In Napa, we’ve perfected the Easy Button. We live in a place that promotes manicured rows and a high-end, low-friction lifestyle that makes for a world-class weekend but a precarious training ground for a child. By shielding our kids from loss with a participation-trophy sedative, we’ve accidentally raised a generation to believe that discomfort is a bug in the system rather than a feature of growth.
For an antidote, look no further than Gabby Cole.
A few weekends ago, Gabby — founder of the Napa-based girls’ volleyball program The Bold Break — was presiding over a high-stakes tournament that ended up becoming more like a social experiment than a series of matches. Her roster was decimated. They were two players down, rotating in two brand new teammates, and by the second day, three of her players were staring down a match through the literal fog of a fever.
In the world of modern parenting, this is probably where most would pull the plug, pack the Gatorade, and head for the urgent care. But Gabby, a woman who survived the gauntlet of Cal Berkeley volleyball, saw “a micro-adversity lab.”
“It was brutal,” she says, but she wanted these girls to feel the swirly panic of high-stakes pressure and realize they — not their parents, not their fevers — held the controls.
By the final whistle, the scoreboard was a footnote. The girls had pushed through the fever-fog into a state of collective grit. They didn't just survive; they realized they could manipulate the pressure. They realized that confidence doesn’t just appear; it’s a muscle you build when things get hard.
“In a world that is constantly telling young athletes who to be, we have to help them remember who they already are,” Gabby says. “That doesn't happen when things are easy. It happens when you have to make a choice and live with the outcome in real-time.”
This obsession with mental muscle is personal for Gabby. Before she was building a girls-first sanctuary in Napa, she spent 17 years in the maze of corporate success, climbing to a quarter-million-dollar salary only to realize she had become a robot on antidepressants. She had been the ultimate Good Girl, socialized to be the peacekeeper and the caregiver at the expense of her own intuition.
“I see women who are wildly successful but have no idea who they are without the title,” she explains. “I want to give these girls the tools to trust their own compass before they ever enter that maze.”
To do it, Gabby doesn't rely on vague platitudes or hang-in-there speeches. She relies on the system that saved her. During her own pivot from corporate executive to coach, Gabby obsessed over the mechanics of her recovery, eventually trademarking The M.A.Z.E. Method. It is the intellectual engine of her program, designed to treat mental performance with the same clinical rigor as a vertical jump or a power serve.
“Athletes, and women in general, get 'stuck' in their own heads when the pressure mounts,” Gabby explains. “Everyone says sport is 90% mental, but no one knows how to train it. They just say, 'be tougher' or 'focus.' I created the M.A.Z.E. because you have to give them a process to get back to their power. It’s a way to deconstruct the chaos so you can actually execute.”
Gabby describes the M.A.Z.E. model not as a slogan, but as a mechanical process for changing outcomes by changing choices:
Mindset: The decision to stop being a passenger. “It’s saying: okay, I’m done being stuck. What’s my why?”
Analyze: Detaching from the emotions to look at the data. “What choices are keeping me here? It’s about attaching outcomes to choices, not feelings.”
Zero In: Finding the needle-mover. “What do you need to be doing right now to get to where you want?”
Execute: The awareness loop. “Every time I make a choice, I ask: how did I get there? What did it net me? Then, you make a different choice next time.”
It is, essentially, treating life like reps on the volleyball court. It’s the same framework that stopped her own daughter’s pre-match tears, replacing the tissue with a tool by teaching her that nerves are just fuel for the battle.
But as The Bold Break grows, Gabby is pivoting to ensure this unshakable confidence isn't just for those who can afford the elite price tag. She is currently shifting her program into a community-based nonprofit, trading winemaker dinners for D1 coaching expertise and seeking $500,000 in seed funding to build a permanent coach's incubator in Napa.
“I can’t just coach the girls whose parents could afford the fees,” she says. “I need to work upstream for all of them. We’re building a hub where the community invests in the resilience of its daughters.”
But Gabby isn't just thinking locally. If the nonprofit is about breaking the "pay-to-play" barrier in Napa, her next move is about breaking the barrier of geography entirely. As part of the Pad 13 incubator program at UC Berkeley, Gabby is currently translating her journals into a digital interface. The goal is to take this high-level mental performance coaching — usually reserved for elite athletes or C-suite execs — and put it in the pockets of young women everywhere via a dedicated app.
The project is a work in progress, much like a thirteen-year-old at the service line. But for Gabby, the goal remains the same: helping girls build a confidence that lasts long after the final whistle. Because in Gabby’s lab, pressure isn't a problem to be avoided. Pressure is a privilege.
How to help: The Bold Break is currently seeking tax-deductible donations and local partnerships to fund scholarships and their elite Dig Into Camp retreats. To help, contact Gabby Cole here.