Welcome to Momentum Labs

April 11, 2023.

I walk into work at the OVO Athletic Centre for exit interviews of the players to conclude the season.

I also know it's the day I'm putting a prolonged pause on my professional dreams.

Leaving the Toronto Raptors was one of my life's most challenging professional decisions.

I needed to put my family in a better position after welcoming our first daughter. But I had worked so hard to get to a job that was, in essence, my dream job. Despite knowing the right thing to do, I was still overcome with emotion when I had to tell my boss that I needed to step away.

Tearing up, I told him that I needed to do what was best for my family and move them back to Arizona and that I'd need to wrap up my time as a Raptor.

Then feeling lost set in.

I floundered for several months afterward, trying to figure out what would energize me enough to keep working at the level I expect of myself.

I'd only ever been lost like this once before.

The last time, I burnt out of coaching football. I ended up on a 2-year journey during which I sold newspaper ads, rented tuxedos, and got let go from a job coaching high school football. This was a period of real mixed emotions, with some of my lowest lows and deepest personal failures. I wondered what I would do without a clear target I was aiming for.

The only thing that could get me out of that first slump was a new, larger goal.

I wanted to find something that I could work toward becoming one of the best in the world at doing. I had always built good relationships with players and I loved sports. I went to a career counselor - my first exposure to coaching and support services - and it ended up clicking almost naturally when he suggested I look into becoming a sport psychologist.

I dedicated the next decade of my life to pursuing just that. It led me to Texas, North Carolina, back to Arizona, and ultimately to Toronto.

I felt like I had made it. Until I had to leave.

When I went through this recent period of being lost and confused for the second time, I knew my only solution was to find a new, larger goal. I needed a new focus for this new chapter of my life.

If the first was about sports, the second needed to be about impact. 

This chapter is about scale.

And with that idea in mind, Momentum Labs was born.

I've been waiting to write about this for almost a year.

Momentum Labs is creating scalable solutions to make high-performance and wellness more accessible, efficient, and effective.

I believe that the best mindset training shouldn't be reserved for the elite few who make it to the top in pro sports or the military.

We can do the most good for the most people by teaching these skills early in sports, at every workplace in the country, and by leveraging technology to reach people who otherwise couldn't afford or find services like these.

We're bringing the best principles and practices of elite sport to performers everywhere. 

It's a big mission, and we have to start somewhere. Everyone should have access to the skills they need to think, feel, and perform better.

We believe the best places to start are youth sports and industries where safety is at a premium.

These two spaces represent the best opportunity for an immediate and large impact.

We're in a time of increasing distraction and reduced focus, where the gravest consequences are in workplaces where one lapsed moment can be the difference between life and severe injury, or worse. 

We're also in the midst of a youth mental health crisis, and sports is a perfect avenue for teaching skills to stop it.

Mental Skills in Youth Sports: The Lab

Right now there's no clear organization leading the pack as a place to send your kids if they're struggling with their mindset in school, sports, or at home.

You can Google your local psychologists, but chances are they have little to no experience dealing with sports or even thinking about how sports could be a vehicle for making mindset skills sticky. If you're lucky enough to have a good sport psychologist or certified mental performance consultant in your area, they're hard to meet with, as most are booked up for months in advance.

Many kids would benefit from developing the same psychological skills pro athletes use to consistently perform at their peak, like setting clear goals, learning to self-regulate, or how to be resilient, confident, and committed to a purpose. 

Youth sports are becoming increasingly more complicated and commercialized. Paying NCAA athletes and the influx of private capital have raised the stakes across the board, and much like college athletics, the pressure to produce is going to trickle down to the athletes themselves.

These mindset skills are an antidote to the pressure.

The benefits of mindset coaching extend well beyond the field, too.

Athletes who engage in mindset training can use those same skills for success in sports to flourish at school, in relationships, and later in life at work. Knowing how to prepare, how to build confidence, and how to overcome adversity, for example, are at the core of long-term, sustainable success. 

Research also supports the training of mindset skills in youth sports. We know athletes who engage in mindset coaching:

• Perform better

• Enjoy their sport more

• Develop a growth mindset

• Improve their leadership capabilities

• Build better relationships with teammates

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

If we can get enough young athletes exposed to mental skills training before they hit college, we have a real chance to bolster the well-being of kids everywhere and create the next generation of leaders. 

High-Performance Organizations: Momentum Labs Elite

The businesses with the most risk- like construction, electric, plumbing, and mining - also stand to benefit most from developing high-performance habits. 

These businesses require consistent performance from top to bottom. One misstep could be the literal difference between life and death. And, for many of these gritty businesses, teamwork and effective leadership make the difference between profits and losses, safety or injury. 

Of course, most of these businesses don't have access to these skills at scale. 

Thankfully, we've already had some opportunities to serve companies like these in our local communities. At each stop, we find that the leaders on the ground and at HQ are grateful to learn evidence-based tools and tactics for more effective leadership, teamwork, and individual performance. In roles that require intense focus, deep coordination, and dealing with pressure, mindset skills go a long way.

We plan to teach these skills in several ways;

• Workshops

• 1:1 Coaching

• On-site observation

• Group training and coaching 

We know that each of these services can lead to meaningful changes in productivity, engagement at work, and performance. Now we just need to get them into the hands of as many people as we can.

The healthier and higher performing our workforce, the better people's experience at work.

The other, perhaps obvious, target for us is sports organizations. College athletics and professional sports are a part of a multibillion-dollar high-demand, high-stakes ecosystem. Having worked as an executive in pro sports myself, I know firsthand the pressure that comes with the position.

As fun as the roles in sports can be, the demands are unlike most other fields. There’s a reason we lionize athletes and these organizations. The work to create winning cultures, championship competitors, and lasting legacies is hard.

These professionals need support to be at the top of their game. And, if they do it well, they’ll set a positive example for the next generation of leaders in the space.

Solutions that Scale: Momentum Labs Institute

The final pillar of what we're building is a suite of scalable sport psychology solutions.

What you'll find in the Momentum Labs Institute are workshops, education series, technology, and standalone products designed to teach performers everywhere what it takes to be their best when it matters most.

We know that not everyone wants to or can participate in 1:1 coaching, but that many performers still want to leverage these skills in their daily lives. The solutions we develop in the Institute are designed to reach more people where they are, in ways that work for them.

We've already kickstarted this process with a partnership to develop an AI sport psychologist. In the future, we'll have self-paced courses, workbooks, cohort-based learning, and more made available for anyone who wants to raise their game.

It takes a team to do this.

What I'm most proud of so far is the team we've built at Momentum Labs.

Like every start-up, we've had our share of failures. We had a founding member quit out of the blue. I've fumbled and failed at communicating clearly. Our team has had tension and worked through it. 

We practice what we preach.

This team is dedicated to making health and high-performance accessible and applicable to everybody. Our diverse backgrounds personally and professionally lend themselves to a holistic suite of services designed to serve every young athlete, parent, coach, community, and organization.

Here's who you will see moving our mission forward at Momentum Labs:

• Anthony McClish - former President of the G League Ignite

• Kacey Oiness - Performance Psychologist with the LV Aces

• Abigail Eiler - Performance Social Worker for University of Michigan

• Alan Woodruff - Head of Growth & former marketing lead at Coca Cola

• Corrina Nickerson - leader at Future Fit and mental performance coach

• Brett Haskell - Performance Psychologist for the NWSL and New York Yankees

Working with Momentum Labs

If you are interested in performance psychology services for your youth athlete or your organization, the easiest way to get started is to just reply here.

You can also check out our website for youth sports.

If you want to learn more about Momentum Labs for your business or the self-paced solutions we are developing, reply to this email.

We're also excited to launch with several great partners, including:

• EXOS: The nation's premier physical performance center. 

• Positive Coaching Alliance: The national leader in coach education and positive youth development. 

• MaxU: An assessment platform designed to help young athletes better understand themselves and develop self-awareness skills.  

• SAVI: A community for basketball coaches who are moving the game forward. 

• OrthoAZ: Arizona's largest orthopedic medicine clinic

• Mettle AI: An AI performance psychologist and group for parents wanting to teach their kids these skills.

And there's more to come. We're just getting started.