things that is more engaging and, as it turns out, better from a developmental perspective. I'm going to be a strong advocate for that, own my three-word slogan, back it up, and have discussions with anybody who doesn't like it.
For those interested, I'll be speaking on this topic at the Sport and Movement Skill Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 26-27, discussing "how to ditch those drills" If you can make it, I'd love to see you there.
This blog post was generated using a transcription from a 'Dog Walk Diary podcast recorded on the 25th May. It was then edited and refined using Claude AI and then further edited and rewritten by me.
