Andrew T. Althoff

One of the coolest stories in music is how Serj from System of a Down was stuck on lyrics for Chop Suey. Rick Rubin told him to grab a random book off the shelf, open it to any page, and use the first words he saw. That’s what ended up in the song. Rick says “It’s like magic.”

Nobody accused Bill Parcells of being soft. But listen to what he says: “If you ever need anybody to talk to, just call me up. You think I don’t need somebody? We all need that.” But why does he say that? Because he understands the loneliness of leadership. "You imagine what’s going through that poor son of a gun’s head right now?" Parcells, a man whose entire coaching philosophy was built on the belief that comfort is the enemy of performance, is explaining that every coach needs someone they can talk to about what's going on in their team, on their staff, and in their head. Parcells wasn't trying to be nice. He was being honest. He knew exactly what happens inside the skull of a coach, because the same thing happened in his own mind. • The lineup you’re about to change and the new challenges it will present. • The angry parent email sitting unanswered since Sunday. • The kid whose home life fell apart over summer and nobody else knows about it. • The assistant interviewing somewhere else and thinks you don’t know. • The booster politicking in the parking lot. • The call you should have made on third down last week that you're still reliving. • The time with your own kids you keep postponing. • The workouts you keep skipping. • The health issues you're ignoring. • The fact that you haven't been home for dinner in six weeks. It never stops. There's no off-season for the mental load of coaching and leadership. It's not a football thing. If you coach basketball, baseball, volleyball, or golf in a town of four thousand people, this is your life. The sport changes. The faces change. The reality doesn't. Coaches carry more unexpressed thoughts and unprocessed emotions than any other profession. And they have fewer trusted, private places to express them than anyone. Go through the list of people you "could" talk to: Your staff? Some but it's extremely limited. You are their boss. Besides, many of the thoughts and feelings are about them. Your players? Obviously not. Your AD, principal, or board? Minimally. Everything you say there goes in a file, even if it's a mental file. Your spouse or partner? They love you, which qualifies them to listen but disqualifies them from being objective. Plus they've already absorbed more of this job than they signed up for. Most coaches figure that out and start editing what they bring home. And there's only so much a spouse can offer in their position. Other coaches in your league? No way. They're your competitors. Other coaches outside your league? They're busy coaching. Coaching is a small world and reputation is a valuable currency. There's only so much you can say without unintended and unseen consequences. Your old coach? The closest thing to a real option. But also busy, three jobs removed from your situation, and from a different era of coaching and social dynamics. Friends or professionals outside of coaching? They think they understand sports and coaching realities, but they don't understand. It's more frustrating than helpful. Your options run out fast. You end up talking to the only person with complete context and zero ability to be objective about any of it. Yourself. In your office staring out the window. At midnight in your bed. In your car wrestling with 1,000 thoughts. On a repeating loop. The repeating loop of unresolved thoughts and feelings is what causes the damage. It's not the stress that kills you. It's the endless loop of unexpressed, unprocessed, unresolved thoughts and feelings. Thoughts you never say out loud never get pressure tested. Never get challenged or validated. Never get coached, sharpened, or redirected. They get louder and more certain. You argue and negotiate with yourself. You start making decisions based on the story you've built in you mind that hasn't truly been checked by another credible person who understands everything involved. Good coaches get too stubborn about this. They isolate themselves. They defend a plan instead of building a better one. E+R=O The event is not the problem. The event is the unchanging reality of coaching. It's the coach's response that has to change, not the event. If the outcome is going to get better, it can't depend on ideal events. It must come from a better leadership response by the coach. What Parcells offered wasn't therapy or sports psychology. It wasn't really sympathy, either. It was a place to say what you need to say to someone who understands. Someone who won't judge, won't criticize, and won't share what you say with anyone else. Somebody with context, no agenda, and no stake in how you come across. Understanding. Confidentiality. No judgment. Available when you need it, which is rarely during business hours. The problem is that you don't have Bill Parcells on speed dial. Most coaches will go their entire career and never get that offer from anyone as credible as him. So I built it for coaches. It's called Zone 1 Coach. Zone 1 is a journal you talk to, out loud, in your own voice, whenever you need. • Walking off the field after practice • In your car after a win or loss • At 11:45pm when you can't sleep You don’t have to type anything. You don’t format anything. You just talk. You don't even need clear thoughts. Anything you say, any way it comes out, no matter how sloppy and jumbled and odd it may seem. It leaves your mind, goes somewhere that keeps it safe, and saves it. Then the Zone 1 Coach Advisor can hear your thoughts, feelings, details, and realities. Safe, secure, and confidential. No person ever sees it. But the Zone 1 Coach Advisor learns about you from your Journal. The Advisor is not a generic ChatGPT you have to re-explain everything to. It knows you, your sport, your level, your record, your roster, and what you said about this player three weeks ago or this situation last week. You can ask it the question you can't ask your staff. You can say the thing you'd never put in a text or email. It doesn't flinch, it doesn't leak, and it doesn't think less of you for whatever you're struggling with. The Zone 1 Coach Advisor listens, understands, and helps you with exactly what you need as a coach in that moment, for your situation. Zone 1 runs on E+R=O and 25 years of sports and coaching behavior performance. So what you get isn't motivational or generic. It's proven systems, disciplined mechanics, and real action steps for your real situation. I'm a 25 year executive coach. I've coached the highest level championship coaches in pro and college athetics. My coach clients tell me they talk to their Zone 1 Journal and Advisor about things they don't say to me. That's part of the point, right? You need to say it to someone or somewhere so you can get the help you need. Parcells had it right. And he said it in the most Parcells way. "You think I don’t need somebody? We all need that." You're not a weak leader for needing someone to talk to and somewhere to release your thoughts and feelings. You're in a complex, difficult role that generates more thoughts than one head was built to hold. The Zone 1 Coach app is what you need. And it's ready to be what you need. The link to Zone 1 Coach is below.

Over 2,500 games from the dugout. 50+ years in baseball. 17 as an MLB manager. I won Manager of the Year and also lost more games than I want to count. I led teams through losing seasons and took a team to the World Series. If I could go back to my first day as a leader, here are the 5 lessons I'd whisper in my own ear: Lesson 1: Be a window when it's good, a mirror when it's bad. The leaders I respected most shared every win and absorbed every hit. What this looks like in practice: • Wins: name the people who made it happen • Losses: say "that's on me" before anyone asks • Locker room: spotlight the effort before the outcome Your team will fight harder for a leader who deflects credit and absorbs blame. Lesson 2: Nobody hands you trust. You earn it before you coach it. Early in my career, plenty of coaches tried to fix my swing. I tuned out every one I didn't trust. Get to know your people before you try to develop them. Their hobbies, their family, what makes them tick. Then the coaching lands. Lesson 3: Shower well after every loss. After a losing streak in Colorado, our team president asked me how I kept the clubhouse together. This was my rule: • Self-evaluate honestly, were we prepared, did we execute? • Shower well, wash off the grit, grime, and angst before you walk out • Be present for whoever you're going home to Tomorrow is a new opportunity. Don't drag yesterday into it. Lesson 4: Lead transformationally, not transactionally. Transactional leaders ask: what can this person do for me? Transformational leaders ask: how do I put this person in a position to win? The first builds compliance. The second builds careers. When your people start chasing growth instead of your approval, you've crossed over. Lesson 5: Stay humble before life humbles you. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are humble, and those who are about to be. Discipline keeps you in the first group: Skill gets you in the room. Humility keeps you there. 50 years taught me leadership isn't about you. It's about the people you serve. @rockies

Need a new road? This guy will sort it 🤝 📽️ AlexHorn

LIFE-CHANGING After making it out of a rough area of St. Petersburg, Florida, @TrayvonBromell became a two-time NCAA champion, four-time All-American and five-time Big 12 champion with the Bears. And now, he joins the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame. #SicEm baylorbears.com/news/2026/10…

“God enters through the wound.” — Carl Jung

If your kiddos want you to read them books at night, read the book. If they want you to pla catch, play catch. They won’t be your roommate forever. Cherish this time. It isn’t coming back.

Sometimes grief hides in the most ordinary places...and then, years later, ambushes you while you’re changing a light bulb.

I've coached over 30 Olympic gold medals. I've worked with some of the greatest athletes in history. Here are the lessons I wish more people understood:🧵

The longer I coach, the more I realize that the secret to being a great coach isn't designing cutting edge training, it's the ability to repeatedly and consistently avoid doing dumb stuff.

annie duke won millions at poker and advises hedge fund traders on decision making. her warning: knowing your biases does nothing to remove them: "traders say to me: I know about all that stuff. every morning I wake up and think, if I weren't holding these positions, would I buy them today?" "the problem is that's only the right question if your answer is going to be rational. and once you're already in the position, it isn't. so you have an irrational answer, but you think you were rational about it. your confidence that you're in the right positions goes up even though the accuracy has not." "you can't think your way out of confirmation bias." her fix: "make it explicit and write it down. any time rates fall below this benchmark after this date, I must sell. it just turns out it really matters if you decide in advance versus deciding on the fly. it makes a huge difference." knowing the bias doesn't remove the bias. deciding in advance can. this is why I automate. my systems all criteria written in code. every exit was agreed on before the money was ever at risk.

What I tell myself before I walk on stage: "They want me to succeed." That's it. That's the whole ritual. For years I did the opposite. I'd stand backstage running through everything that could go wrong — the joke that might not land, the slide that might not load, the question I might not have a good answer to. I told myself I was "preparing." I was actually rehearsing failure. The belief I walked out with shaped what I noticed on stage. If I expected hostility, I found the one person checking their phone. If I expected warmth, I found the person nodding. Same room. Different belief. Different talk. This is what I mean when I say beliefs are tools, not truths. "The audience wants me to succeed" isn't a fact I can prove before I walk out. It's a tool I pick up because it changes what I pay attention to, and what I pay attention to changes how I perform. The old belief — they're judging me — was also unprovable. I just never noticed I was choosing it. You can swap the belief. Not by pretending. By asking whether the one you're carrying is actually helping you do the thing you're about to do. If it isn't, put it down.