Players need a model to see, not just a motto to say.
But the truth is, they need both. They need a model of leadership, a model of what your championship culture looks like in real behavior, and they need a motto to make it memorable enough to stick.
Here’s the biggest problem I see: coaches want to build a championship culture, but they haven’t first defined and modeled what championship leadership is for themselves.
And you can’t model what you haven’t defined. It’s impossible.
In the video below, I’ll walk you through the exact process I use with some of the top athletic teams and performers in the country, adapted so you can run it on the most important person in your program: YOU.
Why you can’t model what you haven’t defined
Ownership follows a three-step process:
I know it. I do it. I own it.
If you want your athletes to own your culture, they have to know it, which means you have to define it. Then they have to do it, which means they have to see what it looks like in behavior.
And that starts with you.
Your athletes are watching how you show up long before they listen to what you say. What you bring walking into the room is louder than anything that comes out of your mouth.
So before you hang another slogan on the locker room wall, you need to answer a harder question: Have you defined the leader YOU want to become?
Where this process comes from
My journey with this started in 2000 when I came across a book called Heads Up Baseball by Dr. Ken Ravizza, whose face I now have tattooed on my chest. Ken taught me the mental game process of becoming the best version of you, of focusing on process over outcome, of moving from being preference-based to principle-based.
Since leaving the university in 2003, I’ve had the privilege of coaching four Cy Young Award winners, eight UFC world champions, a Heisman Trophy winner, Super Bowl champions, Super Bowl MVPs, and World Series champions.
And here’s the one thing they all have in common: they lead themselves first.
The Personal MVP Process: Mission, Vision, Principles
When I work with top athletic programs, we establish a process called the MVP Process. Mission, Vision, Principles.
The personal version works the same way. Here’s how to define each piece for yourself.
M = Mission
Your mission is what you want on your gravestone. It’s your personal statement of purpose, the “why” behind everything you do. Missions have no finish line.
Mine is to educate, empower, and energize other people to be their best.
V = Vision
Your vision is what you want on your resume. These are tangible goals with clear finish lines, broken into the areas of life that matter to you: family, faith, fitness, finances, your team, your career.
Part of my vision is to live a principle-based life, create a hundred-year family and generational wealth, and move the field of Mental Performance Mastery forward.
P = Core Principles
Your core principles are the character traits you intentionally live by. They work as your decision-making filter, helping you answer one question every single day: Does what I do in my life align with what I want for my life?
When I was a high school athletic director, our athletic department principles were community, respect, and excellence. For me personally, it’s APPLES: Accountability, Process, Present, Love, Energy, and Service.
The pieces most coaches skip
Mission, vision, and principles are the foundation. But in the template, I take you deeper, because these next pieces are where the process really starts to change your daily behavior.
Define success for yourself. For a long time, my definition of success was based on a bank account, my feedback scores, or the back of a baseball card. That’s a terrible way to live. You have to define what success means for you so you can make it part of your process every day.
Write an identity statement. You will never outperform your identity. Your identity statement is like a compass running constantly behind the scenes of your life, filtering every decision. Mine includes being a loving and serving husband and father, a world-class mental performance coach who invests in his health and doesn’t drink, and someone who chooses time affluence before financial affluence.
Pick a one-word focus. One word for the next ninety days. Mine right now is present. Be where your feet are, not on your phone.
Identify your above-the-line and below-the-line behaviors. When you’re at your best, what are you actually doing? When you’re slipping, what does that look like? Get specific. Sweat before screens. Plan tomorrow tonight. Phone stays in the office.
Every one of these has a place in the template, with my real examples filled in so you can see exactly what it looks like.
Leaders live it
I’ll never forget the day this lesson hit me between the eyes.
I was a high school athletic director in Vermont, 240 pounds with a 44-inch waist. A mentor of mine, Dr. Connolly, came up to speak to our coaches and athletes. He was training for the Lake Placid Ironman and wanted to ride his bike around the lake our high school sat on.
I scrambled to find a bike, a helmet, shoes, the whole thing. Three miles in, I couldn’t even see him. I’m drenched in sweat, hung over the handlebars, heart rate pushing 170.
He peels around and comes back, and he says, “Mr. Cain, I gotta ask you something. You’re a former Division 1 college athlete. You’re working with UFC champions and Major League Baseball players. And you’re 240 pounds. You’re fat.”
Then he said the words that changed my life: “Leaders live it. What you say when you go walking into the room is much louder than anything that comes out of your mouth.”
He was right. These athletes want someone with endless energy and a plan for how they’re going to keep getting better. Not someone who talks about it.
That day changed everything for me. The Personal MVP Process is how I made sure it stuck.
What to do now
Reading this and nodding along means nothing if you don’t DO something with it. So here’s your action plan:
- Download the Personal MVP Process template by filling out the form below. I’ll email it to you, the same template you saw in the video, with my real quarterly MVP filled in as your example.
- Block off 30 minutes this week to complete it. Mission, vision, principles, identity statement, one-word focus. Get it on paper.
- Live it for ninety days before you ask a single athlete to do the same. Remember: it’s gotta be in you before it’s in what you do.
The best investment you can make is into yourself.
Can you be a person who’s on a mission?
Can you invest in yourself as much as you invest into everyone else?
Fill out the form below and I’ll send you the template so you can get started today.
