Review for Nancy Dye, Breakthrough Mental Skills Coach

MAKING HISTORY FOR DARTMOUTH COLLEGE; WINNING THE NCEA CHAMPIONSHIP!

"Thank you, Nancy, we could not have done it without you!" Riders I coached on the Dartmouth Equestrian Team

THE DARTMOUTH STORY:

I want to tell you about a phone call I received not long ago.

It was from a rider on the Dartmouth College equestrian team. She and her teammates were, in her words, completely sideways — mentally — heading into the NCEA National Championship. She asked me to coach them all.

But there was a problem. My work is 1:1, deep, specific to the individual’s identity and history. Groups were not what I did. College coaching is not what I did. So I said no.

However, they called me back and wouldn't take no for an answer! They even mentioned that Kate Egan had referred them to me. Kate was one of my former brand ambassadors, and I coached her in her junior year to win a car!

Dartmouth is my father’s school. Minutes from where my grandparents built our overnight sports camp. I literally grew up at Dartmouth and Hanover, NH, and I even learned to ski at the Dartmouth Skiway. It was home.

I agreed to do both — group sessions with the team, and one custom 1:1 session with each rider.

Two weeks. That was all we had.

[PAUSE]

You can’t change technique in two weeks. You can’t rebuild fitness or skill in two weeks.

But you can change an identity in two weeks. Because identity doesn’t take years. It takes a decision — and the right tools to lock it in.

The last session, I asked the riders about their team identity. Their voices dropped. The Indian warrior spirit that Dartmouth was built on had been retired. What replaced it inspired… nothing.

But these students didn't even know about the original logo and history of Dartmouth when it was a men's college.

[PAUSE]

But that warrior energy didn’t disappear. It was just waiting.

I took those riders back to that warrior foundation — courage under pressure, refusal to quit, showing up regardless of conditions. And then I layered it with something specific to each rider: their individual Equestrian Rockstar identity. Their personal warrior. Their name. Their posture. Their internal language. Their pre-competition ritual.

Old software — the warrior foundation — running on new, custom-built operating systems.

They went to nationals.

[Wait for it ...]

I was driving down the Florida Turnpike when my phone rang.

It was the team. All of them. On the phone together.

In tears.

They had won. For the first time in Dartmouth’s history, that equestrian team had taken the NCEA championship.

Kate Egan, my past client who referred those riders to me (she is now at Texas A & M), texted afterward: “You could immediately see it in their eyes — and in their confident walk — that they were going to win that.”

That is what an identity shift does. That is what happens when you stop managing fear and start commanding your performance from a place of absolute certainty about who you are.