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In 1954, Roger Bannister shocked the world when he ran the first ever 4-minute mile.   The world of track and field believed breaking the 4-minute mark was an insurmountable human barrier. An impassable obstacle that could not be breached—a physically impossible feat.  But Bannister persisted. And eventually, he broke the world-record and made the… Read More

John Makdessi is a veteran of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and is also a MPM trained athlete and MPM Certified Coach.  I’ve had the privilege of working with John for the better part of his professional fighting career and in this podcast shares the MPM strategies he uses inside the cage as a fighter and outside as a coach.

The Mountain of Excellence is a symbolic concept often used in sports. The summit of the mountain represents your goal while the mountain represents the obstacle(s) one must conquer to reach it.  The most interesting part of this analogy is this: While we all dream of what life will be like when we reach the… Read More

I created the Mental Performance Mastery Certification with one goal: To give you the tools, knowledge, and resources you need to help your clients or athletes master the mental game so they can consistently perform their best, overcome any obstacle, and stay focused under pressure.

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