This week’s episode is an AASP Special.

Dr. Mustafa Sarkar is Associate Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology at Nottingham Trent University as well as a consultant specialising in individual, team, and organisational resilience across many high performance domains. He’s also keen footballer and Liverpool fan – but he tells me he’s from the Roy Evans and Gerard Houlier era, not a modern day glory hunter, so we’ll let him off.

The Association for Applied Sport Psychology (or AASP)’s annual conference is coming up this week from the 15th – 18th October in Montreal, where there will be a host of great speakers and content.

Mustafa delivered the opening keynote to last year’s 2024 AASP conference in Las Vegas – titled “Bridging the Research to Practice Gap in Sport and Performance Psychology”. In this episode Mustafar unpacks some of the context behind this keynote, as well as six suggested starting points for how we can bridge this gap as a profession, as an industry and as individuals.

At this week’s AASP conference, we’ll get a complimentary roundtable entitled the “Practice to Research Gap’, chaired by Philadelphia Phillies’ Mental Performance Coordinator Traci Statler - what better time to reflect on Mustafa’s insights, experiences and provocations from 2024.

You can follow Mustafa here:

Social networks:

- LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mustafa-sarkar-b6370256

NYU Website:

- https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/science-technology/mustafa-sarkar

Our previous podcast episode covering ‘Resilience’..

- https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/1-resilience-in-people-and-organisations-dr-mustafa-sarkar/id1506560750?i=1000470629088

Research:

- Mustafa’s Research Gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mustafa-Sarkar-2?ev=hdr_xprf

- Ben Ashdown’s research on resilience behaviours in academy football: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10413200.2024.2361701

- Richard Keegan’s paper in 2017 on bridging the research-practice gap: https://archives.rpd-online.com/article/view/v26-n6-keegan-cotteril-woolway-etal.html

- Dr Marie Winter’s work on evidence-informed decision making (paper 1): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10413200.2023.2286950

- Dr Marie Winter’s work on evidence-informed decision making (paper 2): https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/39/3/article-p200.xml

- Myths of Sport Coaching by Dr Amy Whitehead and Jenny Coe: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/whiteheadcoe/

- Myths of Sport Performance by Dr Amy Whitehead and Jenny Coe: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/sport/

Videos:

- Richard Keegan: closing the research to practi

In this second episode of 2025 we have the pleasure of getting to speak to Dr. Martin Turner again - exploring different nuances and themes within REBT, and its growing applicability to systemic and environment challenges.

On the applied side Martin has worked across football, cricket, rugby, cycling, archery, shooting, and equestrian. He also provides performance psychology to business professionals. He’s the Lead Sport Psychologist for England Futsal and his work with athletes has included seasons at Nottingham Forest FC Academy, Nottingham County Cricket Club Academy, Staffordshire County Cricket Club Academy, and Stoke City Football Academy.

You can find out more about Martin, his books and latest papers below:

Social networks:
https://twitter.com/DrMJTurner
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-martin-turner-828b766b/

The Books:
1) The Rational Practitioner (the one with the Dragon) https://www.routledge.com/The-Rational-Practitioner-The-Sport-and-Performance-Psychologists-Guide-To-Practicing-Rational-Emotive-Behaviour-Therapy/Turner/p/book/9781032060408

2) REBT in Sport & Exercise (2020) https://www.waterstones.com/book/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy-in-sport-and-exercise/martin-turner/richard-bennett/9780367407803

The REBT & Hero’s Journey Paper:Tales of rationality: the rational emotive behavioral monomyth as a metaphorical alignment of rational emotive behavior therapy and the Hero’s Journey narrative structure - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1572636/full

Recommended book: "Down and Out in London and Paris" (George Orwell): https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/364887/down-and-out-in-paris-and-london-by-orwell-george/9781784878993

Welcome to Slice of PIE episode 32. Stuart Holliday (CPsychol) is a Sport Psychologist for GB Olympic Swimming, and runs his own practice Focused Mind Coaching with clients in sport, music, and business. He has worked in elite sport environments for over 10 years at Olympic, Paralympic, Commonwealth, and Premiership experience for Archery, Swimming, England Netball, and Liverpool Football Club. His real passion and area of expertise is Endurance sport, which is why he has a subsidiary of Focused Mind Coaching called Endurance Mind Coaching for runners, swimmers, cyclists and triathletes. He has co-written ‘The Psychology of Running’ with Dr Noel Brick, and in the music industry, the ‘Touring Manual’.

In this conversation we really lean into the endurance side of his practice, and I was very fortunate to catch Stuart late at night after we’d put each of our two kids to bed. Despite being two tired Dads I am delighted with the conversation and look forward to hearing what people take from it.

Details about Stuart, his company, his book and other various recommendations from the podcast:

Websites:

Focused mind coaching: https://www.focusedmindcoaching.co.uk/

Endurance mind coaching: https://www.endurancemindcoaching.com/

Stuart’s social presence:

linkedin.com/in/stuartholliday

Focused Mind Coaching:

https://www.instagram.com/focusedmindcoaching/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/focusedmindcoaching/

Podcast:

https://www.focusedmindcoaching.co.uk/podcasts/

Endurance mind courses:

https://www.endurancemindcoaching.com/sport-psychology/online-courses/

Referenced papers:

Integrating sport psychology work:

• McHugh, Mason & Jeffreys (2022) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366988120_Psychosocial_coaching_practices_An_interim_report_on_UKSCA_stakeholders%27_perception
• Ford, Masters & Vosloo (2022) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/17479541221101226 - trying to get it from ResearchGate

A 2022 paper by the R.E.S.I.S.T working group on psychological strategies to employ to resist slowing down: https://explore.bps.org.uk/content/bpssepr/18/1/4

The book ENDURE by Alex Hutchinson, reviewed by chartered sport psychologist Josephine Perry: https://performanceinmind.co.uk/2018/06/09/review-endure-alex-hutchinson/

The Psychology of Running, by Noel Brick and Stuart Holliday

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003204206/psychology-running-noel-brick-stuart-holliday

Other Misc. Recommendations:

• Podcast - Finding Mastery with Des Linden: https://findingmastery.com/podcasts/des-linden/