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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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

A HUGE part of being an effective leader is mastering the skill of being able to intentionally develop a culture that supports your team’s mission, principles, and core values.

This isn’t something done by accident—and this certainly isn’t one of those things you either “have or you don’t.” Learning how to cultivate the right culture is a skill you can learn.

In this episode of the MPM Coach Spotlight Podcast, I have the pleasure of talking with MPM Certified Coach Zach Sorenson.

Zach is a former Major League Baseball player with the Cleveland Indians and The Los Angeles Angels. He also worked as the Texas Rangers’ minor league Mental Performance Coach in 2018. Zach’s experience both coaching professional athletes and competing as one gives him unique insight into what mental performance secrets the pros use to compete at the highest level.

In this episode, he’ll share what he’s learned and how you can use these same strategies with your athletes.

Confidence is the mark of a champion. It’s something you need to be an effective coach—and something absolutely crucial for those you coach to reach their goals and perform at a high level.

But there’s also a lot of confusion surrounding confidence…

Can you grow it? If so, how?

Are there specific things parents, athletes—even coaches—do to sabotage it?

I cover all this, and provide my go-to strategies for developing unshakeable confidence in this article.