Be disciplined to be disciplined. Like and embrace the boring. The mundane. That’s not just a powerful quote from a young coach. It’s a call to arms for every athlete, coach, parent, executive, and leader who wants to play the long game.

With Game 3 of the 2025 World Series tonight, I wanted to share a story from my own World Series experience—and the mindset that made all the difference. On November 2, 2016, under the lights of Progressive Field, I stepped into one of the most pressure-filled moments in baseball history—Game 7 of the World Series. Bottom of the 8th. Two outs. One on. Down 6–3. Aroldis Chapman on the mound, throwing over 100 mph.

Sure, the home run is impressive — 100mph off the bat, 381 feet. But that’s not the moment that stood out to me. The moment that mattered was what happened after the strikeout the next day. No frustration. No downward spiral. No self-pity. He reset. He flushed it. He led. That’s not a fluke. That’s trained.

The other coach actually asked the umpire to check our pitcher’s hat. Said he thought the kid was hiding a foreign substance. I mean…A 10-year-old? With an illegal substance under his cap? Really? Turns out, our pitcher wasn’t hiding anything. He was tapping his reset button.

Confidence is rented. And rent is due in the unseen hours. Every extra rep, every intentional breath, every small step you take when no one is around… it all compounds.

Athletics—and life—aren't about being perfect. They're about bouncing back. They're about having a short memory for the bad and a long memory for the lessons.

Years ago I learned that before the Dalai Lama addresses thousands, he always imagines he is speaking to one person. When asked how he handles an arena full of people, he said that he speaks the same to one person or to thousands. I adopted that mindset long ago: when I travel to speak, I imagine there is at least one person in the room who needs to hear what I’m sharing. If I can help just one person, then the trip was a success.

Too often, athletes and people treat scars as signs of weakness. They believe mistakes disqualify them, or that struggles mean they are failing. At Major League Mindset, we teach the opposite. Scars are not shame. They are receipts. They prove you have been in the arena. They prove you did not back down. They prove you chose the fight over the excuse.

The truth is simple: everyone wants greatness until they see the invoice. The rent is discipline. The rent is growth. The rent is showing up, again and again, no matter what yesterday looked like.

Time management is super important, but I believe that time alone is not the real differentiator. Energy is. Because how you spend your energy is how you spend your day. And how you spend your days is how you spend your life. This is not just a truth for life—it is the same principle that drives performance in sports and business.

Real transformation happens in the quiet of your bedroom, when you write down a reflection no one else will read. It happens when you rehearse your breathing routine while teammates laugh or when you commit to visualization in a world that would rather scroll.

Every athlete trains their body. Fewer train their mind. Almost none train their inner voice. But it’s your inner voice that shows up when you fail. It’s the one that talks to you before the biggest at-bat of your life. It’s the one that whispers to you after a missed shot, a bad inning, or a game you’d rather forget.

Real talk. If you're crushing it right now—raking at the plate, getting recruited, putting up numbers—I'm fired up for you. But I need you to hear this: Winning isn’t the goal. Becoming a winner is.

Too many athletes think a good weekend or season means they’ve arrived. That they’ve got it figured out. But here’s the hard truth: If you don’t know how you won, you should be worried.

When Lanny says "Olympic pressure," I say "Big League pressure." and “World Series pressure.” The kind of pressure that melts most people. It’s what I trained under. It’s what I learned to navigate. And it’s what shaped everything I now teach inside Major League Mindset.

Confidence isn’t a feeling. It’s a system. It’s breathwork, routines, identity, mindset reps. It’s what you fall back on when pressure, doubt, and failure show up—and they will show up. You’ll learn that toughness isn’t pretending nothing bothers you. Toughness is feeling it—and choosing your response anyway.

Five years ago, I walked away from Major League Baseball with a body full of bruises and a mind full of lessons. Some people retire from pro sports to rest. I didn’t. I left the game with more urgency than ever—not to leave baseball behind, but to bring everything I had learned to those still in it.

A domino habit is the one habit that, when you do it, sets your whole day up for success. It’s like the first domino that knocks over the rest. For many of the athletes I work with, it’s their morning routine, especially getting out of bed when their alarm goes off.

Imagine you (or your athlete) stepping onto the field not driven by the anxiety of outcomes, but empowered by confidence built on daily rituals. This is precisely the power of becoming a winner over simply winning. Belichick’s book serves as a vital reminder that our mission isn’t to chase fleeting victories but to build identities rooted in discipline, resilience, and consistent preparation.

“Life is not just about peaks and valleys, about wins and losses. Life is about the journey. You hear that all the time. You’ve got to absorb that. You’ve got to know that. The journey has to become the destination because there is no true destination. There is no endpoint. There is no goal. All rivers run to the sea and yet the sea is not full. Life goes on; accept what life gives you. The sun rises the morning after you win the championship or lose in the first round.”

Here’s what I learned—and what I now teach in every single Major League Mindset class and through the MLM+ app: Motivation doesn’t come first. Movement does.