How it works
A Doing Thing, Not a Talking Thing
Information doesn’t change performance. Reps do. So we put a coach in your athlete’s week for ninety days, give them something specific to do every day, test it under real pressure, and build it so they leave owning it.
The Ninety Days
The five capabilities are the same for everyone, and so is the order, because each one makes the next one possible. Everything inside them is built for your athlete.
No two programs are the same
Built for This Athlete, Not for Athletes
There is no curriculum your athlete gets marched through. Their coach builds the ninety days from four things, and keeps rebuilding it every week.
- Who they areAn assessment at the start shows how this athlete is wired: where they are already strong, and where their mind gets in the way.
- Their sport and their calendarThe examples, the language and the pressure points are their sport’s. The plan is laid over their real season, so the big competitions become the tests.
- What they are chasingTheir own definition of success, in their own words. It is the first thing we ask, and the program aims at it.
- What showed up this weekEvery practice report and daily tells their coach what is actually happening. The next session, and the next week’s focus, are set from that.
Step through the five capabilities
Capability 01
Emotional Response
Using the emotions of competition rather than letting the emotions use them. It starts with the body: taking up space, breathing out first, settling the system on purpose.
What changesThey compete with controlled fire: powerful, composed, and hard to rattle.
Capability 02
Focus & Attention
Moving out of distraction and refocusing on what right looks like. Knowing where attention is, and putting it back where it belongs: process over outcome, athlete rather than spectator.
What changesThey gain control of their attention, and therefore their performance.
Capability 03
Self-Talk
Talking to yourself rather than listening to yourself. Negative to neutral, not negative to positive, because the brain rejects what it doesn’t believe. Neutral asks nothing of belief.
What changesThey become their own best coach instead of their own worst critic.
Capability 04
Visualization & Imagery
The mind can’t process “don’t.” Every avoidance statement gets flipped into something the athlete can see and do. Rehearse the execution beforehand, including the hard part. Review honestly after.
What changesThe competition starts in the mind before the athlete ever steps into the arena.
Capability 05
High-Performance Routine
A real system to get both the body and the mind ready to compete at the highest levels: a plan for the days before, a proof list from their own recent work, and a pre-performance routine built from their own definition of ready.
What changesThey stop hoping to feel ready, and get ready on purpose.
Day ninety
Graduation
The athlete presents their own system back to us. An assessment at the start and again at the end confirms the tools transferred. If they can teach it, they own it.
What changesThey leave with it, and they don’t leave us. It goes with them to the exam, the tryout, the interview and every hard thing after, and we stay on their team for the rest of their career.
A Week Inside
This is where it differs from everything a family has tried. The session is forty-five minutes. The rest of the week is where the skill actually forms, and your athlete is not alone in it.
- The sessionForty-five minutes, one-to-one. Skills are run live, not discussed. Your athlete leaves with one focus for the week.
- Daily accountability in executionEvery day for ninety days, one small piece of work in the app: what they said they would do, and whether they did it. Small on purpose, and their coach is part of every one.
- A practice reportTwo minutes after every practice: the focus going in, the good things, what needs work, and the fix for tomorrow.
- Their coach is in it every dayEngaging with and supporting your athlete’s accountability every day, even on competition weekends, when they can call or text anytime. If your athlete goes quiet, their coach notices.
- Competition is the testA plan going in, and an honest review coming out. Real pressure, with their coach a call or a text away.
Example · practice report
My focus going in
Breathe out before every start.
The good things
- Reset after the bad first rep instead of chasing it
- Stayed in my own lane on the main set
- Finished the last round at full effort
What needs work
Started comparing when the group got fast.
The fix for tomorrow
Eyes down, count my own strokes on the first two.
Coach
You caught the comparison while it was happening. That is the skill. Tomorrow, notice how fast you catch it, not whether it shows up.
Illustrative, written for this page. Real reports are private between an athlete and their coach.
Eighty Percent Is Theirs. Twenty Is Yours.
A family that skips the parent track caps its own result, and will experience it as the program not quite working. So the parent gets a job, and it runs the whole ninety days.
The athlete
- Weekly one-to-one sessions
- Daily accountability with their coach, including competition weekends, by call or text
- An assessment at the start and at graduation
- Their own toolkit and an individualized plan
- Real competitions used as the training ground
- A graduation where they present their own system
- The athlete community, and the app, after they graduate
The parent
- Performance Parenting: what we are teaching your athlete and, more importantly, your role in supporting it
- Your own toolbox, individualized to your athlete
- Check-in calls with the coach, including one with your athlete in the room
- A report on how to parent this particular athlete for performance
- The parent community
What happens after graduation
They Are Part of Our Team, and We Are Part of Theirs. For Life.
The ninety days is an intensive. Its job is to build the foundation of mental toughness: the skills, the language and the routine your athlete will stand on from here.
But the challenges don’t stop at day ninety. There is a next season, a next level, a recruiting year, a move to college, an injury, a slump, a moment that matters more than any before it.
By graduation your athlete has proven themselves. They did the work, every day, and they own it. From that day on, we are on their team.
We will be there for you, your family and your athlete for the rest of their career.
What that looks like
On the team, for life
Their system is theirs, in their own words. They keep the Mental Grit app and their place in the athlete community for life, and they can message their coach in the app anytime.
Their coach, back in their corner
One-to-one sessions with the coach who already knows them, for the moments that call for it: a championship season, a recruiting year, a move up a level, the jump to college.
Elite Mentorship
A longer-term mentorship for graduates who have shown they own the work and want to keep building. It is offered by invitation, at graduation.
Why It Works When Other Things Haven’t
The content is not the secret. Most of what we teach is our spin on established sport psychology. What families can’t get anywhere else is how it is delivered.
A coach in the week, not just on the call
Most options are information without accountability, or attention without frequency. This is both: a weekly session, and a coach engaging with and supporting your athlete’s accountability every day, even on competition weekends, when they can call or text anytime.
The parents are trained, not just informed
We treat the parent’s behavior as part of the athlete’s performance, and we work on it directly. We teach you what we are teaching them and, more importantly, what your role is in supporting it. You get your own toolbox, individualized to your athlete.
A doing thing, not a talking thing
Skills are run live from the first conversation and tested in real competition and practice, with a plan going in and an honest review coming out. This is not therapy. This is intensive coaching.
Neutral, not positive
The rest of the market sells “think positive.” We don’t. You don’t have to be positive to perform. You cannot be negative.
Built to graduate
The athlete writes their own tools in their own words. The goal is an athlete who doesn’t need us.
Optimizing potential, not fixing problems
Nothing is wrong with your athlete. Nobody taught them to use the mind they already have.
The guarantee
If They Do the Work and It Doesn’t Work, We Keep Working. For Free.
If your athlete completes at least eighty percent of what we ask and does not significantly improve their resilience to setbacks, their confidence in and out of sport, their ability to handle competitive stress, and their results in competition, we work with them for free until they do.
The condition is the point. It puts effort on the athlete’s side of the deal, and the daily work makes that effort visible to everyone.
How It Starts
A conversation
A call with Nate. A parent and the athlete both come. We learn what is happening when it counts.
An honest answer
We tell you whether we can help. If we can, we show you what the ninety days would look like for your athlete, and what it costs.
The first session
Your athlete is matched with their coach and set up in the app. The ninety-day clock starts at that first session, not before.
What it costs
The investment is discussed on the call, after we have both decided this is the right fit. That is not a sales tactic. The program is individual, and what an athlete needs depends on the athlete. We talk first, then we tell you the number, and the guarantee stands behind it. We take a limited number of athletes each month.
Every sport starts in the same place. Swimming and tennis have their own pages because so many families arrive from those two.
Questions Parents Ask Us
Who is the first call for: me, my athlete, or both?
Both. A parent and the athlete come together. We need to hear what is happening from the athlete in their own words, and we need to know the parent is in, because a fifth of this work is yours. If you have more than one athlete, we talk about each of them separately.
What does it cost?
The investment is discussed on the call, once we both believe it is the right fit. The program is individual, and what an athlete needs depends on their age, their sport, where they are in the season, and what the family is trying to reach. We talk first, then we tell you the number, and there is a results guarantee behind it.
Is it the same program for every athlete?
No. The five capabilities and their order are the same, because each one makes the next possible. Everything inside them is built for your athlete: from an assessment at the start, their sport and competition calendar, their own definition of success, and what their practice reports and dailies show their coach each week.
What happens after graduation?
They are part of our team, and we are part of theirs, for life. The ninety days is an intensive that builds the foundation of mental toughness, and the challenges do not stop at day ninety. Graduates keep their system, the app and the athlete community for life, and they can message their coach in the app anytime. When the next challenge shows up, their coach can be back in their corner with one-to-one sessions, and some graduates are invited into Elite Mentorship.
Which sports do you work with?
Every sport. The mechanism is the same whether the pressure shows up behind the blocks, at the baseline, on the first tee or on the start line. The examples, the competition calendar and the language are built around your athlete’s sport.
How old does my athlete need to be?
Most of our athletes are thirteen to eighteen. We also work with younger athletes and collegiate athletes when it is the right fit, and we will tell you honestly on the call if it isn’t.
Is it in person?
Sessions are one-to-one and online, which is why we work with families across the United States and around the world. The daily work happens in the Mental Grit app.
We are in the middle of the season. Should we wait?
Not necessarily. Real competitions are the training ground, so a season is useful. The ninety-day clock starts at the first session, not at sign-up, and starting around a key stretch of the calendar is normal.
What if my athlete isn’t sure they want this?
Then it is worth a conversation, not a commitment. We ask every athlete why they want to do this work, and they have to be able to answer for themselves. If they can’t yet, they are not ready, and that is okay.