“Becoming a champion is not an easy process… It is done by focusing on what it takes to get there and not on getting there.” -Nick Saban The society we live in is a results-driven society.  As a coach, your job is likely in jeopardy if you don’t win games—and lots of them. The kicker is that to win you must not focus on winning… but on the process of winning.  Coaches and athletes I work with must often unlearn what they have learned to focus on in their sport.  Mainly—winning and focusing on other outcomes that are outside of their control vs. processes that are within their control ..read more

You can know all the right information, but if you do not put it into ACTION—what good does it do for you?  The purpose of any routine is to build more trust, consistency, and confidence in performance.  Think about those three things for a minute.  These are concepts of athletic performance often glossed over. But consider how developing these characteristics in those you coach would impact their success in a real, tangible way.  How much better will an athlete perform who TRUSTS that he/she can go out and truly play at the highest level possible… … How being consistent in perf ..read more

In 1972 a plane carrying 45 people, including a Uruguayan rugby team and their families and friends, crashed into Andes mountains.  Twenty-nine people survived the crash. A few days later, an avalanche took 8 more lives when it flooded their makeshift shelter. Search parties from three countries looked for the missing plane, but the search was called off after eight days. The survivors, having found a small transistor radio on the plane, heard that the search had been canceled. Here’s an excerpt from the book Alive, describing this moment: “The others who had clustered around ..read more

There was only one thought running through my mind: Put one foot in front of the other and just keep moving. My feet hurt. My back hurt. Everything hurt.  Here I was, running the Lighthouse 100-mile run in Northern Michigan (no, that’s not a typo — 100 miles!).  Under my own free will. No gun pointed at back, forcing me to endure this. No lost bet. Some would call this crazy (which let’s be honest, it is a little crazy). But I had my reasons. And while this was certainly an experience I’ll never forget, and one of the toughest physical and mental challenges I’ve conquered in my lif ..read more

When I was first getting into the field of mental performance nearly 20 years ago, if someone would have told me I’d eventually become known as an expert in the industry and build a million-dollar business, I’d have thought they were crazy. And while the trend these days would be to talk all about how I did on my own, how no one believed in me and I had to pave the way by my lonesome… that wouldn’t necessarily paint an accurate portrayal of what happened.  Now, of course, I worked my ass off to get where I am. Of course, I had to push through hard times, and there are certainly were t ..read more

There’s an interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed throughout my career as a mental performance coach. When I first start working with coaches, teams, or athletes, most initially agree that training for competition is 90% physical and 10% mental. But as we begin working together, and as I introduce them to the idea of “mental conditioning” with specific strategies, a shift occurs. They begin to acknowledge that when game time rolls around, this 90%/10% relationship between physical and mental conditioning suddenly swaps places. In the heat of competition—at the moments when peak per ..read more

Years ago, as a new high school athletic director, I found myself in a challenging situation. Weighing in around 240 pounds, I was out of shape—and I had completely neglected my personal health. All of my focus was zeroed in on my job. Everything else was an afterthought. And while this may have helped in the short term to get a lot of work done and excel at my job, long term, it was a recipe for disaster. At the time, I thought “doing my job” meant giving that area of my life 100% of my focus. Man was I wrong. The truth is, by neglecting other areas of my life—like per ..read more

If you’re like most of the coaches, athletes, and professionals I work with, every day is a battle… A battle to get all you need to get done. A battle to balance work with finding time for other things important to you: family, friends, your health. A battle to find and sustain the motivation to stay focused and do things that you quite frankly don’t want to do. And a battle to figure out how the heck to come back tomorrow and do things just a little bit better. It can feel like once you leave the house you enter a gunfight with all that you have going on in a day. The ..read more

Regardless of whether they’re working with athletes in a team setting or clients in a gym, the best coaches in the world know strategy is only half of the equation when it comes to helping teams, athletes, and clients perform their best and succeed. The other half? Culture. Stack good coaching strategies on top of an intentional effort and plan to create the right culture and you make the move from good to great. Ignore culture in the pursuit of more X + Os or more drills and you’re setting yourself up for a long walk on the road to mediocrity. Today, I want to share a strategy y ..read more