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- Essentials Vol. 4
Essentials Vol. 4
High performance starts with the details you honor, the expectations you set, and the clarity you teach with.
Zach Brandon
January 03, 2026
A Quick Note Before We Begin…
In 2026, I’ll be rolling out several new growth opportunities designed specifically for sport coaches, leaders, and mental performance practitioners who want to deepen their impact, both in how they lead and how they live.
I’ll be sharing the first special announcement in the next installment of Winning With Words so I want to invite you to stay tuned.
As far as this week’s Essentials, the three clips below highlight three key principles that underpin high performance: The discipline to honor the details that others overlook, leveraging expectations to raise your team’s ceiling, and what it takes to become a master teacher.
What It Takes to Be a Savage
Context
Tiger Woods boils success down to its most unglamorous components: The daily and long-term commitment to the ugly, hard, and mundane details.
Lesson
Excellence has a filtering mechanism. It filters people out through boredom, discomfort, and delayed rewards. It lives in the details that most people don't have the discipline or patience to honor every day.
Why Expectations Shape Outcomes
Context
Former World Series MVP, Scott Brosius, discusses how coaches will drive a team’s success with the expectations they set and how he reminded his teams to compete against their most important opponent: Themselves.
Lesson
Coaches are cultural architects. What you define, tolerate, and consistently reinforce will be a catalyst for your team’s success (or failure). Think of clarity around expectations as a gift you offer your players. It reminds them what “good” looks like and gives them something worth rising toward.
If you’re interested in learning more about the role of expectations in shaping outcomes and driving performance, you’re welcome to check out a previous Winning With Words newsletter I wrote on the topic (read here).
Master Teachers Create Clarity
Context
Vanderbilt Head Football Coach, Clark Lea, shares an awesome quote that illustrates why coaches benefit from becoming master teachers and what that really means.
Lesson
Simplicity isn’t dumbing things down. Clear teaching builds trust and trust creates freedom. When coaches simplify the complex, they reduce fear, quiet overthinking, and create space for instinct and confidence to take over for their players.