PODCAST: Alan McDougal – Coaching Mental Performance In Baseball and Creating The Right Culture
Alan McDougal, MPM is the head baseball coach at Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, TX. He led the Panthers to the 2019 Texas 5A State Championship and earned his team a #1 National Raking in all of High School Baseball. In that 2019 Season, one of Alan’s players, Bobby Witt Jr. (Pictured on the… Read More
The 10 mental performance skills every athlete must master for peak performance
As a three-sport standout athlete and captain in high school, I thought I was prepared for success in collegiate athletics. Man was I wrong. I quickly realized the meaning of the phrase, “Big fish in a small pond.” Graduating high school with a class of just 89 students may have skewed my reality when it… Read More
The ABC’s of elite performance: Stop focusing on the outcome—and start optimizing the process
“Becoming a champion is not an easy process… It is done by focusing on what it takes to get there and not on getting there” Nick Saban, Head Football Coach, The University of Alabama The society we live in is a results-driven society. As a coach, your job is likely in jeopardy if you don’t… Read More
High-Performance Routines: Help athletes lock in focus and perform their best when it matters most
You can know all the right information, but if you do not put it into ACTION—what good does it do for you? The purpose of any routine is to build more trust, consistency, and confidence in performance. Think about those three things for a minute. These are concepts of athletic performance often glossed over. But… Read More
Making the mental game of baseball part of your daily coaching process
Todd Whitting is the Head Baseball Coach at The University of Houston. In his carer he has been a part of teams that have won 21 conference regular-season and tournament championships, competed in 17 NCAA Regionals, six NCAA Super Regionals and one NCAA College World Series in 2010 as an assistant coach at TCU. He… Read More
Train the pause to help athletes power through adversity with poise and discipline
In 1972 a plane carrying 45 people, including a Uruguayan rugby team and their families and friends, crashed into Andes mountains. Twenty-nine people survived the crash. A few days later, an avalanche took 8 more lives when it flooded their makeshift shelter. Search parties from three countries looked for the missing plane, but the search… Read More
My #1 strategy for building unshakeable focus during competition
There was only one thought running through my mind: Put one foot in front of the other and just keep moving. My feet hurt. My back hurt. Everything hurt. Here I was, running the Lighthouse 100-mile run in Northern Michigan (no, that’s not a typo — 100 miles!). Under my own free will. No gun… Read More
Your top 3 questions about mental performance mastery coaching — answered
When I was first getting into the field of mental performance nearly 20 years ago, if someone would have told me I’d eventually become known as an expert in the industry and build a million-dollar business, I’d have thought they were crazy. And while the trend these days would be to talk all about how… Read More
The truth about elite performance: Why physical conditioning, skill, and talent are only a piece of the puzzle
There’s an interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed throughout my career as a mental performance coach. When I first start working with coaches, teams, or athletes, most initially agree that training for competition is 90% physical and 10% mental. But as we begin working together, and as I introduce them to the idea of “mental conditioning” with… Read More
The Missing Link in Motivation (Tapping into the Power of WHY)
Years ago, as a new high school athletic director, I found myself in a challenging situation. Weighing in around 240 pounds, I was out of shape—and I had completely neglected my personal health. All of my focus was zeroed in on my job. Everything else was an afterthought. And while this may have helped in… Read More
Bookend your days with an A.M. and P.M. routine to combat stress and level-up performance
If you’re like most of the coaches, athletes, and professionals I work with, every day is a battle… A battle to get all you need to get done. A battle to balance work with finding time for other things important to you: family, friends, your health. A battle to find and sustain the motivation to… Read More
The #1 way to take your performance to the next level
I get asked all the time, “Coach Cain, what’s the number one thing I can do to grow my business and take my performance (or the performance of those I coach) to the next level?” My answer has never been more clear than it is right now: Be more intentional about who you are,… Read More