What the OPR Actually Is
This is a self-directed course. There's no coach holding you accountable, no cohort, no deadline. What there is: a structured body of work — reflections, practices, and a 28-day attention training protocol — that, if you engage with it fully, will change the way you operate.
The material is organized around three questions I ask every athlete and coach I work with privately. Who are you? Is your sense of identity — your values, your self-concept — something you've actually examined, or is it just a story you inherited and never questioned? Where is your attention? Under pressure, fatigue, or adversity, does your mind go where you need it to go — or does it go where it's always gone? What's your container? Is the daily and pre-performance structure of your life actually designed, or is it just a set of habits you fell into?
Most performance work addresses one of these. The OPR addresses all three — and more importantly, it shows you how they're connected. Attention training without identity work is technique. Identity work without a daily container is insight you can't hold. The pillars reinforce each other. That's the point.
You'll do some of the most significant work of this course in the text boxes. Write slowly. Don't optimize. The person who fills the box in thirty seconds is performing for an audience that doesn't exist. The point is contact with what's actually true for you — not a polished version of it.
I Do This Work Too
Before you go any further, I want to be direct about something: every exercise in this course is something I do myself. The values excavation, the motivation audit, the self-talk work, the mindfulness practice — these aren't frameworks I developed for athletes and then set down when I left the building. They're the structure of my own life.
My performance values are discipline, challenge seeking, mindful living, and continuous learning. Those aren't words I chose for a slide deck. They show up in my decisions. After my playing career ended, continuous learning meant going back to finish my undergraduate degree at Arizona State — and walking the ceremony at 37. While working with the Cubs under Joe Maddon, I completed my M.A. in Performance Psychology. My thesis was a program almost identical to the one you're about to go through. I didn't write about this work from the outside. I built it from the inside.
Challenge seeking and discipline show up most visibly right now in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I train six days a week and I'm currently a Brown Belt — one rank from Black. BJJ is the hardest thing I've done since professional baseball, and I pursue it for the same reason I pursued baseball: the mat doesn't care about your credentials. You either show up and do the work or you don't. The belt reflects reality, not intention.
The mindfulness practice in this course — the MBAT protocol you'll begin in Module 1 — is not something I'm introducing you to cold. I've maintained a consistent daily practice for ten years, using these exact exercises. I know what Week 1 feels like. I know what it feels like to sit down on Day 8 when you don't want to. I know what changes by Day 28.
I say all of this for one reason. The foundation of any coaching relationship worth having is integrity — and integrity means alignment between what you say and what you do. I would never ask you to do something I'm not willing to do myself. Everything in this course, every prompt, every practice, every hard question — I've sat with it. Some of it I still sit with. The work doesn't end. That's not a warning. It's the point.
The 15-Minute Container
Starting in Module 1, you'll begin a 28-day Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT) protocol. Fifteen minutes, five days a week. This is the structural core of the entire course.
Here's why: most people try to add a mental performance practice to a life that has no space for it. It doesn't stick — not because they lack discipline, but because there's no designated container. The MBAT protocol solves that problem first. Before you can put anything meaningful in a jar, you need a jar.
The 28 days of MBAT build that jar. Four weeks, four attentional modes — Focused Attention, Body Scan, Open Monitoring, Connection — each one training a specific skill you actually need in competition. But here's the deeper purpose: by week four, you will have established a daily 15-minute intentional practice, at the same time, in the same place, with the same quality of attention. That habit — that container — is yours permanently.
Once you've completed the 28 days, you can put anything into that 15-minute window. A pre-performance visualization. A values review. Breath work. The Prime practice from Module 5. The container doesn't disappear when the MBAT sequence ends — it becomes the home for whatever mental performance practice serves you most in the next chapter of your work.
Start the MBAT protocol on the same day you begin Module 1. Don't wait until Module 4. The attention training and the identity work are meant to run in parallel — one informs the other.
Four Weeks. Four Attentional Modes.
15 minutes · 5 days per week · Begin Week 1 with Module 1
Five Modules — Work at Your Own Pace
Before You Begin
- Work through each module sequentially. The material builds. Don't skip ahead.
- Start the MBAT Week 1 audio practice on the same day you open Module 1. The attention training and the identity work run in parallel throughout this course.
- Every text box auto-saves in your browser. Your work is yours — it doesn't go anywhere. Download your reflections from each module when you finish it.
- Write slowly. The person who fills a box in thirty seconds is performing for an audience that doesn't exist here. There is no audience. Write for yourself.
- If a prompt doesn't land immediately — sit with it. Return tomorrow. The discomfort of not having a quick answer is usually the beginning of the real answer.
- The MBAT practice is 15 minutes, five days a week. Same time, same place if you can. Consistency matters more than intensity. Show up ordinary and do the work.
"Most people spend enormous energy on what they do
and almost none on who they are while doing it."