Ep: 122: Aimee Boorman: Coaching Simone Biles beyond medals and perfection

Amy Boorman is a decorated and globally respected gymnastics coach, whose career included twelve years coaching the sport’s all-time greatest, Simone Biles. She was named USA Gymnastics Coach of the Year four times and US Olympic Committee Coach of the Year in 2016. She was head coach of the US Women’s Gymnastics Team at the Rio Olympic Games and coached for the Dutch Gymnastics Federation in 2021, including at the Tokyo Olympic Games.  Her book is titled: The Balance: My Years Coaching Simone Biles.

Summary

In this conversation, Aimee Boorman reflects on her evolution from a competitive gymnast to an elite coach, including her 12-year journey coaching Simone Biles. She talks about how her early experience with harsh, unsupportive coaching shaped her belief that great coaching starts with empathy, communication, and trust. Aimee focuses on coaching the whole person, not just the athlete, and explains how vulnerability, collaboration, and giving athletes room to fail safely build both performance and character. She describes how she nurtured Simone’s extraordinary natural ability, what she calls “air sense savant,” while helping her develop emotional maturity and self-accountability. The discussion also explores the mental challenges elite athletes face, including the “twisties,” and why protecting mental health must come before medals. Aimee’s approach shows that excellence is less about winning and more about integrity, growth, and joy in the process.

Takeaways

  • Great coaches lead with empathy and see athletes as whole people, not performance machines.
  • Trust grows through honest communication and vulnerability, which create psychological safety and resilience.
  • Allowing athletes to fail safely teaches self-awareness and accountability more effectively than control or punishment.
  • Real confidence comes from ownership—shifting from performing for approval to performing for yourself.
  • Success follows when the focus moves from outcomes such as scores or medals to inputs like effort, attitude, and preparation.
  • Pressure and anxiety block performance, while freedom and presence unlock it.
  • Mental health should always take priority over results because well-being sustains excellence.
  • The best coaches are remembered not just for producing champions but for helping young people grow into strong, self-directed adults.

Notes:

Book: The Balance: My Years Coaching Simone Biles

Ep: 106: George Mumford: Psychologist, elite performance coach, and mindfulness guru

George Mumford is a psychologist, elite performance expert, and author of The Mindful Athlete.  He has worked with worldclass athletes including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal. He has also consulted with college and Olympic athletes, corporate executives, and inmates, and is a sought-after public speaker at both business and athletic conferences nationally and internationally.  His latest booked is title: Unlocked: Embrace your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success.

 

Some interesting insights from this episode:

  • Unlocked is releasing the masterpiece within. It’s embracing your inner greatness.
  • Being authentic is a core part of being unlocked. “We remove the extraneous, the layering of our conditioning and defenses, and the ways that we have been untrue to who we really are until we find what is authentic within us – an authenticity that is always there, waiting to be revealed.”
  • Kobe Bryant once said of George Mumford: “George helped me to be neither distracted or focused, rigid or flexible, passive or aggressive. I learned to just be.”
  • George’s big break was coming on the heels of the Lakers’ third NBA championship in a row when coach Phil Jackson asked George to help the team deal with the stress and pressure brought on by their success.
  • 90% of long term happiness is dependent upon how the brain interprets our experience.
  • One of the distinguishing characteristics of the best athletes in the world is they’re very coachable. They are lifelong learners, always looking to get an edge.
  • If you want to be in flow, you have to have a fully integrated self. Your body, your mind, your heart, and your soul have to be in unison and harmony.

 

Notes:

George Mumford website

Book: Unlocked: Embrace Your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success

Book: The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance

 

Ep: 92: Cindy Timchal: Winningest Coach in Division I Women’s Lacrosse History

Cindy Timchal is the head coach for the women’s lacrosse team at the United States Naval Academy.  She is the NCAA’s all-time leader in career wins (535) for division I women’s college lacrosse. She has won eight national championships, seven of which were won consecutively while at University of Maryland. And as coach at The Naval Academy women’s lacrosse team, she became the first coach to lead a service academy women’s team to a Final Four. She’s been named national coach of the year twice.

 

Some interesting insights from this episode:

  • After they started winning a lot, they stopped thinking about winning and focused more on the journey.
  • They treated their opponents as a partnership. If their opponents beat them, they would be teaching them a lesson of how they weren’t doing things very well.
  • She called the style of play “relaxed intensity”. If you’re not tight and anxious and can just be in the moment, the intensity will rise on its own.
  • She used a sports psychologist and spiritual advisor to help her team with the mental aspect of the game. It was helpful in building self-confidence, for even the most talented players have self-doubt.
  • This spiritual advisor had an expression: “Slowing down is sometimes faster than speeding up.”
  • Mistakes are part of sports but it’s what you do after the mistake that makes all the difference.