This Best of 2025 episode brings together the most listened-to and most shared conversations from Beyond Coaching this year.

Each segment tackles a reality coaches deal with every day:

how to build culture when not everyone plays, how to develop leaders through failure, and how to handle stress without trying to eliminate it.

You’ll hear from Brent Hobson, Jim McNeal, and Mitch Hull—three coaches and leaders working in very different environments, but wrestling with the same leadership challenges.

Different settings. Same issues.

Leadership, pressure, failure, and building programs that last.

Episode Highlights

Brent Hobson – Value Beyond Playing Time

Not everyone plays—but everyone still shapes the culture.

Brent Hobson, longtime head coach of Friends University Women’s Soccer, explains how he intentionally builds value for athletes who may never see the field, including why the only award in his office has nothing to do with wins or goals. This is what team-first culture looks like in practice.

Topics include:

• Building value beyond the lineup
• The Garland Award and why it matters
• Coaching honesty without lowering standards
• What’s actually changed—and hasn’t—with today’s athletes

Jim McNeal – Failure as a Leadership Tool

Jim McNeal, retired Navy Reserve Rear Admiral and leadership mentor at the U.S. Naval Academy, explains why the Academy is intentionally designed to make high achievers fail—and why that matters.

Failure isn’t accidental. It’s part of the training.

Topics include:

• The Naval Academy as a leadership laboratory
• Why leaders are judged on how they lead people, not just results
• Helping high achievers learn to fail safely
• Shifting from external success to internal standards

Mitch Hull – Stress, Pressure, and the Process

We spend a lot of time trying to remove stress from sport. Research suggests that approach often backfires.

Mitch Hull explains why stress itself isn’t the problem, why perception matters more than pressure, and how coaches reduce stress by focusing on habits, preparation, and daily execution—not the scoreboard.

Topics include:

• Why “stress is bad” is the wrong message
• Reframing pressure as preparation
• Process-over-outcome coaching
• Helping athletes perform when it matters most

Beyond Coaching is produced by the Impactful Coaching Project, an initiative focused on helping coaches lead the whole person—not just the performer.

The Impactful Coaching Project exists to support coaches at every level as they navigate leadership, culture, pressure, and the realities of coaching today’s athletes. Through podcasts, writing, research, and coach education, ICP emphasizes practical leadership, honest conversations, and systems of care that help teams perform and people grow.

Learn more at impactfulcoachingproject.com