EQ-OS: The Mindset U Playbook

High Performance Youth Baseball: Are We Missing the Point? What does “high performance” actually mean when we’re talking about nine, ten, and eleven-year-old baseball players? Elite teams. Expensive tournaments. Year-round training. Rankings. Private coaching. Somewhere along the way, youth baseball has become increasingly focused on outcomes, status, and winning. But are we actually developing be...

Everybody wants to talk about leadership. Fewer people want to talk about the evidence. In this episode, I break down what leadership actually looks like in sports. It’s not a title, a speech, being the loudest guy in the room, or telling everybody else what they need to do. Leadership is behavior. It’s doing the work, taking care of your own business, thinking for yourself, knowing your values, a...

When a hitter struggles, we usually look at the swing first. Hands. Bat path. Load. Mechanics. But what if the swing is the last domino to fall? In this episode, Curtis breaks down what happens before the swing — preparation, timing, attention, pitch recognition, decision-making and commitment — and why constantly trying to fix mechanics can cause us to miss the actual problem. We also dig into so...

Twelve hours, five games, one weekend at a heavily scouted showcase — and the same pattern kept showing up. Some players got tight, tried to manufacture something, started competing against the radar gun instead of the hitter in the box. Others didn't change at all. Same tempo, same decisions, same version of themselves whether three people were watching or three hundred. In this episode, Cur...

Good decisions and bad decisions usually start before the moment you act. They start with what you noticed, what you missed, how clearly you were thinking, how recovered you were, and whether you were actually aware of what was happening around you and inside you. In this episode, we look at how attention works, why your brain filters more than you realize, how recovery affects decision-making, wh...

I’m tired of talking about recruiting. Tired of the same old same old.. The conversations full of coach words and subjective opinions. Rankings. Exposure. Commitments. Opinions. Promises. Social media noise. TransferEQ was built to cut through a lot of that bullshit, but this episode goes a couple layers deeper. Who are you without baseball? Who are you without your phone, your title, your followe...

Most people don’t need to work harder. They need to understand where their attention, energy and capacity are actually going. In this episode, I explain the thinking behind ResetEQ, TransferEQ, RecruitEQ and EQ-OS, and why attention may be one of the most important performance variables we still don’t measure well enough. I also break down the Labour Day ResetEQ offer: two people, six months, indi...

Baseball has more information than ever, but information only matters if coaches can actually transfer it to players. In this episode, Curtis Pelletier talks about why great coaching requires more than baseball knowledge. It requires clarity, structure, transparency and an understanding of the generation standing in front of you. From unwritten expectations and last-minute lineup decisions to diso...

A deep dive into what baseball recruiting gets wrong when rankings, measurables, profiles, and exposure start to look like certainty. In this episode, I break down why a verified number is only as useful as the context behind it, why Fit Score should be separated from Confidence Score, and why the player a college recruits is not always the player it gets once failure, fatigue, competition, and pr...

The Recruiting Illusion: When Exposure Becomes the Product Baseball has more recruiting platforms, showcases, rankings, video, metrics and exposure than at any point in the history of the game. So why does recruiting still feel so confusing? In this solo piece, I break down what I believe has happened to the recruiting process — and the difference between actually helping a player find the right o...

What if the biggest obstacle to performance isn't talent, discipline, confidence, or motivation? What if it's the way we see? In this special episode, I step away from interviews, frameworks, and coaching conversations to share something far more personal: The Manifesto . This isn't a memoir. It isn't a motivational speech. And it isn't another system promising better perf...

Most athletes and coaches overlook the power of systems, but Petey Torres the Third reveals how structure transforms chaos into consistent performance and personal growth. Ready to upgrade your approach? This episode uncovers the core principles behind building accountability, mental resilience, and a winning culture through simple yet powerful systems that stick for the long haul. Petey, a former...

This episode breaks down the Letter to the Reader from EQ-OS: The Baseball Operating System . This section opens the real conversation: why do talented players change when the game gets uncomfortable? Players can dominate training, look clean in the cage, throw electric bullpens, and still look completely different once pressure shows up. The usual answers are familiar: “He needs confidence.” “He’...

This episode breaks down Why This Book Exists from EQ-OS: The Baseball Operating System . This section explains where EQ-OS actually came from. It did not come from rejecting modern baseball development. It came from going all in on it. Swing data, movement patterns, bat path, sequencing, timing, output, K-Vest, Rapsodo, HitTrax, force plates, Blast Motion, and every tool that promised to make dev...

This is the opening video in the EQ-OS Explained series. In this episode, Curtis Pelletier introduces the core promise of EQ-OS: The Baseball Operating System and explains what EQ-OS actually means. EQ-OS stands for Emotional Intelligence Operating System. It is the system underneath baseball performance. The part that decides whether a player can still function when the game stops feeling comfort...

This episode breaks down the Foreword: For the People Who Think They Don’t Need This from EQ-OS: The Baseball Operating System . This section is for the player who thinks the answer is one more drill, one more cue, one more video, one more piece of gear, or one more private lesson. It is for the parent who is doing everything the herd is doing because everyone else looks terrified their kid is fal...

This Mindset U discussion is about the work most athletes skip because it feels too small, too boring, or too repetitive. But that is usually the work that builds proof. Confidence is not magic. Confidence is not something your coach yells into you. Confidence is not something your parents can hand you from the stands. Confidence requires evidence. In this session, Coach Curtis breaks down the 10/...

Coach Curtis returns to The Mindset U Playbook after stepping away since the end of March. Following a period of intense political commentary, he took time to unbecome versions of himself that were not aligned with real success. That deliberate pause produced Transfer EQ, a monitoring, coaching, and accountability system built to help athletes develop the habits, behaviours, and recovery capacity...

The Divide in Canada: Understanding the Growing Disconnection Discover the roots of Canada's societal divide and how it affects our daily lives. Explore insights from Kelsey of "Unfiltered with Kels" and learn actionable steps to reconnect with your community. In today's rapidly changing world, many Canadians feel a growing disconnection within their society. This feeling is no...

Most baseball players do not have a talent problem. They have a pressure, load, and capacity problem. They can hit in practice. They can throw in bullpens. They can look confident when nothing is on the line. Then the game starts… And everything changes. The swing tightens. The thoughts speed up. The body language drops. One bad at-bat turns into three. One bad inning turns into a full spiral. Tha...

We’re back. And we’re not easing into it. This episode breaks down one of the most common habits quietly wrecking people’s lives: neutrality. Sitting on the fence sounds mature. Sounds balanced. Sounds safe. It’s not. It’s delayed decision-making dressed up as intelligence. And over time, it erodes your self-trust, hands your power to other people, and forces you into a reactive life you didn’t ch...

In this conversation, Curtis Pelletier interviews Jordan Comadena, a catching coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates, discussing his unique journey from being a walk-on at Purdue University to becoming a bullpen catcher and eventually a catching coach. They explore the evolution of catching techniques, the importance of building relationships with pitchers, managing emotions in high-pressure situations,...

Keywords awareness, capacity, emotional intelligence, coaching, personal growth, chaos, order, blame, performance psychology, suffering Summary In this episode, Curtis Pelletier breaks down why awareness without capacity leads to collapse. He challenges the habit of seeking validation instead of building structure and explains how emotional intelligence functions as an internal operating system, n...

In this episode of the Mindset U Playbook, Curtis Pelletier reconnects with Tanner Swanson, the director of catching for the New York Yankees. They discuss Tanner's journey through coaching, starting from his time at the University of Washington to his current role with the Yankees. Tanner shares insights on the evolution of catching techniques, emphasizing the importance of adapting to new d...

In this conversation, Curtis Pelletier and Raegyn Hall, the head of goalkeeping for the Vancouver Whitecaps Academy. They discuss Raegyn's journey from player to coach, the importance of building a supportive culture among goalkeepers, and the methodologies used in training young talent. Raegyn emphasizes the significance of mental resilience, consistency, and the evolving nature of goalkeepi...