September 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Athletes don’t lose games because of talent. They lose because of confidence.
In this episode, I’m sharing some big news:
The launch of my new book, Confidence: Tools to Build Belief for Athletes, Coaches, and Parents.
This is the first book in the Prime Five Series — a collection of tools, stories, and systems I’ve used with athletes from youth sports to state champions and even professionals.
Inside the episode:
- Why Confidence had to be Book #1.
- The story of where this journey started.
- What the “Prime Five” are and why they matter.
- How coaches, athletes, and parents can start building confidence brick by brick.
If you’re a coach, parent, or athlete who wants to learn how to train confidence like a skill: this episode is for you.
👉 Grab your copy on Amazon: amzn.to/4lSeSNN
Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
mentaltrainingplan.com/athletes
Are you a COACH looking for an affordable year-round mental performance training program? Check out the MTP Academy available through our website:
mentaltrainingplan.com/teams
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan, helping people
perform at their best.
I am so incredibly excited tobe back, got some very big news.
I've been working on a project,not just one book, a whole
series of books and there's beena ton of work going into this.
(00:24):
Haven't really been postingabout it, haven't really been
sharing anything on here.
It feels like it's been a whilesince we had a long, meaningful
series here on the podcast andI am excited to announce that
that is back.
Just released my newest book,book number two.
It's called Confidence and it'stools to build belief for
(00:48):
athletes, coaches and parents.
It is book number one in thePrime 5 series and today we are
going to introduce just a littlebit, a little bit of the
background story, maybe behindwhy this book?
Why now, how do we use this?
Who is this for?
I'm just, I'm so excited forwhat's going to be rolled out
(01:11):
over the next year or two.
This book is kind of the nextprogression from, let's say,
I've been working with anindividual, I've been working
with a team, so we, when westart off, we do an assessment
right, so we've got some someraw data on where are we at,
where are the starting points,what are some strengths and
(01:32):
weaknesses?
And then we're going to equipeverybody with some foundational
tools.
We're going to say here's thestuff that everyone needs to be
able to control their mind andbody.
And then we're going to do areassessment and we're going to
figure out where, in what wecall the prime five, where do
you have strengths andweaknesses?
And if you're missing someconfidence, for example, the
(01:54):
next question is well, why areyou missing that confidence?
And how can we equip you withthe skills and tools to be able
to improve that confidence?
And basically, what I've doneis capture everything that I've
used with every team and everyathlete and kind of a complete
picture of what is confidence.
(02:15):
How do we build confidence?
So, whether you're startingfrom scratch and you want to
start at the very, verybeginning and build the whole
way through, or if you want tostart at the very, very
beginning and build the wholeway through, or if you want to
be able to you know referencechapter five for an athlete
who's missing this, or chaptereight because you're struggling
with that, it can be used thatway as well.
(02:37):
So, super excited to get intothe book today Really just want
to start off by helping youunderstand a little bit of the
foundational pieces behind whyin the world we're doing this.
I've told this story before andso folks that have been
listening for a long time.
I apologize that you have tohear this story again, but I do
(02:59):
think we're going to have quitea few new listeners joining us.
This all goes back to 2013, andI was a high school football
coach.
We went down to the statechampionship.
It was the most talented teamthat we had ever had in school
history and we just fell apart.
And physically, we had guyswith their hands were so shaky
they couldn't catch a ball.
(03:19):
Emotionally, we had seniorsthat were in tears on the
sidelines.
Mentally, we had guys losingcontrol Some of the best players
in school history that werejust making silly decisions that
they hadn't done all year.
And as coaches, we were likeguys just play football.
(03:40):
But when we evaluated after theseason, what are we actually
doing to equip them to be ableto do that?
The answer was not much, and sothat kind of kicked off a
journey because we realizedtalent and strategy are not
(04:00):
enough Like that If, if someoneis not in control of their mind
and body.
If someone doesn't haveconfidence, if someone's not
able to focus on the task athand, whatever that missing
piece is, if it's not there,talent and strategy are just not
enough.
And so that moment really sentme searching for answers.
(04:25):
Because we know, in athleticseveryone wants to win.
Now, you know, obviously, this,this gets a little bit in the
business world.
It's maybe not as clear cut inthe.
In the real world it's maybenot.
There's a scoreboard, you know.
But how?
Whatever, at the end of the day, whether that's income, whether
that's freedom, whether that'simpact, whatever that end goal
(04:50):
is, we all want to quote unquotebe successful, even if we
define it different ways.
And so we know we want to win.
Well, what does it take to win?
In football, there's certainmetrics that we are going to
look at.
We're going to look at red zoneefficiency.
We're going to look atturnovers.
We're going to look atexplosive plays.
(05:11):
Were we efficient on first down?
In the NFL, they put a lot ofvalue in quarterback rating.
In basketball, there'sstatistics that we're going to
look at, same with baseball.
In golf, maybe it's how manygreens and reg, how many
fairways did we hit, how manyputts did we average, things
like that.
There are certain specificmeasurable things that in order
(05:35):
for us to quote unquote besuccessful, we need to achieve
In the business world.
We've got KPIs that we aretracking, we're trying to figure
out did we meet these goalsthat are helping us eventually
reach that bigger desire ofquote unquote success?
(05:57):
So then our next question washow do we do that On an
individual level?
Because, you know, we hadbrought in sports psychologists
to talk to the team.
We had brought in experts, wehad read books, we'd, you know,
listen to different motivationalspeeches and things like that,
and they all had value, everysingle one of them.
(06:20):
But there was also, you knowthis, this speaker who would
come in and talk, and it waslike, yes, this is perfect for
80% of the room, but I got ahandful of guys over here that
are struggling with this.
Like we got to figure out howto fix that before we can
address what you're talkingabout.
(06:40):
And as coaches, we were kind ofleft to sort of patch up holes,
if you will, and so we reallywanted to figure out what are
the areas that maybe we could bemore intentional about training
.
Like I could go through.
You know, how do we teach aquarterback to read a defense.
Well, here's what that lookslike in the classroom, in the
(07:03):
film room, on the football field.
I can show you how to do that.
If a golfer is slicing theirdriver, a good swing instructor
would be able to say oh well,you got to do this with your
hands, or your club path isdoing this.
We got to get you out here.
And so what we needed to reallyfigure out was, on the mental
(07:26):
side of the game, what are thoseareas that we need to improve,
that we need to coach?
And you know I was in themiddle of getting my master's at
the time and sort of dove inheadfirst to all the research
and all the literature that Icould find, and it, you know, it
started to become pretty clearlike, hey, if, if, we could
(07:48):
address these five areas.
I think this is going to coverpretty much everything that our
guys struggled with in thatstate championship game, because
at the end of the season, weinterviewed every single one of
the guys that played in thatgame, every single one, and we
had a list of where did we comeup short?
What were we not prepared for?
(08:09):
What should we have done betteras coaches what do we need to
do next time?
And as we were going throughthis list of all these problems
and this list of thesecategories, it was like, hey,
we've got these five areas andif we can intentionally train
these five areas, we're going toknock out all these problems.
(08:30):
And so we started trainingconfidence.
We started training our guys onhow to focus.
We started training our guys onhow to control their body's
physical reaction to stress andpressure.
We started training our guys onfancy psychology term for
optimistic perfection.
Yes, we're striving forperfection or we're striving for
(08:54):
excellence.
No one wants to go out thereand make mistakes, but the
reality of it is we're going tomake mistakes.
So how do we not spiral intonegativity?
How do we remain resilient andhopeful for the future and
things like that?
And then the last one wasmotivation and mindset.
Like how do we get that drive,how do we get that championship
(09:15):
mentality, that competitiveexcellence, out there on the
game field?
And so we started trainingthese and practicing these and
equipping our athletes withtools.
And all of a sudden, 2016 rollsaround and we go win a state
championship with a team thatwas very under-talented, but a
(09:36):
team that was able to performpretty close to their full
potential the whole way throughthe playoffs and all of a sudden
, you know the golf coach isasking questions hey, why are
you guys winning games Like?
You used to win three or fourgames a year, like what's going
on?
You know, other athletes fromother schools and other sports
(09:59):
started wanting in on you know,whatever we were doing To make a
long story short, I wrote abook and started this podcast
and formed a company and, youknow, ended up doing this full
time.
And so now part of my job is,when someone else kind of has a
hole in that preparation pieceor that confidence piece or you
(10:22):
know they're not able to focus,my job is hey, here's some tools
, here's some skills that youcan practice and develop, here's
some ways that you can improvein this area.
Help them improve in that areaand then figure out all right,
well, now that we got that,what's next?
And we just continuouslyimprove the mental side of the
(10:44):
game, along with what they'realready doing on the physical
side and the technique side andthings like that.
And I will say, when we starteddoing this, no one in high
school football was doing this,at least not that we ever played
or saw or came up against ortalked to no one in high school
golf or tennis or you know allthe, all these other sports that
(11:05):
we started working with.
Nobody was really doing this,and so it was kind of a
competitive advantage.
But you know, now we're gettingto the point where it's like
people recognize and peoplerealize, hey, we need to improve
these areas Perfect.
So this book that we're goingto start talking about today is
basically kind of that firstresource.
(11:27):
If you've got someone who is notconfident, whether that's you,
whether that's your kid, whetherthat's some team that you coach
, if you've got someone who isnot confident.
The purpose of this book is togive you a front to back.
Look at confidence that has allof the tools in between.
(11:47):
We've got 37 tools in the bookand then you can actually sign
up for a downloadable workbookthat comes with the book for
free, so you can end up withbasically all the tools that you
will ever need to help someonewho is struggling with
confidence.
And that's that's the goal.
Because you know, if, if I heard, if I, if I had a dollar for
(12:11):
every time I heard a parent at alittle league field yell out
something like oh, just forgetabout that one, susie, or just
forget about that pitch, johnnyit's.
I mean, you know, I hear thingslike that and I feel bad for
the kid because all I can thinkis, you know, when I was that
(12:32):
age and that's how people werecoaching the mental side of the
game, it was like, oh, don'tworry about that.
Or yeah, you just gotta believe.
And it's like in, in what?
And why do I have to believe?
Like it sounds like you justwant me to believe, but I don't
know if I do believe.
And how do I fix it if I don'tbelieve?
And what if I'm trying tobelieve but I don't know how?
(12:54):
Or you know, you gotta want it.
It's like I got to want what.
And how exactly do I do that?
And you know, in my world, whenI was a football coach, I used
to yell things like catch theball, thinking that, if you know
, I just imparted this wisdomfrom my head into this athlete's
(13:16):
head who, you know obviouslywasn't trying hard enough to
catch the ball that maybe thiswould magically help said
athlete improve, when in reality, what I needed to be doing was
teaching them what to do withtheir hands, teaching them when
to get them together, teachingthem to see the ball all the way
in, how to tuck the ball andprevent it being taken away
(13:39):
through contact, how to highpoint the ball like ball,
there's all kinds of things thatgo into catching a ball.
Yelling catch the ball doesn'thelp anybody, and it's the exact
same with confidence.
Telling someone to be confidentdoes absolutely nothing.
But teaching them oh well, yougot to put work in.
(14:01):
If you want to be confidentLike you can't just self-talk
your way and positivity yourselfinto believing that you can do
this if you haven't put in thetime and you haven't put in the
work.
And if you have put in the timeand you have put in the work
(14:22):
and you don't have a way to getrid of or to deal with that
little voice of negativity andthat little perfectionist doubt
of have I done enough?
Have I worked hard enough?
Am I good enough?
Do I have what it takes?
And you have put in the timeand you've put in the work, but
you don't know how to believethat and you don't know how to
trust that.
Well, that's a skill that wecan help you improve, and so the
(14:45):
book's big idea is kind of thismetaphor of a wall and I
thought for a really long timehow do we help people understand
confidence a little bit better?
And I love the idea of stackingbricks because you know, on one
(15:08):
hand, if you don't put in thetime and you don't put in the
work and you skip reps and youcut corners, it's going to be
really difficult for you to beconfident.
There are some foundationalthings that have to happen for
you to be confident.
But you know there's also somebigger issues, some deeper
(15:29):
issues, some way more complexissues.
And if an athlete is missingone of those bricks, it doesn't
matter if it's at the top, it'sin the middle.
If it's the foundation, thewhole thing's going to crumble,
like if you're missing pieces ofthis wall.
The wall is either not going tobe as strong, not going to be
able to hold up to adversity,difficult times, challenges,
(15:52):
things like that, or it's justgoing to.
It's going to let things inLike there.
There are going to be thingsthat just seep in, there's going
to be doubts that just maketheir way in and, before you
know it, the wall is no longerserving its purpose.
And we talk about in the bookhow it's not this wall that we
(16:12):
build and then we stand behind.
It's kind of this idea thatwe're going to be able to stand
on this and fight and we'regoing to be able to stand on
this and fight and we're goingto be able to stand on this wall
and trust what we've builtunderneath us.
You know, obviously allmetaphors break down at some
point, but I really like thevisual of just stacking bricks,
(16:37):
stacking bricks, and there'sreally three big main categories
there's there's bricks thathave to be earned and you know,
thinking like the work you putin the reps, you put in things
like that.
There's reps that have to bechosen, you know, talking about
like identity, talking aboutbody language, talking about
self-talk.
(16:57):
You, you have some choice inthose things.
And then there's bricks thathave to be trained and you know
your breathing and how you resetand how you recover.
And so what I tried to do wasthink back to more than a decade
ago, when, you know, here I amand I've got this team with
(17:20):
these players who, in my mind,they should be confident, but
for some reason they're notconfident.
This resource is for that coach.
Or, you know, I had somebodywho approached me and they're in
a very new role.
They're no longer just workingat their organization.
They're now, you know, in moreof a partnership role and
(17:42):
they're now doing some culturalleadership, development type
pieces within their businessorganization.
Hopefully, this book can be aresource for someone like that,
even who is leading other people, helping other people.
Obviously, you know coaches,mental performance coaches.
If you need confidence, or ifthe people that you are leading,
(18:06):
coaching, working with, needconfidence, this book is for you
.
Every single athlete that I'veever worked with in a one-on-one
setting.
One of the first things that wedo is go through a mental
skills assessment.
One of the first things that wedo is go through a mental
skills assessment and in thismental skills assessment, we
give them a score in each ofthese prime five categories
(18:28):
focus, confidence, body control,optimistic perfection,
motivation and mindset and wewant to know where are they at
in each one of these areas.
And then we're going to teachthem some of the basics, some of
the foundational pieces we'regoing to reassess.
And then we're going to teachthem some of the basics, some of
the foundational pieces we'regoing to reassess, and now we're
going to start looking for gapsthat we need to fill in.
I would say by far and away,confidence is one of the biggest
(18:52):
areas.
I wouldn't say every athletethat I've ever worked with in a
one-on-one setting neededconfidence, but I'd put it north
of 80%, like I would say wellover.
The majority of the athletesneeded some help in the
confidence area, and so that waswhy you know when, when we were
(19:14):
picking, where are we going tostart?
Which book are we going to arewe going to launch first?
Confidence was by far and awaythe easiest first step because I
think it's going to apply tothe greatest number of people.
There are all kinds of underdogstories of average talent plus
(19:35):
high confidence that's able tobeat elite talent, that has
fragile confidence, and I thinkin 2016, when we made that state
championship run, we saw thattime and time again.
I mean, one of the teams youknow that we were facing, they
had a kid going full ride toPenn State to Penn State
(20:04):
unbelievable athlete, and, youknow, at the end of the day, it
didn't matter because,collectively, all of our guys
who were, you know, much moreaverage talent than this kid was
, but they all believed in thissystem that we had in this
program, that we had in thisplan, that we had in this way
that we, together were goingplan, that we had in this way
that we, together were going togo attack and we were going to
perform at our best.
(20:25):
And and I think that I thinkthat part of this, part of the
goal behind this book is toequip you to be able to believe
in yourself, in the system, inthe plans and processes that are
put in place so that you can gobe successful in whatever field
(20:45):
, whatever sport that may be.
I say all the time withathletes that I work with that
confidence is not about hype andit's not just about hope, it's
about proof, it's about have Iput in the time, have I put in
the work, have I earned theright to be confident?
(21:06):
I think there's so many athletesthat I work with that think
confidence is this fragile thingand it doesn't have to be that
way.
There are so many athletes thatI work with that their
confidence 100% depends onperformance, whether that's a
quarterback who just needs tocomplete one or two to be able
(21:28):
to believe yes, all right, I'mgood, I'm rolling.
Or that's a pitcher who needsto strike out that first batter
or throw that first strike, orif I can just get this rolling.
If I can just hit that firstgreen, if I can just make that
first three-pointer, then I'llbe able to believe.
(21:49):
And it doesn't have to be thatway.
I think another bigmisconception is that other
people can take your confidence.
I've worked with a ton ofathletes who said, you know,
like there's a young man whoimmediately comes to mind, he
was in a baseball game and we'vebeen working on some different
(22:11):
skills and tools and it wasstill super, super early in our
sessions together and he wasreally excited to try out his
go-to statement and use hisdiaphragmatic breathing and he
walked the first batter and thecoach called timeout and then he
threw you know, threw a strike,threw two balls and the coach
(22:36):
pulled him and he said you know,I was, I was fine, I was going
to be feeling it.
The ump, you know, missed thefirst call, but then coach just
came, took me out and stole allmy confidence.
And again, it doesn't have tobe that way.
Confidence isn't somethingthat's out of your control.
Confidence isn't something thatyou're either born with or
(23:00):
you're not born with.
Confidence doesn't have to bethis mysterious, mystical.
Well, sometimes I have it,other times I don't.
I don't really know where itcomes from.
I don't know how to generate itintentionally.
There is a system behindbuilding confidence and, you
(23:21):
know, thanks to the functionalMRI machine and all kinds of
other innovations that haveallowed us to see what's going
on and see these neural pathwaysthat are consistent with
confidence.
And you know, we can watchareas of the brain that are
active and light up, and we cansee when confidence is going up
(23:43):
and when confidence is goingdown, not just from body
language, not just from thesideline, because let's be clear
, like that that screams a lotof times whether you're feeling
confident or not.
But but we don't have to guess.
We can look, look and we canknow and we can say, hey, these
people have these things happenand you know confidence levels
(24:06):
are going down, but these peopleare having these things happen
and confidence levels don'tbudge.
Why is that?
And you know it's not opinionanymore.
That's my favorite part aboutthe field of neuropsychology
it's not just here's maybe whatwe think is going on, it's we
(24:27):
can watch these levels go up anddown.
We can watch this brainactivity.
We can say with certainty, likehere's what's going on in these
moments.
And so there's two ways to usethis book and the goal, to be
honest, is to write the otherfour books this way.
You know, I'll be honest,they're going to pop out pretty
(24:50):
quick because I already have allthe tools.
I've already been using all thetools for decades.
I already have all the science.
Like we, we gathered that onthe front end when we were
trying to figure out what theheck the prime five were going
to be.
You know, I I've got, I've gotthe stories in my head.
It's just a matter of gettingthose down onto paper.
(25:10):
So you know, the the next, thenext few books should be kind of
rattling off a little bitfaster.
But there's two ways that youcan read this.
And the first one is just sortof like a foundation where we're
going to start at the bottom.
We're going to build brick bybrick.
We're going to go in order.
(25:31):
In my mind, that's a great timefor off-season study.
That's a great time for, youknow, I'm getting ready to go on
this retreat or I'm going onthis vacation and I'm going to
have some time to just think andabsorb all of this.
And then the other way, thiscan be used to spot check.
(25:53):
This can be used in the middleof the season when it's like,
hey, I'm not trusting this or Ijust something feels off with my
body language.
How do we fix this?
Boom.
Flip to that chapter.
Get the tools, practice thetools, immediately start
implementing those.
And we just wanted thisflexibility so that, whether
(26:18):
it's an individual, whether it'sa team, whether it's athletics,
whether it's business, whetherit's an individual, whether it's
a team, whether it's athletics,whether it's business, whether
it's your own job or your kid,we wanted you to be able to pick
up this book and get what youneed out of it.
So here's my call to action Ifyou don't have a copy of this
book the link is in the shownotes you can get it on Amazon.
(26:38):
It's called confidence tools tobuild belief for athletes,
coaches and parents would lovefor you to have this.
A physical copy you can get.
You know.
You can get a digital download,uh, on a Kindle device, or you
can actually get the hardbackbook uh, that that you can have
and you can keep.
But I would love for you to beable to follow along, even as
(27:01):
you listen to this podcastseries.
It's going to give you accessto the 37 tools that are in the
book Plus.
It'll tell you how you can getthe free downloads.
There's a an entire workbookthat you could print off so that
you know.
As you're going through thebook, you can hear about the
stories, you can learn about thescience, you can see the tools
(27:23):
that you can start using or yourathletes can start using.
It's got coaching cornerquestions where, if you're using
this in a group setting or ateam setting, there can be
conversation.
There can be discussion notjust how do we improve this,
maybe individually, but how dowe start to change the culture,
but how do we start to changethe culture around here?
How do we change theexpectations for behavior, for
(27:46):
how we're going to respond?
Let's not just hope that ourteam is going to be confident
when the game is on the line.
Let's have a plan and let's beintentional about building that
confidence the right way fromthe ground up.
And then the second thing Iwould ask you to do if you get
something out of this, if thisis beneficial for you, would
(28:07):
love for you to leave a reviewon Amazon, to just let the
algorithm know.
Hey, you know, this is a greatresource that's going to
actually help people.
It's going to be usable forindividuals, for coaches, for
parents.
Super excited to just continuethrough this series.
(28:27):
Episode two, we're going to bediving into the first brick and
we're going to be talking aboutwhat does this actually look
like to start integrating?
How can we start stacking thesebricks, one at a time, and
building this thing the rightway?
As always, if you've gotquestions, don't hesitate to
head on over tomentaltrainingplancom there's a
(28:48):
contact us button at the bottomand until next time, make your
plan and put it to work.
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan, helping people
perform at their best.
I am so incredibly excited tobe back, got some very big news.
I've been working on a project,not just one book, a whole
series of books and there's beena ton of work going into this.
(00:24):
Haven't really been postingabout it, haven't really been
sharing anything on here.
It feels like it's been a whilesince we had a long, meaningful
series here on the podcast andI am excited to announce that
that is back.
Just released my newest book,book number two.
It's called Confidence and it'stools to build belief for
(00:48):
athletes, coaches and parents.
It is book number one in thePrime 5 series and today we are
going to introduce just a littlebit, a little bit of the
background story, maybe behindwhy this book?
Why now, how do we use this?
Who is this for?
I'm just, I'm so excited forwhat's going to be rolled out
(01:11):
over the next year or two.
This book is kind of the nextprogression from, let's say,
I've been working with anindividual, I've been working
with a team, so we, when westart off, we do an assessment
right, so we've got some someraw data on where are we at,
where are the starting points,what are some strengths and
(01:32):
weaknesses?
And then we're going to equipeverybody with some foundational
tools.
We're going to say here's thestuff that everyone needs to be
able to control their mind andbody.
And then we're going to do areassessment and we're going to
figure out where, in what wecall the prime five, where do
you have strengths andweaknesses?
And if you're missing someconfidence, for example, the
(01:54):
next question is well, why areyou missing that confidence?
And how can we equip you withthe skills and tools to be able
to improve that confidence?
And basically, what I've doneis capture everything that I've
used with every team and everyathlete and kind of a complete
picture of what is confidence.
(02:15):
How do we build confidence?
So, whether you're startingfrom scratch and you want to
start at the very, verybeginning and build the whole
way through, or if you want tostart at the very, very
beginning and build the wholeway through, or if you want to
be able to you know referencechapter five for an athlete
who's missing this, or chaptereight because you're struggling
with that, it can be used thatway as well.
(02:37):
So, super excited to get intothe book today Really just want
to start off by helping youunderstand a little bit of the
foundational pieces behind whyin the world we're doing this.
I've told this story before andso folks that have been
listening for a long time.
I apologize that you have tohear this story again, but I do
(02:59):
think we're going to have quitea few new listeners joining us.
This all goes back to 2013, andI was a high school football
coach.
We went down to the statechampionship.
It was the most talented teamthat we had ever had in school
history and we just fell apart.
And physically, we had guyswith their hands were so shaky
they couldn't catch a ball.
(03:19):
Emotionally, we had seniorsthat were in tears on the
sidelines.
Mentally, we had guys losingcontrol Some of the best players
in school history that werejust making silly decisions that
they hadn't done all year.
And as coaches, we were likeguys just play football.
(03:40):
But when we evaluated after theseason, what are we actually
doing to equip them to be ableto do that?
The answer was not much, and sothat kind of kicked off a
journey because we realizedtalent and strategy are not
(04:00):
enough Like that If, if someoneis not in control of their mind
and body.
If someone doesn't haveconfidence, if someone's not
able to focus on the task athand, whatever that missing
piece is, if it's not there,talent and strategy are just not
enough.
And so that moment really sentme searching for answers.
(04:25):
Because we know, in athleticseveryone wants to win.
Now, you know, obviously, this,this gets a little bit in the
business world.
It's maybe not as clear cut inthe.
In the real world it's maybenot.
There's a scoreboard, you know.
But how?
Whatever, at the end of the day, whether that's income, whether
that's freedom, whether that'simpact, whatever that end goal
(04:50):
is, we all want to quote unquotebe successful, even if we
define it different ways.
And so we know we want to win.
Well, what does it take to win?
In football, there's certainmetrics that we are going to
look at.
We're going to look at red zoneefficiency.
We're going to look atturnovers.
We're going to look atexplosive plays.
(05:11):
Were we efficient on first down?
In the NFL, they put a lot ofvalue in quarterback rating.
In basketball, there'sstatistics that we're going to
look at, same with baseball.
In golf, maybe it's how manygreens and reg, how many
fairways did we hit, how manyputts did we average, things
like that.
There are certain specificmeasurable things that in order
(05:35):
for us to quote unquote besuccessful, we need to achieve
In the business world.
We've got KPIs that we aretracking, we're trying to figure
out did we meet these goalsthat are helping us eventually
reach that bigger desire ofquote unquote success?
(05:57):
So then our next question washow do we do that On an
individual level?
Because, you know, we hadbrought in sports psychologists
to talk to the team.
We had brought in experts, wehad read books, we'd, you know,
listen to different motivationalspeeches and things like that,
and they all had value, everysingle one of them.
(06:20):
But there was also, you knowthis, this speaker who would
come in and talk, and it waslike, yes, this is perfect for
80% of the room, but I got ahandful of guys over here that
are struggling with this.
Like we got to figure out howto fix that before we can
address what you're talkingabout.
(06:40):
And as coaches, we were kind ofleft to sort of patch up holes,
if you will, and so we reallywanted to figure out what are
the areas that maybe we could bemore intentional about training
.
Like I could go through.
You know, how do we teach aquarterback to read a defense.
Well, here's what that lookslike in the classroom, in the
(07:03):
film room, on the football field.
I can show you how to do that.
If a golfer is slicing theirdriver, a good swing instructor
would be able to say oh well,you got to do this with your
hands, or your club path isdoing this.
We got to get you out here.
And so what we needed to reallyfigure out was, on the mental
(07:26):
side of the game, what are thoseareas that we need to improve,
that we need to coach?
And you know I was in themiddle of getting my master's at
the time and sort of dove inheadfirst to all the research
and all the literature that Icould find, and it, you know, it
started to become pretty clearlike, hey, if, if, we could
(07:48):
address these five areas.
I think this is going to coverpretty much everything that our
guys struggled with in thatstate championship game, because
at the end of the season, weinterviewed every single one of
the guys that played in thatgame, every single one, and we
had a list of where did we comeup short?
What were we not prepared for?
(08:09):
What should we have done betteras coaches what do we need to
do next time?
And as we were going throughthis list of all these problems
and this list of thesecategories, it was like, hey,
we've got these five areas andif we can intentionally train
these five areas, we're going toknock out all these problems.
(08:30):
And so we started trainingconfidence.
We started training our guys onhow to focus.
We started training our guys onhow to control their body's
physical reaction to stress andpressure.
We started training our guys onfancy psychology term for
optimistic perfection.
Yes, we're striving forperfection or we're striving for
(08:54):
excellence.
No one wants to go out thereand make mistakes, but the
reality of it is we're going tomake mistakes.
So how do we not spiral intonegativity?
How do we remain resilient andhopeful for the future and
things like that?
And then the last one wasmotivation and mindset.
Like how do we get that drive,how do we get that championship
(09:15):
mentality, that competitiveexcellence, out there on the
game field?
And so we started trainingthese and practicing these and
equipping our athletes withtools.
And all of a sudden, 2016 rollsaround and we go win a state
championship with a team thatwas very under-talented, but a
(09:36):
team that was able to performpretty close to their full
potential the whole way throughthe playoffs and all of a sudden
, you know the golf coach isasking questions hey, why are
you guys winning games Like?
You used to win three or fourgames a year, like what's going
on?
You know, other athletes fromother schools and other sports
(09:59):
started wanting in on you know,whatever we were doing To make a
long story short, I wrote abook and started this podcast
and formed a company and, youknow, ended up doing this full
time.
And so now part of my job is,when someone else kind of has a
hole in that preparation pieceor that confidence piece or you
(10:22):
know they're not able to focus,my job is hey, here's some tools
, here's some skills that youcan practice and develop, here's
some ways that you can improvein this area.
Help them improve in that areaand then figure out all right,
well, now that we got that,what's next?
And we just continuouslyimprove the mental side of the
(10:44):
game, along with what they'realready doing on the physical
side and the technique side andthings like that.
And I will say, when we starteddoing this, no one in high
school football was doing this,at least not that we ever played
or saw or came up against ortalked to no one in high school
golf or tennis or you know allthe, all these other sports that
(11:05):
we started working with.
Nobody was really doing this,and so it was kind of a
competitive advantage.
But you know, now we're gettingto the point where it's like
people recognize and peoplerealize, hey, we need to improve
these areas Perfect.
So this book that we're goingto start talking about today is
basically kind of that firstresource.
(11:27):
If you've got someone who is notconfident, whether that's you,
whether that's your kid, whetherthat's some team that you coach
, if you've got someone who isnot confident.
The purpose of this book is togive you a front to back.
Look at confidence that has allof the tools in between.
(11:47):
We've got 37 tools in the bookand then you can actually sign
up for a downloadable workbookthat comes with the book for
free, so you can end up withbasically all the tools that you
will ever need to help someonewho is struggling with
confidence.
And that's that's the goal.
Because you know, if, if I heard, if I, if I had a dollar for
(12:11):
every time I heard a parent at alittle league field yell out
something like oh, just forgetabout that one, susie, or just
forget about that pitch, johnnyit's.
I mean, you know, I hear thingslike that and I feel bad for
the kid because all I can thinkis, you know, when I was that
(12:32):
age and that's how people werecoaching the mental side of the
game, it was like, oh, don'tworry about that.
Or yeah, you just gotta believe.
And it's like in, in what?
And why do I have to believe?
Like it sounds like you justwant me to believe, but I don't
know if I do believe.
And how do I fix it if I don'tbelieve?
And what if I'm trying tobelieve but I don't know how?
(12:54):
Or you know, you gotta want it.
It's like I got to want what.
And how exactly do I do that?
And you know, in my world, whenI was a football coach, I used
to yell things like catch theball, thinking that, if you know
, I just imparted this wisdomfrom my head into this athlete's
(13:16):
head who, you know obviouslywasn't trying hard enough to
catch the ball that maybe thiswould magically help said
athlete improve, when in reality, what I needed to be doing was
teaching them what to do withtheir hands, teaching them when
to get them together, teachingthem to see the ball all the way
in, how to tuck the ball andprevent it being taken away
(13:39):
through contact, how to highpoint the ball like ball,
there's all kinds of things thatgo into catching a ball.
Yelling catch the ball doesn'thelp anybody, and it's the exact
same with confidence.
Telling someone to be confidentdoes absolutely nothing.
But teaching them oh well, yougot to put work in.
(14:01):
If you want to be confidentLike you can't just self-talk
your way and positivity yourselfinto believing that you can do
this if you haven't put in thetime and you haven't put in the
work.
And if you have put in the timeand you have put in the work
(14:22):
and you don't have a way to getrid of or to deal with that
little voice of negativity andthat little perfectionist doubt
of have I done enough?
Have I worked hard enough?
Am I good enough?
Do I have what it takes?
And you have put in the timeand you've put in the work, but
you don't know how to believethat and you don't know how to
trust that.
Well, that's a skill that wecan help you improve, and so the
(14:45):
book's big idea is kind of thismetaphor of a wall and I
thought for a really long timehow do we help people understand
confidence a little bit better?
And I love the idea of stackingbricks because you know, on one
(15:08):
hand, if you don't put in thetime and you don't put in the
work and you skip reps and youcut corners, it's going to be
really difficult for you to beconfident.
There are some foundationalthings that have to happen for
you to be confident.
But you know there's also somebigger issues, some deeper
(15:29):
issues, some way more complexissues.
And if an athlete is missingone of those bricks, it doesn't
matter if it's at the top, it'sin the middle.
If it's the foundation, thewhole thing's going to crumble,
like if you're missing pieces ofthis wall.
The wall is either not going tobe as strong, not going to be
able to hold up to adversity,difficult times, challenges,
(15:52):
things like that, or it's justgoing to.
It's going to let things inLike there.
There are going to be thingsthat just seep in, there's going
to be doubts that just maketheir way in and, before you
know it, the wall is no longerserving its purpose.
And we talk about in the bookhow it's not this wall that we
(16:12):
build and then we stand behind.
It's kind of this idea thatwe're going to be able to stand
on this and fight and we'regoing to be able to stand on
this and fight and we're goingto be able to stand on this wall
and trust what we've builtunderneath us.
You know, obviously allmetaphors break down at some
point, but I really like thevisual of just stacking bricks,
(16:37):
stacking bricks, and there'sreally three big main categories
there's there's bricks thathave to be earned and you know,
thinking like the work you putin the reps, you put in things
like that.
There's reps that have to bechosen, you know, talking about
like identity, talking aboutbody language, talking about
self-talk.
(16:57):
You, you have some choice inthose things.
And then there's bricks thathave to be trained and you know
your breathing and how you resetand how you recover.
And so what I tried to do wasthink back to more than a decade
ago, when, you know, here I amand I've got this team with
(17:20):
these players who, in my mind,they should be confident, but
for some reason they're notconfident.
This resource is for that coach.
Or, you know, I had somebodywho approached me and they're in
a very new role.
They're no longer just workingat their organization.
They're now, you know, in moreof a partnership role and
(17:42):
they're now doing some culturalleadership, development type
pieces within their businessorganization.
Hopefully, this book can be aresource for someone like that,
even who is leading other people, helping other people.
Obviously, you know coaches,mental performance coaches.
If you need confidence, or ifthe people that you are leading,
(18:06):
coaching, working with, needconfidence, this book is for you
.
Every single athlete that I'veever worked with in a one-on-one
setting.
One of the first things that wedo is go through a mental
skills assessment.
One of the first things that wedo is go through a mental
skills assessment and in thismental skills assessment, we
give them a score in each ofthese prime five categories
(18:28):
focus, confidence, body control,optimistic perfection,
motivation and mindset and wewant to know where are they at
in each one of these areas.
And then we're going to teachthem some of the basics, some of
the foundational pieces we'regoing to reassess.
And then we're going to teachthem some of the basics, some of
the foundational pieces we'regoing to reassess, and now we're
going to start looking for gapsthat we need to fill in.
I would say by far and away,confidence is one of the biggest
(18:52):
areas.
I wouldn't say every athletethat I've ever worked with in a
one-on-one setting neededconfidence, but I'd put it north
of 80%, like I would say wellover.
The majority of the athletesneeded some help in the
confidence area, and so that waswhy you know when, when we were
(19:14):
picking, where are we going tostart?
Which book are we going to arewe going to launch first?
Confidence was by far and awaythe easiest first step because I
think it's going to apply tothe greatest number of people.
There are all kinds of underdogstories of average talent plus
(19:35):
high confidence that's able tobeat elite talent, that has
fragile confidence, and I thinkin 2016, when we made that state
championship run, we saw thattime and time again.
I mean, one of the teams youknow that we were facing, they
had a kid going full ride toPenn State to Penn State
(20:04):
unbelievable athlete, and, youknow, at the end of the day, it
didn't matter because,collectively, all of our guys
who were, you know, much moreaverage talent than this kid was
, but they all believed in thissystem that we had in this
program, that we had in thisplan, that we had in this way
that we, together were goingplan, that we had in this way
that we, together were going togo attack and we were going to
perform at our best.
(20:25):
And and I think that I thinkthat part of this, part of the
goal behind this book is toequip you to be able to believe
in yourself, in the system, inthe plans and processes that are
put in place so that you can gobe successful in whatever field
(20:45):
, whatever sport that may be.
I say all the time withathletes that I work with that
confidence is not about hype andit's not just about hope, it's
about proof, it's about have Iput in the time, have I put in
the work, have I earned theright to be confident?
(21:06):
I think there's so many athletesthat I work with that think
confidence is this fragile thingand it doesn't have to be that
way.
There are so many athletes thatI work with that their
confidence 100% depends onperformance, whether that's a
quarterback who just needs tocomplete one or two to be able
(21:28):
to believe yes, all right, I'mgood, I'm rolling.
Or that's a pitcher who needsto strike out that first batter
or throw that first strike, orif I can just get this rolling.
If I can just hit that firstgreen, if I can just make that
first three-pointer, then I'llbe able to believe.
(21:49):
And it doesn't have to be thatway.
I think another bigmisconception is that other
people can take your confidence.
I've worked with a ton ofathletes who said, you know,
like there's a young man whoimmediately comes to mind, he
was in a baseball game and we'vebeen working on some different
(22:11):
skills and tools and it wasstill super, super early in our
sessions together and he wasreally excited to try out his
go-to statement and use hisdiaphragmatic breathing and he
walked the first batter and thecoach called timeout and then he
threw you know, threw a strike,threw two balls and the coach
(22:36):
pulled him and he said you know,I was, I was fine, I was going
to be feeling it.
The ump, you know, missed thefirst call, but then coach just
came, took me out and stole allmy confidence.
And again, it doesn't have tobe that way.
Confidence isn't somethingthat's out of your control.
Confidence isn't something thatyou're either born with or
(23:00):
you're not born with.
Confidence doesn't have to bethis mysterious, mystical.
Well, sometimes I have it,other times I don't.
I don't really know where itcomes from.
I don't know how to generate itintentionally.
There is a system behindbuilding confidence and, you
(23:21):
know, thanks to the functionalMRI machine and all kinds of
other innovations that haveallowed us to see what's going
on and see these neural pathwaysthat are consistent with
confidence.
And you know, we can watchareas of the brain that are
active and light up, and we cansee when confidence is going up
(23:43):
and when confidence is goingdown, not just from body
language, not just from thesideline, because let's be clear
, like that that screams a lotof times whether you're feeling
confident or not.
But but we don't have to guess.
We can look, look and we canknow and we can say, hey, these
people have these things happenand you know confidence levels
(24:06):
are going down, but these peopleare having these things happen
and confidence levels don'tbudge.
Why is that?
And you know it's not opinionanymore.
That's my favorite part aboutthe field of neuropsychology
it's not just here's maybe whatwe think is going on, it's we
(24:27):
can watch these levels go up anddown.
We can watch this brainactivity.
We can say with certainty, likehere's what's going on in these
moments.
And so there's two ways to usethis book and the goal, to be
honest, is to write the otherfour books this way.
You know, I'll be honest,they're going to pop out pretty
(24:50):
quick because I already have allthe tools.
I've already been using all thetools for decades.
I already have all the science.
Like we, we gathered that onthe front end when we were
trying to figure out what theheck the prime five were going
to be.
You know, I I've got, I've gotthe stories in my head.
It's just a matter of gettingthose down onto paper.
(25:10):
So you know, the the next, thenext few books should be kind of
rattling off a little bitfaster.
But there's two ways that youcan read this.
And the first one is just sortof like a foundation where we're
going to start at the bottom.
We're going to build brick bybrick.
We're going to go in order.
(25:31):
In my mind, that's a great timefor off-season study.
That's a great time for, youknow, I'm getting ready to go on
this retreat or I'm going onthis vacation and I'm going to
have some time to just think andabsorb all of this.
And then the other way, thiscan be used to spot check.
(25:53):
This can be used in the middleof the season when it's like,
hey, I'm not trusting this or Ijust something feels off with my
body language.
How do we fix this?
Boom.
Flip to that chapter.
Get the tools, practice thetools, immediately start
implementing those.
And we just wanted thisflexibility so that, whether
(26:18):
it's an individual, whether it'sa team, whether it's athletics,
whether it's business, whetherit's an individual, whether it's
a team, whether it's athletics,whether it's business, whether
it's your own job or your kid,we wanted you to be able to pick
up this book and get what youneed out of it.
So here's my call to action Ifyou don't have a copy of this
book the link is in the shownotes you can get it on Amazon.
(26:38):
It's called confidence tools tobuild belief for athletes,
coaches and parents would lovefor you to have this.
A physical copy you can get.
You know.
You can get a digital download,uh, on a Kindle device, or you
can actually get the hardbackbook uh, that that you can have
and you can keep.
But I would love for you to beable to follow along, even as
(27:01):
you listen to this podcastseries.
It's going to give you accessto the 37 tools that are in the
book Plus.
It'll tell you how you can getthe free downloads.
There's a an entire workbookthat you could print off so that
you know.
As you're going through thebook, you can hear about the
stories, you can learn about thescience, you can see the tools
(27:23):
that you can start using or yourathletes can start using.
It's got coaching cornerquestions where, if you're using
this in a group setting or ateam setting, there can be
conversation.
There can be discussion notjust how do we improve this,
maybe individually, but how dowe start to change the culture,
but how do we start to changethe culture around here?
How do we change theexpectations for behavior, for
(27:46):
how we're going to respond?
Let's not just hope that ourteam is going to be confident
when the game is on the line.
Let's have a plan and let's beintentional about building that
confidence the right way fromthe ground up.
And then the second thing Iwould ask you to do if you get
something out of this, if thisis beneficial for you, would
(28:07):
love for you to leave a reviewon Amazon, to just let the
algorithm know.
Hey, you know, this is a greatresource that's going to
actually help people.
It's going to be usable forindividuals, for coaches, for
parents.
Super excited to just continuethrough this series.
(28:27):
Episode two, we're going to bediving into the first brick and
we're going to be talking aboutwhat does this actually look
like to start integrating?
How can we start stacking thesebricks, one at a time, and
building this thing the rightway?
As always, if you've gotquestions, don't hesitate to
head on over tomentaltrainingplancom there's a
(28:48):
contact us button at the bottomand until next time, make your
plan and put it to work.
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