Practical Lessons from Former Arizona Diamondbacks Head of Mental Performance Zach Brandon on Confidence, Focus, and Resilience
About the Episode
In this edition of the Sport Fuels Life Mental Performance Series, former Arizona Diamondbacks Head of Mental Performance, Zach Brandon discusses some of the most common mental challenges athletes face: confidence, overthinking, focus, and handling adversity.
Throughout the conversation, Brandon emphasized that mental performance is not just a sports issue – it is a human issue. Regardless of sport or level, athletes often struggle with the same questions: How do I stay confident? How do I recover from mistakes? How do I stop overthinking?
Rather than searching for perfect thoughts or emotions, Brandon encouraged athletes to focus on what they can control: their actions, attention, and response to challenges.
For athletes and coaches, the conversation offered practical ways to compete with greater clarity, resilience, and purpose.
Top 5 Takeaways
1. Confidence Is More Than a Feeling
While confidence can feel strong one day and weak the next, athletes can still choose confident actions regardless of their emotions. The goal is not to wait until confidence appears. The goal is to act in ways that build confidence over time.
2. Great Performers Recover Quickly
Mistakes are inevitable. What matters is what happens next. Athletes who recover quickly often perform more consistently because they spend less time dwelling on what already happened.
3. Focus Is a Skill, Not a Command
Brandon pointed out that most people explain what focus is, without teaching how to do it. Instead of focusing on the magnitude of a situation, athletes should identify a clear target and direct their attention there.
4. Visualization Should Include Adversity
Rather than only imagining perfect outcomes, athletes should also mentally rehearse difficult moments and how they want to respond to them.
“Picture yourself down in a set… What do you want your body language to be like in that moment?”
5. Learn From Outside Your Sport
Whether it is a surfer, musician, bull rider, or professional athlete, the underlying mental skills are often the same: resilience, focus, confidence, and recovery. Broadening their perspective can help athletes discover new ways to approach their own performance.
Mindset Shift
Many athletes believe that mental strength means eliminating fear, doubt, or nervousness, but Brandon sees it differently. He explained that mental performance is not about removing difficult emotions. It is about learning to perform alongside them.
One example came from a story about his wife preparing for a marathon. Before a long training run, she admitted:
“I don’t feel ready, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t do it.”
That simple statement captures an important mindset shift.
Athletes do not need to feel perfect to perform well. They do not need to eliminate fear before competing. They can acknowledge their emotions and still choose actions that align with their goals.
Going Deeper
Toward the end of the episode, Brandon shared a simple but powerful concept about attention.
When athletes become overwhelmed, their focus often becomes scattered. They start thinking about results, mistakes, expectations, and everything that could go wrong.
His solution was surprisingly straightforward: Find a target.
“The man who aims at nothing hits it with amazing accuracy.”
Whether it is a specific spot on the court, a breathing cue, a routine, or the next play, having a clear target helps athletes direct their attention toward something useful.
Brandon also explained how athletes can use their eyes intentionally. When people are overwhelmed, their attention often becomes broad and scattered. When they are locked in, their focus narrows to one specific target.
For coaches and athletes, that lesson serves as a powerful reminder: mental performance is often less about finding complicated solutions and more about simplifying attention.
Connect with Zach Brandon
LinkedIn: Zach Brandon | LinkedIn
