What Coaches/Mentors Can Learn from Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat
Coach Reyes had a runner nobody else wanted to work with: fast but inconsistent, skipping practices, discouraged after a bad season. Other coaches suggested focusing on the polished athletes already winning meets. Reyes saw a specific, fixable gap instead: poor pacing strategy, not lack of talent. Over three weeks he worked on exactly that, pacing drills twice a week, nothing else added to the routine. He did not overhaul her training plan, diet, and mindset all at once. He waited a full season of meets, watching consistent times rather than one good race, before telling her she was ready to compete at the regional level. His instinct had been to declare a breakthrough after any single strong performance. This time he made himself wait for a pattern before raising the stakes on someone else's behalf, and before asking the school to invest more in her training.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
0 of 5 selected
The core lessons, applied to you
Seeing the fixable gap, not just the raw talent
The most rewarding people to coach are rarely the ones already excelling with nothing left to improve. Undervalued potential in a person usually looks like a specific, addressable gap: a habit, a technique, a piece of confidence, sitting underneath real underlying ability. A coach's judgment is in finding that gap precisely, rather than assuming broad talent alone will surface on its own.
A coach mistakes deep-seated resistance or a mismatched goal for a fixable gap, and invests months into someone who was never going to change course.
Before committing serious coaching time to someone, name the one specific, addressable gap you believe is holding them back.
Working the one fix, not a total overhaul
Once you find the gap, work on it specifically, with a defined plan and timeframe, rather than reworking everything about how a person trains, works, or thinks at once. A focused improvement that actually lands builds more trust and more real progress than an ambitious, unfocused overhaul.
A coach tries to fix technique, mindset, and habits simultaneously, overwhelming the person and making it impossible to tell what is actually working.
Pick one specific skill or habit to work on this cycle, and hold off on addressing anything else until it shows real progress.
Watching for a real pattern before raising the stakes
Resist declaring a breakthrough after one strong session or one good outcome. Wait for a real pattern across multiple attempts before encouraging someone to take on a bigger challenge, a competition, a promotion, a public commitment, that puts more on the line.
A coach pushes someone toward a high-stakes opportunity after one good showing, and the person struggles publicly because the improvement had not actually stabilized yet.
Define in advance how many consistent repetitions or results you need to see before recommending someone take the next step up.
Redirecting your attention to the next person
The coaching version of recycling capital is deliberately redirecting the attention and trust freed up once one person is stable and self-sufficient toward the next person who needs it, rather than continuing to over-invest in someone who no longer needs as much. This is what lets one coach or mentor develop many people well over time.
The pull to keep finding new people with potential can compete with actually proving one person's improvement has stabilized before stepping back. A coach who is always recruiting the next promising person may leave earlier mentees under-supported right when they need proof, not just encouragement. Resolve this by confirming one person's progress has held before meaningfully shifting attention to someone new.
Name one thing, honestly
Who are you currently coaching or mentoring on hope alone, rather than on a pattern you have actually seen hold up?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
0 of 3 selected
Run this for seven days
Define in advance how many consistent repetitions or results you need to see before recommending someone take the next step up.