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Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
#140 - Confidence Pt I: Launching the Prime Five Series
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
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the official podcast of Mental Training Plan, helping people perform at their best. I am so incredibly excited to be 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 been a ton of work going into this. Haven't really been posting about it, haven't really been sharing anything on here. It feels like it's been a while since we had a long, meaningful series here on the podcast and I am excited to announce that that is back.
Speaker 1:Just released my newest book, book number two. It's called Confidence and it's tools to build belief for athletes, coaches and parents. It is book number one in the Prime 5 series and today we are going to introduce just a little bit, a little bit of the background story, maybe behind why this book? Why now, how do we use this? Who is this for? I'm just, I'm so excited for what's going to be rolled out over the next year or two. This book is kind of the next progression from, let's say, I've been working with an individual, I've been working with a team, so we, when we start off, we do an assessment right, so we've got some some raw data on where are we at, where are the starting points, what are some strengths and weaknesses? And then we're going to equip everybody with some foundational tools. We're going to say here's the stuff that everyone needs to be able to control their mind and body. And then we're going to do a reassessment and we're going to figure out where, in what we call the prime five, where do you have strengths and weaknesses? And if you're missing some confidence, for example, the next question is well, why are you missing that confidence? And how can we equip you with the skills and tools to be able to improve that confidence? And basically, what I've done is capture everything that I've used with every team and every athlete and kind of a complete picture of what is confidence. How do we build confidence? So, whether you're starting from scratch and you want to start at the very, very beginning and build the whole way through, or if you want to start at the very, very beginning and build the whole way through, or if you want to be able to you know reference chapter five for an athlete who's missing this, or chapter eight because you're struggling with that, it can be used that way as well. So, super excited to get into the book today Really just want to start off by helping you understand a little bit of the foundational pieces behind why in the world we're doing this.
Speaker 1:I've told this story before and so folks that have been listening for a long time. I apologize that you have to hear this story again, but I do think we're going to have quite a few new listeners joining us. This all goes back to 2013, and I was a high school football coach. We went down to the state championship. It was the most talented team that we had ever had in school history and we just fell apart. And physically, we had guys with their hands were so shaky they couldn't catch a ball. Emotionally, we had seniors that were in tears on the sidelines. Mentally, we had guys losing control Some of the best players in school history that were just making silly decisions that they hadn't done all year. And as coaches, we were like guys just play football. But when we evaluated after the season, what are we actually doing to equip them to be able to do that? The answer was not much, and so that kind of kicked off a journey because we realized talent and strategy are not enough Like that If, if someone is not in control of their mind and body. If someone doesn't have confidence, if someone's not able to focus on the task at hand, whatever that missing piece is, if it's not there, talent and strategy are just not enough. And so that moment really sent me searching for answers.
Speaker 1:Because we know, in athletics everyone wants to win. Now, you know, obviously, this, this gets a little bit in the business world. It's maybe not as clear cut in the. In the real world it's maybe not. 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's impact, whatever that end goal is, we all want to quote unquote be successful, even if we define it different ways. And so we know we want to win. Well, what does it take to win?
Speaker 1:In football, there's certain metrics that we are going to look at. We're going to look at red zone efficiency. We're going to look at turnovers. We're going to look at explosive plays. Were we efficient on first down? In the NFL, they put a lot of value in quarterback rating. In basketball, there's statistics that we're going to look at, same with baseball. In golf, maybe it's how many greens and reg, how many fairways did we hit, how many putts did we average, things like that. There are certain specific measurable things that in order for us to quote unquote be successful, we need to achieve In the business world. We've got KPIs that we are tracking, we're trying to figure out did we meet these goals that are helping us eventually reach that bigger desire of quote unquote success?
Speaker 1:So then our next question was how do we do that On an individual level? Because, you know, we had brought in sports psychologists to talk to the team. We had brought in experts, we had read books, we'd, you know, listen to different motivational speeches and things like that, and they all had value, every single one of them. But there was also, you know this, this speaker who would come in and talk, and it was like, yes, this is perfect for 80% of the room, but I got a handful of guys over here that are struggling with this. Like we got to figure out how to fix that before we can address what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:And as coaches, we were kind of left to sort of patch up holes, if you will, and so we really wanted to figure out what are the areas that maybe we could be more intentional about training. Like I could go through. You know, how do we teach a quarterback to read a defense. Well, here's what that looks like in the classroom, in the film room, on the football field. I can show you how to do that. If a golfer is slicing their driver, a good swing instructor would be able to say oh well, you got to do this with your hands, or your club path is doing this. We got to get you out here.
Speaker 1:And so what we needed to really figure out was, on the mental side of the game, what are those areas that we need to improve, that we need to coach? And you know I was in the middle of getting my master's at the time and sort of dove in headfirst to all the research and all the literature that I could find, and it, you know, it started to become pretty clear like, hey, if, if, we could address these five areas. I think this is going to cover pretty much everything that our guys struggled with in that state championship game, because at the end of the season, we interviewed every single one of the guys that played in that game, every single one, and we had a list of where did we come up short? What were we not prepared for? What should we have done better as coaches what do we need to do next time? And as we were going through this list of all these problems and this list of these categories, it was like, hey, we've got these five areas and if we can intentionally train these five areas, we're going to knock out all these problems.
Speaker 1:And so we started training confidence. We started training our guys on how to focus. We started training our guys on how to control their body's physical reaction to stress and pressure. We started training our guys on fancy psychology term for optimistic perfection. Yes, we're striving for perfection or we're striving for excellence. No one wants to go out there and make mistakes, but the reality of it is we're going to make mistakes. So how do we not spiral into negativity? How do we remain resilient and hopeful for the future and things like that? And then the last one was motivation and mindset. Like how do we get that drive, how do we get that championship mentality, that competitive excellence, out there on the game field? And so we started training these and practicing these and equipping our athletes with tools.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden, 2016 rolls around and we go win a state championship with a team that was very under-talented, but a team that was able to perform pretty close to their full potential the whole way through the playoffs and all of a sudden, you know the golf coach is asking questions hey, why are you guys winning games Like? You used to win three or four games a year, like what's going on? You know, other athletes from other schools and other sports started wanting in on you know, whatever we were doing To make a long story short, I wrote a book and started this podcast and formed a company and, you know, 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 piece or that confidence piece or you know they're not able to focus, my job is hey, here's some tools, here's some skills that you can practice and develop, here's some ways that you can improve in this area. Help them improve in that area and then figure out all right, well, now that we got that, what's next? And we just continuously improve the mental side of the game, along with what they're already doing on the physical side and the technique side and things like that. And I will say, when we started doing this, no one in high school football was doing this, at least not that we ever played or saw or came up against or talked to no one in high school golf or tennis or you know all the, all these other sports that we started working with. Nobody was really doing this, and so it was kind of a competitive advantage. But you know, now we're getting to the point where it's like people recognize and people realize, hey, we need to improve these areas Perfect. So this book that we're going to start talking about today is basically kind of that first resource.
Speaker 1:If you've got someone who is not confident, whether that's you, whether that's your kid, whether that's some team that you coach, if you've got someone who is not confident. The purpose of this book is to give you a front to back. Look at confidence that has all of the tools in between. We've got 37 tools in the book and then you can actually sign up for a downloadable workbook that comes with the book for free, so you can end up with basically all the tools that you will ever need to help someone who is struggling with confidence. And that's that's the goal.
Speaker 1:Because you know, if, if I heard, if I, if I had a dollar for every time I heard a parent at a little league field yell out something like oh, just forget about that one, susie, or just forget about that pitch, johnny it's. I mean, you know, I hear things like that and I feel bad for the kid because all I can think is, you know, when I was that age and that's how people were coaching the mental side of the game, it was like, oh, don't worry 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 just want me to believe, but I don't know if I do believe. And how do I fix it if I don't believe? And what if I'm trying to believe but I don't know how? Or you know, you gotta want it. It's like I got to want what. And how exactly do I do that?
Speaker 1:And you know, in my world, when I was a football coach, I used to yell things like catch the ball, thinking that, if you know, I just imparted this wisdom from my head into this athlete's head who, you know obviously wasn't trying hard enough to catch the ball that maybe this would magically help said athlete improve, when in reality, what I needed to be doing was teaching them what to do with their hands, teaching them when to get them together, teaching them to see the ball all the way in, how to tuck the ball and prevent it being taken away through contact, how to high point the ball like ball, there's all kinds of things that go into catching a ball. Yelling catch the ball doesn't help anybody, and it's the exact same with confidence. Telling someone to be confident does absolutely nothing. But teaching them oh well, you got to put work in. If you want to be confident Like you can't just self-talk your way and positivity yourself into believing that you can do this if you haven't put in the time and you haven't put in the work. And if you have put in the time and you have put in the work and you don't have a way to get rid of or to deal with that little voice of negativity and that 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 time and you've put in the work, but you don't know how to believe that and you don't know how to trust that. Well, that's a skill that we can help you improve, and so the book's big idea is kind of this metaphor of a wall and I thought for a really long time how do we help people understand confidence a little bit better?
Speaker 1:And I love the idea of stacking bricks because you know, on one hand, if you don't put in the time and you don't put in the work and you skip reps and you cut corners, it's going to be really difficult for you to be confident. There are some foundational things that have to happen for you to be confident. But you know there's also some bigger issues, some deeper issues, some way more complex issues. And if an athlete is missing one of those bricks, it doesn't matter if it's at the top, it's in the middle. If it's the foundation, the whole thing's going to crumble, like if you're missing pieces of this wall. The wall is either not going to be as strong, not going to be able to hold up to adversity, difficult times, challenges, things like that, or it's just going to. It's going to let things in Like there. There are going to be things that just seep in, there's going to be doubts that just make their way in and, before you know it, the wall is no longer serving its purpose.
Speaker 1:And we talk about in the book how it's not this wall that we build and then we stand behind. It's kind of this idea that we're going to be able to stand on this and fight and we're going to be able to stand on this and fight and we're going to be able to stand on this wall and trust what we've built underneath us. You know, obviously all metaphors break down at some point, but I really like the visual of just stacking bricks, stacking bricks, and there's really three big main categories there's there's bricks that have to be earned and you know, thinking like the work you put in the reps, you put in things like that. There's reps that have to be chosen, you know, talking about like identity, talking about body language, talking about self-talk. You, you have some choice in those things. And then there's bricks that have to be trained and you know your breathing and how you reset and how you recover. And so what I tried to do was think back to more than a decade ago, when, you know, here I am and I've got this team with these players who, in my mind, they should be confident, but for some reason they're not confident. This resource is for that coach. Or, you know, I had somebody who approached me and they're in a very new role. They're no longer just working at their organization. They're now, you know, in more of a partnership role and they're now doing some cultural leadership, development type pieces within their business organization. Hopefully, this book can be a resource 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 if the people that you are leading, coaching, working with, need confidence, this book is for you.
Speaker 1:Every single athlete that I've ever worked with in a one-on-one setting. One of the first things that we do is go through a mental skills assessment. One of the first things that we do is go through a mental skills assessment and in this mental skills assessment, we give them a score in each of these prime five categories focus, confidence, body control, optimistic perfection, motivation and mindset and we want to know where are they at in each one of these areas. And then we're going to teach them some of the basics, some of the foundational pieces we're going to reassess. And then we're going to teach them some of the basics, some of the foundational pieces we're going to reassess, and now we're going to start looking for gaps that we need to fill in.
Speaker 1:I would say by far and away, confidence is one of the biggest areas. I wouldn't say every athlete that I've ever worked with in a one-on-one setting needed confidence, but I'd put it north of 80%, like I would say well over. The majority of the athletes needed some help in the confidence area, and so that was why you know when, when we were picking, where are we going to start? Which book are we going to are we going to launch first? Confidence was by far and away the easiest first step because I think it's going to apply to the greatest number of people.
Speaker 1:There are all kinds of underdog stories of average talent plus high confidence that's able to beat elite talent, that has fragile confidence, and I think in 2016, when we made that state championship run, we saw that time and time again. I mean, one of the teams you know that we were facing, they had a kid going full ride to Penn State to Penn State unbelievable athlete, and, you know, at the end of the day, it didn't matter because, collectively, all of our guys who were, you know, much more average talent than this kid was, but they all believed in this system that we had in this program, that we had in this plan, that we had in this way that we, together were going plan, that we had in this way that we, together were going to go attack and we were going to perform at our best. And and I think that I think that part of this, part of the goal behind this book is to equip you to be able to believe in yourself, in the system, in the plans and processes that are put in place so that you can go be successful in whatever field, whatever sport that may be. I say all the time with athletes that I work with that confidence is not about hype and it's not just about hope, it's about proof, it's about have I put in the time, have I put in the work, have I earned the right to be confident?
Speaker 1:I think there's so many athletes that I work with that think confidence is this fragile thing and it doesn't have to be that way. There are so many athletes that I work with that their confidence 100% depends on performance, whether that's a quarterback who just needs to complete one or two to be able to believe yes, all right, I'm good, I'm rolling. Or that's a pitcher who needs to strike out that first batter or throw that first strike, or if I can just get this rolling. If I can just hit that first green, if I can just make that first three-pointer, then I'll be able to believe. And it doesn't have to be that way. I think another big misconception is that other people can take your confidence. I've worked with a ton of athletes who said, you know, like there's a young man who immediately comes to mind, he was in a baseball game and we've been working on some different skills and tools and it was still super, super early in our sessions together and he was really excited to try out his go-to statement and use his diaphragmatic breathing and he walked the first batter and the coach called timeout and then he threw you know, threw a strike, threw two balls and the coach pulled him and he said you know, I was, I was fine, I was going to be feeling it. The ump, you know, missed the first call, but then coach just came, took me out and stole all my confidence. And again, it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1:Confidence isn't something that's out of your control. Confidence isn't something that you're either born with or you're not born with. Confidence doesn't have to be this mysterious, mystical. Well, sometimes I have it, other times I don't. I don't really know where it comes from. I don't know how to generate it intentionally.
Speaker 1:There is a system behind building confidence and, you know, thanks to the functional MRI machine and all kinds of other innovations that have allowed us to see what's going on and see these neural pathways that are consistent with confidence. And you know, we can watch areas of the brain that are active and light up, and we can see when confidence is going up and when confidence is going down, not just from body language, not just from the sideline, because let's be clear, like that that screams a lot of times whether you're feeling confident or not. But but we don't have to guess. We can look, look and we can know and we can say, hey, these people have these things happen and you know confidence levels are going down, but these people are having these things happen and confidence levels don't budge. Why is that? And you know it's not opinion anymore. That's my favorite part about the field of neuropsychology it's not just here's maybe what we think is going on, it's we can watch these levels go up and down. We can watch this brain activity. We can say with certainty, like here's what's going on in these moments.
Speaker 1:And so there's two ways to use this book and the goal, to be honest, is to write the other four books this way. You know, I'll be honest, they're going to pop out pretty quick because I already have all the tools. I've already been using all the tools for decades. I already have all the science. Like we, we gathered that on the front end when we were trying to figure out what the heck the prime five were going to be. You know, I I've got, I've got the stories in my head. It's just a matter of getting those down onto paper. So you know, the the next, the next few books should be kind of rattling off a little bit faster.
Speaker 1:But there's two ways that you can read this. And the first one is just sort of like a foundation where we're going to start at the bottom. We're going to build brick by brick. We're going to go in order. In my mind, that's a great time for off-season study. That's a great time for, you know, I'm getting ready to go on this retreat or I'm going on this vacation and I'm going to have some time to just think and absorb all of this. And then the other way, this can be used to spot check. This can be used in the middle of the season when it's like, hey, I'm not trusting this or I just something feels off with my body language. How do we fix this? Boom. Flip to that chapter. Get the tools, practice the tools, immediately start implementing those.
Speaker 1:And we just wanted this flexibility so that, whether it's an individual, whether it's a team, whether it's athletics, whether it's business, whether it'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 you need out of it. So here's my call to action If you don't have a copy of this book the link is in the show notes you can get it on Amazon. It's called confidence tools to build belief for athletes, coaches and parents would love for 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 hardback book uh, that that you can have and you can keep.
Speaker 1:But I would love for you to be able to follow along, even as you listen to this podcast series. It's going to give you access to the 37 tools that are in the book Plus. It'll tell you how you can get the free downloads. There's a an entire workbook that you could print off so that you know. As you're going through the book, you can hear about the stories, you can learn about the science, you can see the tools that you can start using or your athletes can start using.
Speaker 1:It's got coaching corner questions where, if you're using this in a group setting or a team setting, there can be conversation. There can be discussion not just how do we improve this, maybe individually, but how do we start to change the culture, but how do we start to change the culture around here? How do we change the expectations for behavior, for how we're going to respond? Let's not just hope that our team is going to be confident when the game is on the line. Let's have a plan and let's be intentional about building that confidence the right way from the ground up.
Speaker 1:And then the second thing I would ask you to do if you get something out of this, if this is beneficial for you, would love for you to leave a review on Amazon, to just let the algorithm know. Hey, you know, this is a great resource that's going to actually help people. It's going to be usable for individuals, for coaches, for parents. Super excited to just continue through this series. Episode two, we're going to be diving into the first brick and we're going to be talking about what does this actually look like to start integrating? How can we start stacking these bricks, one at a time, and building this thing the right way? As always, if you've got questions, don't hesitate to head on over to mentaltrainingplancom there's a contact us button at the bottom and until next time, make your plan and put it to work.