Something I've Been Writing For Six Years and Thinking About For Twenty-Five
Issue 149- Jason Payne, CMPC
Somewhere in the last twelve months, you have probably had this thought.
Maybe it hit after a bad game that left you drained of energy like you had played instead of coached. Perhaps it arrived on a Sunday afternoon when you realized there was a part of you dreading practice on Monday. Or it was the exhaustion you felt in every cell of your body the day after your season completed.
The thought is some version of: I do not know if I can keep doing this the way I have been doing it.
If you have had that thought, you are not alone. Coaching isn't easy.
Care is not sustainable when it is not paired with a means to protect it, feed it, and structure your season around sustainability. Most of us were never taught a framework to do this. Our coaching careers are built on grit alone. And most of us reach a season, somewhere between year five and year twenty, where grit alone stops working.
I know, because I experienced that season sixteen years in.
The provincial bronze medal game had just ended. Our team had won its league. We had a twenty-game winning streak. But from the moment that game tipped off, every one of our faults was exposed. My players argued with each other on the floor, took multiple technical fouls and the game ended without any joy or celebration. I stood there looking at the culture I had allowed to erode to this point. Pretending everything was fine because the results on the floor were great.
I almost quit. I wasn't sure there was another option.
For weeks, I could barely get to work. I was distant with friends and loved ones. If you have been there, you know the feeling. I couldn't figure out what had happened, and I couldn't figure out how to keep going.
What I eventually realized was that my players had not lacked skill or knowledge. They had everything they needed to win games. Where I had let them down was on the human side. Managing emotions. Handling adversity. Bouncing back from failure. I had paid lip service to those areas but never truly built them into the program. The result was a gap between what I said I believed and how our program actually operated. Between the coach I wanted to be and the coach who showed up when the pressure mounted.
That gap has a name.
Misalignment.
I did not quit. Instead, I spent the next decade building the framework I wish someone had handed me in year one. I went back to school and became a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, allowing me to build a framework and refine it by working with coaches across sports. Most importantly, it helped me fall in love with coaching again. And this fall, on October 27th, I am publishing a book to share that framework with coaches who want to build a coaching practice from the inside-out.
ALIGNED: The Inside Out Path to Coaching Excellence
The book is built on four cornerstones. Each one flows from the one before it. And each one works from the inside out.
The Aligned Coach. It starts with you. Who you are, why you coach, and who you are trying to serve. Coaches who skip this work end up building on sand. Coaches who do it build on stone.
The Aligned Athlete. Once you know who you are, you can see the athlete in front of you clearly. Not the recruit you wish they were. Not the version of them the season is squeezing into place. The person they actually are, and what it takes to help them become who they are capable of being.
The Aligned Culture. Once you can see your athletes, you can build the vision, values, and standards that hold a team through the moments that matter most. Culture is not what you post on the wall. It is what your athletes feel when nobody is watching.
Sustaining Alignment. Once you have built it, the last cornerstone is how you keep it alive across decades, not just seasons. This is the cornerstone I needed most at year sixteen. Most coaches never get to it in time.
Together, the four cornerstones are the path from where you are to a high-performance program that does not consume the person running it.
What Is at Stake?
If you have been drifting toward the version of coaching that runs on grit and hoping the off-season lets you recover, that foundation will not hold.
It did not hold for Klopp. It did not hold for Pep. It did not hold for Bill Walsh.
The coaches who last are not the ones who cared most. They are the ones who found a framework early enough to keep caring long enough to matter.
What Is Possible?
A coaching career that is sustainable and exists on your timeline. Athletes who believe they are part of something bigger than themselves. Who leave your program having become the people you hoped they might. A culture your successors can inherit. And a version of you at the end of the season that looks like the version who started the year.
That is what the framework builds toward.
Your Next Steps
Join the launch list. Early readers get the first chapter free the moment pre-orders open, plus bonus material and pricing reserved for coaches who commit before October 27.
Join the Cohort. My second Alignment Coaching cohort will start in September. This cohort is an opportunity to explore how to create alignment between who you truly are and your coaching philosophy, so your culture, your standards, and your relationships all reflect the coach you actually want to be.
The book comes out October 27th. Between now and then, I will be sharing chapters, stories, and specific practices coaches at every level can use to start building alignment into their own programs.
If you have wondered how to make coaching meaningful and sustainable, this is what the next decade of your coaching can look like.
Come along.
Jason
P.S. The book is dedicated to the athletes who have shaped me across twenty-five years, and to the coach I was at year sixteen, on the long drive home after the bronze medal game, wondering if he was done. If you are that coach right now, know that a way through exists. I found it. So can you.
Are you or your athletes struggling to be their best?
Let's find a solution together.
I help coaches thrive.
As a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and a basketball coach with over 25 years of experience, I understand the barriers to peak performance for both you and your athletes.
I would love to help you or your team build a competitive advantage.
Here are a few ways I can help:
- Consult with your team or coaching staff
- Teach mental skills to your team via Zoom
- Work 1-on-1 with coaches
- Work 1-on-1 with athletes
Book a Free Discovery Call
If you’re feeling the weight of expectations, pressure, or burnout, you don’t have to figure this out alone.
A discovery call is simply a chance to talk through your season, your goals, and your process with another coach who’s been there. No pitch. No obligation. Just a meaningful conversation.
Schedule a discovery call here.
Shoot me an email at jasonpayne@evolutionmpc.com. I love talking about coaching and seeing how I can help you.
Coaching is hard; let's make it easier.
Check out my website at http://jasonpayne.ca
Thanks for reading, and have a great week.