What Earning a Ph.D. Taught Me About Leadership, Discipline, and Family
Series Introduction — Why I Wrote This
When I started my doctoral journey, I didn’t plan on turning it into a story. Like most people chasing big goals, I just kept my head down and worked. But looking back, I realized how much I learned. Not just about exercise science, but about myself. About discipline, time management, failure, and purpose. About what it means to lead by example when the hours are long and motivation runs dry.
This three-part series is my attempt to share the mistakes I made and what I would do differently if I started over. My hope is that it reaches someone who’s sitting on the fence about it and provides practical advice to make it seem less daunting of a task.
- Part 1 — Why I Started:
The motivations that pushed me to begin this journey: legacy, challenge, and a desire to prove what’s possible — even after a rough start. - Part 2 — The coursework:
The systems and hard lessons that would have saved me a lot of headaches. - Part 3 — The dissertation
The most daunting graduate project reframed for simplicity and a razor-sharp focus.
If you take anything from this series, let it be this: you don’t have to be perfect to start. You just have to be relentless enough to finish.
Introduction — “Why Even Start?”
I’ll never forget the day I hit “submit” on my application for a doctoral program. It was one of those quiet, late-night decisions that admittedly, I was afraid to share with the coaches and teachers in our own building. “You, the meathead?!” “A Doctorate degree? “Are you sure?” All the things I believed would ring out.
“What if I can’t handle the pressure?”
“I don’t have the brains or vocabulary to do this.”
And ultimately: “What if I fail?”
At the time, I was already balancing a full-time coaching job, a family, and all the demands that come with leading young athletes. I had no illusions that this would be easy, but I also knew that it would be worth it.
People often ask, “Why would a strength coach — especially one working in a school — decide to chase a Ph.D.?”
My answer: I wanted my kids to have no excuses to chase their dreams, and the pay raise in Georgia didn’t hurt either.
But beneath all that, this decision became something deeper than credentials or career advancement. It became about recalibrating what I believed was possible — not just for myself, but for the athletes and students I serve every day and helping move the field forward.
This post, Part 1, is about why I started. Because before you can survive the grind of a doctorate — the late nights, the deadlines, the rewrites, the self-doubt — you have to understand why you want to embark on this journey. Without answering the why, you’ll burn out before you even reach the proposal stage.
The Legacy Factor — My Kids Were Watching
At the time I started my Ph.D., my kids were young enough that “Dad’s doing homework” was still a novelty. Our home was quite small so I had no space other than the kitchen table to do my work. They’d see me typing, and ask, “Are you doing school again?” I’d laugh, but inside I felt this quiet pride. I was showing them, not just telling them, to chase something big.
I was the first in my family to graduate from college. That alone felt like uncharted territory. But a doctorate? That was something I never dreamed of in my adult life. There wasn’t a blueprint. And that’s exactly why it mattered. I wanted my kids to grow up understanding that the ceilings we think exist are often just imaginary lines we’ve drawn for ourselves. I wanted them to know that hard work, consistency, and faith can take you places talent alone never could.
The irony is, my path toward earning a doctorate didn’t start with academic success — it started with failure. Coming out of high school, I thought I had it all figured out. I planned to study pre-med with a biology focus and imagined myself taking the traditional route of classroom success leading straight into a career as an orthopedic surgeon. But the freedom of college hit me harder than I expected.
Video: Collecting data for the VBT group as a part of the dissertation study
I played basketball and walked on to a Division II football team in northeast Ohio. I loved the game, but I didn’t love class. My study habits were poor, and my discipline was worse. I rarely showed up, didn’t take ownership of my learning, and by the end of that first year, my GPA sat at 1.9. It was humbling, to say the least. I left school and started working as a personal trainer, trying to find direction.
Looking back now, that failure became the foundation for everything that came after. From then on, I knew I could never waste another opportunity and to do so, I had to build habits that matched the goals I claimed to have. That season of struggle reshaped my mindset — it taught me that it’s not about how you start; it’s about the lengths you’re willing to go to fix your habits and prove, first to yourself, that you can do hard things.
That’s the story I want my kids — and my athletes — to see. Not the polished version at the end, but the messy, resilient journey it took to get there. Because success isn’t about perfect starts. It’s about growth, accountability, and refusing to let a rough beginning define your ending.
The truth is, your why doesn’t always have to be academic. Sometimes it’s about legacy. For me, it was about showing my kids — and my athletes — that chasing something difficult is worth it, even when no one else around you is doing it. It’s about proving that discipline and persistence don’t just build strength in the weight room — they build strength in life.
Success isn’t about perfect starts. It’s about growth, accountability, and refusing to let a rough beginning define your ending, says @CoachMullinsPhD
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Testing My Limits — The Inner Competition
Coaching has a funny way of turning everything into a competition — even internal battles. I’ve always believed in holding myself to the same standards I expect from my athletes. As the saying goes, “Comfort is the enemy of progress.” Pursuing a Ph.D. was my way of practicing what I preach. I wanted to test my capacity for focus, for discipline, for handling workload under pressure. I wanted to know how far I could push myself intellectually and mentally, not just physically.
During my master’s program at LSU, I fell in love with the process of learning — not just consuming information, but synthesizing it, challenging it, and most importantly, applying it. But I knew a doctoral journey would demand something different. It wasn’t about memorization or exams anymore — it was about contribution. It was about adding something meaningful to the field, even if that “something” was a small, incremental brick in the wall of exercise science.
The Ph.D. process forces you to face yourself in ways few things can. It exposes your procrastination, your insecurities, your perfectionism, your excuses, and especially the weaknesses in your self-confidence. You realize quickly that it’s not about how smart you are — it’s about how disciplined you can become. It’s a grind that refines you, not just as a scholar, but as a person.
There were nights I questioned my sanity. Mornings where I asked, “Is this even worth it?” But those same nights became reminders of why I started: to prove that I could finish something as challenging as this task. Proof that we aren’t defined by the limits that generational decisions project onto us. Proof that even our own mistakes can’t define the remainder of our lives, as long as we have a clear vision, a plan of attack, and a good reason for the work required to change.
The Practical Reality — Yes, the Pay Raise Helped
Let’s be honest for a second: practical motivations count, too.
In the state of Georgia, earning a doctorate bumps you up the pay scale and impacts your retirement. For coaches who spend long hours year-round serving student-athletes, that’s no small thing. The additional income wasn’t just about finances, it was about freedom. It meant breathing room for my family. It meant flexibility to invest in things like side projects, certifications, or travel that aligned with our family’s mission.
Too often, people pretend that passion should be the only motivator. But I’ve learned that purpose and practicality aren’t enemies, they’re partners. Sometimes the smartest decisions are those that fuel both your soul and your situation. Chasing a doctorate gave me long-term stability in education, but it also opened doors I didn’t even know existed.
That pay bump helped fund the creation of new ventures, and it gave me space to collaborate with others in performance and tech fields. It wasn’t just about “more money.” It was about multiplying impact. Then there’s the elephant in the room, voice. If you have kids who are nearing or have gone through adolescence, you know that if their coach or teacher tells them the same thing you’ve been trying to emphasize for months, they’ll listen the first time. Why? Because it’s a voice that’s outside of the “normal” ones they are used to hearing. Similarly, I experienced this same phenomenon in my academic career. While the message remained essentially the same, after completing my degree, somehow the same words were worth more weight.
The upgraded certification level, the opportunity to open new doors, and improve community trust were all practical benefits that contributed whether initially or eventually to the experience of earning this degree. There will certainly be practical implications that, in the long run, are worth the many headaches the process will bring.
Video: Collecting data for the Percent Based group as a part of the dissertation study
Unintended Benefits — Recalibration and Redefinition
When people think about earning a Ph.D., they imagine the end result: the diploma on the wall, the title before your name, maybe the prestige that comes with it. But what I didn’t expect was how much the process would recalibrate my understanding of what I could handle.
Before the doctorate, I thought I was busy. Between coaching, teaching, and family life, my plate was already overflowing. But the doctoral workload pushed me into a new gear. I had to find time where there was no time — early mornings, late nights, weekends. I had to learn efficiency, discipline, and prioritization at a new level. I think it was powerlifting legend Dave Tate who I first heard ask the question, “how do we know what ‘balance’ is in life if we’ve ever been ‘unbalanced’?”
What surprised me was how that discipline bled into other areas of life.
Once you’ve poured your soul into a 50-page chapter of your dissertation, read and edited it 3x, and then had your committee tear it apart, while balancing a full-time coaching schedule, you realize: nothing else feels impossible anymore.
That recalibration was the real gift. My capacity expanded. My expectations for myself grew. Suddenly, I was asking bigger questions, setting bolder goals, and operating with greater confidence, not because I thought I knew everything, but because I had proven I could figure things out. I realized that any question can be answered through collaboration, thought, research, and reflection.
If there’s one thing the Ph.D. journey taught me, it’s this:
You don’t find time. You make it. You learn to prioritize your time and recalibrate the things that matter most to you.
If there’s one thing the Ph.D. journey taught me, it’s this:
You don’t find time. You make it. You learn to prioritize your time and recalibrate the things that matter most to you, says @CoachMullinsPhD
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Finding Purpose in Passion — Choosing the Right Program
If you’re thinking about starting this journey yourself, my first piece of advice is simple: Select a program that aligns with your passions and vocational calling. When things get tough, and they will, the grounding of knowing that your courses and research are directly impacting your ability to serve your work community better will help keep you anchored. For me, I knew the topics I was studying improved my ability to serve my student-athletes.
Don’t chase a degree for the letters alone. Chase it because it aligns with who you are and what you value. When I chose Exercise Science at Liberty University, it wasn’t random. It connected directly to my daily work as a strength coach. That connection made the coursework feel meaningful, not abstract. I could take what I learned about velocity-based training, periodization, and athlete development, and apply it the very next day in the weight room.
If you’re considering this path, choose a program that either:
- Deepens what you already do (like leadership, education, or exercise science), or
- Expands what you hope to do next (like sport technology, administration, or research).
When your studies align with your purpose, your motivation lasts longer than caffeine.
Honestly, caffeine helps too…
Practical Tips for Starting the Journey
If you’re on the fence about pursuing a Ph.D. here are some lessons I learned the hard way:
A. Build Your Support System
You’ll need people in your corner — family, colleagues, mentors, and maybe even your athletes. My wife completely took over the before-school routine so I could write. I cemented my ‘circle’, the people in my life that I could call to celebrate success and share difficulties with. Don’t be afraid to lean on people. You’re not proving independence; you’re modeling what a ‘team’ should look like.
Tell the people in your life what your goals are. Be specific. Tell your circle what you are struggling with and ask them to hold you accountable. Find 2-3 people you can be authentic with, because they’ll be the ones you struggle with and the ones you celebrate with then you open the email telling you, you did it.
B. Carve Out Time and Guard It
You can’t wing a graduate degree. It demands structure.
For me, I treated my dissertation like training sessions — non-negotiable blocks on the schedule. Early mornings became writing time. After the kids went to bed, instead of scrolling or watching TV, I was reading. My kids knew what it looked like when I could play with them and what it looked like when I was facing a deadline. We communicated about it and I made sure that I did exactly what we agreed on.
The key isn’t perfection; it’s consistency. Protect that time like you would protect your athletes’ recovery days — with purpose and discipline.
C. Embrace Imperfection
Perfectionism kills progress. Your first drafts will be rough. Your feedback will sting. You’ll rewrite the same paragraph five times. That’s normal. Learn to celebrate progress, not perfection. This is one of the truest parallels to strength and conditioning. If you’ve ever coaches middle schoolers, you’ll understand that progress in movement patterns is the mark of growth. In your academic work, as long as you are learning how to fix something, you’re progressing. I’ll never forget my first writing course…brutal. I would spend hours on a project to open revisions and half of the paper be red. Every revision is a step closer to the finish line.
Video: Collecting data on sprint times for comparing results between groups as a part of the dissertation study
What I Wish I Knew Before I Started
Looking back, there are a few truths I wish I’d known earlier:
- It’s not about intelligence, it’s about endurance.
The smartest people don’t always finish, the persistent (in my case stubborn) ones do. - You’ll grow more outside of the classroom than inside it.
The research process reshapes how you think, how you problem-solve, how you view yourself. - Imposter syndrome is real — and it never fully goes away.
But it’s also proof that you care. Confidence doesn’t come from knowing everything; it comes from reflection on your beliefs and practices and revision of your systems. - Balance doesn’t mean equal time, it means intentional time.
What matters is that you stay present where your feet are. - Finishing changes you forever.
The day you defend your dissertation isn’t just about crossing a finish line — it’s about realizing how far you’ve come and how much you’ve evolved along the way.
Lessons Beyond Academia
The Ph.D. wasn’t just a degree — it was a mindset shift. It taught me to see challenges differently. Now, when I approach coaching problems, data projects, or new ideas, I use the same framework I learned in research:
- Define the problem.
- Gather data.
- Analyze it honestly.
- Adjust and move forward.
It’s the same process I use with athletes: assess, execute, evaluate, repeat. The doctorate simply gave me a new lens to view performance and potential. But more than anything, it taught me patience, time management, and discipline.
Conclusion — A Journey Worth Starting
If you’ve read this far, maybe you’re thinking about chasing your own doctorate — or maybe you’re just searching for something challenging enough to reignite your fire. Either way, here’s what I can tell you:
Do it.
Not because it’s easy.
Do it because it will stretch you, challenge you, and change you.
For me, earning my Ph.D. in Exercise Science wasn’t about letters after my name. It was about redefining myself and my family. It was about modeling lifelong learning for my kids and athletes. It was about molding a version of myself that I could be proud of.
Every step of the process — every early morning alarm, every rewrite, every self-doubt — was worth it because it forced me to grow. It recalibrated my understanding of what I’m capable of. And it gave me tools to help others do the same.
In Part 2, I’ll dive into the pre-dissertation doctoral process. What the coursework looks like and some practical tips to not only get through this process, but to use it as a time to set yourself up for success in Part 3, the dissertation. I made a ton of mistakes along the way, but I also had a lot of help. I hope to share my experience over this series to help anyone that may be considering committing to this journey themselves.
The post The Doctorate Playbook Pt. 1 appeared first on SimpliFaster.
