ANDREW J SIMPSON

Why spend hours digging with a shovel when you could move the same amount of dirt with a lever?

The point: Sometimes the smallest changes produce the biggest results.

The same is true for an athlete's mental game.

Here are 5 simple changes an athlete can make that are free, take almost no time, and can have a disproportionate impact on their confidence, mental game, and performance.

1. Stay off social media for 2 hours before competing. Protect your focus and confidence from unnecessary distractions, comparisons, and outside noise.

2. Stop checking other athletes' stats, rankings, and scholarship offers. If comparing yourself to others is stealing your confidence or joy, stop feeding that habit.

3. Stop reading recruiting rankings, projections, and predictions every day. You don't need constant updates about where other people think you stand.

4. Stop participating in conversations where teammates criticize or gossip about other players. Negativity and...

I just received a text from a coach who recently lost one of his players to suicide.

Allison was barely a teenager. She played competitive soccer. I do not know what she was carrying or what led to this tragedy, but I do know that many athletes are struggling silently right now.

I want to use this moment to teach an incredibly powerful concept: contentment.

Chariots of Fire

Chariots of Fire is an Oscar-winning movie that tells the story of two runners who were part of the 1924 British Olympic team:

Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams.

These two men shared a lot in common—running was a very important part of their lives.

But there was one thing that made them very, very different: the way they measured success.

There’s a scene in the film where Abrahams is talking to another runner, Aubrey. Abrahams says to him, “You, Aubrey, are my most complete man. You’re brave, compassionate, kind: a content man. That is your secret, contentment; I am 24 and I’ve never known it. I’m forever in ...

Don't Let One Mistake Ruin the Game just won the Gold Medal for the entire Sports Category in the Global Book Awards.

This is a really awesome accomplishment for my team and I.

If you have read the book and left a review, thank you so much.

👉 Would you help the next athlete who is struggling by leaving an Amazon review here?

➡️ If your athlete has not read it, grab your copy today HERE.

The feedback I have received is that it is easy enough for an 11 year old to understand and useful enough for a college athlete to benefit from.

Thanks for your support!

-Coach Andrew

There is no greater detriment to an athlete’s confidence and success than to focus on what you cannot control.

In particular, there are 3 things that are outside of your circle of control that I have found far too many athletes giving valuable attention to:

• What others think about you and your performance
  
  

• External factors
  
  

• The results you achieve** (this one will really challenge you)

1. What others think about you and your performance.

To be specific, this can be coaches, players, peers, parents, social media, news outlets, and more. Athlete, you cannot control what people think and you must stop worrying about it.

Just because you know this is true, doesn’t mean you act like it.

You are human. You do care what people think. It’s natural. 

But caring about something does not mean you need to give it your attention.

A great goal for an athlete to write down, focus on, and tell others about would be this: 

I will use other’s opinions abo...

Carson is a sophomore soccer player who just got picked up by a very high level organization that had been recruiting him.

He’s a self-proclaimed perfectionist who loves to win, hates to lose, and wants every single touch of the ball to be better than the last. 

During our call the other day he was sharing openly about what had been frustrating him (Side Note: if you want your athlete to perform free, they need to be able to share openly and honestly with someone they trust, before getting to the “what are you going to do about it?” step).

I noticed something small but crucial…it was not the question itself but rather the word he was emphasizing in the question that was the problem.

“WHY do I keep messing up my passes?”

“WHY aren’t I putting my shots away?”

“WHY do I keep losing the ball?”

I helped him make one small shift that changed everything for him.

Carson, your drive to get better is what makes you great. 

I have a question for you:

“Why DO you ...

There are 3 decisions that most sports parents never consciously make, and it costs their athlete joy, health, and success.

Not making them will also cost you, the parent, as well. Conversely, choosing to make these 3 decisions will increase your joy and impact as a sports mom or dad.

1. The Decision to: Rethink Recognition and Rewards

Your child repeats behaviors that they are recognized and rewarded for.

They also draw their sense of value and worth from the things they are consistently recognized and rewarded for.

A decision I encourage sports parents to make it this→ start recognizing them for who they are, not just for what they accomplish.

• Point out their gifts and strengths as people, not just the ones they have as athletes
  
• Double down on positive reinforcement when you see them displaying strong character traits such as:
  
• Resilience and perseverance (not giving up when things get tough)
• Displaying empathy towards others
• Doing something fun for themselves outside of...

The meaning you are currently giving to that thing that happened (a recent injury, what coach did or said, your poor performance last game, etc) is the only thing that matters right now.

Your present determines your past. 

If you have recently experienced some sort of setback and are struggling to make sense of it, this is for you.

Your present determines your past (and your future determines your present).

At least, it can. And it should. 

But for many, they last their past determine their present, which never leads to anything good.

Example: I got injured this week and I am out for the next 2 months.

Past Determining My Present: 

my season is over

this means I will miss 2 chances to be seen by college scouts

I might not get to play in college now--> everything I've worked for up to this point was for nothing.

Determining My Past in the Present: 

I am not the first one this has happened to

there are many others who have experienced this same thing, and ended up succeedi...

This story about Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Marcelo Garcia will help any athlete who:

• is feeling burned out
• is getting off to slow starts in games or matches
• has dreams of becoming the best but doesn't have the habits to match it....yet

Before one of the biggest matches of Garcia's career, people couldn't find him anywhere.

They looked around the venue until they finally discovered him sleeping underneath the bleachers.

Sleeping.

A few minutes later, they woke him up, he walked to the mat, and competed at the highest level.

Whether you've wrestled, played baseball, softball, soccer, or any other sport, that's probably not what you picture when you think of elite preparation.

Most athletes assume they should be pacing around, listening to hype videos, or trying to stay fired up for hours before the game.

But what if that's actually costing them?

One of the qualities I've noticed in the best athletes I've worked with is that they don't feel the need to operate at full ...

Your brain and my brain both naturally gravitate toward the negative. It’s not a character flaw, and it's not just you. It's how we're all wired. 

We notice what's wrong before we notice what's right, we replay the mistake instead of the good play, and we brace for the bad thing before we ever consider the good that might come. My wife and I are noticing it firsthand with our 7 year old, and I am starting to enjoy the process of teaching him how to think actively…

Our brains, left to their own with no mindset training, will:

• Generalize
• Distort the truth
• Delete the good and remember the bad

If nobody ever taught you how to think differently, don't feel bad about it. Most of us were never shown how. 

We were never taught to actively look for the good, to actively look for the possibilities, or to actively ask what good might come out of something that, at first glance, looks like nothing but a setback. If that's your athlete (or you), you're not behind and you're...

I just finished uploading all the audiobook files of The Unstoppable Athlete: 12 Keys to Unlock Your Full Potential [The Only One Who Can Stop You, Is You] to a page so you can access it for free.

Listen to the book free here

-Coach Andrew

P.S. If you are currently working on one of my other books, finish that one first. Build the habit of stick-to-it-ive-ness and finishing what you start.