ANDREW J SIMPSON

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.

These are the two extremes I see in athletes.

Idle Laziness: this is the one that frustrates parents the most

Manic Busyness: this is the one that ends up deeply concerning parents the most

What is Idle Laziness? Simply put, it's the athlete who says he or she has big goals and dreams, but their actions almost never match those goals. Aside from games or practice, they sit on their phones, they play video games, and their life is all about being comfortable.

One downfall to this one is that they do not reach their full potential. The other downfall I will mention in a moment...

What is Manic Busyness? It's the athlete who is so obsessed with being the best and reaching the pinnacle that they cannot stop to smell the roses, or even see them. 

It's never enough for them. More film, more practice, more camps, more teams, more skills...their love of the sport and desire to be great has become the #1 pursuit of their life-- an idol if you will-- and it's actually keeping them from t...

It sounds good, and we get it (sort of)...

"To fail is to succeed!"

"Failing is a GOOD thing!"

"To succeed or fail makes no difference."

I've said similar things.

But let's be honest, success is better than failure.

That being said, there is utility to failure.

Failure, when looked at objectively, when assessed properly, and when executed on after the fact, leads to better chances of success in the future.

Do not miss this...

If you are currently succeeding in your sport, enjoy it! Really. Take the mental and emotional "break" to deeply enjoy it. You won't always be winning or succeeding. Sports are not a linear path. There is failure involved.

You might get cut from a team soon. You might play the worst game of your career tomorrow. You might get chewed out by your coach tomorrow. You might digress in your mechanics or in a particular skill and feel like a rookie again at times.

But failure lasts only a little while. It's temporary. And it's meant to teach you, not torment ...

Most athletes do not think about the effect social media has on their ability to lock in and focus in their sport (and in school).

Social media and it's short form content nature is designed to keep you and I distracted, bouncing from one thing to another. You may spend hours on it at a time, but in reality, you are task jumping the entire time.

Have you ever watched how quickly people scroll from one Instagram post to the next? Or how fast they jump from one Snapchat message to the next? Or from TikTok video to the next?

Think about it, your social media habits are training your brain not to focus for long periods of time. 

In sports and in school, you need to be able to focus in order to dominate.

Just imagine how good you could be at your sport if you were able to lock in and focus like a champion?

I'm not going to tell you to stop social media forever, because I wouldn't do that either. But here are 7 ways to improve your focus-ability.

7 Ways to Improve Your Ability to Lock...

Can you still have a positive experience and come out on top in your sport if you have an unkind, command and control, never give praise or encouragement kind of coach?

You can if you learn to take back control of 3 things.

Athlete, you do not have to suffer mentally or emotionally just because you have a coach who does not treat you the way you deserve to be treated.

3 Ways to Take Back Control of Your Experience in Sports 

1. Control what you FOCUS on.

I know, your coach never recognizes your progress. Never tells you good job. Always points out where you fall short. And never really gives you guidance and attention to help you improve.

But what DO you have?

• Teammates that you love being around!
  
• A sport you love playing!
• You have skills you have developed!
• You have goals to work towards! 
  
  

What you focus on ends up being your experience, regardless of what your coach says, does, doesn't say, or doesn't do.

2. Control what things MEAN to you.

Your coach hasn't pa...

Recently I sat down and had a conversation with John O'Sullivan, founder of The Way of Champions Podcast and Conference. John has a movement that is all about Changing the Game for youth athletes- "giving the game back to them" as he likes to say. 

On this episode we share practical tips for parents and coaches to be better about letting go of control, giving ownership of the sport back to their athlete, how to motivate in inspire athletes to be the best they can be, some "do's and don'ts" and common mistakes we see parents and coaches making today, and more.

We also discuss how we make the magic that happen at our training gyms for teen and college athletes, Player's Fitness and Performance. We discuss what the MORE really means in our recently trademarked tagline, More Than Just a Gym.

Enjoy!

Serving you,

Coach Andrew J Simpson

www.playersfitnessandperformance.com 

https://www.andrewjsimpson.com/blog/way-of-champions 

Coach,

Each and everyday I want to encourage you to pick one player minimum, look them in the eyes, and from your heart say to them, "I care about you. You're going to do great things in your lifetime."

This communicates two things to them:

1. "You have value."

2. "You have a purpose beyond athletics. The best is yet to come for you."

So many of the athletes you coach do not yet believe these truths about themselves. 

If you do this every single day, you will hit your entire team multiple times in a single season.

Words change lives.

And a coach's words are among the most life-changing for a young man or woman. This is the Love-Powered Coaching that I talk about in The Youth Truth book.

As a society, I do not think it is right that we blame coaches for the majority of athlete mental health issues (although there are plenty of cases where this is warranted). Blaming does not encourage or empower. It does not fix anything.

However, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a coach...