The Tool Top Athletes Use to Succeed.

Happy Easter everyone! We hope you have a weekend filled with family, food and fun ahead of you. This week our Friday Fuel is a tool that is brilliant for anyone wanting to understand what it takes to truly commit and achieve their dreams. It’s called the Green Box, and like all great tools is super simple, yet highly effective. So grab a hot crossed bun, maybe a little choccie, find a quiet corner and let’s learn all about it.

What’s Inside This Week:

• 💥 THE GREEN BOX: A High-Performance Tool for Life

• 🎥 See It In Action

• 🚦 What is the GREEN BOX?

• ⏰ It’s More Than Just Time

• ✳️ Why It Works

• 🛠 How to Build Your Own Green Box

• 🥑 Green Box Nutrition Tips

• ✅ WANT YOUR OWN FREE COPY?

• 🎙️ Who we’ve been talking to this week.

🏀 🎥 See It In Action

Want proof that minutes matter? Watch this short clip of Kobe Bryant explaining how time and consistent effort is the difference when coaching his daughter’s basketball team.

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If you commit enough minutes, follow a good plan, and surround yourself with solid coaching or mentoring, you will be successful.

But like using a hammer to hit in a nail, most of us need a simple tool to use.
🛑 This is where the Green Box comes in.

🚦 What is the GREEN BOX?

The Green Box is part of a simple traffic light model that helps athletes reflect on their effort and habits:

• 🟥 Red – Never does enough: Often distracted, inconsistent, lacks commitment.

• 🟧 Orange – Does just enough: Meets the minimum, but growth is slow.

• 🟩 Green – Always does extra: Shows up early, stays focused, works with intent. Lives and breathes high performance.

The Green Box helps athletes understand if they’re truly paying the price—and pinpoints exactly what they need to do, consistently, to reach their goals.

It highlights whether the athlete is just talking the talk, or actually walking the walk.

OK, maybe not that walk, but you get what I mean!

⏰ IT’S MORE THAN JUST TIME

Spending hours at training doesn’t guarantee success.
The Green Box is about HOW you do what you do.

✔ The right things
✔ In the right way
✔ With the right level of focus and intensity

That’s what it means to live in the Green Box and grow mentally tough—so you stay committed even when distractions or obstacles come your way.

True success comes from living in the Green Box: doing the right things, the right way, at the right intensity—every single day.

✳️ Why It Works

The magic of the Green Box is that it's visual and self-directed. Athletes rate their daily behaviours honestly as either Red, Orange, or Green. This simple grid shows them exactly where they stand, making it easy to:

• See what they are not doing enough of (if they're stuck in Red or Orange)

• Feel fueled and motivated to keep going when they see Green

• Choose to self-correct without needing to be told

As a parent or coach, it’s incredibly freeing. You don’t need to nag, teach, or even speak. Instead, the athlete independently reflects, analyses and makes choices, building:

1. Ownership

2. Independence

3. Self-reliance

These are three of the most powerful traits we can nurture in our young people—and they’re critical for success in sport and life.

🛠 How to Build Your Own Green Box

The best part? Anyone can build their own Green Box. It starts with simple, repeatable actions that are totally within your control.

🎯 Choose between 5 and 10 key behaviours for the Green Box—no fewer than five, but no more than ten or eleven. Then adjust them to what they would be for the Orange and Red boxes.

💡 Pro tip: Relate them directly to your sport or pursuit. If your life is already busy, choose behaviours that can slot right into your daily routine but that relate to success and paying the price.

Examples:

• Stretching daily to stay injury-free

• Arriving 10 minutes early to every session

• Drinking a full bottle of water before and after training

• Packing a recovery snack

• Visualising for 3 minutes each night

• Practicing your skill for 15 mins at home

❓️ Not sure what behaviours lead to success in your sport or field? That’s where a coach or mentor can help you identify what “paying the price” looks like for you.

🥗Green Box Nutrition Tips

Sports teach discipline, resilience, teamwork, and goal-setting—skills that go far beyond the game. But nutrition plays a huge role in developing these traits too! Good nutrition isn’t just about performance—it’s a life skill that helps athletes thrive on and off the field!

Include ideas like the 4 below in your Green Box to help build the following traits:

✅ Discipline – Sticking to a fueling plan, even when it’s tempting to skip meals 🍎

✅ Time Management – Prepping snacks and meals to stay energized on busy days ⏳🥪

✅ Self-Awareness – Noticing how different foods affect energy and performance ⚡🍚

✅ Resilience – Bouncing back after tough races with proper recovery nutrition 💪🍫

📍IMPORTANT: MAKE IT VISIBLE

Once you’ve built your Green Box behaviours, write them down and share them.

📌 Stick it on the fridge
📌 Show your coach or parent
📌 Track it weekly to build momentum

The more visible your commitment, the more likely it is to stick.

✅ WANT YOUR OWN COPY?

Whether you’re a parent supporting a young athlete, a coach guiding a team, or an athlete chasing a dream—the Green Box is a simple, powerful tool.

Want a copy of David’s template and what Ben used with his athletes that you can adapt to your own needs?
👉 Just reply to this email and we’ll send it straight to your inbox for free!

🎙️ Who we’ve been talking to this week.

The past two days have been filled with a couple of amazing conversations that we can’t wait to bring you.

🎤 Todd Beane - TOVO Academy

Todd Beane is the founder of TOVO Academy, which focuses on developing intelligent, technically proficient, and creative athletes.

With a rich background in both coaching and education, Todd has worked alongside the legendary Johan Cruyff and served as Director of the Cruyff Institute for Sports Studies.

He brings over 30 years of experience in youth development and is known globally for his progressive, player-centric approach that emphasizes decision-making, purpose, and clarity on and off the field. Todd is also a passionate educator, father, and advocate for raising thoughtful athletes who maximise themselves in both sport and life.

🎤 Wayne Goldsmith - The Switch Sport/WG Coaching

With over 30 years of International sports coaching experience, Wayne Goldsmith has influenced the coaching, thinking and teaching of some of the world’s leading athletes, coaches and teams. We are talking Olympic Gold Medalists, the All Blacks, NRL and Premier League teams…the list of those that he has influenced is just enormous. Alongside that, he has a great passion for Sports Parents, knows just what makes a great sporting parent, youth athlete and a wonderful person, and is straight up in telling you what works and what doesn’t.

Oh and with 8 kids, Wayne knows a bit about parenting too!

Watch out for their podcasts, clips and insights over the next couple of weeks.