Jason D. Mays

Married to LB - Dad to Jayse and Rae. Coffee snob.
Founder, Cognitecture, LLC
Program Director and HC at Expression Prep

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

Today @jaybobwillie is working out at @WSCCbaseball

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

Creating in a space that is new with endless possibilities is really cool.
@EPA_Athletics @ecohuntington @HerdMBB @thegrindsession @PREP_Athletics @hoopheadspod @LbMays

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

Hwy 213 between Stanton and Jeffersonville. About 7:15. @Kentuckyweather

[Scott Morrison, CFP® @SMorrison_]

$1.2M NIL deal at 18.
Most keep $588K. Michael kept $805K.
The $217,000 gap was four decisions wide.

Meet Michael. 18 years old. From California. Never filed a tax return in his life. Just walked into more money than most adults will see in a decade.

Here’s how we drew it up.

𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝟭: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆.
California has a 13.3% top tax rate. Texas has none. NIL income is taxed based on your state of domicile, not your school’s state. We established Michael as a Texas domiciliary.
Saved: $127,000.

𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝟮: 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
NIL income is self-employment income. As a sole proprietor, Michael would pay self-employment tax on every dollar. We set up an LLC taxed as an S-corp, paid him $190K in salary, and took the rest as distributions.
Lower SE tax. And it unlocked the next move.

𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝟯: 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀.
Remember that $190K salary? It wasn’t random.
It maxed out his solo 401(k): $24,500 employee + 25% employer match = $72,000.
Add a backdoor Roth IRA at $7,500.
Tax savings today: ~$26,000. Plus 50 years of compounding.

𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝟰: 𝗗𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.
Here’s the one most athletes never hear:
Off-field NIL income lets you deduct agent fees. On-field salary doesn’t.
Agent fees ($60K+) + business expenses ($20K) = $80K off the top.

Four moves. $217K back in his pocket. Now we invest.

If Michael puts $685K to work at age 18 and never adds another dollar, an 8% return gets him here:

Age 30: $1.7M
Age 40: $3.7M
Age 50: $8M
Age 60: $17M
Age 70: $37M
Age 80: $80M

He’s 18. His superpower isn’t the $1.2M.
It’s the 60 years of compounding nobody his age understands he has.

What he does in the next 12 months decides whether $1.2M stays $1.2M or becomes $80M.

If you’re on a big NIL deal, let’s talk.

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

Coaches: Jesus has power struggles within his team (The Disciples) just like we do in our locker room. Our job is to get our players to serve each other first, so they can eventually lead them.

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

https://t.co/KgHGvaEKG0

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

I am finishing @BrianCainPeak Mental Performance Mastery program right now. Great stuff! #InvestInYou #ThinkAboutHowYouThink

[Zach Brandon @MVP_Mindset]

Darko Rajaković discusses his growth plan for this offseason and trying to improve his own mental performance.

“I have a mental performance coach that I am working with in Brian Cain, who’s helping me a lot. He’s helping myself individually, but also in preparation for what kind of leader I need to be for the team.”

You can’t ask your players to have an offseason development plan while failing to create one for yourself.

Player development and coach development are connected. If you want your players to keep growing, adapting, and improving, then they need to see you doing the same.

Better leaders create better environments and better environments help players become better versions of themselves.

Much respect to Darko for modeling the standard and shoutout to @BrianCainPeak for the impact he continues to have across the mental performance space.

📹: Toronto Raptors

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

https://t.co/6f7dluMkZE

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

https://t.co/XQeIrE5Bq4

[NextUpRecruits @NextUpRecruits]

PODCAST NEWS: New Huntington Expression Prep HC Jason Mays (@CoachJMays) will be joining The Jo Show on NextUpRecruits at 5:00 PM (ET) to talk all things H-Prep Basketball.

⏰: 5:00 PM (ET)
📺: @NextUpRecruits
📅: May 3rd, 2026 | Sunday Evening
📸: @TenthRegion

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

Venture Capital will own major conferences within next three years. Interesting.

[Mit Winter @WinterSportsLaw]

Each Big 12 school now has access to a $30M credit line of private capital.

The conference office also received $12.5M in private capital.

[Scott Morrison, CFP® @SMorrison_]

$1,200,000. College Athlete. 1099 Income.

Here’s what nobody tells NIL athletes pulling real money:

The moment your first revenue share or NIL check cleared, you became a small business owner.

The IRS doesn’t care that you’re a student-athlete in college.
They don’t care that your earning window might be just a few years.
They want their cut. Today.

Here’s what we did to keep serious money in his pocket instead of sending a check to Uncle Sam:

1️⃣ LLC taxed as an S-Corp
Put him on his own payroll and paid him a reasonable salary. The rest? Taken available as distributions.
Stops 15.3% self-employment tax from gutting every endorsement check.
→ Saves tens of thousands of dollars.

2️⃣ Maximize business deductions
Training. Recovery. Content production. Travel. Equipment. Agent and legal fees. Home office.
The real cost of running a 7-figure brand, finally run through the entity.
→ Saves tens of thousands of dollars.

3️⃣ Solo 401(k)
$24,500 employee + $47,500 employer = $72,000 deferred for retirement.
At age 20 with 45 years of compounding ahead, that single contribution can grow to millions of tax free money.
And we plan to do this every year that we’re earning 1099 income.
→ Saves roughly $26,000 per year.

4️⃣ Pass-Through Entity Elective Tax
State tax paid at the entity level. Sidesteps the federal SALT cap.
→ Saves about $30,000

5️⃣ Backdoor Roth IRA
$7,500 in. Tax-free growth for life.
At 20 years old, this is the highest-leverage account he’ll ever own.

6️⃣ Donor Advised Fund / his own Private Non-Profit
Builds a giving legacy. Aligns with his personal brand. Generates real federal deductions.
→ Saves $15,000–$40,000+, depending on giving level

Total tax savings for 2026: $150,000+

This is what we do.

Same story every time with NIL athletes earning 6 and 7 figures:

→ Treating the income like an allowance
→ Spending before structuring
→ Trusting the same tax preparer their family used for W-2 income their whole life

You’re not a college kid with a side hustle.
You’re the CEO of a 7-figure personal brand.
Your team should look like one.

📍 If you want to see where you stand with your money, take our Moment Money Quiz and find out in two minutes 👇

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

𝟭. Thought is what generates fear.
𝟮. Your body then acts like it is true (body blindly follows mind usallly)
𝟯. Think about how you think

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

You need to invest in your team!

[Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness @coachajkings]

Mark Few explains the process Gonzaga uses to work on mental toughness and adversity.

"We spend probably 25-30% of the athlete's time now on mental."

Then he explained what that looks like: "We do this thing called PGMs - Personal Growth Mondays."

"We start every Monday with this Personal Growth Monday. Staff, myself, coaches aren't allowed in there. It's just the players and Travis Knight, our strength coach and mental coach."

They invest the time every week. You can't let the mental game be an afterthought.

"They can dive into a myriad of anything that's currently happening or that they've requested...Processing pressure. Processing expectations. Lack of confidence. Hitting adversity. Handling success."

The best teams train the mind, the body, and develop the person.

Your mind is affected by your daily thoughts, habits and unconscious biases.

Mental fitness helps you build resilience and thrive.

Without investing time in mental fitness, managing stress, anxiety, and challenges becomes harder.
(🎥 Walker Webcast)

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

https://t.co/lNS2TYEuvB

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

Man.

[Jason D. Mays @CoachJMays]

https://t.co/GjGHysOz5t

[CyrilXBT @cyrilXBT]

A MIT professor gave a 1-hour lecture in 2019 that has 18 million views.

He died 5 months after recording it.

It was his final gift to the world.

Patrick Winston taught at MIT for 50 years.

The smartest engineers on earth sat in his classroom.

And he spent his last lecture teaching them the one skill their degrees never covered.

How to speak.

15 lessons that will change how you communicate forever:

Never open with a joke. Your audience is not ready to laugh yet. Open with a promise of what they will know by the end.

Your ideas are like your children. You are too close to them. What is obvious to you is invisible to everyone else. Explain the obvious.

The 5-minute rule: the first 5 minutes of any talk determine whether people will listen for the next 55. Spend more time on your opening than anything else.

Repeat your most important idea 3 times in 3 different ways. Once is never enough.

Build a fence around your idea. Tell people what it is NOT before you tell them what it IS.

Verbal punctuation. Pause. Let the idea land before moving to the next one.

Ask questions nobody will answer. Then wait 7 seconds. The silence is not awkward. It is processing.

Never read your slides. Your audience can read. They cannot listen and read simultaneously.

Use the board not the slides. Writing forces you to slow down. Slowing down forces clarity.

Inspire before you inform. Nobody learns from someone they are not inspired by.

End with a contribution not a summary. Tell them what you gave them. Not what you said.

Never say thank you at the end. It is weak. End with something that lands.

Stories make ideas stick. Data makes ideas understood. You need both. In that order.

The quality of your communication determines the quality of your ideas in the eyes of the world. Not the ideas themselves.

Practice is not preparation. Practice IS the skill.

Patrick Winston understood something most people spend their entire careers missing.

Your ideas are only as powerful as your ability to transfer them into someone else's mind.

You can be the smartest person in the room and be completely invisible.

Or you can master communication and make average ideas feel like breakthroughs.

He chose to spend his last lecture teaching this.

Watch it tonight.

Bookmark this first.

Follow @cyrilXBT for more lessons from the people who built the future.