Mindset plays a huge role in performance at high levels when the gap that divides athletic ability narrows.
It's one thing to master the game it's another to master the mindset.
HEAD OF ATHLETIC PROGRAMS
Stephanie has been involved in athletics for over 25 years. Growing up, she played competitive fastpitch and earned a full ride scholarship to play at Western Washington University. She played at the college level for four years, while also earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology.
During her college fastpitch career, Stephanie started mindset training where she learned various tools to change old, ineffective habits while elevating self-esteem, attitude, and behavior. By implementing these tools, she was able to take her leadership, mental and physical game to the next level. She was voted Team Captain as a junior and senior, demonstrating effective leadership on and off the field. She earned All-League 1st Team Pitcher, where she pitched a shutout against the defending National Champions and she still holds the record for most consecutive scoreless Innings pitched. These accomplishments were earned by shifting her mindset and putting the tools she learned into action.
After college, Stephanie started coaching fast-pitch at the high school level, while also earning her Master’s Degree in School Counseling from City University of Seattle. She integrated her schooling and mindset training within her team, creating a powerhouse program. She emphasized the importance of team culture and how it plays a major role in the success of the team. She led the team to two league championships and two state appearances. Stephanie’s team was Academic State Champions in 2016, 2017 and 2018—having the highest GPA of any other 4A softball team in the state. She is a current high school counselor, where she utilizes her schooling and training with her students each day. She is also married and the mother of a beautiful baby boy.
Vision is the most important tool for the foundation of a great team but unfortunately one of the most misunderstood and improperly used tools.
To be a truly successful team, we must define what that success is and what our team looks like when we have that success. We have to design a complete picture in order to align your team to the desired outcomes both mentally and physically. Most teams and organizations use vision statements that hold little or no value to the player or the team.
Once a clear, properly designed vision for the team is in place, action based goals can be set in alignment with that vision to achieve exponential results.
“It’s a part of our culture” but is team culture fully understood and applied by the organization or is it made up as we go along?
Most organizations have an assumed not defined culture.A properly defined team culture creates a structured environment for everyone involved to support, work within and grow. When culture is not defined, members are left to evolve based on their own experiences and in doing so, they bring in foreign aspects of other cultures they have worked in. This creates a melting pot of ideas that don’t support the vision of the team or its members. This results in confusion, disorganization, conflict, distrust and mediocre results at best.
HOW DO WE SOLVE THIS PROBLEM
No surprise that when we are dealing with a group of people in any field, personal agendas, ideas, individual culture, status, opinion etc., all contribute to the makeup of the team and its overall attitude, positive or negative.
All too often personal agendas interrupt team alignment, creating division and chaos. Teams operating in alignment is the key to success or any team, but how do you create that alignment? We believe that everyone from the "kit man" (for you Ted Lasso fans) to the team's star player has value on a team.
We engage a process to uncover the value of everyone on the team and a connection to those roles by every member of the organization. Brainstorm's exclusive L.O.V.E. training creates amazing team alignment, encourages individual contribution to the team and exposes the value of every person and their precise contribution to team success.
Coaching is the cornerstone of sports performance. Having skilled, trained eyes observing your behavior and supporting the improvement of player skills on and off the field is invaluable. When coaching athletes in the mindset of accountability, the resulting attitudes and behaviors will dictate optimal team outcomes.
At BrainStorm, we employ several levels of coaching to teach and grow the mindset and skill set of participants. Masterminds, Team Experience Workshops, Individual Coaching and Coaching Staff Programs are all designed to create alignment of goals to the team vision.
A team of accountable individuals, in alignment with the team's vision for success is unstoppable!
It goes without saying that skills and physical performance training is paramount to a team or player's success. However, without good mindset training, the athlete is set up to lose. The mind controls the body so what we think and say ultimately transfers to the body and has a physical effect on how the body performs. If the mindset is weak the body will be weak and vice versa.
The biggest challenges lie in the idea that most behavior is unconscious and reactive and is the result of ideas and choices made at a very young age. Many of these ideas don’t align with the results the athlete wants and the outcome of that is mediocre or reduced performance. The negative thoughts and words actually manifest in the physical body and weaken the individual.
We teach the individual athlete how to manage the internal dialog and thought process so it aligns with the outcomes they are looking for on and off the field. Skills training and on field results increase when the internal dialog of the athlete is positive and in alignment with their desired result.
Broken teams filled with conflict and drama typically lack great communication skills or the maturity to understand and handle the emotional challenges that come with working as a team. How people process emotions and transfer that to their communication with teammates and coaches can be the difference between an amazing team of aligned individuals and the drama crazed mess comparable to herding cats.
Understanding how we process our emotions coupled with seriously accountable communication tools, supports team alignment and connection. It creates an environment of maturity where people can speak to challenges without making others wrong. When “make wrong” is out of the conversation, collaboration is welcomed and creative solutions can be found. Additionally, people enjoy each other, have more fun, learn more quickly and create a much more successful space for the team to succeed.
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