Michael Dardanes
Michael Dardanes is a storyteller, strategist, and lifelong student of mastery.
As a founder, coach, and educator across multiple disciplines, Michael brings a uniquely panoramic lens to the lives of history’s greatest sports coaches — revealing not just what they accomplished, but how they became who they are.
He has spent decades immersed in leadership, sport, philosophy, psychology, yoga, and human performance. His ability to read slowly, think deeply, and retain the architecture of a story allows him to connect ideas across eras, cultures, and sports in a way few people can.
Michael doesn’t just summarize biographies — he reconstructs the inner journey behind them.
With Tacticians, he sets out to explore the forging of genius: the childhood environments, failures, obsessions, mentors, breakthroughs, systems, and spiritual frameworks that shape extraordinary leaders.
Through long-form narrative and a cross-sport lens, Michael studies the coaches who rewired the way the world thinks — from Jackson to Cruyff, Walsh to Wooden, Ferguson to Bielsa, Summitt to Latynina.
Listeners come to Tacticians for more than stories. They come to understand how greatness is built from the inside out.
At the heart of Michael’s work is one belief: If you want to understand excellence, study the people who create it in others.
Tacticians is his long-term canon — an exploration of the minds that shaped the games we love, and a blueprint for leadership, clarity, and mastery in any arena.
