Coach Lain Inspires™ Inspirecast

We are all bound by the same physical forces on this earth. Most notably, gravity. Have you ever seen an archer shoot an arrow? Gravity causes an arrow to drop the moment it leaves the bowstring. As soon as it's propelled forward, it loses height. This means that nay forward progress of the arrow has forces working against it at all times. But here's the amazing thing about the physical laws that bind our universe and control it with their seemingly oppressive properties - they can be manipulated to work in our favor!

What goals are you going to "aim high" for this week? 

2020 was funny, to say the least. By that, I mean that we all went into it with the idea of “20/20 Vision” being inexorably intertwined with our outlook on the year ahead. And while we all experienced nearly 365 days of being dealt the saddest, darkest, and…well…crappiest hand ever, one can’t help but see the irony in it all. We thought 20/20 vision was about seeing our visions, our plans, our purposes more clearly, being able to execute on them like never before. And then we’re hit with a record-shattering worldwide pandemic that puts all those plans to ruin and waste! But for those of us who were able to pivot, acclimate, and adapt, we were soon able to see that this 20/20 vision wasn’t about execution at all, but about reflection.

Today's inspirational word: Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 are two normal days, just like any other two in the calendar year! Take the time to take note of your growth, achievements, setbacks, mistakes, and lessons learned over the past year, but do not let that fool you into thinking that tomorrow is any different from any other morning! Strive every single day to top your personal best from the day before, and be consistently resolute in being consistently resolute. Consistency breeds confidence, and confidence helps you outperform that which makes you most uncomfortable.

Too many of us look at those who are outgoing, charismatic, and successful as confident people. While for many people this is true, it’s not the case for them all! See there are two main types of confidence that we tend to get confused: natural confidence and manufactured confidence. It’s funny because the former is the one we confuse with the latter.

Today's inspirational word: Confidence is not this magical trait that materializes out of thin air. It is the manifestation of your relentless pursuit of greatness, and the DIRECT product of obsessive, repetitious practice and thoroughly understanding one’s technique! In the absence of specificity, fear thrives! But in the relentless pursuit of understanding, confidence grows!

Too often we teach our athletes to focus on their mistakes, their imperfections, and their failures, instead of focusing on the steps they need to follow in order to succeed! That success may not come quickly and it certainly won’t come easily, but it definitely will come if you are relentlessly persistent. Today's inspirational word: a truly winning team is the one in which everyone, athletes, and coaches alike, recognize the value of vulnerability. We need to learn to swim instead of training to sink.

When you don’t see anyone as a threat and simply focus on CRUSHING IT EVERY SINGLE DAY, just giving your best performance and outperforming yourself day after day, you no longer worry about comparing yourself to others! Today's inspirational word: People are only your “competition” if you allow yourself to believe you’re competing with them in the first place. And this applies to anyone from cheer athletes to business professionals. With business, the actions of my “competitors” have no bearing on my success. Because I’m only truly out here competing with myself. Instead of focusing on your “competitors”, focus on outperforming yourself every single day!

Being upside down is the ANTITHESIS of what the brain finds to be safe! We weren’t born being able to walk on our hands innately! It’s a learned behavior, just like confidence! Both take tireless practice, relentless repetition, and understanding! Today's inspirational word: You’re not afraid of actually being upside down, but instead, the feelings that are associated with the discomfort of being upside down. So get upside down more often, thereby getting more comfortable in your discomfort!

Aristotle is famously misquoted for saying “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” meaning that as a whole it can operate better than divided into pieces. This quote is used a lot in motivating teams to function together under a common goal as opposed to individuals working toward individual goals. But it’s interesting not only because it’s misquoted, but also because it describes how we as human beings comprehend new skills.

Today's inspirational word: To execute skills properly and successfully, you must change the way you perceive them. Learn to DECONSTRUCT new skills (no matter what discipline) and understand how to master the pieces before trying to master the whole.

Don’t let others shoot down your dreams or aspirations. They will tell you it’s stupid, impossible, a waste of time, or never going to happen because THEY don’t believe THEY could ever do it! We project our own insecurities onto others, and likewise, allow others to project their insecurities onto us! Today's inspirational word: There will never be a perfect time, a perfect day, a perfect circumstance, or a perfect condition for you to start. JUST START! The hardest part of any journey is that first inch forward!!!

When Yoda was training Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, he famously tells the young Padawan, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Until recently, I thought this was a way of the master scolding the student, telling him that he must choose to either do something or not do something and stop “trying” because a try was simply an excuse for not giving his best effort. But as they say, wisdom comes with age, and I believe now there to be a whole other layer of meaning to this line. Today's inspirational word: It’s amazing what happens when one stops TRYING to make things happen, and just starts ALLOWING them to. When you just focus on the technique of a skill that’s DESIGNED to succeed, you don’t have to TRY as hard.

Proprioception is our brain's awareness of where our bodies exist within 3D space. If your proprioception is low, most likely your brain is even LESS trusting of moving without the use of your eyes. Today's inspirational word: Bad habits are hard to change, this is true. But it’s not impossible. It just takes time. Confidence and understanding in your technique are what allow you to outperform fear and bad habits.

Cut toxic people out of your life - the ones who, like vampires, continually take from you, only coming around when they need to feed, never adding back to your life or replenishing your spirit. Don’t waste another life-minute providing value to someone who doesn’t value you.

Today's inspirational word: Learn to tell the difference between those “friends” who are constantly checking for you, but who never check ON you - those who are only around when it’s convenient for them or when they need something. For obvious reasons, I call these people “energy vampires”, because they only come around when they need to feed and drain you of your life force just enough that you don’t die but you don’t have the energy for the other relationships in your life, then disappear until their next feeding time.

Finding ourselves, understanding ourselves, and feeling free to embrace our own insecurities and vulnerabilities is terrifying! Because the mind would rather us remain comfortable and complacent, than uncomfortable and risking it all to try something new. But just like ANY other thing we seek to succeed at, outperforming your fear and discomfort takes practice! And so making it a habit to be uncomfortable and allowing yourself to grow from that regular, repetitive discomfort is what will allow you to finally and fully step into your greatness.

Today's inspirational word: Allow yourself to be vulnerable with honesty. Because through allowing yourself to be routinely uncomfortable, you will not only learn to accept the truth but also learn to grow beyond it!

Not every relationship in your life is meant to last. Today’s inspirational word comes from none other than the outspoken matriarch of mischief herself, Madea. Well, not really Madea, but her mild-mannered, plain-clothes, billionaire philanthropist playboy counterpart creator, Tyler Perry. His words were SO amazing that to change or alter them just for the sake of this using my own would be a disservice to the message.

Today's inspirational word: “Some people come into your life and stay a lifetime and some stay for a season. And you will always get yourself into trouble mixing up seasonal people with lifetime expectations.” ~ Tyler Perry

It’s been said that “hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle.” This is a tried and true motivational mindset that even I have at one time adopted. But the problem that’s becoming more and more prevalent in motivation culture, is that there is too much focus on hustle and not enough focus on skill.

Today’s inspirational word: focus on skill! Skill produces results. Skill delivers. If you’re looking to be successful in your field, focus on the value you can add through the skills you develop.

Whether you’ve been chosen as the captain of your cheerleading or football team, or team leader on a project at work, or even to head up a Fortune 500 company as CEO - it’s important to understand what a leader truly is. Today's inspirational word: Be mindful of your station. Be meaningful in your interactions. Be intentional in your leadership. Don’t just set out to fill a seat or play a role. Seek to make a difference in the lives of your peers.

When setting out to accomplish something you want in life, you must do so obsessively. But there must also be these three elements to your pursuit that never waver. You have to go after your passion with ravenous, insatiable hunger, an unquenchable thirst that keeps you striving consistently, persistently, and incessantly. Today's inspirational word: To achieve something you are passionate about, you have to have obsession - consistent, persistent, and incessant passion. Period.

There are TWO types of belief we all experience that are connected to one another - Belief of the Heart and Belief of the Mind. Belief of the Heart runs off conviction and emotional power, while Belief of the Mind is all about evidence, safety, and comfort! They’re hard to get on board with one another but when you can do it, you become more powerful than you could ever imagine, and your level of emotional intelligence goes through the roof. Today's inspirational word: "Belief must be internally felt before it can be externally dealt." (Stevie Gordon Jr.) In this episode, we dive into the difference between belief of the heart and the mind, as well as the difference between "the brain" and "the mind".

The product of hard work is undeniable! Plain and simple, you invest hard work, dedication, focus, discipline, sacrifice, understanding, and technique, the outcome of the formula is ALWAYS the same!!! RESULTS!!! Consistent, focused, patient, and persistent practice ALWAYS produces results! The one thing all of your hard work will NEVER do is make you worse off than you started. There will ALWAYS be progress made. Today's inspirational word: YOU CANNOT CHEAT THE GRIND! It knows EXACTLY how much you have invested! It WILL NOT give you anything you haven’t WORKED for!

Greatness exists within each of us. Every day, we hear and see messages about how we have to go out and “find” our greatness or “discover” our greatness. But what if it’s not a matter of discovery but instead, a matter of learning the keys specific to you to unlock your greatness. Today's inspirational word: THERE IS GREATNESS ALREADY WITHIN YOU! Even if you consider yourself to be unremarkable, untalented, or unmotivated…you still have greatness, a gift that can only be shared and expressed through your UNIQUE personality blueprint, already living inside of you.

It’s been famously said that “comparison is the thief of joy”. And when you get caught up in comparing your progress, value, worth, or importance to someone else, then yes, it can indeed rob you of your joy, because you’re focused more on the end result instead of the journey. You’re witnessing their public success and comparing that to your private struggle. Today's inspirational word: your journey is your journey, and though it might SEEM similar to another’s journey, it is yours alone to experience, traverse, and learn from. And therefore, one must have patience with and trust in the process. Some go through the process with ease, others struggle the entire time. But the formula always produces results.

“A bird sitting on a branch is not afraid of it breaking because her trust is not in the branch, but in her own wings.” I believe faith in oneself to be much like confidence - it is a skill one must develop through constant practice. Your faith in the unseen or in that which has yet to come is something that doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s something you work toward every single day! Today's inspirational word: When we can rely upon the strength of our own wings, when we learn to recognize our own strengths, we can reinforce our belief that we can carry ourselves farther and further into the unknown! Faith may be the evidence in things unseen, but it doesn’t have to be based entirely on unknown variables. As Arthur Ashe is famously known for saying, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” The rest…well, that’s the beginning of faith!

Cheerleading has been a huge part of my life growing up and has influenced me in ways that are so profound, I didn’t even realize it until recently. And I’ve seen it do so much for the lives of the athletes, coaches, and parents that I’ve worked with as well. It’s such a special sport. There is so much emotional investment in what we do, that it pains me when I hear the ignorant rants of people who have no investment in the sport try to rob our athletes and coaches of the joy cheerleading brings to so many.   

“All That Counts” is my answer to all of the negativity we face as cheer athletes and coaches. 

It doesn’t matter what they think or say, and it’s not our job to convince them or prove anything to them. How can you expect others to share your passion when they weren’t given your vision?   

We are what we repeatedly do. Therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit. Hi, I’m Coach Lain, mental performance and technique coach, author, and fear psychology enthusiast. I’ve coached THOUSANDS of cheer athletes and coaches over the last 10 years, helping them to not only GET the skills they wanted through their physical performance, but KEEP them through guiding their emotional and mental performance! It’s my personal belief that if we focus on training the motion and nurturing the mind, we will get stronger, more emotionally centered athletes who can confidently and consistently outperform their fears! This is my vision and daily focus not only for my athletes, but for the parents, coaches, and greater audience I’m seeking to touch with these daily words of inspiration.

Coach Lain Inspires™ Inspirecast is meant to serve as a daily reminder of your greatness. Whether you’re a high-performing athlete or a high-performing CEO, everyone benefits from the daily dose of inspiration! Join me daily for a short inspirational message to help you kickstart your day!