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Brian Cain Peak Performance
Hosted by Brian M. Cain, Peak Performance Coach · EN
America's Most Trusted Authority on Peak Performance, Mental Conditioning, and Sport Psychology
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Inspiration to Fiction
Dec 12, 201600:12:15Tap to summarizeSo I get this question a lot… “Why did you make the jump from how-to writing to fictional storybooks?” In my podcast interview with Jon Gordon, he shared some great principles and strategies for why he writes the way he does. Watch this video below to learn more about the new fictional storybooks: The 12 Pillars of Peak Performance are the 20% of the entire field of Peak Performance that will get you 80% of the benefit. Learn more about my new fictional storybooks! Your Peak Performance Coach, BRIAN CAIN PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: So I get this question a lot from people. Why the jump? Why did you make the jump from writing the how to follow the process and system to Peak Performance book into fictional writing? I get that question a lot. I want to try to answer that question here. A big part of that inspiration – which you’ve probably heard if you listened to the September podcast I did with John Gordon. Gordon: I really am about these fables because I realized when I first wrote The Energy Bus that that is a great way to share a message. That is a great way to empower others and to share a story with them that as they read it it becomes their story. We learn best through parables. Cain: I’ve been a huge fan of John Gordon’s writings from The Energy Bus to The Hard Hat to The Seed and all of his books are all fictional books. What I also like about them is that they share very strong core principles and some strategies that you can use to be your best. As I was going through a lot of the books that I had written – whether it was Toilets, Bricks, Fish hooks and PRIDE, or The Mental Conditioning Manual or any of the Mental Game books specific for sports (Mental Game of Volleyball, Mental Game of Football, etc.) it was all the how to. When you write that way I feel like it kind of boxes you in a little bit in terms of how you can write. In my interview in the podcast with John Gordon he shared some great ideas and principles and strategies and why he writes the way he does. So I said hey it’s the start that stops most people and if you don’t try it you’ll never know. So I sat down and started to write the 12 Pillars of Peak Performance. It’s a fictional story book about a guy named Matthew Simons who is in his mid 30s. He is sitting on a plane at the Detroit airport and he hears the worst words you can possibly hear from a pilot as he comes on the intercom before the plane takes off. He says, “Ladies and Gentleman this is your captain speaking. We’re having some mechanical issues and are going to have to return to the terminal.” My heart sank. Another delay. As I sat there I muttered to myself, “You have to be kidding me.” The old man sitting next to me who I thought was sleeping opened his eyes, looked over at me, and said, “I’m sorry what did you say son?” “Nothing, I was just talking to myself.” “Well, I thought you were complaining that we were going back to the terminal. I’m just glad we didn’t take off. The last thing you want is for the captain to diagnose a mechanical issue once you have taken off. Then none of us are getting home. Better late and alive than never I always say.” “That is a great point. I just wish I could get home once on time in my life.” “Home? Home is where your feet are and right now you are on this plane so you might as well enjoy it because from the looks of it we are going to be here for a while. My name is Ken. My friends call me Coach Kenny. What is yours?” “I’m Matthew. Matthew Simons.” “Well Matthew Simons it’s nice to meet you. I’m on my way home too. I like in Southlake, Texas. I was here in Detroit seeing some of my friends.” “Coach Kenny, did you say you live in Southlake, Texas? So do I. Small world. And did you say your sons are in Detroit?” “Yes. I work as a sports psychology coach and although the coaches and athletes I’m working with up here are my clients I consider them my friends and teammates and treat them like my sons and daughters. I think of them like that so I can be my best for them. What brings you up here, Matthew Simons?” Now you might be wondering what happens then. Well when they get back to the terminal Matthew Simons picks up the phone. He calls his wife, Erin, who tells him “I knew this was going to happen, I told you so,” the whole ordeal. He is trying to get a flight and none of the flights are going back until Saturday. He is trying to get a rental car. The rental car facility is sold out and he can’t get back. As he is walking through the terminal not knowing what he is going to do next he hears a voice. “Matthew. Matthew Simons. Come over here son.” As I looked to my left there was Coach Kenny sitting at a table inside the airport Fuddruckers with a burger and a Fuddruckers Sweet Cherry Cream Soda. “Come on in son. We’re going to be here a while. Might as well take a load off and fuel the machine.” I thought to myself, “What the heck, I am going to be here a while. Might as well sit with the old man and have myself one of the world’s greatest hamburgers.” I went in, sat down, and ordered my favorite Fuddruckers burger – a 2/3rd pound burger with Swiss cheese, mushrooms, grilled onions, and avocados. I got myself a Fuddruckers Sweet Cherry Cream Soda as well and took a big deep breath as I sat back in my chair wondering how I was going to get home. As the story goes on Coach Kenny and Matthew Simons sit down over a great meal at the world’s greatest hamburgers – Fuddruckers – and Coach Kenny shares the 12 Pillars of Peak Performance for living an optimal life and performing at your best on a daily basis. Where that story ends is at the hotel lobby because they’re not getting out that night. The airport is sold out, all the flights are sold out, and all cars are sold out because the next day is the Detroit Dominators against the Chicago Bees of the professional football league. Both teams are 8-0. They both haven’t been 8-0 ever and they’re bitter rivals so that game sold out there in Detroit. There is also the Detroit marathon happening on that Friday so everybody is in Detroit. It’s the busiest the city has ever been so they are stuck at the airport. Matthew Simons wants to thank Coach Kenny for investing the time and sharing the wisdom that he did over that meal at Fuddruckers so they go to the hotel lobby. They go to the hotel to get a room and they find out that the hotel is sold out and all the hotels are sold out within one hour of the airport. As Matthew Simons throws his hands in the air and says “you have to be kidding me again,” he turns around and Coach Kenny is gone. Then as you maybe know by now we follow up the 12 Pillars of Peak Performance book with the book Training an Elite Mindset and the story continues where Coach Kenny and Matthew Simons get reunited and they get reunited with four Navy SEALS and a guy named Marcus that worked together with Coach Kenny when he was in playing college football. They get t...
Transcribe →Improve Your 5 by Joining The Inner Circle
Dec 5, 201600:08:32Tap to summarizeTo become more, you’ve got to surround yourself with people who are doing what you do at a higher level. Watch this video below to learn how you can surround yourself with the best coaches on the planet: Inside of the Inner Circle, you immediately surround yourself with the best. If you are a coach who is ready to take your game to another level, click here. It is my mission to equip you with the tools you need to make a massive impact on your athletes, as quickly, effortlessly and powerfully as possible. >> BrianCain.com/InnerCircle Your Peak Performance Coach, BRIAN CAIN PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: In our last Monday Message we talked about a concept that proximity is power. To have maximum influence and impact with others you have to be with them. You have to have that connection. If you stand up and you raise that right hand I want you to raise it as high as you possibly can. As high as you possibly can. Give me your best effort, yes or no? Crowd: Yes. Cain: Now give a little bit more. Give a bit more. Everyone gave more. Can I continue? Best effort. Best effort. Give a little bit more. Give a little more. Okay, hands down. How many of you were able to give a little bit more when I asked to give more? Raise your hand and say “I could.” Crowd: I could. Cain: So do that with your kids. You can always give a little bit more. If you do that you’ll find kids jumping up on the table. You’ll find kids climbing up the scaffolding and putting their hand in the air. They can always do a little bit more. But get them to raise their hand and think just when you think you’ve given enough you can always give a little bit more. Always give more. I can always give more. I can always give more. I can always give more. Why is that? I’m going as high as I can but I can still give more. Sometimes it’s just the one degree of separation to get us where we want to go. We also know that you become the average of the five people you associate with the most. Some of the people I associate with the most I’ve never met in my life or I’ve seen them once. For example Dr. Rob Gilbert. I call Success Hotline and invest at least three minutes a day with him every single day and I’ve met him once. He’s had tremendous impact and influence in my life. I want to invite you to come with me and other members of the Inner Circle and take your game, take your life to another level. You see inside of the Inner Circle you’ve got other A-list coaches like yourself, other Peak Performers like yourself, who want more. But they know this, they know that if you want more you have to become more. To become more you’ve got to surround yourself with other people that are doing what you’re doing at a level or higher than you are currently. What would you say is your favorite asset of being a member of the Inner Circle? Addie: That these guys usually ask the questions before I even get to them. Having people respond to those questions is just awesome. And sometimes they ask questions I didn’t even think of so that is awesome too. Tom: I think for me, it’s really Automobile University. Every month being a part of the Inner Circle Brian provides us with an MP3 or MP4 audio that I download, put it in a CD, put it my car so for the entire month I am doing a little a lot along the way which helps with the spaced repetition and reinforcing the message. Randy: For me it’s kind of what I said a while ago but it would be the relationships, it’s being able to connect with people. Even like Ed says, sometimes you get a great idea like when I went to SMU’s practice and coach Morris talked about something we implement at Grapevine so if you have a great idea and you want to share it with somebody that cares – because a lot of people don’t care – but you’ve got the people in the Inner Circle that care. Cain: You see, with the Inner Circle we do monthly conference calls. We do weekly book breakdowns where we review some Cliff Notes and then talk about them in an Inner Circle discussion. You get it every month. You’re going to get an audio where I’m going to teach for 60-80 minutes and you listen to that audio as you drive around enrolling in Automobile University and I get to become one of your closest five and help mentor you to take you to another level. Not only do you get access to me through the audio and through a written newsletter and through the monthly conference calls but on those conference calls we do question and answer with other great coaches. Then in our Inner Circle Facebook group you get to post a question and interact with coaches who are all over the country – different sports, different levels. We’ve got Olympic medalists in there. We’ve got Division 1 college coaches and the Power Five Conferences. We’ve got high school coaches that have won numerous State Championships. We’ve got Major League Baseball players. We’ve got FC Championship. Inside of the Inner Circle you are immediately surrounding yourself with the best. We know that high water does what? Raises all boats. So if you want to raise your game to another level the Inner Circle is the place to go. I believe in it so much. I am so confident in it that if you join the Inner Circle, if you come in and you become a member of our team and it’s not exactly what you’re looking for and you say in 3-4 months “this isn’t what I want, this isn’t having the impact, I’m not getting what I want out of the Facebook group” or “I’m not getting what I want out of the monthly conference calls or the books that you recommend, Cain, and you give to us every week in the Inner Circle, they’re just not for me,” then we’ll refund your investment 100%. Look, this is the best training in the planet for the mental game. If you’re a coach and you want to take your game to the next level you can do it one of two ways. You can go do all the reading, you can go do all the work, you can go consult for 15 years in the top programs in the country, interview all those coaches, stay in their house, or you can let me tell you what it’s like to do that because that is my life. I’m cutting through the crap and I’m speeding up your learning curve so that you can take what works and use it in your program and get it done more quickly. We all want more in less time. That is what the Inner Circle is. It speeds up your learning curve and gets you where you want to be as fast as possible. Now come be one of the five. Come be one of the five people in my life as a member of the Inner Circle that has the biggest impact on me. The reason why I do the Inner Circle, the reason why I’m on this mission to educate, empower, and energize others to a life of excellence and fulfillment is because of what you do for other people. You are the messenger. You are the solider in the army of changing people’s lives. It’s my mission to equip you to be able to do that as effortlessly, as powerfully, and have as much impact and influence as you possibly can have in a short time that you get to be called the most precious term in the world – you get to be called “coach.” When you’re called “coach” that comes with a lot of responsibility and it’s my mission to equip you to help execute your mission and your responsibility as being a coach. So come on, join us in the Inner Circle. Come be a part of this elite group and let’s take your game to another level.
Transcribe →BC110: Ed Padalecki | Inner Circle Benefits
Nov 30, 201600:18:29Tap to summarizeThis week, you get to hear from Inner Circle member Ed Padalecki. Coach Padalecki is a high school baseball and football coach in Flower Mound, Texas. On this episode, you’ll learn about: The #1 biggest improvement Coach Padalecki has experienced in the last year The power of a community of like-minded individuals What it takes to coach 2 sports and lead a family (with a newborn!) The 2016 Inner Circle Moment of the Year and much more… PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Morse: Throwing you a change up this week. It’s Matt Morse here hosting this episode of the Peak Performance Podcast. I’m joined by Inner Circle member and high school football/baseball coach, Ed Padalecki. Great to have you here today, Ed. Padalecki: Thank you, Matt. It’s a pleasure to be here and an honor. Morse: Awesome. If you would tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today as a successful high school baseball/football coach here in the state of Texas. Padalecki: Well I guess it started shy of my 30th birthday. I was at a point in life where I was living in San Antonio. I had a financial firm, wealth management firm, and was doing the Wall Street thing for most of my 20s. I got to a point to where I was evaluating my life and I liked what I did but I didn’t love what I did. I was always passionate about sports and I looked back on my life and who had the biggest impact on me growing up and that was my teachers and coaches so I was able to transition out of my practice and became a coach and a teacher. I started off in southeast Texas, south of Victoria at a small little rural school. I did everything – football, baseball, track. I taught five different classes. Then from there I move up to the metroplex and I was in the Eagle Mountain Saginaw district and spent a couple years there. Then for family reasons I moved back down to central Texas to Hutto, Texas, home of the Hippos, and coached football/baseball. I taught junior US History. Then I came back up to the metroplex for my wife (or now wife) of going on 2 years. She can check me on that fact. Sometimes I miss that. I’m a guy. So I moved up here to metroplex, became the head baseball coach and defensive coordinator at a small school just west of Fort Worth – Millsap High School – and spent a year there. It got to the point to where I was driving an hour to work. I needed to reevaluate things. My name was brought up for Terrell High School which is on the opposite side of the metroplex and I figured well if I’m going to drive an hour to work I might want to do that on my own choice. So I moved to Terrell and was the head baseball coach there for this past year. But again an hour commute. My wife and I had a baby girl over the summer so I needed to reevaluate things, look at what I wanted to do versus what I needed to do, and stepping down as a head baseball coach and becoming an assistant for a few years to come is what I needed to do. Coach Danny Wallace over at Flower Mound High School graciously gave me the job at Flower Mound so I am there coaching football and coaching baseball. I am coaching football with Coach Brian Basil who is there for his first year as well. Big mental game guys, guys that love to build a championship culture. Morse: Awesome. Congratulations on the baby. I’m sure that has added a nice dynamic to the family. Padalecki: It has. It’s been a roller coaster – as those of you that have babies know. It’s been fun. Morse: Awesome. So your journey as a coach from Wall Street to coaching – obviously you started in the state of Texas and have stayed in this state. Where along in that journey did you meet up with Brian Cain? Padalecki: I had been on the acceptance continuum regarding the mental game and the mental aspect. I took sports psychology classes in college. It always seemed to interest me. But it wasn’t until I got to Millsap High School and it was really based on a conversation that I had with a friend of mine in passing at a grocery store. He was complaining about how his baseball team had always committed mental errors and I said “mental errors in my mind at some point in time okay let’s fix those, they can only be an excuse for so long.” So when you tell a kid “hey take mental reps, work on your mental imagery” that is one thing. But you’ve got to teach the kid how to. That is why I reached out to Brian. I needed to learn the how to. Morse: So you reached out to Brian to work. Did he come work with your team or was that a one-on-one thing? Padalecki: It was a mixture. I first sat down with Brian at his house and did a little half day one-on-one then took the information and started implementing it with my team at Millsap. Then I took the team out to a TCU Texas game and Brian sat with us for about six innings and talked us through the mental game with what the TCU players were using, the routines. He pointed out the game within the game and turned the light bulb on for a lot of my players. They were able to see the game in a different light and slow the game down and really work on things that will help them become better baseball players. Morse: Awesome. What are the biggest challenges you face coaching multiple sports in high school? Padalecki: The biggest challenge is having your daily routine down as a coach. Time is in demand on a daily basis and you’re pulled in multiple different ways not only coaching your two sports but also the teaching aspect. You need to have your 168 set pretty tight in terms of what you need to do on a daily basis and where you need to be. That’s the biggest challenge I believe. Morse: When did you start your 168 plan? Padalecki: I started my 168 last year. I was pretty rigorous and on point with it. Then on July 18th when a little baby girl comes into your life that changes little things about your routine because sometimes you can’t dictate what the baby wants to do. But for the most part you go with the flow. You have to widen your chunks throughout the day or especially overnight. Then just have a general concept of what you want to do. But I brought that concept into the classroom. I teach high school economics and if time is our most important asset I relay to the students I teach that they need to dominate their 168 throughout the week. Morse: Sure. I saw several of the 168 plans posted in the Facebook group for the Inner Circle. Obviously you have contributed to that. So far what are the biggest benefits that you’ve seen since you’ve joined Brian’s Inner Circle? Padalecki: The Inner Circle, it’s the networking aspect. When you have a question you’re not limited to the circle of influence that you have locally. You are broadening your network to the United States if not internationally because we have coaches involved that are international coaches based in the UK, Europe, Australia (I believe) that coach baseball. Being in that Inner Circle group you can post a question, maybe it’s philosophical or basic game strategy practice organizations, and yo...
Transcribe →BC109: Inner Circle Panel (Audio Recording of IC Panel at July Experience)
Nov 23, 201600:14:01Tap to summarizeThis week we take you live inside The Brian Cain Experience event from McKinney, Texas, July 30-31, 2016. You’ll learn from members of the Inner Circle and how they use the mental game on a consistent basis to help better develop themselves as coaches so that they can best develop and train their players. Better coaches make better players. In this podcast, some of the best coaches in the country explain how they use the Inner Circle to become more so that they can achieve more.
Transcribe →BC108: Jeff Janssen | Developing Leadership & Culture #Pillar2
Nov 16, 201600:31:02Tap to summarize“Are you a coach of success or a coach of significance?” This week, we reach into the Peak Performance Vault for a episode featuring leadership & culture guru Jeff Janssen from 2007! On this episode, you’ll learn: How to KNOW you are making a difference in the lives of your athletes The training needed to develop true leadership The importance of keeping the main thing the main thing How to build confidence in your players and much more… The Janssen Sports Leadership Center develops college and high school student-athletes and coaches into world-class leaders who are committed to a lifetime of service, success, and significance. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: This is Brian Cain live with Jeff Janssen of Janssen Peak Performance out of Cary, North Carolina. I’m sure a lot of listeners to this interview have already been to his fantastic website: it’s www.JeffJanssen.com. Jeff, thanks for sitting down and taking the time to chat with us today. I really appreciate it. For the Inner Circle members most of them are (I’m sure) familiar with your stuff already but for those who aren’t Jeff is one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership development and Peak Performance. It’s an absolute honor to be able to sit down with him today. Jeff, could you give us your background in the Peak Performance industry and how you got to be where you are today as one of the top authorities in the world. Janssen: I’d be happy to. I was real privileged to start out at the University of Arizona. I got my Master’s degree there and while we were there the stuff we were learning and the experiences that we were having it just seemed like it really needed to be shared with the coaches and student athletes there. Mike Candrea, who is their softball coach and a big baseball kind of guy at heart who has applied a lot of baseball stuff to the softball world very successfully, gave me an opportunity to work with his program. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for Coach Olsen and his program that was kind of the early 90s where Arizona men’s basketball would end up a pretty good seed going into the tournament and would end up losing in the first round to some teams that they shouldn’t be losing to. So both of those guys gave me an opportunity to work with their programs and fortunately things went very well and they decided to go to the athletic director and create a fulltime position for me. I spent eight years with Arizona’s athletic department working with all of their different teams and their coaches. As you might imagine you learn a tremendous amount during those eight years with those stellar coaches and you learn a lot from the programs that are struggling too. So I did that for eight years. During that time there were obviously a lot of schools because not everybody has their own sports psych consultant so a lot of other schools said “can you come out and do some workshops for us.” That eventually got to the point of being a self sustaining business. I was fortunate to then create my own consulting company. We moved to Cary, North Carolina, and just going out to a variety of different schools. Fortunately then three years ago the University of North Carolina, their athletic director, Dick Baddour, decided to create the comprehensive leadership academy called the Carolina Leadership Academy at Carolina. So I got a chance to work with a variety of student athletes there from all sports. We’ve got a few different levels. We’ve got a program for freshmen called the Creed Program. We’ve got a rising stars program which targets sophomore and junior student athlete emerging leaders. We spent a year with them trying to teach them what it takes to be a leader and how to gain everyone’s respect and step up to be a vocal leader. Then we’ve got a third program for the veteran leaders because they are the ones who are in the fire and having to deal with all this stuff. Part of the leadership academy too is we meet regularly with the coaches and do a lot of professional development with them. Also their administrators are involved. That has gone so well that now there are schools like Stanford and Pitt and Yale and Illinois and some others now who are getting on board with the leadership academy concept and finding out that all this training – you can’t just do a onetime thing but it’s really an ongoing, systematic, comprehensive kind of program. So there is the somewhat brief version of my background. Cain: You’ve talked about the Carolina Leadership Academy. I’ve heard a lot of great stuff about it. Is that academy something that you just do with the Carolina athletes, coaches, and administrators who are a part of the UNC athletic department? Or is it something where they have a leadership camp in the summer where someone who is a high school athlete or another college athlete or one of the coaches listening to this that they can send their kids there to get the same kind of experience through you? Janssen: Right now we don’t really have that camp available. Obviously with the high schools and colleges you’ve got kids working and then you’ve got the whole how do we send these kids there financially and give them some time. So most of my stuff is me going to a particular school and doing what I call a leadership summit where I will spend time with the coaching staff and talk about how best to develop and groom and partner with the leaders then usually meeting with a group of 50-60 student athlete leaders from each school from a variety of sports and taking them through a two hour workshop on what it means to be a leader and how they can step up and be effective. So that’s a lot of what I do. But as I mentioned there are some schools now who are taking a more comprehensive approach where I’ll be visiting 4-10 times throughout the year and kind of staying in touch that way. Cain: Some of the things you mentioned about going in and doing a leadership summit – and I know that some of the Division 1 coaches and higher level university coaches have the opportunity to maybe have the budget to bring you or some of the high school coaches that would have that booster club or in their budget to be able to bring in a guy like yourself. What are some of the benefits of the leadership academy? I know that as captains a lot of times kids are elected captains but we don’t necessarily give them the skills to lead. I know that your programs are designed to give the kids the skills to lead. What are some of the other benefits that your programs offer? Janssen: I think the huge benefits are just raising the standards of play. I think coaches are frustrated because it seems like we’re the only ones who are trying to drive this whole machine with the attitudes and the chemistry and the commitment and it seems like how do we get kids to want it half as badly as we do. I think when you can get the leaders within the teams and now they’re leading peers you can just get so much more accomplished. When you have kids taking co-ownership of the program and they take pride in what is going on then they’re the ones who are going to be setting and establishing the standards. They’re the ones who are going to echo the things that the coaches say out in practice. They are going to echo those in the locker room. They are going to echo those in the weight room. They are going to echo those on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights when somebody is about to screw up with something. I think you’ve got now somebody embracing your standards. I think when you’ve got great leaders you are going to help build a sense of chemistry. They are going to help welcome those younger kids under their wings. You are going to have better – during adversity you are going to have a leader step up and understand the gravity of the situation and keep the main thing. The main thing, as we just talked about with the Vermont leaders here. I just think there are so many benefits. I think there are obviously the competitive benefits when you’ve got somebody stepping up and leading but there is also just the things that give coaches and programs black eyes are a lot of the times the off the field shenanigans that hap...
Transcribe →BONUS! Pillar #2 Championship Culture Audiobook Preview
Nov 14, 2016Tap to summarizeThis BONUS Podcast Episode features a preview of the Pillar #2: Championship Culture audiobook… PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP CULTURE STORYBOOK TODAY FOR JUST $15 AND GET INSTANT ACCESS TO THE FULL AUDIOBOOK & EBOOK!
Transcribe →BC107: Hal Wasson | Building a Winning High School Football Program | Championship Culture #Pillar2
Nov 9, 201600:33:04Tap to summarizeThis week’s guest is one of the top high school football coaches in the nation. Hal Wasson has been the head football coach at Southlake Carroll in Southlake, TX, since 2007. The Dragons are widely recognized as a top high school football program and annually find themselves ranked in the top 25 nationally and competing for a Texas high school football state championship. In this podcast Wasson shares how he develops a championship culture, an elite mindset and a one-play-at-a-time mentality within his program. He also shares advice for fathers who are coaching their sons. You can follow Coach Wasson and Southlake Carroll HS Football @SLCDragonFB. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: Hey how are you doing? Brian Cain your Peak Performance Coach here with the Peak Performance Podcast. Today I’m super fired up to have our guest Hal Wasson. Hal is the head football coach of the Carroll Dragon football program in Southlake, Texas, one of the most sought after clinicians and speakers on program building, culture building, and winning at the highest level of high school football. Coach Wasson thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here on the podcast. Wasson: I’m really happy to be here, Brian. I’m feeding off your energy right now. I’m excited to just be around you today. Cain: Awesome. Well I’m glad you’re here. The feeling is mutual. If you would could you give our listeners kind of your background in terms of where you played football and then how you got to be the head football coach here at Southlake Carroll. Wasson: Well you know it’s a journey. It was a long process. I grew up in a small town in East Texas – Kerens, Texas. I was a multisport guy. I played all four sports in my high school. You played the sports, you were in the band, student council, beta club, all those things. I graduated from high school. Obviously I thought was better than what I was and I jumped into a junior college. I played a couple years at Navarro Junior College. I was fortunate to be on a couple of championship teams. I parlayed that into finishing out at Abilene Christian University where I played a couple of years and was ready to conquer the world. Initially I didn’t think about coaching. I was thinking about the business world. We all want to make money right Brian? But the closer I got to graduation I realized my passion is kids. It’s being around kids and developing relationships and trying to get guys to reach their full potential. So I changed majors in mid stream. I got my first coaching job at Groesbeck, Texas, actually as a head baseball coach and assistant football. I met the love of my life, my wife Sally. She was a cheerleader at the University of Houston. I had an opportunity to come to the metroplex area as a varsity coach and realized I wasn’t getting any prettier. So I jumped in and went to Kingwood High School as an assistant football coach. I spent that year to let her graduate, we got married, then believe it or not the next move was as a head track coach/assistant football. I realized I was kind of spinning. I wanted to get in the best program possible. At that time I actually took a demotion as far as a varsity job to a freshman job. I got into Corsicana. I was elevated to a varsity coach after a year or so. That is when my journey really began because being in that quality of a program I got the opportunity to be the head coach at Italy High School, a little two-way school. I was there a couple of years. Then I got the opportunity to be an athletic director and a head football coach at San Saba. We were fortunate to win there and made a move to a couple of other places, a little bit bigger schools, AD, AD head football coach. Every move I made I made so many great relationships, met a lot of great people, and from each place I learned a little bit more about myself, I learned a lot more about how to build a program. I did that journey obviously blessed with a couple of beautiful kids. Chase and Chelsea were born during all those journeys. We made the transition after a few years. My son was going to be a sophomore in high school. We had the opportunity to come to Southlake Carroll as a position guy. I got out of head coaching after 16 years because I believe as long as you keep your priorities in order good things will happen. It wasn’t about me. My family had moved – as you can tell – all over the place. I really wanted to put my kids in a great environment as far as academics and athletics go. We chose Southlake Carroll. My son played here a couple of years. My daughter went to school here and graduated from here. We won a state championship there with my son as the senior quarterback. I had a fabulous year. I worked there with Coach Todd Dodge. After we won that championship I had the great opportunity to go to Keller Fossil Ridge as the head football coach – again getting back on what my passion was (head coaching). I did that after. After 4-5 years there Coach Dodge took the head job at the University of North Texas and because I was here understanding the (here’s that key word) culture of the Dragon Nation I had the opportunity to come back here at Carroll as the head football coach in 2007. My wife and daughter stayed here at school. My wife taught here during that tenure at Fossil Ridge – which I am greatly indebted to Keller Fossil Ridge for allowing me to get back into the head coaching avenue. So good things happened because I was in the right place at the right time around the right people trying to make good choices. It’s been an incredible journey and I am just so excited to be a head football coach at Southlake Carroll. Cain: I want to make sure that we definitely talk about the Dragon Nation and that culture that is created (that you’ve created) in that program. Before we go there you mentioned that you coached your son Chase who was a quarterback and his senior year they won a state championship and he was Texas High School Football 5A Player of the Year. Is that correct? Wasson: That is correct. Cain: Talk a little bit if you would because we don’t often get the chance to – now you weren’t the head coach when he was playing right? You were an assistant coach. But talk about fathers coaching their kids and what advice would you give to the parents that are doing that. Wasson: That is a great question. My wife was a great referee in all this because as dads we want to be the best we can be. We’re lathered up, we’re fired up. It wasn’t an easy transition. My son was a quarterback as a sophomore in high school at a smaller school. We moved into a great program at Southlake Carroll. They had a great quarterback. He changed positions. He played a couple other positions which was a very valuable experience for him because he learned a lot of other – there are a lot of moving parts to having a great team. So his senior year he moved back to quarterback. He didn’t play it at all his junior year. This is pivotal in our deal. I remember the spring ball I didn’t think he was as good as he needed to be. That father/son, we always expect them to be way above the charts. It’s a Sunday morning and Coach Dodge said “hey you let me handle this, don’t get on him about this or that.” Well we’re at the breakfast table and I just quirked one of those “you know Chase if you don’t get a lot better we’re not going to win a lot of football games next year.” Well my wife, as mothers do, put her foot down. She said “you’ve always told me we don’t do this stuff at home, leave it at the practice field, leave it at the field house.” So I learned real quick you always want to please who? The moms. You want to please the moms. So I backed off. We rocked along there. Had a good summer. Great things started happening. Then the next conversation we had was we always had personal goals, filled those out, team goals (in other words you had a vision going in), and Chase let me read his believe it or not. I take that back he didn’t let me read it. It was on his desk up in his room and I just passed up the room and I saw it. I said “Chase you’ve got to be kidding me, you want to be 5A All-State quarterback, throw for all these yards, rush for all these yards, you envision yourself as the player of the year and your team goal is to win a State Championship.” Mind you we had just moved up for 4A to 5A. I said “let’s be realistic.” He looks at me dead serious and he says “dad ...
Transcribe →BC106: Alan McDougal | Coaching The Mental Game of Baseball & Program Building | Championship Culture #Pillar2
Nov 2, 201600:36:41Tap to summarizeThis week’s guest is Alan McDougal, head baseball coach at Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, TX. Alan is widely regarded as one of the top coaches in the game when it comes to developing a mindset and a championship culture. He has coached multiple Major League players and routinely puts players into Division One college baseball. In this podcast McDougal shares insight into how he uses the classroom to develop the mental game with his players, DUDES as the acronym for his program’s championship culture, and how he runs a fast-paced and up-tempo style practice with his program. He also shares one of the most amazing stories about former Notre Dame football coach Tyrone Willingham that you won’t want to miss. You can follow Alan and Colleyville Heritage Baseball on Twitter @CHHS_Baseball. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: Hey how are you doing? Brian Cain your Peak Performance Coach here with another episode of the Peak Performance Podcast. Today our guest is Colleyville Heritage High School head baseball coach Alan McDougal. He just wrapped up his tenth season of success and he is here to talk to us today about how to build a mindset in your baseball program, how to create a championship culture, and how to coach the mental game. Alan has now been coaching the mental game for a number of years and is one of the best in the country when it comes to creating a one-pitch-at-a-time approach within his culture. Something I’m super excited to talk about today is how he runs a fast-paced up-tempo practice in baseball which you don’t see all the time. Alan, welcome to the podcast. I appreciate you making the time to join us. McDougal: Brian, it’s a pleasure to be here face-to-face with you for the first time getting to talk about the mental game and share it with some other coaches. Cain: Awesome. If you would could you kind of take us through your background in kind of a quick one minute snapshot of where you grew up and how you got to where you are today as the head coach at Colleyville. McDougal: I grew up in Sherman, Texas, about 60 miles north of Dallas. I went to Baylor University to play baseball. I got hurt. I played a year there. I got out of college and went into coaching in the Fort Worth area. I was introduced to Brian Cain when I got the head coaching job at Colleyville Heritage through a TCU baseball camp my first year there. I have luckily got to get some CDs and different things and got the first exposure there. As we transferred through my career at Colleyville, Brian, with TCU and some players that we had run through, helped me to just stay focused on the mental game and to get some stuff there. When Brian relocated into the Dallas/Fort Worth area it kind of went to another level. Cain: I remember the day clearly. I was driving from Phoenix, Arizona, moving to Southlake, Texas. I was in my car and I got an email. It popped up and it said “Alan McDougal, Colleyville Heritage High School.” I go “man, Colleyville Heritage High School, that sounds familiar.” I had spoken there one time at a coach’s clinic that a mutual friend of ours, Aaron Weintraub, had put on. I’m like “I think that’s close to Southlake.” So I think I just called you out of the blue after getting that email and said “hey man what’s up.” You were talking about how you had used the Pride program and used some other training tools with your program at Colleyville. I was moving in within 10 minutes of where you lived and we’ve developed a relationship since then which has been awesome. If you would, Alan, could you kind of talk to us about what’s the mental game from your perspective as a head high school baseball coach in one of the top programs in the country. McDougal: Well I think we’re always trying to get to the mountain top (which is Round Rock, Texas) and we’re trying to find different ways to get there. Most of us have lots of kids that are very comparable so what sets it apart. With your introduction to the mental part of the game and then I get to look at what do the best of the best do that sets them apart. I look at Augie Garrido or Skip Bertman or Tim Corbin or Jim Schlossnagle locally. I think what they do that is different is they have a mental aspect to their game that sets them apart. It’s not just a one year thing. It’s you look back at the track record and the thing that they do that is different from most is they have a mental curriculum that their players are ready to go when the stuff hits the fan – and it does hit the fan. Cain: I heard a great quote one time from Clint Hurdle, manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He said “great leaders play follow the leader.” They find out what people are doing who are already having success and they follow what they do. You’ve mentioned some of the legends in the game: Skip Bertman, Augie Garrido, Tim Corbin, Coach Schlossnagle at TCU. What are some of the things that the coaches who are listening to this podcast could go home and go into their program and get started? So if they were to get started as a high school baseball coach (or any sport really) with coaching the mental game where would you suggest they get started? McDougal: I think the place you start a Success Hotline. I think you’re looking for something that each day you can send your kids to that just gives them some little snippet of the mental game. Is there a way that you can hold those guys accountable that can be done through Twitter or through Mind 101? Just something that lets them know that you’re kind of sitting on their shoulder. Probably not watching personally but just imagining that they’re there and they’re holding them accountable for getting that into their lives. Cain: You talk about Success Hotline – which is something that a lot of our guests refer to. Dr. Rob Gilbert, one of the premier Peak Performance coaches and sports psychologists in the country at Montclair State in New Jersey, every morning does a Success Hotline message. The phone number (for those that are listening) is 973-743-4690. Alan, you mentioned the importance of doing a little a lot, calling Success Hotline because it’s consistent. I think a lot of coaches when they look at the mental game they’re like “hey we pull them into a classroom for 10 minutes, we talk about the mental game once or we have a guy” like myself or someone else come in and speak to their team and then they check the box and they’re done with the mental game. What would you say to those coaches that are kind of just getting started so that they don’t just check the box and say “hey we’ve done the mental game” but “we have a consistent system.” One of the things that impresses me with what you do is how systematic you are with the mental game. McDougal: Well I’ll be honest with you. When we first introduced Brian Cain’s Peak Performance into our program it was just what you said – it was a snippet. I kind of checked the box, thought that was really good, and we jumped into the season and kind of went away from it. Over the last two years we have had a particular menu and we have looked to keep that consistently through our year and lo and behold we’ve had a little bit more success with it. I really don’t want to measure success as we all do with wins and losses but at the end of the program it just seems that it has reached a place that the kids really, really like it. What happened with this fall is there was a day each week that no matter what it was going to be a mental day. Typically that was a Friday. If the weather kind of came in for us maybe we’d adjust it slightly, but we were going to get one day a week through the off season. Once the season hit it was an everyday part of our practice. I think that was the part that I took the most pride in and our kids took the most pride in because it was, yes, I guess, initiated by me but run by them and it was ever...
Transcribe →BC105: Randy Jackson | Grapevine High School Football | Building a Championship Culture #Pillar2
Oct 26, 201600:42:13Tap to summarizeThis week’s guest is one of the most respected high school football coaches in the nation. Randy Jackson is the head football coach at Grapevine High School in Grapevine, TX, and was named the 2015 Tom Landry High School Football Coach of the Year. He is one of the most sought-after speakers on Championship Culture, Team Building and Mental Toughness. In this podcast he breaks down some of the best strategies you will ever hear for building mental toughness and a championship culture in your program. You can follow Coach Jackson on Twitter @CoachJacksonTPW. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: Hey how are you doing? Brian Cain your Peak Performance coach here with another episode of the Peak Performance Podcast. Today our guest is Randy Jackson. He is the head football coach at Grapevine High School in Grapevine, Texas, and one of the most sought after coaches and speakers on creating a championship culture and building mental toughness through high school sports. The motto of his program is very simple – TPW, tough people win. That is something that Randy Jackson does. When he took over the Grapevine high school football program, before he got there they had a string of losing seasons. They were 1-9 in their last season in 2013. He took over the helm in 2014 and immediate success going 3-8. Then in 2015 they pushed the envelope to 8-3 and he was named 2015 Tom Landry High School Football Coach of the Year. This is going to be one podcast that you are definitely going to want to listen to over and over again as part of automobile university – as you’re driving – and one that you’re go into want to listen to and sit down and take notes. Coach Jackson, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Jackson: Thanks Brian. I’m honored to be here. I’ve listened to your podcast for a long time and I’m really honored to get to sit down with you today. Cain: I’m glad you’re here. Could you take our listeners through your story in terms of high school football coaching and how you got to where you are now at Grapevine? Jackson: Well I’ll tell you I’m a man well traveled. This is my 26th year of coaching, my 16th as a head coach. I started at the smallest level you could in a little West Texas town called Paducah. 120 students. 25 kids playing football. I just moved. My wife and I have been married 21 years. We’ve lived in 14 houses. So I’ve just moved and moved and moved and kind of move up the ladder. I’ve been fired once and all that stuff that happens to coaches. But we’ve got two kids and as they’re getting more – they’re in high school no so knew I needed to get some stability. So in 2010 I got my big break as far as going from small schools. In 2010 I got the job at Mesquite Poteet and really caught a big. They were 0-10 before we got there and we went 12-3 that first year. Just kind of got me out there I guess. Like I say it was just kind of an “angels in the outfield” kind of year. So I stayed at Poteet three years and went to Plano East for a year. It’s one of the biggest high schools in the United States – 6,000 students. I wasn’t a good fit there. My son was in 8th grade. We stayed a year. I’ve been at Grapevine two years but I feel like we are really moving in the right direction and I love it here and hope to be here for a while. Cain: You’ve turned around a lot of programs in a short period of time. How do you do it? Jackson: I think the biggest thing that I’ve done is make sure that I sell the vision. When I got the job in Mesquite, the second day on the job one of the coaches told me “you just don’t understand, Coach, the band makes fun of the football team here and it’s in a bad shape.” So I knew that that was my priority was to go in and just instill confidence and sell the vision. I think a leader is a dealer in hope. That is what I do. I’m always trying to talk about the future and how good we’re going to be. I think it’s a self-fulfilled prophecy a lot of times, especially for high school students. They’ll buy what you’re selling. We work on them really hard and we earn victory and all that stuff but when I come into a place I’m not saying “we’re building for the future” I say “we’re going to be better tomorrow than we are today.” I learned this really from you. I say “be a 1% warrior and get better every day and sell the vision.” Cain: You talk about vision and TPW and I’ve had the opportunity to be in your office and spend some time at your complex. You see TPW everywhere. Talk a little bit about how you came up with that and what that means. Jackson: When I became the head coach in Lone Oak, Texas – it’s a school of about 300 not going to win, sprint relays, but just some blue collar kid who were tough – I knew that’s what I needed to build on. So we started with TPW in 2004 and I liked it. I really had never heard anybody using it. One of my assistant coaches mentioned it to me. He had seen it before (I think) on the back of a cross country shirt or something. But anyway. So every school I’ve been at I’ve taken it with me and they’ve liked it. For me toughness is not about ability. It’s just not about anything except are you a warrior or not and the mental toughness. So I think anybody can be tough. We’ve had a lot of success with it. We’ll change our slogans from year to year but TPW is a constant and it’s our brand. Cain: You also talk about the championship culture of Grapevine football. Could you go through the hand signal that you guys use that ties in with the core principles and kind of the whole picture? You do so many amazing things with the championship culture at your program, and we’ll get into some of the strategies and the activities and things that you do, but let’s start with the foundation of what are the principles that make up the championship culture of Grapevine football? Jackson: When you walked in my office in August of 2015 it really just changed my life. I love this story. You asked me what our core values were and I told you, you didn’t see them anywhere, and you explained to me how to do it. So I’m one of those if I learn something good I’m all in. We went all in and I let the players be in on creating our core values and we have a hand signal that they have to do to get their decals on the side of their helmet. So for us I believe you ought to assign a day of the week to your core values and that is your emphasis for the day. It helps you talk to your team. It gives you a theme of the day. But in football in Texas it can be 100 degrees on a Monday. I know it can be in other states too. But Monday is the day that if you’re not intentional you can have a mediocre workout. So for us Monday is Energy and Tempo and we take our thumb and we move it around like we’re stirring a pot. Then Tuesday is Competition Tuesday and we take our index finger and we point as us and then our opponent, like me versus you. Then Wednesday we take our middle finger and that is Toughness Wednesday. With our middle finger we go from our temple to our hip and that is mental/physical toughness back and forth. Thursday is Family and Appreciation and that is our ring finger – like for where your wedding ring would be – and we slide our thumb and index finger of our other hand up and down. Then Friday is Discipline Friday and we take our pinky and point at our sternum and say “count on me, I am disciplined.” Those really are specific core values. But I added an open fist that...
Transcribe →BC104: Beth Torina | LSU Softball | Championship Culture #Pillar2
Oct 19, 201600:14:25Tap to summarizeThis week’s guest is LSU Softball head coach Beth Torina. She has led the Tigers to Oklahoma City and the Women’s College World Series in three of her first five seasons and has quickly become one of the game’s most respected coaches. In this podcast she shares how TIGERS is an acronym for their championship culture and how they build an elite mindset in their players to give them the best chance for success. She also shares part of her routine for being at her best on game day as a head coach. You can follow Beth Torina on Twitter @BethTorina and LSU Softball @LSUSoftball. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Cain: Hey how are you doing? Brian Cain your Peak Performance Coach here with the Peak Performance Podcast. We’ve got LSU head softball coach, Beth Torina, fresh off back-to-back Women’s College World Series appearances in 2015 and 2016. Beth, thank you so much for taking time to join us here on the podcast. Torina: Thanks. I’m happy to be with you guys. Cain: If you would could you talk to us a little bit about at LSU you guys are the Tigers and in your softball programs “Tigers” is really the acronym that you use for the core principles of your program. Would you talk about Tigers and how you use that with your softball team. Torina: We had this genius mental conditioning coach that directed us to having this Tigers standard. Is that what you want me to say? Cain: No I want you to talk about how you use it. Torina: Tigers – trust, integrity, grit, energy, relentless, selfless. I think the coolest thing about it is that all of our players could tell you that instantly which is something that we were missing before. Now they understand the standards. They can define the standards. I think that’s step one to being able to do anything is having a good understanding of it, knowing it, being able to define it. You can’t live it every day if you don’t have a clear picture of what it is so I think that has been huge for us. Cain: Excellent. Beth, what is the mental game to you as a head coach in the SEC in one of the top programs in the country. Torina: Well I think if you look at the season my team just had everybody had written us off somewhere midway through the year. We played five of (to me) the toughest people in our conference, the toughest people in the country right in a row. Two pitching staffs with ERAs right around one. So we had six games, virtually back-to-back weeks, with two pitching staffs with ERAs around one so our kids were just absolutely beat down. I mean going up to the plate and failing or having to compete against that time and time again was a huge toll on our kids’ mentality. I think a lot of the reason why people had written us off was because of our mentality at that point. I don’t know if we put enough credit into what these kids have to go through to play day in and day out against the best of the best. I think we had to climb out of that hole not as a fundamental team but mentally as a program. I think once we did that and got confidence at, you saw where we ended up. Cain: How did you do that? What did you do as a head coach to help them get that confidence back and crawl out of that hole and finish as strong as you did? Torina: Well we went back and looked at some things and I think we got a little bit caught up in worrying too much about what everyone was going to do to us instead of what we were going to do to them. I think we tried to play – we always talk about our strengths first but I think we were so worried about how are we going to beat this pitching staff, how are we going to do that, that we missed the point of “let’s play LSU softball.” For example in EP we would hit three rounds of what we thought we were going to get from the other pitcher. Well we went back and we said “you know what, let’s make sure that every day we’re hitting around with just fast balls and letting our kids just come out of their shoes.” Let’s make sure that we haven’t forgotten how to put a ball under the fence or how to square something up, what that feels like, because we’re challenging them so much to like “oh let’s make sure we can hit that drop ball on the outside corner this kid is going to hammer us with or the change up.” Instead let’s also remember what it feels like to square something up. I think we kind of got lost and forgot that. So we added that back in and made sure we were doing things every day that they were confident about, things that were feel-good things. We don’t always have to give them the hardest drill in our repertoire. Sometimes we give them a drill they’re really good at and let them feel good about it. So we made some changes there and I think it really helped. Cain: Love it. One of the things I’ve seen you do – and I don’t know if you’re even conscious that you do it, I think we’ve talked about it a little bit – is in the third base coaching box during the SEC pyramid they panned on you and there was a lot of good deep breaths each pitch. Is that something that you’re intentionally doing as part of your routine to keep yourself in the moment and in control? Torina: I thought you were just making fun of me with that. Cain: No I was awesome. I thought it was awesome. I’m going to start teaching that. You’re going to be the model for all head coaches to follow. Torina: I can tell you one thing I do as a head coach is I try and stay as consistent as possible. I try to not ever get too high or too low. A lot of people will ask me all the time “you’re never smiling over there, you’re not doing anything.” Well I try not to react to things. If I’m not going to react when we’re up 10 I’m not going to react when we’re down 10. I think our kids just always know what they’re getting from me. That’s something that is really important to me. I think I see it all the time that a coach is arguing so hard about the pitch before not being a strike or not being strike three that they forgot to focus on the pitch that is coming and now we give up a homerun. We just argued it should have been strike three and we’ve now given up a homerun on the next pitch because we’re so focused on the pitch before. I really try and just be present. I try and say the same – I tell myself in my heart before every game that I can be full of emotion but act emotionless. That is one of my things that I try and tell myself all the time is that I can act emotion-free. I can be passionate and I can have a lot of emotion but my actions have to be free of emotion and more intelligent instead of knee jerk and reactive. Cain: Love that. Full of emotion but act emotion-free. That is fantastic. Last question I have and then we’ll open it up to the crew here. Beth, you’ve worked in college softball now a number of years and had a chance to work with and be around a lot of mental game sports psychology coaches. Some of the coaches that are with us here this weekend are trying to decide “do I want to be a baseball or softball coach or do I want to go be a sports psychology coach.” What advice would you give to somebody kind of just getting started in the field of the mental game to help them connect with and serve a coach like yourself who is a head coach in the SEC? Torina: Well we’ve been around some different people and I think one thing that’s really cool that you do, Brian, is that you really know our kids and you know their names and you take the time to learn about it....
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