Especially for Athletes

Especially for Athletes Especially for Athletes is an educational learning & special event facilitator that teaches & encourages athletes to better use their influence for good

Especially for Athletes, Inc was founded by Dustin Smith and is based around several important principles from author and popular public speaker Shad Martin and coach/ business owner Dustin Smith.

08/20/2026

We asked Hall of Famer Greg Maddux 🔵 what he’d tell a young athlete. He said: always try to win the day.

Four Cy Youngs. 355 wins. Cooperstown in 2014, first ballot. A guy who never threw the hardest and beat everyone anyway. And his advice fits in five words.

That’s not him being modest. That’s the actual method. Maddux never out-thundered anybody. He located. He repeated. He took today and he won it, and then he did it again roughly four thousand more times.

Nobody hands out anything for winning a Tuesday. No stat tracks it. Your coach might not notice. That’s exactly why most people skip it — and exactly why the ones who don’t end up in Cooperstown.

You can’t win the season today. You can win today.

Eyes Up. Do the Work. Lift Others.

08/18/2026

🧠 We train the body. We train the skills. Why wouldn’t we train the mind?

Braden Brown, PhD Associate Athletic Director of Mental Health for BYU Athletics, makes a powerful comparison in our newest Especially for Athletes podcast.

Athletes work with strength and conditioning coaches to become bigger, faster, and stronger. They work with nutrition professionals to fuel their bodies. They work with position coaches to develop the skills needed to perform.

So why would we expect them to figure out the mental side of performance on their own?
Managing emotions. Handling pressure. Responding to failure. Staying composed when the game is on the line.

Those are skills—and skills can be developed.

As Dr. Brown explains, working with someone who can help develop those mental skills may ultimately be one of the things that makes the difference in performance.

🎙️ Our full conversation with Dr. Braden Brown drops later this week on the Especially for Athletes Podcast. You won’t want to miss this one.

08/17/2026

Kobe called leadership lonely — and then said the part most people leave out.

He said winning doesn’t come from everyone putting their arms around each other and patting each other on the back when someone messes up. He said a leader isn’t going to please everybody. He said you hold people accountable even when it’s uncomfortable.

Dustin’s take: there’s a razor-thin line here, and a lot of high school captains fall off the wrong side of it. Being hard on your teammates isn’t leadership. Being for your teammates, out loud, even when it’s awkward — that’s leadership.

The difference is who it’s serving. If the correction makes you feel powerful, that’s not it. If it makes them better, you’re on the right side of the line.

Kobe’s version: if you had something in your teeth, he’d tell you. Not to embarrass you. So you’d stop walking around like that.

Eyes Up. Do the Work.

08/10/2026

What do your teammates say when you’re not in the room?

They’re saying something. The question is what.

Your reputation when you’re absent is your character when you’re present.

Tag the teammate everyone respects.

08/06/2026

Wisdom in less than 30 seconds from Jeff Burg đź‘€

Do the work!

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