Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson is the founder of THIS! Is What We Did. He started Positive Coaching Alliance at Stanford University in 1998 to create a movement to transform the culture of youth sports to develop Better Athletes, Better People. PCA conducted more than 3,500 live workshops across the country each year for youth sports leaders, coaches, parents, and athletes and has led a sea change in public awareness that positive coaching is the key to getting the best out of youth athletes and helping them become a Triple-Impact Competitor®, an “Elevater,” who tries to elevate self, others and every situation he or she finds themself in. Jim is excited about the impact Women's’ Coaching Alliance can have both on getting more women into leadership roles and the improved positivity that can come in youth sports with more women coaching.
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Jim received an MBA from Stanford University where he was Director of the Public Management Program, named during his tenure as the nation’s top non-profit business management program. He has written nine books including: Positive Coaching, The Double-Goal Coach, Shooting in the Dark: Tales of Coaching and Leadership, Elevating Your Game and The Positive Sport Parent. Jim was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2004 and received the “Ethos Award” (Ethics of Sport) from the Institute for Sports, Law and Ethics in 2011, and the “Game Changer in Sports Award” from Character.org in 2018. He has taught courses in coaching, leadership, and sport & spirituality in Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program. Jim loves poetry and teaches a weekly online Spiritual Poetry class.

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Jim and his wife, Sandra Hietala, are co-founders of Recovery Café San José, a healing community for homeless individuals traumatized by homelessness, mental illness, and drug abuse.  Their son, Gabriel Thompson, is a writer on social justice issues including Working in the Shadows: a Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do.
Jim now is relentlessly focused on answering The Ultimate Question: “What did you do to fight the climate crisis?” He developed the concept of Climate Change Literacy and started the nonprofit, THIS! Is What We Did, to combat the most dangerous threat in the history of humanity.

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