Built for Pressure — The 5 Mental Skills Every Athlete Needs | Hearts & Minds

Built for
Pressure.

The five mental skills every athlete needs before the season gets hard.

Most athletes are physically trained and mentally underprepared. When the moment gets big, the gap shows. This workbook closes it.

Created by Trevor Conner, sport and performance psychologist. He has trained 52 Olympians, NCAA programs, Navy Special Operations, and thousands of youth and high school athletes across 60+ countries.

An athlete holding the Built for Pressure workbook on bleachers in a gym

Your athlete needs
tools they can train.

You have watched it happen.

The practice player who disappears in the game. The captain who unravels when the score gets close. The kid who dominates the bullpen and freezes on the mound. The athlete who has done all the physical work and still cannot get out of their own head when it matters.

The gap is the mental side of the game, and almost nobody trains it.

Pressure exposes what you haven't trained.

Mental skills are skills. You learn them, practice them, and build them into reflexes. That is what this workbook trains.

Four core skills, plus a fifth most training skips.

A 100-page printable workbook built around the four foundational mental skills every athlete needs, plus a fifth pillar on hope that most training never touches.

01
Pillar One

Goal Getting

Writing down a goal is the easy part. Goal Getting builds the daily habits that go and get it. Includes the Mountain Map, the Iceberg Worksheet, and a 90-day tracker.

02
Pillar Two

Imagery

The mental rep that fires the same neural pathways as a physical one, backed by Olympic-level research. Includes sport-specific guided imagery scripts and a daily practice log.

03
Pillar Three

Self-Talk

The four words that quietly sabotage athletes, and the system that replaces them. Includes the Negative-Neutral-WIN framework, used with athletes from middle school to the pros.

04
Pillar Four

Energy

The science of staying calm under pressure. Use your breath and your body to bring composure on command, built on the same techniques used by Olympians and Navy Special Operations.

05
Bonus Pillar

Hope

Backed by 30+ years of research, hope is a trainable skill: the ability to keep believing and keep moving when the evidence says quit. Includes ten true stories of athletes who refused to let their circumstances define their finish.

This is for you if…

The Athlete

You are between 12 and 22, and you are tired of letting your head get in the way of your game. You are ready to train the mental side the same way you train your body.

The Parent

You have watched your kid carry the weight of expectations. You want to give them something real to work with, on their own, at their own pace.

The Coach

You know the mental side is where seasons are won and lost. You want a resource you can put in your athletes' hands without rewriting your playbook.

This is training.

Trevor Conner, Founder of Hearts & Minds
52 Olympians Trained

Built by someone who has done the work.

Trevor Conner is a sport and performance psychology professional, founder of Hearts & Minds, and creator of the Focus 5 Mental Fitness app. He holds a Master's in Counseling with an emphasis in Sport Psychology.

He has personally trained 52 Olympians, dozens of professional athletes, thousands of high school and collegiate athletes across more than 60 countries, and Navy Special Warfare operators.

He wrote this workbook because the same skills come up over and over, in the locker room, the bullpen, the mat, the huddle. They are foundational, and almost nobody teaches them at the level where most athletes actually need them.

52
Olympians Trained
60+
Countries
1000s
Athletes Coached
MS
Counseling / Sport Psych

Everything inside the workbook.

  • 01
    100 printable pages Designed for a 3-ring binder or stapled workbook format. Built for an athlete to fill out, mark up, return to, and use across an entire season.
  • 02
    Five complete pillars Teaching section, real examples, drills, worksheets, reflection prompts, and a weekly tracker for every skill.
  • 03
    Pre- and post-assessments Score where you are when you start. Score where you are when you finish. See your own growth on paper.
  • 04
    The 4-Week Integration Plan A day-by-day rhythm that ties all five skills together into a daily mental training habit.
  • 05
    Parent and coach companion pages Every pillar includes notes for the adults in the athlete's life, so the work continues after the page closes.
  • 06
    QR codes throughout Scan a code, watch the teaching video. No typing URLs into a phone.
  • 07
    Lifetime access to updates When the workbook grows, you get the new version at no additional charge.
The open Built for Pressure workbook showing the Athlete Commitment Contract and Goal Getting framework
The Built for Pressure workbook cover

A workbook built to be used.

A 3-ring binder workbook designed to live in your gym bag for an entire season.

  • Lays flat: write in it on the bus, in the locker room, at the kitchen table the night before a meet.
  • Personalized: your athlete's name on the binder, a coaching deliverable they will keep.
  • Built for repeat use: reset the worksheets each season, add notes, track growth across years.
  • Includes the book: Trevor's first book, Just A.C.E. It!, signed and inscribed, free with the bundle.

Two ways to get it.

Start digital. Add the print bundle for a permanent physical workbook and Trevor's first book in your hand. Launch pricing on the bundle is locked for the first 50 orders.

Digital Workbook

Instant Access
$39.99 $29.99
  • Full 100-page PDF, delivered instantly
  • Print at home, or fill it out on a tablet
  • All five pillars and worksheets
  • 4-Week Integration Plan
  • QR-linked teaching videos
  • Lifetime access to updates
Get the Digital Workbook

3-day satisfaction guarantee

Focus 5 App

The workbook is the foundation. Focus 5 is the daily training.

Every athlete who buys Built for Pressure gets invited into Focus 5+, the daily mental fitness app from Hearts & Minds.

Premium access gives you on-demand courses, real-time access to a team of mental coaches, and daily content to sharpen your mental game.

The workbook teaches the skills. Focus 5 trains them every day.

$5/month

What athletes, parents, and coaches are saying.

Trevor has worked with thousands of athletes, parents, and coaches over more than a decade. A few of them describe the mental training below.

Insert athlete testimonial here. One to three sentences about their experience working with Trevor or the mental performance training.
— Athlete Name · Sport · Level
Insert parent testimonial here. One to three sentences about watching their athlete grow through the work with Trevor.
— Parent Name · Athlete's Sport
Insert coach testimonial here. One to three sentences about using Trevor's mental training methods with their team.
— Coach Name · Team or Program

All testimonials reflect real client experiences with Hearts & Minds mental performance training.

Questions answered.

Is this for younger athletes?

The workbook is written so a 12-year-old can read and use it independently, and it is substantive enough for college and pro-level athletes. Parent and coach pages help younger athletes get more out of it.

My athlete plays a different sport. Will this still work?

Yes. The mental skills are universal. They work the same for baseball, soccer, basketball, wrestling, track, swimming, gymnastics, and golf, with imagery scripts for both team and individual athletes.

How is this different from a book on mental toughness?

It is a workbook you fill out, mark up, and return to across an entire season. You learn each skill, then train it on the page.

What if my athlete already works with a mental performance coach?

Even better. This workbook gives them a daily training framework that complements one-on-one coaching. Coaches frequently assign it as homework between sessions.

How fast do I get it after I order?

Digital workbook: instantly, via email link, the moment your purchase completes. Print bundle: digital is instant, and the physical binder and book ship within 2-5 business days within the US.

What is the refund policy?

Digital workbook: 3-day satisfaction guarantee. If the workbook is not what you expected, email support@hmperform.com within 72 hours of purchase for a full refund. After 72 hours, all sales are final.

Print bundle: Because the bundle includes a personalized binder and a physical copy of Trevor's book, print bundle orders are final sale. If your physical materials arrive damaged in shipping, contact support@hmperform.com within 7 days and we will make it right.

Pressure is coming.

The question is whether your athlete is trained for it.

  • Tryouts
  • State playoffs
  • Recruiting visits
  • The big game, and the bad game
  • The slump, and the moment everyone is watching

These moments do not get easier. Athletes get more prepared.