How to Build a Mentally Tough Team - Without Yelling, Fear, or Punishment

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For years, coaches have been told that discipline comes from yelling, accountability comes from fear, and punishment is the best motivator. But let’s be real—how many athletes actually play better when they’re scared?

The truth? The best teams aren’t built on fear. They’re built on trust, accountability, and leadership. And in this episode, I’m breaking down exactly how I led my teams to 4 state championships in 4 years—without relying on intimidation or fear-based tactics.

🔹 Set the Standard, Then Hold It – Rules control. Standards empower. Learn  how to create true accountability without punishment.

🔹 You Can’t Neglect Coaching the Mental Game – Your team can’t be mentally tough if you don’t train it. I’ll show you how.

🔹 Create a Culture Where Players Belong – When athletes feel safe, they perform better. Here’s how to build trust and buy-in.

🔹 Make Practices Competitive – For your team to dominate in games, you have to create pressure in practice.

If you want to build a winning program—one where athletes are confident, mentally tough, and play at their best—this episode is for you.

00:00 Introduction: Building a Winning Team Without Fear
02:23 Setting and Holding Standards
07:49 The Importance of Mental Training
13:15 Creating a Culture of Belonging
16:30 Empowering Leaders and Fostering Competition
18:31 Conclusion: Key Takeaways for Coaches

🎯 Next Episode: We’re diving into exactly how to integrate mental training into your practices—without overwhelming your schedule. Don’t miss it!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Building a Winning Team Without Fear
• 3:27 Setting and Holding Standards
• 8:53 The Importance of Mental Training
• 14:19 Creating a Culture of Belonging
• 17:34 Empowering Leaders and Fostering Competition
• 19:35 Conclusion: Key Takeaways for Coaches

Transcript

Ep. 3: How to Build a Mentally Tough Team — Without Yelling, Fear, or Punishment

Introduction: Building a Winning Team Without Fear

​[00:00:00] 

For years I believed that to build a winning team you had to be the 

loudest voice 

in the gym, that discipline comes from yelling, 

and that accountability

comes from fear, 

i. e. running lines until you puke your guts out, 

and that punishment is the best motivator. 

But let me ask you this, how many athletes have actually played 

better because they were scared?

How many teams have actually reached their full potential 

because they were constantly afraid of making a mistake. 

And the truth is the best programs are not built on fear. They're built on trust, accountability, and leadership. 

And today I'm breaking down how I built a championship culture, 

four state titles in four years 

without yelling, fear or punishment and how you can steal these strategies for your own team.

If I haven't met you, I am Coach Bre I am a Mental Performance Coach for athletes, but also a long time Head Volleyball Coach and the podcast Host for Coach Her Game 

this podcast is for [00:01:00] you if you are a coach looking to elevate your game, build a culture that you are proud of, and you care about coaching your athletes beyond just the X's and O's.

This space is for you. So today I'm breaking down The four state titles in four years. Now, a lot goes into this, and it was a culmination of a lot of things. But to sustain that type of culture and that type of success over four straight years, there were some common themes that I can trace back to seeing as an integral part to our success.

Yes, we had talented teams. Before your mind goes, you're like, well, she had this person and she had that person. Yeah, I've got talented teams and I'm willing to bet that you do too. But there are things that those talented teams, once they get to the post season and they get to season two, state. All teams are like that.

All teams are talented. All teams are going to give you a run for your money. And that's really where your culture, where your communication, where your mental training, all of those things [00:02:00] really do shine through in those key moments. So I'm distilling it down to three, but honestly, They're, they're so much.

It also takes a little bit of luck to be able to sustain that level of success over those four years. I'm not overlooking luck and talent and all of those other things that go into it. But let's talk about kind of the basis for building this culture where players can really feel like they belong and that they thrive.

Setting and Holding Standards

The number one thing. It's to set the standard and then hold it. Setting the standard is the easy part. For me, the holding is the hard part. Okay, because we know a strong culture isn't just about rules. It's about standards. And the difference is that rules tell players what not to do. Standards show them who they are and what's Expected of them at all times.

And we developed standards in our program really early on. And um, we work on this through the summer. We also have had standards in our program that have been carried on from year after year. So the work of [00:03:00] our leadership team in the summer. Creates and refines what our standard is, what our vision is, what, what gaps are existing from the previous year and how can we fill those gaps?

So we have these systems in place. And the more that you listen to this podcast and you check out our YouTube channel, I break down our leadership system and how we develop our standards and how our leaders actually are the ones that are enforcing these things. Um, I give you all those strategies, um, you know, throughout these episodes and in, in, in our YouTube channel.

But. The key thing is that those standards are developed and they're not just words on a wall. They're not just plastered on the whiteboard. They're things that are enforced and they're celebrated throughout your program. And accountability, you know, this word comes in that like, you know, players should be holding themselves accountable and holding each other accountability or accountable and accountability is not the same thing as punishment, right?

Punishment is about control. Punishment is like. You forgot your, um, you know, your black practice shirt [00:04:00] today. So, you know, the whole program is going to run now. I'm not here to say whether, um, I agree with that or not. I will say that exercise as punishment is not something that we do a lot in our program.

Well, from time to time have, you know, set of lines, but we are not, you know, kind of how I was, Coach was like anything that you did wrong, you were running for it and you were running for a long time and we were spending a lot of practice doing a lot of that. I think that that takes away from.

opportunities to get reps. And you know, there's other ways that we can be holding players accountable. One of which is having a conversation with the player or having one of your leaders have a conversation with the player, um, figuring out what the root cause is, what is, what is stopping you from, you Making sure that you are set up for success for practice so that you're prepared, you know.

Like all of those type of things that, again, we'll be breaking down in our YouTube channel and other episodes is way more effective than just this like, blanket we're just going to throw some [00:05:00] punishments at you. Because punishments work in the short term, But it kills long term buy in and, um, long term trust.

Okay, it creates robot players who are afraid to take risk, especially if you're punishing players for missing their serves or making mistakes. It's actually not like helping them with the skill. It's making them afraid of making more mistakes. And it forces compliance, but it doesn't build accountability.

So to set standards that actually stick, it's really important that you're defining your program's non negotiables. What do you want your team to be known for? What, what do you see? Stand for as a program, okay, involve your players in this process, I cannot overemphasize them enough. It's, it's messy and sometimes it's like, uh, kind of annoying to, you know, go, go around like, okay, can we just land on something?

It'd be easier if I just told you, you know, but it's so important that they are part of this process and they're picking what your standards are. Um, in our program, we have our standards is attitude, effort, unity and integrity, and [00:06:00] we reinforce these things. So the player of the week, we have a weekly theme around one of those.

Um, the player of the week at the end of the week is chosen based on those demonstration of one of those skills. standards. Um, whatever the one is that we're focusing on for that week. Um, when we do film or we point out plays or things that like the things that have happened, we're highlighting and tying it back to one of those standards.

Um, and so there's ways that you're, you're infusing these things. And it's not just something that you, talk about as a coach. I tell stories around these standards as well, like very short little things to help connect these back to like what this looks like in real life. Um, we've also had challenges for athletes where they're, you know, challenged to, um, do these things outside of volleyball.

So they need to, Go up to the custodian at lunch and ask custodian if they, um, need help with anything and, you know, to reflect back our standard of integrity. And so there's, there's things like that, that you can be constantly infusing in. Okay. This [00:07:00] is not going to be a deep dive into all this. I'll just preface that, but just at a lot, uh, you know, a wider lens here, set the standard.

Hold the standard. What are the, um, what are the things that athletes need to be accountable to? And what happens if they are not? And part of our leadership structure, um, which I'll talk about in a second, actually helps run that by itself in a way. Um, so we'll talk about that. Cause that's honestly the best, you know, when they're being in, when they're met with a conversation from one of their peers around like, Hey, I'm noticing that you are late to practice.

Um, you know, What, what can I do to help you not be late to practice in our, you know, in our gym, we are all here on time. Like that is actually going to go a lot further for that athlete who is late than me just lining everybody up and having them run a set of lines. Okay. 

The Importance of Mental Training

Number two, you can not neglect coaching the mental game.

Now, obviously this is important to me. You're like, you know, I'm a mental performance coach. I went back five years in my coaching career because we [00:08:00] did not do this at all. Because honestly, like, we're not taught this as coaches. We're not, we're not told at all how to teach this part of the game. Like one of the most important parts of the game, right?

Because you can have your players playing really well in practice. And then all of a sudden in game, you're like, is this a different team? Like what the heck is happening? So you have to take this upon yourself to make sure that you at least know the basics. You do not need a sports psychology degree to teach this.

And in fact, you don't even need to teach it. We have a plug and play system where you can literally plug and play mental training for your team in as little as 30 minutes or less a week. So if you want to check that out, um, go to coach. Dot elite competitor dot com forward slash training. I'll put that in the show notes That that little training you can actually go there You can learn about our method learn about the plug and play and there's a discount as well for that.

Okay, super um affordable for most programs to be able to incorporate just like a plug and play way but Mental training has to be part of your culture Like you cannot just tell your athletes to be confident or shake it off and expect they know how to do that Like they just they do not right They need mental tools as much as they need physical [00:09:00] ones and a strong mindset is honestly different to The difference between teams that crumble in big moments and a team that rises under pressure.

And I've seen this time and time again. Hey, um, you know, I've had teams that are very talented and we don't teach mental skills and you know, we're looking pretty good, rolling along, beating people, and then all of a sudden we hit, get hit with some pressure, some competition, and we don't know how to handle it.

And we crumble, we fall apart, and then we don't make it to the state. Okay. And then I have had teams where, you know, we've had this ingrained. We teach athletes a reset routine called the snapback routine to help players get over mistakes quickly. quickly. We teach them breathing techniques for brush pressure situations.

We teach them how, um, what to do with their negative self talk and how to turn that around. We teach visualization. We make it normal. Like it's literally a part of our daily routine to do mental training. It takes five minutes a day. And when we incorporate this, it shows up in big moments. I'll never forget this past state championship, this past, um, fall, our fourth one.

Um, like we weren't really, we weren't slated to win. We were kind of the underdogs. Um, we got, we [00:10:00] got to the championship, which for many people, including myself, was a little surprising. So we were like, oh, we're just happy to be here. But, um, you know, the team across the net was, It's bigger, stronger and faster.

You know, they, we, we obviously had, had our talent as well, um, but we only had one returner who had been part of the previous three state championships. Um, a lot of players were in new positions, um, key positions, libero, setter. Like really key positions. Um, I had young players on the court who had no state championship experience.

You look across the court, you've got 3, D 1 commit, D 1 commit. You know, where you're like, okay, well just line us up and kind of, you can kind of do the eye test to see what's going to happen here. But, um, you know, and at one point in that match, the, um, the other team that we're playing for the championship had championship point.

So it was in the fourth set. They were, they, they were serving the ball. They were, they were set up to If they won that point, they won the whole thing. They hadn't won state. Since 1988, 36 years. Um, so all their fans were on their feet. You know, if there were any moment that, [00:11:00] like, was full of, like, pressure, this would be it, okay?

And so, we actually, uh, won that point. So, they served, we passed the ball, won the point, um, we go back, we get the ball, you've gotta win by two, so that tied the game up. And we have to win by two, so these next two points, like, are up for grabs. And my sophomore goes back, okay? Sophomore, no state experience, first year on varsity, and I'm like, okay, here we go.

She goes out there. She looks like she has ice in her veins. She serves. Um, the other team actually like their star player, star hitter hits the ball out of bounds, which is like super unlikely uncommon, especially for this level of play and this level of player. Okay, we'll take it. Um, sophomore goes back, serves again.

This is for to win the set. And, uh, their team sends a free ball, like a really easy ball, into the net, like, made another unforced error. I had never seen this so blatant, um, of a team literally, like, just mentally falling [00:12:00] apart on the other side of the net. And our team. Rising to that challenge. And, uh, we ended up winning the fifth set winning state.

Okay. At that point, it was kind of like the, they kind of had the wind sucked out of their sails. And, um, what I was most proud of though, is, um, you know, reporters were asking my players questions and I was reading the paper and what they said. And one of the questions is about like, well, what were you thinking when you went back to serve for that?

And my player said, I was. doing my breath and I was doing my reset word. I kept doing, you know, doing my breath, my reset word. And those things are part of the snapback routine that we teach with mental training every single day. They did their breath, they did their reset word every single day. And that is what she said out loud was what she was doing.

And at my post season meeting with her as well, she was like, I just was doing my breath and doing my reset word. That's all I knew how to do. Yeah. And she was like, and that helped me. So it's in those moments where that mental training shines through. You can not neglect it. You can't just say, [00:13:00] I don't know how to do it because I can, I literally can give you a program that is plug and play for you to do it.

So check out that training if you are like, yeah, okay. I need to start, um, you know, incorporating some of this. So that's at coach. elitecompetitor. com forward slash training. Okay. All right. 

Creating a Culture of Belonging

Point three, creating a culture. where players belong and can be themselves. Again, I know this is a big one too. It's like, oh, we're talking about these like big things, but you already know the best teams aren't just teams.

They have this, this deep connection to one another and the strongest cultures create a space where every player feels like they belong. And I'll be honest, I don't always get this right. We have had to work really hard at this. Um, and it, it wasn't like this at the beginning of my coaching career. In fact, I had a player quit.

Um, you know, Gosh, at this point it was, it was several years, well not several, it was like three years ago at this point, um, and that, that gutted me. I was like, this has never happened, what the heck? And I, you know, I could blame her for a lot of things, [00:14:00] right? Like there's always kind of two sides to, to all of it, but, or three sides, right?

Um, But I had to really look at myself and my culture and realize that there were things that obviously were happening that either I wasn't aware of, things that I was allowing in our culture, where this player did not feel like she wanted to return. And we know that when athletes feel safe, they perform better.

When they are connected to their coaches and to other teammates, they can trust each other. They have better communication, better accountability, and players who buy into their team's mission are going to play harder. And so what I ended up doing after that player Quit. Um, coming back to, you know, the, the following season afterwards, we started implementing something called the Open Circle Method.

And at least once a week, we create this atmosphere where players are sharing and they're connecting. And I have a whole structure and a whole framework for that. That's over on our YouTube channel. Um, but basically it's something that we do once a week as a team. It's a, it's, I guess you would call it glorified team [00:15:00] meeting, but we have specific talking points, specific norms that go around this.

Um, And it has really nothing to do with volleyball and everything to do with trust and with sharing with a little bit of vulnerability, which is hard for me as well as the coach. But, um, I'll tell you what, it makes a huge difference in athletes trusting each other when they know each other, you know, somebody you can trust them when you trust them, you're going to play harder for them.

You're going to feel more safe. Okay. So there's, there's a lot, a lot that goes into that, but not just that team meeting. We then started in, um, implementing weekly meetings with our players as well, um, like check in meetings where they go, we go through and we're making sure that we're tracking that they're understanding their role.

You know, there's a lot that goes into that as well. We do daily meetings. I know this might sound a lot. You're like, how do you tell all these meetings? Okay. Um, over on our YouTube channel, I talk about our, my 10 second daily check in with athletes. So you can steal that strategy. Weekly meeting, they're just on a cadence.

Um, and, you know, we make it happen because it's, it's important. And [00:16:00] athletes are, they love them and they want to make sure that, um, they're communicating with their coaches. It provides an opportunity for that. And those weekly meetings are just part of our culture. They're part of our Fridays. So, those things allow for more of a culture where people are sharing more than just their sport because it impacts the results.

Um, you know, I can't emphasize it enough that whenever I, like, think about taking it out, I'm like, Oh, we need this time to do this. I'm like, you know what? This is just as important. All right. 

Empowering Leaders and Fostering Competition

The other thing about it is empowering your leaders. Um, as I said, I have a whole leadership structure that starts in the summer.

Um, and one of them is to identify leaders and put them in charge of different parts of your team. So, you know, we have squad leaders. They have five to six people that they're in charge of. They have, um, you know, they're the, the, the point of contact for those players, but they also are leading them in, um, you know, in their Getting them acclimated to the culture of the program.

There's a lot that the squad [00:17:00] leaders do for their teams, but it also allows them to be leaders and also be the people who are holding those people accountable. So it's often the squad leader, if somebody in their, their, their squad is not following an expectation or, um, you know, didn't do something that they're supposed to do, their squad leader is often one that is the one holding them accountable.

So, um, That is another key thing. It's really helping your leaders identify their strengths as well and not expecting your leaders to all have the same strengths. So there's also a lot that goes into that, but when you can empower your leaders and you can create a culture where people feel like they belong and they have a role, good things happen.

All right. The last thing is a little bonus. Compete. Make everything competitive. Be, be strategic and intentional with your practice planning so that there's limited transition times and that people are, you know, your athletes are competing. We use a competitive cauldron to track things and, um, make sure that we are competing every single day because when we do have that culture of competition, athletes are pushing each other more.

We track, like I said, we track things, we rank players. I [00:18:00] know that that can, I can create a whole episode on ranking players, um, because that can be tricky. You have to do that in a very intentional way. Um, but we also make it fun. Players want to win in practice as much as they, um, winning games, which makes it easy to, to have practices like that, where we're not having to like, okay, you're going to run a set of lines because you missed this many serves.

It's like, no, we're like battling it out in practice and make everything game like. Um, so. that it looks as much like competition, um, in games as it can be. 

Conclusion: Key Takeaways for Coaches

So these lessons I could, I could go further and further into all of this, but if I really were to distill it down, set the standard and hold it. Do not neglect coaching on the side of the game.

Create a culture where players belong and can be themselves, including developing your leaders. And then a bonus, make sure everything is competitive, game like, and create a system where players want to come and they want to battle it out and they want to compete. They want to play for each other. Okay.

All right. If you take nothing else from this episode, though, remember this, you [00:19:00] do not have to yell. You do not have to intimidate or punish your players to build a championship culture. You've got to set the standard. You've got to build confidence and you've got to create leaders. All right. If this resonated with you, subscribe, share it with another coach who needs to hear it.

And in the next episode, I am going to dive into something that I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to create an episode around, but I decided I would. 

And that is all about how to. balance this role of being a mom, being a coach, being, you know, in your life while also coaching and how to juggle it all because I was at the brink of burnout recently and I'll tell you how I came back from that and what I learned in the process.

I'll see you in the next episode.