By Stephanie Grubbs - Strength & Conditioning Coach, Houston Astros
If you asked me years ago where strength and conditioning would take me, I never would have said professional baseball.
My path wasn’t straight. It wasn’t perfect. And it definitely didn’t happen overnight.
What I’ve learned, though, is that success rarely comes from one defining moment. It comes from the choices you make every day — the habits you build, the standards you keep, and the way you respond when things get hard.
Excellence isn’t one big moment — it’s the small, daily choices that compound over time.
That idea has shaped my career, from being a multi-sport athlete, to working in college athletics, to now coaching professional baseball players. These are 13 lessons that helped me get here — and that I believe apply far beyond strength coaching.
1. Value Learning — and Apply It
I grew up playing everything I could: gymnastics, track and field, volleyball, even bowling. Eventually, I focused on volleyball, even though at 5’3” I didn’t exactly look like the prototype.
At West Virginia University, I learned quickly that talent alone wasn’t enough. If I wanted to compete at a high level, everything had to matter: training, recovery, nutrition, mindset, and discipline.
That’s also where I fell in love with the weight room. My college strength coach, Corey Twine, showed me what true preparation looked like. He taught me that strength training wasn’t just about working hard — it was about building a foundation.
That lesson stayed with me: learning is powerful, but only if you do something with it.
2. Have a Growth Mindset
When my playing career ended, I shifted into coaching. I started with internships at West Virginia, Pitt, and Clemson, and those years taught me how much growth comes from stepping into the unknown.
I worked with more than 20 sports, and every experience stretched me. Every team, every athlete, and every environment taught me something different.
Growth mindset sounds simple, but living it is different. It means staying curious, embracing challenge, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
That discomfort is often where the real growth begins.
3. Be Goal-Oriented, but Enjoy the Ride
I’ve always believed in setting ambitious goals. But I’ve also learned that if you only focus on the destination, you miss the best part of the journey.
Some of the most meaningful parts of my career were not the promotions or titles. They were the people I learned from, the relationships I built, and the small moments where I could feel myself improving.
Ambition matters. So does enjoying the process.
4. Improve Your Stress Response
At Clemson, I spent five years as an Assistant and Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning. That’s where I first began integrating sports science into my coaching and saw how data and performance could work together in a powerful way.
From there, I became Director of Olympic Sports Strength and Conditioning at Mississippi State, then returned to Pitt as Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Performance, overseeing 19 sports and helping lead sports science initiatives.
Each role brought more pressure, more responsibility, and more visibility.
Stress is part of high performance. The key is not eliminating it — it’s learning how to respond to it. Stay composed. Learn from failure. Focus on solutions.
5. Embrace Small Conflicts
Growth does not happen in comfort-only environments.
Sometimes the most important moments are the hard conversations, the honest feedback, the tension around standards, and the accountability that pushes people forward.
Productive conflict is not something to fear. It is often what creates clarity, trust, and improvement.
If you want to be great, you have to be willing to lean into the conversations that help you grow.
6. Let Your Body Language Speak Success
Before you ever say a word, people are reading your energy.
Body language matters. Presence matters. The way you carry yourself communicates confidence, composure, and belief.
Athletes notice that. Staffs notice that. Teams feel that.
If you want to lead at a high level, your body language has to align with your message.
7. Commit to Delayed Gratification
Early in my career, I didn’t have a big network or a long list of connections. I had to build it from scratch.
I applied to more than 50 internships and graduate assistant positions and heard back from only a handful. I cold-called coaches and mentors I admired and asked questions whenever I had the chance. A few people gave me their time, and those moments made a huge difference.
That season taught me something I still believe deeply: patience and consistency beat quick results.
The people who last are usually the ones willing to keep showing up before anything pays off.
8. Choose Your Attitude
Your attitude shapes everything.
You can’t always control what happens around you, but you can control the lens you bring to it. Gratitude has been one of the most powerful perspective shifts in my life.
It’s hard to be grateful and angry at the same time. It’s hard to stay grounded when you’re constantly comparing yourself to everyone else.
The shortest path to happiness is gratitude. The quickest path to misery is comparison.
9. Suspend Judgment — Seek to Understand
The longer I coach, the more I value listening.
It’s easy to react. It takes more discipline to pause, ask questions, and understand where someone is coming from before forming an opinion.
That applies to athletes, coworkers, mentors, and leaders. When you suspend judgment, you create room for connection, trust, and better decisions.
Strong relationships are built by people who listen well.
10. Bring Your Best Energy First
After a decade in major college athletics, I was ready for a new challenge. When the opportunity with the Houston Astros came up, it stood out immediately.
The Astros were known for being innovative, forward-thinking, and committed to development — all things that aligned with how I wanted to coach.
Joining that kind of organization was exciting, but it also reinforced something I believe strongly: energy matters.
Don’t wait for momentum to find you. Bring it with you. Effort, enthusiasm, and intentionality change rooms.
11. Practice Courage Daily
Two moments stand out when I look back on my career: taking my first director role at Mississippi State and later joining the Astros.
Both required risk. Both demanded growth. Both pushed me outside my comfort zone.
My philosophy has always been simple: get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Courage is not usually one giant leap. More often, it’s a daily decision to take initiative, have the hard conversation, step into uncertainty, and keep moving forward anyway.
12. Let Experiences Pass Through You
Not everything is going to work out the way you planned.
You’ll miss opportunities. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll go through seasons that challenge you in ways you didn’t expect.
The key is to learn from those moments without letting them define you. Let them pass through you. Take the lesson and move forward.
Real fulfillment happens in the present. The more grounded you are in the now, the more clearly you can move toward what’s next.
13. Build Elite Habits
At the end of the day, success is built in habits long before it shows up in results.
Elite habits are usually not flashy. They are simple, consistent, and repeatable:
- Plan your day the night before
- Keep your goals in front of you
- Take action, even when it feels uncomfortable
- Stay connected to a powerful “why”
These habits may seem small, but that’s exactly the point. Small disciplines, repeated over time, create a different standard.
Final Thoughts
When I look back on my journey, I don’t see one moment that made everything happen.
I see years of preparation. I see uncomfortable growth. I see learning, failure, persistence, and daily decisions that slowly built momentum.
That’s what excellence looks like.
Not one spotlight moment. Not one title. Not one breakthrough.
Excellence isn’t one big moment — it’s the small, daily choices that compound over time.
For anyone chasing growth in coaching, sport, or life, keep showing up. Keep learning. Keep choosing the habits that move you forward.
Because you never know which opportunity is being built by the work you’re doing today.
