Unleash The Athlete

12/09/2025

A little over a year ago, I published Raising Resilient Athletes: A Parent’s Guide to the Mental Game of Youth Sports.

Since then, my inbox has been full of emails and DMs from parents sharing stories of car-ride conversations, dinner-table talks, and quiet moments before bed where they used the book to help their kids handle pressure, failure, comparison, and success. I’ve read messages from moms and dads who said things like, “I finally feel like I have language for what I’ve been trying to teach,” and “My kid is starting to bounce back faster after tough games.”

I wrote this book because talent is never the whole story. The way a young athlete talks to themselves, handles adversity, and responds when things don’t go their way—that’s the stuff that carries them long after the last whistle blows. Watching parents lean into those conversations instead of avoiding them has been one of the most meaningful parts of my career.

If you’ve read the book, shared it with another family, or used it with your team: thank you. Your notes, reviews, and stories are a big part of why I keep creating resources for parents and coaches in the youth sports space.

If you haven’t checked it out yet and you’re raising or coaching an athlete, this book was written for you. It’s not about raising perfect kids—it’s about raising resilient ones.

Here’s to the parents in the stands, doing the quiet mental game coaching that rarely makes the highlight reel but changes everything.

Youth sports can be amazing—and completely overwhelming. One week, your kid is flying high, the next, they’re in tears on the car ride home, ready to quit forever. Meanwhile, you’re stuck in the middle, trying to support them without becoming “that parent” in the stands. is a practical, no...

12/07/2025

Mid-December hits weird, doesn’t it?

For a lot of the country, it’s dark at 4:30, everyone’s in hoodies, and practice feels like it starts at midnight. I live in Florida, so I still haven’t put on a sweater at night yet, but even here you can feel it:

Kids are checked out.
Coaches are tired.
Parents are quietly (and not so quietly) freaking out.

Grades, tournaments, family drama, travel teams, holiday schedules… It’s a perfect storm of too much.

A little encouragement for you:

You don’t have to out-coach December.
You just have to shepherd your kids through it.

This time of year, attention spans are cooked. That doesn’t mean standards disappear; it means they shrink into something everyone can actually win.

Pick one thing for each practice:

“By the time they leave today, I want them a little better at this.”

Build around that. Shorter drills. More reps. Less lecture. End five minutes early and let them play. You’re not getting lazy; you’re coaching with purpose.

You also don’t need a “Friday Night Fire” speech every afternoon. Save the whole pregame sermon for when it counts. Right now, you need about 60 seconds of calm leadership:

“Look, I know you’ve got finals, family stuff, and a lot on your mind. For the next hour, this is your break. Be here. Move, compete, encourage each other. That’s enough for today.”

That’s it. No movie monologue. Just presence and clarity.

Parents are in their own version of chaos: money stress, schedule stress, and “Is my kid falling behind?” stress. One clear message from you is to lower the temperature:

“Here’s the schedule. Here’s what’s truly important. If your kid needs a night for exams or family, tell me—we’ll work with it.”

December is when Talent Needs Character stops being a phrase and becomes your daily job description. Your athletes are watching how you handle fatigue, frustration, and curveballs. They’re learning more from your body language than from your playbook.

Most of what happens this month won’t show up on a stat sheet. But they’ll remember:

Did coach respect our time?
Did coach see us as humans, not just starters and subs?
Did coach handle stress the way they want us to?
So as the year winds down, keep it simple:

Be clear.
Be steady.
Be human.

You don’t have to be amazing right now. You have to be anchored so your kids have at least one adult in their life who isn’t spinning out with the rest of the world.

https://amzn.to/4oYPoQF

Send a message to learn more

11/29/2025

I just published a book that I wish I had when I was in high school.

A few years ago, I wrote an article for parents and coaches about how talent isn’t enough—that without character, grit, and self-awareness, the whole thing eventually collapses. That article wouldn’t leave me alone… so I turned it into a book.

Talent Needs Character is a mental game playbook for youth and high school athletes (and the adults who support them). It’s short, real, and built to be used, not just read—something you can hand to an athlete and actually talk about.

You can get the hardcover or paperback, available now on Amazon

https://amzn.to/3Kw2Blx

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05/25/2023

Hey friends! I just finished my next book, "The Empowered Coach: How to Make a Lasting Impact on a Student-Athlete."
I am currently offering pre-sale signed copies before it hits Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retail sites.
Click the link to order your signed copy today!!

https://jamesleath.mykajabi.com/the-empowered-coach-book

Pre-sale purchase gets you:

--> Signed copy of the book
--> eBook Copy when publicly published
--> Exclusive access to the private Facebook Group
--> Access to Youth Sports Coach Fundamentals Course ($19)

01/31/2023

One of my favorite activities in my new book is called You, Me, We. In a nutshell, at the end of practice, you select three athletes and give them an opportunity to shed light on something good that just happened.

YOU - Have an athlete call out a teammate in a positive way. Getting a compliment from a peer is very powerful. As a coach, you may not have noticed something good that one of your athletes did during practice. This is an opportunity for players to see each other and build each other up.

ME - Have an athlete think introspectively. Many athletes dwell on past mistakes, and that slows down their improvement, or they focus on the mastery or mistakes of others. Give your athletes an opportunity to search for the good in their performance. Did they hustle more than the day before? Did they improve on something today? Force them to recognize some sort of improvement in their game and try to notice that in the next practice.

WE - Have an athlete consider what the team did good during practice...celebrate the team. What is the team getting better at? Was there a moment in the previous game when the momentum shifted? Is the energy level of practice improving?

Focusing on self, others, and the team is going to happen whether you do this exercise or not. However, I find that doing this helps you as the coach guide the thought process of your athletes, leading them to focus on positives instead of negatives.

Get your copy of Team Building Activities for Athletes here:
https://amzn.to/3wG5A0n

06/13/2022

Be BIG.
Take the job.
Make the move.
Ask her out.
Attempt the lift.
Learn the skill.
Accept the role.
Start the podcast.
Write the book.
Build the business.
Forgive the offense.
Love the challenge.
Fail and start over.
Because what is the alternative…to live small? F that.
Fair warning: To be big is to acquire haters. The bigger you are, the louder they get.
Don’t listen to them.
Don’t give them control of your map.
Don’t let them have anything more than the table scraps you leave on the floor because you are out there doing BIG s**t and despite their hate, you continue to love.
Do the thing. The world needs more BIG and you are just the person for the job.

03/18/2022

A question I get all the time is, "How do I stay motivated?"

You don't.

Let me explain...

When you break the word motivate in to its two parts, you get “motive “ and “ate”.
“Motive” means to move, or drive, as in automobile. Before there were cars, we had to walk or ride horses or get a bike. But once cars were invented, our movement became automated.

The suffix “ate” is a verb meaning to be full of, like the word passionate, meaning to be full of passion.

When we put those two words together to get the word motivate, we can see that it means to be full of movement.

The lesson: To be motivated, get moving.

You don't stay motivated; you get moving. The quickest way to get where you want to go is to start moving in that direction. Complete the task, set the appointment, start the project. Whatever it is, get moving.

It is the movement, the action, that will inspire you to stay motivated.

So get moving!

03/14/2022

Have you watched Ted Lasso (Apple+)? As a leader, it is a must. Here are some of my takeaways:

--> Teams are a reflection of the leaders.
--> Culture is a reflection of the daily effort of those leaders.
--> Performance is a reflection of how the team responds to the experience created by the leaders.

Don’t leave culture to chance. When culture is good, you will be like Coach Lasso when he said he felt ‘like we fell out of the lucky tree and hit every branch on the way down, ended up in a pool of cash and Sour Patch Kids."

02/22/2022

Spoke to a group of high school athletes about how to be a leader. We ask our kids to “step up” and “be a better leader” but rarely do we show them how.

I teach them to:
🔹Raise your standard of performance.
🔹Hold your teammates accountable for their performance.
🔹Learn the names of the younger kids who look up to you.

Every team could use more leaders, and the world needs a generation of future adults that can lead themself before they can lead others.