Episode Details

This week on the podcast, we are joined by three incredible guests: Kathy Delaney-Smith, Dr. Jonathan Jenkins, and Dr. Kimberly O'Brien.

Kathy Delaney-Smith is the winningest head coach in Ivy League women's basketball history. She spent 40 seasons at Harvard University, winning 11 Ivy League titles and taking her teams to six NCAA tournaments and eight women's NIT tournaments. Her teams won over 600 games, including 12 seasons with more than 20 wins and finishing above .500 in 31 of her final 33 seasons. She has been inducted into numerous Hall of Fames and received numerous accolades across the country for her work as one of the leading voices in women's sport.

Dr. Jonathan Jenkins is the founder of Mental Fitness and Psychotherapy, LLC, and has spent more than a decade at Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital supporting athletes' mental health and performance. He serves as the team clinical and performance psychologist for the New England Patriots, the behavioral sports psychologist for the Boston Red Sox, and is a sports psychology consultant for the Para Rowing Foundation. Dr. Jenkins was a collegiate athlete, spending four years on the lacrosse team at Guilford College.

Dr. Kimberly O'Brien is the founder and director of Unlimited Resilience LLC, a therapy and sports psychology practice for athletes. She is also the the co-founder and co-director of Athletes Better Together, LLC, an athlete peer mentoring program. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, where she was a four-year team member and co-captain of the Harvard women's ice hockey team, winning a national championship in 1999.

Dr Jenkins and Dr O'Brien have recently released a new book Mentality Wins: The Athlete's Playbook for Thriving in Sport and Life. In our podcast today, we discuss the main lessons from the book and how Delaney-Smith sees her coaching journey as intrinsically tied to the main principles discussed in the book. We take a deep dive on the concept of "feeling equals function" and the principles of focus, flow, finish, and flourish that are pillars of Dr. O'Brien's and Dr. Jenkins' work.

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