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Episode 94—Finding Clarity with Kevin Wilson
130 Plays7 years ago
"In order to go fast, you've gotta go slow," says Kevin Wilson on Episode 94 of the podcast. Oh, the intro is back. The oral surgery disaster is ongoing, but I’m powering through. Might lose my bone graft because my stupid body won’t pump blood to it. It’s friggin’ bullshit, but all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that the surgery wasn’t for nothing. There are some podcasts that make me want to go out and be a better man and Kevin Wilson, back for his second at-bat for The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, is one of those guys. He’s president and founder of KWBaseball. He’s a hitting coach to developing players and several pros. His second book, Finding Clarity: A Mindful Look into the Art of Hitting, sounds like a baseball book. I know what you’re thinking, “Brendan, I don’t like sports. I don’t care about baseball. WTF, man.” Like Kevin’s #Goodbatting book we spoke about on Episode 32, “Finding Clarity” has so much value to anyone in any discipline. You can overlay your own experience onto the wisdom Kevin shares. You can read the book over a cup of coffee, but spend several hours journaling over the quick-hit questions at the end of the chapters. I’m telling you, give this one a chance. He talks about finding his “Why” Intentionality Sharing Failure Listening And slowing down to go faster If you don’t already subscribe, consider subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play Music. I’d deeply appreciate a rating or a review on iTunes if you can spare the time. Show notes are available at brendanomeara.com. There you can sign up for my montly reading list newsletter. It’s a fun bit of goodness that hits on the first of the month. Once a month. No spam. You can’t beat that. This show is produced, hosted, booked, and edited by me, Brendan O’Meara. I’m on Twitter and Instagram @BrendanOMeara. The podcast is @CNFPod on Twitter and @CNFPodcast on Facebook.
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Transcript
Host's Oral Surgery Journey and Motivation from Kevin Wilson
00:00:00
Speaker
Just crushing podcasts over here at CNF HQ. Hey CNFers, what is up? Feel like doing a show? Let's kick it. Oh yeah, the intro is back. The oral surgery disaster is ongoing, but I'm powering through. Might lose my bone graft because my stupid body won't pump blood to it. It's friggin bullshit. But all I can do is keep my fingers crossed.
00:00:28
Speaker
that the surgery wasn't for nothing, there are some podcasts that make me want to go out and be a better man.
Kevin Wilson on Coaching and Mindfulness
00:00:34
Speaker
And Kevin Wilson, back for his second at bat for the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, is one of those guys. He's president and founder of KW Baseball. He's a hitting coach to developing players and several pros. His second book, Finding Clarity, a mindful look into the art of hitting, sounds like a baseball book. And it is a baseball book.
00:00:58
Speaker
And I know what you're thinking, Brendan, I don't like sports. I don't care about baseball, WTF man. Like Kevin's good batting book that we spoke about on episode 32, finding clarity has so much value to anyone in any discipline.
00:01:18
Speaker
You can overlay your own experience onto the wisdom Kevin shares.
Social Media Fast for Clarity and Mental Health
00:01:23
Speaker
You can read the book over a cup of coffee, but spend several hours journaling over the quick-hit questions at the end of the chapters. I know I did. And I'm telling you, give this one a chance.
00:01:37
Speaker
He talks about a lot here in episode 94, about finding his why, intentionality, sharing, failure, listening, and slowing down to go faster. And speaking of listening, thank you for listening, CNF buddies. I'm glad you're here. Let's get on with the show.
00:02:03
Speaker
Are you ready to find some clarity today? Oh, I'm all full of it. It's funny, to the theme of your most recent work of finding clarity and such, I'm going on a month-long social media fast. I'm just wiping it out because it's a little too weird out there for me. I love how you put that because it's so true.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. If it wasn't for social media, I wouldn't have met like you and Joe, you know, met in quotations. But on the other hand, it's just like, I sometimes I just got a step away and I'm doing, I deleted it all from the phone. I'm just doing everything I can to avoid it. And even at the expense of missing what people like you and Joe and countless others that are really valuable and leaders in the stuff we do in our corners of the internet.
00:03:01
Speaker
I wonder if you have those kind of moments where you're like, is this really worth it? Should I step away? And how do I mitigate and manage the social media aspect versus the tactile work? How do you manage it?
Wilson's Approach to Social Media Engagement
00:03:15
Speaker
That's tough. It's tough because, for me, it's like there are times where, for me, as a small business, I have to be present.
00:03:30
Speaker
on social media. I have to be out there in order to stay, I guess, relevant or current. I got to see what other people are doing. Certainly, you can learn a lot, but over the past, I don't know, maybe five years, I've really kind of decluttered, kind of like what we're talking about in a book, but I decluttered socially on social media, I should say. Because there was just so much anger, there was so much
00:03:58
Speaker
like snake oil out there too, where it was starting to come into my timeline and I could sense, like you're talking about, I could sense where I needed to step away. So for me, it was like, I need to either block those people, get them out of my timeline so that I'm seeing a lot of stuff, genuine stuff from authentic people that pour into me that can help me help others. So for me, I went through that period, but it was more so of this standpoint of,
00:04:25
Speaker
I need to remove myself from the, I guess, the anger and the fighting going on, at least in the hitting Twitter world. And I need to align with people and have people in my timeline that come pouring to me, I guess. Does that make sense?
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah, and you kind of allude to that in your latest book too. It might be in the introduction too that was by a colleague and a friend of yours about there are Twitter gurus and so forth that more than likely they try to evaluate from afar virtually and what have you.
00:05:00
Speaker
added to your point like of why it why there's so many hitting coaches and so few good hitters so I wonder how you you know how if you built a business in a brand around that real that those tactile lessons and avoided a lot of that you know that false guru stuff you know how how are you able to manifest you know your vision and see the results manifest themselves on paper
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And for me, personally, it's been really being intentional about what I do, what I say, how I go about it. And I'm certainly not the only person to do that. I mean, I think a lot of people that I look up to and mentors that I learned from, they're very intentional about what they do and how they say things and what they let in and what they don't let in.
Intentionality in Online Baseball Community
00:05:53
Speaker
And so to speak. So for me,
00:05:56
Speaker
know, I am wrapped into that online hitting guy, right? So I am a part of that organization, if you want to call it online, or that society online. And so for me, I'm a part of it. And because I am one, I'm a ball flipper. So, but at the same time, the content that I put out there, the conversations like you and I have, the conversations that I have,
00:06:19
Speaker
are very intentional that not only am I trying to help somebody, but I'm looking for people to help me because the thing in my business is I'm a loner. I'm by myself. I don't have a crack team of 20 people. I'm not a part of a MLB organization. What I am is I'm a piece to a much larger puzzle. So what I'm trying to do is, yes, I am in that arena.
00:06:47
Speaker
But I want to stand out and not just stand out for the sake of standing out. I want to be able to be that trusted source that people can come to for answers. And I don't have all the answers. I never will. But I want to be that trusted source where people know it's coming from that authentic, that genuine place. And because now with that authentic and genuineness that comes in, then therefore I can gain that trust.
00:07:12
Speaker
from people because I'm building a relationship, whether it's online or face to face. We're talking about online right now. I feel like I can build that relationship. When I do build that relationship, I'm also at the same time building that trust. I am in the middle of it, but again, finding clarity like the new book, I'm trying to help people sift through the clutter and know that, hey, I'm not in the middle of the page. We like to talk about finding value in the margins.
00:07:38
Speaker
like using Joe's term, getting 1% better every day, I want to be in the margins. I want people to find me in the margins because that's where the, you know, it goes from a transaction to a transformation. And I want to be on that, and that's where the transformation happens when you're hanging out in the margins of that page.
00:07:59
Speaker
How did you learn to cultivate a sense of patience to differentiate yourself from the masses, to be on those margins, and to take it maybe a beat slower to build, like you said, that real authenticity and that trust with your clients, that slow burn? Where did that come from?
Vision and Intentionality in Coaching
00:08:26
Speaker
Experience, and it certainly takes time.
00:08:29
Speaker
I think that's where a lot of young coaches or business people, in fact, next week I'm speaking at a Merrill Lynch to their young advisors. Part of the message to them is going to be like, hey, listen, it's not going to happen tomorrow. You're not going to get 20 clients and be managing $5 million in three months. It's just not going to happen. You mentioned that slow burn.
00:08:54
Speaker
It's as a coach, as an advisor, or as a teacher, or as a leader, a manager of a group in a business, or you're the CEO or CFO, whatever you are. I think it's our job to have that vision, right? For our client to have that vision for our player, to have that vision for our employee. But at the same time, we have the vision
00:09:21
Speaker
But we need to be intentional, going back to that word, intentional about the details and paying attention to the details. And when you're looking at guys and you're saying, okay, well, I want to get to this goal, it's great to have goals, but we also need to have some steps along the way that we know that if we don't get this done, and it could be as simple as I'm going to write 50 handwritten notes.
00:09:47
Speaker
to people I've met this year, if I want to build relationships, right? So I have to be intentional about at the end of every week, I'm basically sending out a handwritten note once a week. And if you can do that, then you can do three times a week, then you can do once a day, five times a week, then you can do, you know what I'm saying? So you build on that. And as you're building relationships and being intentional and paying attention to the details piece of it,
00:10:14
Speaker
Again, because we're working in the margins and we're trying to get 1% better every day, what you're doing is that's manageable stuff. So when people want to race to the top and skip all the steps, a lot of people are doing that right now today. But if you look at what the best of the best are doing, whether they're a big league hitter or whether they're an entrepreneur or whether they're an author or whoever they are, take the best of the best. You don't write a 300-page novel because you just throw up on a page for three hours.
00:10:44
Speaker
Um, one day, no, it's getting up early every day and being intentional. If you're writing 500 words a day or a thousand words a day, and you do that for six months, you're going to have a novel, right? You're going to, like Jake Ronsky said in the beginning forward of our Finding Clarity, our new book. And that's what he's been doing as a, as a new author. Um, and so long-winded answer to your, to your question is I feel like we, we certainly, you have that vision, you have that goal, but you have to be able to know where to go fast.
00:11:14
Speaker
You got to be slow. So the slow part of it is being intentional and having the details and commanding that one thing at a time and and doing that. And again, it's it's it's what's the term for it? I'm drawing a blank right now, but it's deliberate practice. We talk about in the baseball world and you can transform that into any world, but it's the deliberate practice, not just going and taking 100 swings, but let's take 20 that have a lot of purpose to it. So.
00:11:43
Speaker
That's where I feel like the best of the best have a lot of
Challenges of Running a Sole Proprietorship
00:11:46
Speaker
purpose. They're intentional about what they do, all at the same time holding on to that North Star and their vision.
00:11:51
Speaker
That's great. Something I also wanted to touch base with you about is when you're kind of a sole proprietor, when you're not only the raw material of your business, you're also the administrator and the executor of the business. So you're two sides of the same coin. And not all people are necessarily equipped to be their own boss. It sounds great on paper.
00:12:21
Speaker
uh, be your own boss. But it's, um, there's a lot of ugly work that goes on behind the scenes to allow you to sort of manifest your own vision. And like I said, not all people I think are equipped to do it. Um, so what were some growing pains that you experienced as you were, you know, hanging up your own shingle and, you know, being, being your own boss and also like the, the coach that being the boss is producing. How much time do we have?
00:12:49
Speaker
I mean, I've been doing this for 17 years. You're 18, um, going into, and certainly, uh, I think I speak for many where, uh, if you got to throw it against the wall, um, for it to stick and you got to continue to throw things against the wall early on, especially, you might not have all the purpose, the details that we talked about. You may just kind of be essentially, I, I just, for me personally, it was just teaching hitting and that ha that happened in a baseball academy setting.
00:13:20
Speaker
which happens for 99% of everybody else. And I was so grateful for that opportunity. I did that for about 10 years and I grinded it, man. And I was doing lessons and I'm so grateful for that opportunity because that taught me how to teach. Like I knew how to teach myself as a hitter, but I didn't know how to teach another individual that had a different mindset that was maybe a 4.0 student. And I was a 2.0 student that overanalyzed things where I was pretty simple.
00:13:50
Speaker
And so all that stuff that I was throwing against the wall from just a teaching standpoint over 10 years really allowed me to really understand what worked for a particular person and what didn't work for another person. So now I got that part. Now bringing it into the business side of it is really once I, like at the beginning I just wanted to do lessons and all of a sudden it came to a point where I didn't want to do lessons my whole life.
00:14:18
Speaker
And so it's the old phrase of what got you here, it's not going to get you there. So what got me to year 10 was just grinding out the lessons, building relationships, pouring into individual persons, not just a player. And it was awesome, but that wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go in terms of working with major league players. So,
00:14:44
Speaker
I threw out a couple things and I tried a couple different camps or clinics or, I mean, I had whiteboards that were just filled with stuff that, I mean, I go back on it because I saved all the things and I look back on it, I thought that would work and it obviously didn't work. And then some things that certainly did work. So there was a lot of throwing against the wall. But as I was going through those 10 years and then into the last seven years,
00:15:13
Speaker
What happened particularly around 2012 for me was I started to find my why, like why do I do what I do? Unfortunately, my mother passed away May 1st, 2012 and that was kind of the moment in my life where I had to step back and I had to really evaluate myself, why do I do what I do? Why do I have Kevin Wilson baseball? Why do I want it to go this particular route?
00:15:41
Speaker
And so for me, that was no longer throwing things against the wall, but I was more intentional about throwing things against the wall, knowing that what I was throwing against the wall was filled with why. What I was throwing against the wall before was filled with a lot of what and how.
00:16:01
Speaker
Like, what do I want to be one day? What do I want KWB to be one day? How do I want to do it? I want to do it through this thing, through that thing. Let me throw it against. And again, that was all like, I needed it all. So I'm not trying to say like, can't put the what and the how in front of the why, because I think a lot of us, it's tough to be 20 years old or even 30 years old and find why we're doing what we're doing. Like some people never find out why they do it. And that to me is sad.
00:16:28
Speaker
But so wherever you find your why, in particular for me, it was about halfway, a little more than halfway through the process. For me, like now when I threw stuff against the wall, it stuck more readily because there was a lot of thought going into it that was wrapped up again in that why. So I knew why I was throwing it up on the wall, and it had a greater than a 50-50 chance of sticking, if that made sense.
00:16:51
Speaker
Was your mother a Y person too? Do you think that might be Y, maybe at that point when presented with getting hit hard with mortality and losing someone dear to you, maybe was that a trigger? She wasn't. She was a tough Italian from Brooklyn. You can relate to that being from around, but I think
00:17:17
Speaker
I think for me, she wasn't. For me, it was losing your mother, losing my mother. And for me, it was just like, well, life is really short. And you can say life is short. My grandparents passed away. My best friend at 12, George Strand passed away. That's why I wore the number 30. That's why 30 is in the logo. If you guys check out the KWB logo, there's a 30 on the sleeve.
00:17:44
Speaker
because of George and but when you're 12 and you lose your best friend there's a totally different perspective you have I mean you grieve but it's not like you kind of go on with life because you're 12 and there's so much more to live but then you know at that at that moment I was 33 maybe 34 so yeah six was it six years ago now so yeah so 34 and you know
00:18:12
Speaker
At that moment in my life at 34, I'm like, Whoa, like I am running around crazy. And I'm trying to build this but for for who am I building it for me?
Finding Purpose: Wilson's 'Why' and Personal Growth
00:18:24
Speaker
Or am I building something to impact influence and inspire others? Why am I doing this? And so I happen to read a book that same year shortly after by Simon Sinek start with why. And that book really helped me
00:18:43
Speaker
kind of start on this why journey because it spoke to me so personally, because again, I was in that moment. I was emotionally stressed out. I was emotionally fragile, if you want to call it that. And so that and all that had happened in reading that book and understanding what your why is and then finding my why, my why is to help others. So I was happening to do it at that time through baseball lessons slash
00:19:10
Speaker
transferring into working with being a kidding consultant to major league and minor league players privately. And so I'm like, that's it. That's why I do what I do. And then now today that why is expand to, like I said before, speaking at Merrill and doing corporate events, speaking at baseball clinics, our podcast, KWB radio, being on here with you today, just trying to help people. And most of them will come to me through the baseball platform, but that why is shining so bright for me right now.
00:19:40
Speaker
And I'm nobody special by any means, but that why is really my North Star and that's where I feel like the message can expand on many platforms, not just with baseball.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's what to the message of your latest book of finding clarity, like if you can answer that question and find your why, then everything else dissolves away and you can declutter your mind even a physical space because that will in fact strip away what is meaningless and then you're left with a shining core of what you want to be and then you can just really lean into that.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, I have quick hitters at the end of each section of the book. There are three reflective, thoughtful questions, because I want this book. It's a short book, but my first book, The Good Batting Book, where we talked about before, where I want it to be digestible. It's not a 300-page book. It's an e-book for a reason. It's only an e-book.
00:20:38
Speaker
because I want you to always have it on your phone, or your iPad, or your Kindle, or whatever it is that you read it on. I want it to be on, that you can reference it, that with these quick hitters at the end of the sections and the chapters, I want you to really think and reflect. And we're talking about the why right now. Like one of the questions I have on there, it's like, how much time do you spend understanding why you do what you do?
00:21:05
Speaker
Like, how much time do we actually, with our busy lives, right? You talked about getting off of social media. That freed up a lot of time for you, I would assume, to be able to do whatever you want. And if people are searching, like I was searching six years ago to kind of find why I was doing what I was doing, there were a lot of times where I spent by myself with no TV, no music, no nothing, just in silence and just reflecting and not really thinking about anything. Just let thoughts come into my mind.
00:21:34
Speaker
and just let myself be able to really kind of sift through the clutter, like we talked about in the book, and really find that North Star, which I did. The other thing to that too is, for me, is how much do you value as a person, as a listener? How much do you value solidarity?
00:21:56
Speaker
when learning your craft, or learning about you as a person, or parenting, or coaching, or leading a Fortune 500 company. How much do you value that half hour in the morning, that 15 minutes in the morning with just you, maybe just you and your coffee, just maybe you in a book, just maybe you in a journal, or you read a daily devotional. Whatever that may be, finding clarity comes along,
00:22:25
Speaker
In finding clarity, I should say, a lot of that, in my experience, has been you need to pour into yourself and find time daily, not weekly, not monthly, not yearly, daily.
Importance of Self-Reflection for Growth
00:22:37
Speaker
in order to be able to and have that ability to pour into others. So whether you're sharing your why, whether you're helping them with their why, where you're just helping them through life, if your gas tank is not filled because you fill it every morning, if it's not filled and you're running on half or empty, there's no shot.
00:22:56
Speaker
you're gonna give the best to somebody else. And I think that wraps it back up in those relationships, right? Is the relationships as we need each other. We're built that way. We're not built for solidarity. And that's why like, you know, if you're in a prison cell by yourself, you can go crazy. Or if you're in a holding cell by yourself, you can go crazy. Or if you don't have any connection to the outside world and you stay in your house for 30 days, it's lonely. We're not built for that. We're built for relationships. And if we can help each other find out why,
00:23:26
Speaker
We do what we do and be able to pour into each other every day and pour into ourselves, I should say, before we pour into others. I think we're all off for the better.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, that solidarity you speak of is really, really important. And it takes an assurance of character, I think, to want to foster a community, be sure of yourself and that this game, whatever it is, is that
00:24:00
Speaker
More is better in that it's not a zero-sum game, you know that you have you can share your wisdom and not feel like you're giving away a trade secret or in some way polluting your own capacity to teach or you know erode your own influence by By sharing, you know, you don't have to necessarily keep things close to the chest and I I wonder too like how did you learn maybe not to be fearful that it that
00:24:28
Speaker
in your line of work that in being giving, you weren't giving away the secrets and then eroding your own capacity for influence and business and clients. That's a great question. It's never really crossed my mind. When I was giving lessons, I would always invite people, parents, coaches, come out. Come see what we do. It's not a secret. I would say that over and over again. It's not a secret because I don't have
00:24:57
Speaker
I'm not selling snake oil. I'm not selling the latest training tool. I'm not selling the latest launch angle fad. What I am doing is I am sharing information that's been around the game and around life for whether it's 100 years in the game plus or 2000 years of life. It's not a secret. My job is to share it.
00:25:25
Speaker
because other people, if we all were, if we were all pouring into ourselves and we all were trying to help each other rather than cut each other down, if we were all really interested in the person first and not just the player or the employee,
00:25:46
Speaker
First, I think we will all be a better work environment on or off the field. I think all these things that I'm not afraid of is because I want to share because I want the world to be better and I'm not going to change it by myself. I may not be here tomorrow. I had lunch with a friend of mine, Dana Cavalia. He was on our podcast on KWB radio and he used to be the strength and conditioning coach for New York Yankees.
00:26:11
Speaker
for many years. He spent 12 years in the organization. He was on the bigly level director of performance and trained the guys like Jeter and A-Ron. He won a World Series in 2009. But we were talking about yesterday this fact of, you know, because there's so many people trying to make the quick buck and there's so many people out there trying to just sell you something and then they're in and out, we want long lasting relationships
00:26:40
Speaker
And that if we wrote it down, or we put it on a podcast, if we were gone tomorrow, that it will still have a chance to carry to the next generation, to carry into tomorrow. Because that's the downfall. We are our own people. And again, we're not the best. I don't know everything. But what we can share is we have wisdom that has come from experience. There are a lot of people walking around with knowledge in this world.
00:27:08
Speaker
that have learned it from textbooks. And that's good and great because we need a foundation. But the people that I call on, the people that I ask to be mentored by are the people that have wisdom that have been gained by experience. So for me, I want that to be long lasting. I want what I share with people to not be a secret because like we always talk about, we talked about on the last show, all it takes is five minutes to change someone's life.
00:27:36
Speaker
I want somebody to listen to this for five minutes, and maybe one piece of this could change their life, what you and I are talking about today. Or maybe they don't listen to this because of the beauty of a podcast. They don't listen to it until next year or five years from now. But it resonates. Or maybe they listen. How cool is this? This is the crazy things I think about. I think about, like, we've had our podcast for four years. Charlie Manuel was our first guest back on August 1st, 2014. There are players now that have listened to that as a player.
00:28:05
Speaker
that are now done playing, retired. I'm talking like older people, 30, late 30s. Their kids now are 14, 15 in high school. They listened to that Charlie manual episode. They got something out of it at the late stages of their professional career. Now their son or daughter is playing baseball or softball and is now listening to it at the beginning of their career. Like how cool is that?
00:28:32
Speaker
And that's why I feel like, and that's why I say, be intentional with everything that you do. Who cares if you're keeping things under wrap? I don't want it. If you have something good to share, share it. That's why podcasts are free. No one's paying to listen to us today. You know, it's free. It's free information. I have a podcast, Rolex, a podcast that I listen to that people pour into me. It's great in an information age in 2018. I regularly get,
00:29:02
Speaker
Reminded by my eight-year-old son that daddy if you don't know it just Google it Right because I don't need to go to college To learn 99% of the stuff unless I'm gonna be a doctor or lawyer or something right or an engineer Like I literally can find everything I need to know on the internet So let's not let it and I feel and I'm sorry. I'm getting on a rant be but I'll shut it down. I love it Keep it down. I'll wrap it up with this the people that want to keep us it a secret. I
00:29:32
Speaker
They are fearful that they will be exposed, in my opinion. That if you are not afraid of putting content out there, and it's scary, and I've gotten destroyed for stuff I've put out there in the past, and it does hurt. It certainly hurts. But at the same time, if I know it's going to help somebody, and it comes from that genuine and authentic place, let's share it. Let's be intentional about that. Let's help somebody else, because there are a lot of people that don't like face-to-face
00:30:04
Speaker
Interactions today a lot of text right a lot of social media stuff So that's why I love the social media piece is like if someone doesn't want to come to me is not Want to come to me face to face or call me on the phone or even text me and I can put something out And they read it and they feel like it can help them, but they don't have to have that interaction piece Then that's why I put it out there too because again, you don't know who you're gonna touch and
00:30:27
Speaker
And I want that to continue for as long as it can, whether I'm here or not. I want all that information out there. And it doesn't be, not because it's coming from me. We're all plagiarists. We all take it from somebody, right? We learned it from a lot of stuff I teach and hitting stuff I learned from Charlie Manuel.
00:30:43
Speaker
Why not? I mean, he's not keeping on the wraps. He's not charging me $1,000 per episode to do it. He's more than welcome to share it as well. So that's what we try to do. It's so great that so much of what you do and preach is very principle-based leadership. So that a podcast that you recorded four or five years ago
00:31:04
Speaker
Going to resonate in into the future and also it will mean something To someone who it'll mean something different depending on the individual if you're 15 years old that conversation There's going to be a different set of takeaways and then if you're in your late 30s there's also going to be different takeaways because your life has evolved around and
00:31:27
Speaker
Certain those certain principles that you head on so you can it's great that you just you know You've that you're preaching something. That's that's timeless and you know techniques can change but those principles will and Technologies change but those principles stay the same so you can always Refer back to it and it'll always be there to influence someone no matter where they are on the continuum of life really yeah, that's why I think like like philosophy versus principle and
Principle-Based Teaching and Leadership
00:31:57
Speaker
When people ask me, hey, what Kev, what's your hitting philosophy? I say, I don't have one. My philosophy is whatever works for the individual. But how can you sustain your business or your career and you don't have a philosophy? I said, well, it's pretty simple. Like you just brought up, I have principles. And I think a philosophy is something that's kind of rooted in and you can't really change it and it's one way. But I feel with principles, we can stick to our principles as a teacher, as a leader,
00:32:26
Speaker
as a coach, as whatever, we can stick to our principles, but be flexible in our philosophy. And so if we're going to be able to like, okay, I'm pretty rooted in what my principles are when it comes to hitting or leadership, a lot of what we talked about today so far, right? So there's things that I believe in, but they're principles I believe in. And every single hitter I work with and every single talk I have, whether it's in the baseball world or now in the corporate world,
00:32:53
Speaker
I want to be a chameleon. I want to be flexible. I want to take those principles and I want to plug that in to their language and where they're at in their life or their career. And that's why I feel like philosophy versus principle. I would rather somebody that's principle-based. I'd rather a company that's principle-based than a philosophy-based because the principle-based allows you to be flexible within
00:33:21
Speaker
the rules of engagement or the rules of the company, meaning principles, because I'm huge on flexibility. I'm not one size for it all. I think that's a tired act, if you want to be honest. I see a lot of
00:33:35
Speaker
Certainly, baseball players, hitters that get burned by that, and their careers are over. I see a lot of companies that are stagnant, that don't go forward. They don't progress. They don't evolve, because they're stuck in a philosophy that, when they started a company in 1978, they're still with that. And that, to me, I think that's where people are like, oh, we need to change. You don't necessarily need to change for the sake of change.
00:34:03
Speaker
I think a lot of the stuff I do as a hitter, coaching, hitting, is the same stuff I did 17, 18 years ago. But my message and my language and my presentation has changed, but my principles have not. And so I think that's also too with companies and anybody else. Your principles can stay the same.
00:34:24
Speaker
You can change in your verbiage, maybe in your vision, maybe how you build relationships now. But at the same time, your core is still the same. You just enhanced it and maximize it rather than reinvent the wheel.
00:34:38
Speaker
And you write that that success leaves clues and whose clues were you following on your journey and sort of this second act of your career as a leader and coaching your first act being a, you know, a ball player and so forth. And then this, this, the second, the second act, what were some of those or whose clues were you following? That's a great question. Um, a lot of people in,
00:35:04
Speaker
A lot of the clues that I was of successful people that I was following were outside of the game of baseball. Like we talked about Simon Sinek, you know, start with why that book, I have bookshelves filled with books, like as I turn around, like, you know, of people like Adam Grant to Jim Collins, Angela Duckworth to, I mean, I'm not trying to name drop, I'm just saying like, these are not
00:35:31
Speaker
baseball books. I mean, even Tim Tebow's Shaken book I read. I loved it. Because it talks about the adversity and stuff like that. Wherever you stand on Tim Tebow, that's another podcast. But for me, I love Tim Tebow because what he stands for and he doesn't get off what he stands for. Whether you're a person of faith or not, either way, I think it's a great example of he believes what he believes. And he sticks to it. And everybody hates him.
00:36:00
Speaker
Because I think that's the other part to this too is where success leaves clues is that if you're doing something right in this world, there are going to be a lot of people that don't like you because people want you to conform to what they do. They want you to conform to what the world, the rest of the world is doing. But if you take the Elon Musk's of the world or the Steve Jobs or the Tim Tebow's or you take anybody that and any walk of life,
00:36:26
Speaker
did something with their life to impact the lives of others in a positive manner. Like Steve Jobs, he thought about that we needed smartphones before we thought we needed smartphones. And now, for me personally, I do all my business from now. My business is better now in 2017, excuse me, 2018, than it was in 2001. Because now the internet and the technology, I'm more mobile. That's why I go all over the country and all over the world, because I can do my business anywhere because of that. He had that vision.
00:36:55
Speaker
for us when we couldn't even see two feet in front of us. So when we're talking about success in these clues, I want to see and read about and listen to people who have been there and done that. And it doesn't mean I can't learn from the 22-year-old coach that just got out of college the first time as a hitting coach in college. I can learn something from him.
00:37:18
Speaker
Now, I may learn from him some newer terminology that the younger generation of hitters coming up are using, so I know what that actually means, so I can be a good translator. You can learn something from everybody, but at the same time, I'm not going to the 22-year-old to learn how to get to where I want to go. I'm going to Charlie Emanuel because he's been there and done that as an example.
00:37:42
Speaker
I'm going to Adam Grant if I want to talk about, you know, relationships and give and take in business. When I give something or am I going to try and take something? Now, what does that really mean? I want to go to Adam Grant, the youngest tenured professor at UPenn, Wharton School, like top of the top. I don't want to go to that guy, you know, because he's been there and done that. So the success leaving clues is I'm not in the baseball sense of things for me.
00:38:11
Speaker
My players that I have the great fortune to work with, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity, is their success is not because of me. They're the ones swinging the bat. They're the ones going and grinding out 700 bats a year in the big leagues against the best of the best. It's not because of me, but I learned from the players more than they learned from me because I'm looking at, you are there doing it right now.
00:38:39
Speaker
So why? I'd be crazy not to sit and listen. Now you're paying me to help you, but you're actually paying me for me to learn from you because somebody else is going to come along and be exactly like you and be exactly like you in their career with that same problem, with that same personality, and with that same swing mechanic or whatever, with that same issue at home with the wife and kids, whatever, because you figured it out.
00:39:08
Speaker
I'm able to take that, the clues that you left, because you figured that out, and implement that to that next guy that had the same exact problem. Now, it may not be for another 10 years, though. But that's why I write everything down. And so I'm learning not only from people that have been there and done that, I'm learning from people that are there and doing it. And that's where, to me, you just got to go for those people, because, again, they've been there and done that.
00:39:34
Speaker
And you talk about that balance between strength and weaknesses, whether to lean into your strengths or try to level up your weaknesses to your strengths. And you also mentioned that the best of the best, they actually identify what they're really good at and lean into that. And if you try to level up your weaknesses too much, you end up being a jack of all trades, which is to say a master of none.
00:39:59
Speaker
What would you identify as your strengths and weaknesses and how did you identify that and then decide to lean into your strengths instead of, you know, of course you're managing and mitigating weaknesses, but ultimately like you say and write, it comes down to identifying strengths and really leaning into that. So yeah, what would you say are your strengths and when did you decide to lean into those?
00:40:25
Speaker
My strength. Great question, man. You're killing it today. I love this because you're going to be fired up. Joe, Joe Ferrer could take a couple pointers from you. Love you, Joe. So my strength, so here's how I came to understand my strengths and it might be for some other people they found it this way too. You know, everybody's a little different. I was so naive to what I was good at. So naive. I didn't know what I was good at. I just knew that.
00:40:53
Speaker
Hitters started to hit when they worked with me, but I didn't know why. I had no idea why. I was just trying to care for the person. I was trying to do a good job, but I was still grinding, and I didn't know why. I didn't take that time to step back, reflect, like we talked about before, and find out, okay, why? And it started with a couple people, and this is before I get to this point,
00:41:17
Speaker
We I feel like is is you don't have to be a leader to do this I think just I think we need to do this overall better in the world today is be a world-class listener Like really do a good job of listening and I feel like a lot of people that they they speak too much and They listen to us if that's grammatically, correct. Now. We have a high school degree But if you speak
00:41:46
Speaker
too much, then there's no room for you to actually listen and gain that wisdom from somebody. So like we say, sometimes the best answer to a question is a question in return. The kidders would go to me and say, hey Kev, how'd that look? And I'll go right back around and say, well, how'd that feel? Because I want to hear you first. I want to hear how that felt to you first. Because how you feel is going to dictate my answer to you. I don't have blanket statements. We don't buy into that around here. So my strengths and learning my strengths to bring it back around was,
00:42:16
Speaker
People started telling me, hey man, you're really good at listening or you're really good at translating that information. You made that sound so simple. Like I understood that. I went to whatever, how many coaches before and I never said it like that. And so I was listening to that. I was like, really? Cause to me it wasn't anything special. And again, I'm not anything special. I don't know everything. But that's when I was really starting to really understand like, wow, maybe I am different.
00:42:47
Speaker
And my strength is communication. My strength is listening. My strength is translating information to fit the narrative and the language of that player in that moment, in that stage of his life, in that chapter of his life. Like I say, you don't know what chapter you're going to walk in on someone's life. So you have to be sensitive to that.
00:43:12
Speaker
So when people started to kind of tell me it was drips and drabs, it wasn't like, you know, five straight days, people were telling me it was just drips and drabs. But the more that I heard the same thing, I was like, well, maybe that is my strength. And then I started doubling down on that strength. And I started doubling down on I am different. We talked about the beginning of being in that hitting guru rule world, even though I can't stand the word guru and I'm not that, but I'm in that world.
00:43:39
Speaker
How can I separate myself, differentiate myself? Having that ability to have a big leaguer trust me with his career, and I never played in the big leagues, is that I build relationships first and foremost. I gain the trust of you. Second, I learn the way you learn. Third, fourth, I try to be the world-class listener so that I can speak your language. And then fifth, being able to put it back into something that's simple, concise, to the point,
00:44:08
Speaker
that you understand the first go around and then you feel it's your language, you feel it's your approach, you feel it's your whatever it is and you run with it, you get all the credit. And so that's kind of how I found out what my strengths are.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. What I hear in that too is a lot from the Covey's Seven Habits of highly effective people seeking first to understand and then be understood. It's that walk a mile in someone else's shoes and you can't help a hitter or
00:44:43
Speaker
Fortune 500 company employees, these young guys, you can't help them unless you understand what is making them tick. And then you can, once you know that, then you can help. But then there, there are other people who would be like, well, this is my track. This is my train. Get on my train and help. But you're like, no, I'm going to go ride your train and understand where you're coming from so I can make you the best you. And it's like you always said, of seeking to coach the individual first. Yeah. And, and
00:45:12
Speaker
The best version of yourself, that's what we go for, like you mentioned. But something I've learned along the way as well is, say you're 20 years old and you have the best version of yourself, where your feet are at that moment, in that chapter of your life. Well, you certainly don't want that same best version of yourself at 20 when you're 25. And you don't want that same best version of yourself at 25 when you're 30. Because the point is, you want to grow. Like you're saying, you want to evolve.
00:45:42
Speaker
You don't want to necessarily change, but you just want to evolve, maximize. And a lot of that max max, uh, when you maximize is mastering that strength. Like I wrote about in the book, the big league hitters are known for one thing. They master that. And like you mentioned, like, I don't, I don't want to work on my weaknesses too much because then the weaknesses all the highest they can get is just being average. And then there's a lot of average people in this world.
00:46:06
Speaker
And I want to be exceptional. I want to stand out being genuine and authentic. But if I'm going and teaching all these new launch angle terminology, barrel dumps and turns and stuff, I'm not that guy. And I've told people before, like, listen, if you're looking for that, I'm not your guy. I can hook you up with some people that I think really understand that well and are way smarter than me at the mechanics of the swing.
00:46:32
Speaker
But I'm not going to sit there and learn all the terminology and how to do it when at the highest levels, they're not into that. They're into relationships, they're into simplicity, they're into consistency, they're into purpose, all that kind of stuff. And we can get the same data results, launch angle and exit B-loads by not covering any of that, because for 100 years, all that stuff was being done. Just nowadays, there's a fancy name attached to it to tell you that you hit a ball hard on the line.
00:47:02
Speaker
That kind of stuff. That's why I think that we master our strengths and we're known for doing one good thing. Big Poppy, David Ortiz, was not known for being a good base runner, even though he's not bad. But he was not known as being a good first baseman. He was known as being a good hitter. He made a ton of money last time I checked at doing one thing really well.
00:47:26
Speaker
And I think that's, uh, I can apply to all walks of life. You're going to get paid for doing one thing really well, and you're going to get paid for doing a lot of things like you said, average, but depends on, do you want to be average or, uh, you know, or do you want to be great? And that's up to you. I, you or I can't force anybody to do that. That's, that's something that's a deep within you. And if you want to push the extra mile and you want to do things with a lot of purpose to it, uh, to be consistent, um, because that's the, that's the last thing to it too is, you know,
00:47:55
Speaker
Mike Trout, Derek Jeter, Big Poppy, you know all these guys in baseball where you know a lot of, you know, think about anybody in any walk of life who is really good at what they do, and they're pretty famous at what they do outside of Hollywood, is that they are consistent. And do you want to be consistently bad, or you want to be consistently good? And that's up to you.
00:48:16
Speaker
How do you think, or how possible is it to want to maybe resist, and I'll use the baseball terminology here too, like to resist wanting to become like a five tool player, your Griffies and Willie Mays. How do you resist the urge to want to be good at everything and then not focus on the one great strength?
00:48:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's I mean, certainly I've been there myself. I think we all we all have been there. That's another great question. I think it's because a lot of the for me, a lot of the world is speaking to us that we need to be good at a lot of things. Right, right. You know, you need to be able to host produce your podcast all by yourself, which most of us do. And you need to be able to be the ultimate blogger, speaker, hitting coach, everything.
00:49:05
Speaker
But I think it comes down to, at least for me and a lot of people that I've talked to, they're much smarter than me and better than what I do, is they've come to me and I've watched them and they say, hey, listen, what is your North Star? What are you really excellent at? And then what are your kind of subtitles to that or your B qualities? It's like I talked to hitters like you got your A swing and your B swing. Like your A swing is like one of your two, oh, three, one.
00:49:32
Speaker
And it's a good control, but you kind of let it eat a little bit. Let it fly. Let that barrel go a little bit because you got some leeway. But your B swing is with two strikes and you just got to get a barrel on the ball. So it's a lesser version of your best swing, but it still plays really well. And so you're not trying to go A-B swing the entire day.
00:49:55
Speaker
but you are, going back to that word, flexibility, you are flexible within what you're doing. So whatever comes up in life, you've got a couple clubs in your bag. Like your driver might be your best club in the golf bag, or your four iron might be the best club in your golf bag. So whatever that best club is, your best strength, you're gonna bet the house on that. But if you're in a situation where you can't use that and you don't wanna use your four iron as your putter, and you wanna bring out your putter,
00:50:24
Speaker
Bring out your putter. Still works. Still going to get the ball in the hole. You'll be fine. So I think a lot of that, again, to relate it to different things, just trying to, for the audience, just try to relate it to different things, is that stick to your strengths. Stick to your strengths. Don't conform to the world telling you you got to do everything excellent. Pick out what you do really well. Master that. Put all your eggs in that basket to master that.
00:50:51
Speaker
because someone is going to come to you for one piece of advice. Like pitchers don't come to me, fielders don't come to me, hitters come to me. I started out doing lessons where I was teaching pitching. I wish I had their names to apologize because I have no idea what I'm doing pitching wise. I taught fielding and over time I realized my strength is hitting and the relationships built. And nowadays it's come into now people
00:51:19
Speaker
Baseball and hitting their swing gets them in the door to work with me, but they soon realize that my strength is perhaps taking a walk with them to talk about things, about life, about whatever they're going through. Just simply take a walk for an hour, and then they go to the ballpark, and they say, Kev, I feel so much better. Did we work on mechanics? No. Did we hit a ball in practice? No. What did we do? We took a walk with a cup of Starbucks in our hands. And a lot of people would be like, well, how the hell did you do that?
00:51:48
Speaker
It's not a secret, guys. Just pour and ask them questions. Listen, I just sit there. I drink the coffee. They're the ones that have a full cup of coffee at the end of it, because they're talking the whole time. I'm like looking for another one, because all I'm doing is sitting and listening. And that's all we need sometimes is somebody to listen. So my strength, I'm going all in. I'm going all in on my strength. And when someone needs a swing work or cage work, that's my B. I got that too. I can do that really, I can do that really well. But I'm best
00:52:17
Speaker
known for and I'm the best at when I have that conversation. Like I always say, hitting is a conversation. When I can have that conversation with you, I feel like I get the most work done. Maybe for people who are listening, whether they're athletes or writers or documentary filmmakers, and they're still trying to find out who they are and maybe what their strengths are and stuff. And maybe they're too close to themselves, of course, to maybe identify that.
00:52:44
Speaker
Is that an appropriate question to ask an outsider? Like, can you tell me what I'm good at? What are my strengths? What do you see because you're not in my brain every day? Like, is that an appropriate question or even a like a mandatory question that maybe you have to ask someone beyond yourself to help identify your strengths so you can better lean into it?
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's great going outside the lines, going outside your industry and asking somebody like, you know, watch this speech or read my novel or read an excerpt, you know, from my book. Like, what do you think? You know, what am I good at? Am I good with, am I a wordsmith? Like, Joe, Joe's a tremendous wordsmith. Like, are you a wordsmith? I certainly am not a wordsmith. But I think it's understanding, like, what are you good at and having somebody else that is not
00:53:39
Speaker
paying your salary, who is that you can trust, that is really invested in helping you and will genuinely read a portion of your book or listen to a speech or whatever and give you constructive criticism that may hurt. But certainly people have told me like, Kev, you stink at this. And I'm like, oh, okay. I thought I was really good at that. Because like you said, in our own minds, we can create our own narratives.
00:54:07
Speaker
and no one really knows, we can really fool ourselves sometimes. Or people go back like, hey, listen, I'd like a lot of this chapter. But really, I think if the chapter's kind of like going off the rails, if you really just honed in on this first sentence, can you expand on that topic? That'd be a dynamite chapter. And you're like, oh, I didn't even think of that. That really stood out? Like, that makes sense. And then you send it to somebody else after redoing that chapter, like, dude, this is awesome. But you would never have known if someone else from outside of your
00:54:37
Speaker
own head or industry just looked at it through that lens. So I think it's imperative to be able to have that person. Again, all but like two of my mentors are from outside of baseball. They're businessmen, they're speakers, they're leaders, they lead and do things and impact people and move the needle in other industries. And so they've helped me tremendously because it's a people person industry. I don't care where you're at.
00:55:04
Speaker
And so when I wrote this book here, Finding Clarity, just like the first one, I did a better job on the second one and I did the first one because I learned what to do, what the message could be. And most importantly for me in this ebook was I need to be short, even shorter, to the point and get people to be more reflective and then get out because they don't want to sit there and read 200 more pages of me.
00:55:31
Speaker
I wanna get in, get out and I was able to do that because of the help from people outside of baseball and baseball writing. You talk about working hard versus smarter and so I'd love to hear you articulate maybe the difference between working hard versus smart and maybe how someone can find the right degree of overlap between the two.
00:55:56
Speaker
Well, you have to, you have to work hard to get to a point where you can start working smart, right? So it's like, you know, you're going to have to write, you know, 5,000 words before you can understand kind of how you want to write. I'm sure it might take more than that. Maybe it takes a thousand, whatever. You're going to have to write some bad pages. You're going to have to throw up on a page and you're going to have to write some bad stuff. You're going to have to swing in the cage for 10 years and swing and swing and swing and swing. Maybe at 18 years old, you can learn to work smarter.
00:56:24
Speaker
because now you've built things up to a point where now you've got the basis, the foundation to be able to do it a little bit smarter, a little bit better with less time. And even writing the books have been such a learning curve for me and learning lesson. And it really came down to routine. Like my routine, I was working smarter on this book because I set aside time, specifically I would take my walks. I walk every day. So I walked like this morning, I walked this morning,
00:56:53
Speaker
They're more of a grateful walk for me, just being grateful for what I have. A part of those grateful walks, again, we go back to that solidarity, like that removes me from all the stuff, all the emails, all the phone calls, all the things that I like to do. But as you know, sometimes it gets a little bit too much. So every day I take that hour, so I walk about a little more than three miles, an hour a day, and it's that grateful walk, I listen to a podcast, pours into me, or sometimes I just go quiet time, just me and the birds.
00:57:23
Speaker
And sometimes that's good too. But I learned that after my walks, and scientifically this has been proven too, that as most listeners probably know, after that, that's kind of like the idea machine starts going when you're on your feet and you're walking and your brain starts working, that part of your brain coming up with ideas and storylines. And so I had my phone and I would walk every day and I would just voice record my ideas that came into my mind. And then I put the phone down at my desk
00:57:51
Speaker
sat at my computer and I would type out and I would just go from there. And I was like, man, so I got smarter how I was writing. And I would do it every day. I would write five days a week. And then it took me four weeks to do it. So it took me five, like it would basically an hour a day, hour and a half a day. And I would do it for five days for four weeks and boom, book was done. Now again, it's not a long book. But again, there was a lot more chapters to it than I took out. You know, there's a lot that's not in the book.
00:58:22
Speaker
that may be saved for another book. That is kind of the same thing. So I learned to work smarter, which took less time, which produced better quality work. So you have to work hard at the beginning to get your foundation to be able to jump off. But when you jump off, you want to be going A to B as much as possible. And someone told me this a long time ago, which might apply to here, what we're talking about here, B. But someone told me a while ago, and I wish I can remember who it was because I give them credit,
00:58:51
Speaker
Um, but they said on our road to success, on that path to success, we are allowed, we have permission to exit. A lot of times we feel like we exit. We're screwed. We're done. End of journey. Like, man, I got off the road. I went to the ditch. Like, I'll never be able to get back on. But what he was talking about.
00:59:15
Speaker
is as we're working smarter and to wrap this whole thing up today, I feel like what we've been talking about so far is it's okay to exit and collect your thoughts. Do a audit on your career, on your life, on your business, on your book, on your speech. And as you're exiting, getting refueled, maybe pouring in yourself, having that finding that
00:59:40
Speaker
that me time in the morning or at night or whatever that is during the middle of the day, pour into yourself in the exit, refuel, realign, get smarter with how you're going to do stuff, get back on and using Joe's terms again, get 1% better, be smarter about your work going forward and you feel like you're getting out of control again and you're allowed to exit.
01:00:03
Speaker
Regroup, recollect, and get back on. So a lot of people feel, and I was like this myself too, if we get off at that exit, we'll never get back on. If I stop writing, I'll never finish, which is sometimes the case. But if you're working smarter, you know, we feel like if we exit, we waste time, but because we're working smarter, we realize we need that exit time. We need that rest on that long cross country drive. There's a reason why there's rest stops, but we have permission to use them in our own lives.
01:00:33
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I'm gonna steal a question from finding clarity on those quick hits And ask you what is your relationship to failure? My relationship to failure now or before Let's do it. Let's do both if you have time It's a podcast we got we all we got all amounts of time fantastic
01:00:58
Speaker
Failure at the beginning when I started KWB, let's even go back to playing days because I think that's really where it started. As I started to get clarity on my life as a person, it went back to this fixed mindset. Another one of my books back there, Mindset by Carol Dweck. She talks about fixed mindset and growth mindset. Failure to me with a fixed mindset as a player,
01:01:27
Speaker
was if I failed, if I struck out, if I didn't get a base hit, that's a direct reflection on me, the person, the character, who I am. Because my identity was wrapped up in being a baseball player. At the beginning of KWB, my identity was wrapped up in being a hitting coach. And so they were both fixed mindsets. So my relationship with failure was toxic.
01:01:54
Speaker
And it was up and down. And it was, if I did well, boy, man, I am a joy to be with. If I wasn't, I was miserable personally, and I was miserable to be around. And I, and I look back and I cringe at the type of person I was. And I didn't, you know, I didn't, you know, harm anybody. I didn't physically beat anybody or anything like that. What I did was I beat myself, uh, emotionally.
01:02:23
Speaker
and because I had that fixed mindset. But after going through enough failure in my life, and again, young, hitting coaches or guys in the business, and I love helping them, they'll email me and they'll call or whatever and they'll say, hey, Kevin, how did you do it? Or how can I be like you? And while it's very flattering, because I don't see myself as anybody special, I'm just doing what I love. And I'm so at peace with helping people in my why.
01:02:53
Speaker
Um, the biggest thing I tell them is like, and I, it's not always been like this. Like what's the famous saying is taking me 18 years to be an overnight success. Um, and so like you're, you're calling me or emailing me in, in year 18 of this chapter. So chapter 18, if you want to put it simply put like that. But if you had emailed me or called me in the introduction or the forward.
01:03:22
Speaker
of this chapter, you wouldn't want to be getting advice from me at all. I had an unhealthy relationship with failure. My identity was wrapped up in what I was, not who I was, and what I was serving and not who I was serving. Now my relationship with failure is very healthy because I know who I am. I know my why, that my why is to help people.
01:03:52
Speaker
And I wake up every day and I say a prayer, say, who can I help today, Lord? And that's my prayer every morning. And that's why I'm on this earth is to, you know, impact people in a positive manner. If I use my mom's saying, love it or shove it. If you, if you get a dime from Brooklyn, if, if you love it, great. If you don't shove it. And I don't mean that in a, in a derogatory way. I don't mean that in a mean way, just being honest. And because I'm so, uh,
01:04:19
Speaker
I'm so at peace of why I'm here. But again, we documented today that journey. It's taken a long time to get to this point. Certainly there's a lot more growth that I'm going through as a person. So if we get on a pod five years from now, I'm sure I can tell you all the things that I've learned to do better. And hopefully myself as a person is better even tomorrow and five years from now. I look back when my mom passed away
01:04:48
Speaker
the person I was then to the person I am now, and it's a dramatic change. And so failure to me, it's a speed bump. You know the rumble strips on roads? Think of it this way. Think of it this way. Like failure is a rumble strip. Like you're not in the ditch. Like failure is like it's gonna go and it's gonna wake you up and it's gonna not feel great, but it's gonna remind you
01:05:16
Speaker
that you got to get back on the road and not be like, Hey, some people think this is how I thought I went over for one or that kid didn't get it in a lesson. It was your reflection on me. I went past the rumble strips into the ditch and I was there for a week, a month with no clarity, with no vision of how to get out. And I just mired in that and I felt sorry for myself.
01:05:45
Speaker
So nowadays I tell a lot of guys that I work with and the people I mentor and then speak to is like, hey, listen, think of it as a rumble strip. Like, so you didn't get that sales, you know, so you didn't get a hint, right? What were your processes? You know, what was your purpose to that? You know, why are you doing it? If you can check off all those boxes and it still doesn't succeed, it's a rumble strip. Get back on the road.
01:06:11
Speaker
or you messed up, it's a rumble strip and you learn from it, it's a rumble strip, growth mindset. Growth mindset means that it's not a reflection on you, the person. It's an event that happened and you hit the rumble strip and you get back on and when you get back on, whether you exit the road, regroup, get back on, you've learned from that and you move on, you get better.
01:06:31
Speaker
When you get overwhelmed, because I imagine that there's a lot of inputs in anyone's life, and I suspect with you as well. So when you're overwhelmed, how do you handle that and find that calm place to allow you to regroup? For me, again, it's a long journey.
01:06:56
Speaker
in that. But it goes to me, I'm more aware of it now, because I've been through it more. So the red flags are more readily available to me in front of my face, just because of my experience. So because we talked about before briefly, but my experiences has allowed me to gain some wisdom. The knowledge I had, I get it came from textbooks or whatever, which was fine. But I'm really relying because I've been doing this for a little while now, I'm really relying on my experience.
01:07:27
Speaker
to provide that wisdom. So I've seen it happen before. I've been through it before. And when it does happen, when I feel overwhelmed, especially when I travel a lot in the off season, like there are times when I'm just in another airport and I feel like, man, like this is really dragging. For me, what I do is I step back and say, how grateful am I to be able to do this? Are you kidding me? Like I get paid to hang out with really good people.
01:07:57
Speaker
And they just happen to be major league baseball players. Or maybe they're high school coaches in Texas that I just spoke to. Like they allow me into their world, whether it's an hour, a weekend, five days, a whole season. Like how lucky am I to be able to do that? So when I start feeling overwhelmed, I hit the, again, I exit. I parked a car, so to speak.
01:08:23
Speaker
And I remind myself, again, like, why do you do this to help people? Man, how lucky am I? I know I talk about luck in the book that you don't need it, but I'm just so grateful that, you know, that I've been given these gifts by God to be able to have these experiences to help people. And at the same time, they're helping me. So when I feel overwhelmed, like I come back and there's, you know, 150 emails that I get and I got to sift through them, you know, right? Email inbox zero or whatever, and you got to try to get down and
01:08:53
Speaker
There are times, but I'm much better because I understand why I'm here. I understand who I'm serving. And, uh, you know, uh, I'm just so grateful to be able to be here, even with you right here, um, on this pod, um, and to be able to talk and have conversation like it's the coolest thing in the world. And, and I always jumped to being a major league ball player, but God had other plans and I was able to be able to impact people in a positive manner. And at the same time.
01:09:22
Speaker
Have the opportunity for others to pour into me Getting getting back to that that the the rumble strips of failure and that you know and you know getting people you know back back on track so they can you know manifest their their their talents and their visions and
01:09:42
Speaker
Um, I wonder what conversations you might have with someone because of course baseball ultimately is results driven. You know, you're not going to stay, uh, you're not going to be on the field if you continually bat 100, you know, you still got a bat 300.
01:09:59
Speaker
Or so to to make an impact and stay on the field and if you're playing professionally to to make your living and to stay at the top and you know, sometimes people just ultimately they they're Aren't producing and there maybe they've reached the capacity of their of their talent So what conversations do you have with those people who have maybe maxed out?
01:10:23
Speaker
their their ability and Yeah, I just wonder what those conversations are like when it's just it they they can't advance any farther That's another good question I don't think I've ever been asked that question before but in my experience with with working with with the hitters and stuff like that I mean we all we all cap out right you some people peak in high school some people peak at 26 Some people never get the opportunity to peak at 30
01:10:54
Speaker
because as a baseball player, you know, you could be released and over and Some guys hang around enough that all of a sudden they re resurrect their career quote unquote at 30 and everybody's like wow Look at this guy. Well, he he was fortunate enough to hang around that long to to be able to have that opportunity And so it goes back to like, okay, what what skills have we been given? What have we done with these skills? How have we maximized them and I think it goes back to working smarter. So if we are
01:11:24
Speaker
Uh, not as, as quick as we used to be, right? We were a base stealer, but now at age 30, we don't steal bags anymore. Uh, we get on base other ways. You know, maybe we, uh, we have a better approach at the plate. Um, and we get more walks cause we're out chasing. So we're on the base and we still help the team, but we're not going to be running down balls. Uh, like our steel bags are running down balls like we used to, uh, outside of the baseball world. I think it's, it's understanding like, Hey, listen, like I can't,
01:11:53
Speaker
Grind it like I did the first 10 years up all night burn the candles at both ends So in fact because I'm doing that I'm actually getting worse. I think it's when we max out It's being very aware whether we do it our self-awareness as human beings. We're not very good at self-awareness And that's why we need mentors. That's why I need people that like we talked about before from the outside and
01:12:18
Speaker
that come and those that we trust that tell us the truth. That's what I basically do. I'm telling the truth to these guys because they trust me. I'm telling they suck sometimes and sometimes they say, you know, sometimes you're good. I mean, again, they don't pay me to sugarcoat them. So when you max out on stuff, whether it's on the field or off the field or you felt like, man, I was closed in sales for
01:12:43
Speaker
you know, 20 years, but now I can't relate to the younger generation. Or, man, I cranked out five books in five years or seven years, and they were bestsellers or whatever the case may be. I think it's not reinventing yourself, but I think it goes down to like, hey, listen, stay in your lane. What are the things that you do really well? And not so much repackage it as much as refining your message.
01:13:11
Speaker
But the principles stay the same, like we said before. But your message can touch people in a way that maybe hasn't touched before or that maybe they haven't heard you say it that way before, but it still resonates because it's still principle based. So it's fearful when you feel like, man, this is all I got. But I think it's kind of like, hey, listen, you have enough.
01:13:42
Speaker
Like having enough is enough, but what you do with that is the ultimate factor in longevity, consistency throughout whether it's a baseball career or your life. I mean, there are books that, again, you read my first book to my second book and there's definitely things that have gotten better. My next book that's coming out, the World Series 2018. So I'm already coming out with another one within the same year.
01:14:12
Speaker
Uh, is hopefully going to be a lot better than this second book. So there are limitations and what I can do as a writer, but there are not limitations in my message and the way that I present it. Nice. Can you tease the title of that or are you keeping that one close to the chest? We have not come up with a title yet. All right. And I don't know, you may be able to help me on this. I don't like, I always put the title after writing the book. I don't know if that's kind of like.
01:14:39
Speaker
That's the way it's supposed to be or a lot of people do it or maybe I'm the only freak that does it, but what are your thoughts on that? My thought, it can sometimes – I sometimes come up with – I'm really good with titles and sometimes I can come up with a title right off the bat and that's kind of like the lighthouse in the ocean and I can write to the title.
01:15:01
Speaker
Other times you just crank out the work that you want and then there might be a turn of phrase that just pops out maybe on word 10,000 of whatever it is or maybe it's a thousand, wherever it is and be like, oh, if you just lift out that little clause, that's one hell of a title.
01:15:20
Speaker
So yeah, it can go either way. I wouldn't lock into anything. I think that approach is great because you can let the book tell you what it wants to be called instead of you imposing a title on it. Because then maybe the meaning of the book can be condensed by that one phrase that came organically through your process of generating that book. So I think there's tons of value to just being like, I'm working on this.
01:15:44
Speaker
this book and whatever phrase comes out of it that just seems to sum it up, then that's your title. And I think F. Scott Fitzgerald for Great Gatsby, I mean The Great Gatsby is the great title, but I think he had something, like dozens of titles that were
01:16:06
Speaker
And, uh, ultimately they settled on that one and it's the iconic, maybe the best American novel ever written. And so, um, so yeah, I would say, uh, workshopping, uh, you know, let the title come out from, from the text is a wonderful way to do it. But also to your point earlier about throwing things up against the wall and see what sticks is like, yeah, workshop 30 titles and just see what feels good.
01:16:33
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's, that's great. Cause I mean, the way we got onto finding clarity, the title of the book, finding clarity and mindful look into the art of hitting was when I dished it out to my clients and say, Hey, what resonates to you when you get done reading this? And again, it's an ebook form. It's not very long. It's digestible. Cause that's, that's my thing too, is I want to give all my books are going to be under a hundred pages. Cause I wanted to be read and reread and marked up and all that kind of stuff. And they're like.
01:17:01
Speaker
You just provide so much clarity. And again, they see this every day in our conversation. So it was basically reading what we discuss and what we work on all the time. But coming out of that, they said, because clarity was not in some of the titles I had just kind of on my Eberdote notes. Purpose was in there, mindful was in there, hitting was in there, but clarity was no longer. And the feedback I was getting the most was clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity.
01:17:29
Speaker
And that's how we came up with the title of this one, was just basically asking the question and sitting back and listening. And what's great too is it's tight and it defines what it's about. And it applies to just across all genres. It doesn't strike you as a baseball book if you just read the title. So it has a deeper meaning than just what happens on the diamond or you're approaching the batter's box.
01:17:59
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. Because that's another thing you talked about before. How do you know what you're good at? Or I forget the question, but we were talking about your strengths, right? And I was talking about I was listening to people and what I was good at. The other thing, too, is the first book in this book is people, the good batting book and then this book, Finding Clarity, is they were like, man, just like you just said. And I didn't realize this at the time. This book can really relate to anybody.
01:18:27
Speaker
And then you walk a life like, okay, you're talking about purpose and batting practice, but you're talking about working smarter and not harder. And you're talking about consistency and routines. You're talking methodologies, not philosophies. You're talking principles. And they're like, yeah, I can give this to my sales team and read it. Because number one, it's short and they'll read it. Number two, they'll understand like they can relate it to their line of work. And I was like,
01:18:54
Speaker
Well, I never thought of that before. I was like, wow.
Gratitude and Universality of the Message
01:18:58
Speaker
And so again, just so grateful that a lot of people are relating to it. Again, I'm just using, I mostly have a baseball platform, so that's where it kicks off. But being here on your pod too, there's so many cool things are coming out of it and the message I feel can resonate with a lot of people. And like I said in my social media posts, you may have not seen it because you've been off Twitter, you said, but like I said, this book is not for everybody.
01:19:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That's perfect. Yeah, and it's not it's not so it's up to you guys the listeners if you think it's something For you and you won't hurt my feelings if you don't buy it like that's the thing going back to my my mother love it or shove it Yeah, and that way so I there's at least one thing in there that can help somebody Yeah, what's the first time I read it? You know a couple weeks ago when you sent me the copy it was you can read this book over a cup of coffee and
01:19:50
Speaker
You can get through the text on a first pass in 20 minutes or a half an hour, and then you've got these great quick-hit questions at the end of each little chapter. It struck me immediately how universal those questions are, no matter what line of life you're in.
01:20:11
Speaker
Those questions you can answer those questions and you know, it'll take you 20 minutes to say read it on the first pass, but then you can take a few hours to answer these questions and they apply to your life no matter if you're you know, a developing baseball player or an executive or a writer is just it can really help just like the title says.
01:20:33
Speaker
Define that clarity in life. So you're you're all your oars are rowing in the right direction So it that's what I think the great service you've done with this book Thank you
Success of the Book and New Opportunities
01:20:43
Speaker
so much. Yeah, it's been crazy because you know that the opportunity at speaking at Merrill Lynch and and there's other opportunities that are coming across my desk now from people who have read just finding clarity and Like you said resonating and again, these are stuff that I was writing it for the baseball player the hitter the sift through the clutter
01:21:02
Speaker
And again, just so grateful that it's resonating with so many people. And, um, you know what that means? Like I have to do a better job on this next book because now I know that more people are reading it. So yeah, I got all these C-suite people reading. I was like, I gotta make sure the grammar's okay. Well, if you, if you need a, another, a reader and another set of eyes for book three, um, by all means, uh, you know, send me a draft. I'm happy to, that'd be awesome. I would love to do that.
01:21:28
Speaker
Thank you so much. Yeah, please do. Send it along. I'm happy to give feedback and notes and try to just do whatever I can to help you because you're helping thousands of people, maybe more. And anything I can do to help you out in that arena with my particular tool set, I'm more than happy to help out, Kev. Thank you so much, B. I appreciate it, brother. You got it. And thanks again for coming on the show and for the work you do. I can't wait to do this again.
01:21:59
Speaker
Dang me too. Thank you so much. This was awesome and this flew by and stuff and you and I got again I'm gonna tell you JJ Joey jet and he's gonna hear about it. You asked some really hard-hitting questions I think he can learn get 1% better Anytime I can dig at him I take
Promotion of the 1% Better Podcast
01:22:16
Speaker
the opportunity. Yeah, we love you Joe He's my best friend for people who don't know go to the 1% better podcast. Definitely search that yeah, I
01:22:24
Speaker
and check his stuff out. Also, he was on, what episode was he on with you? Oh, 58, I think. He's the better version. I was 52, you said? You're 32. I'm 32? Yeah. 58, go to Joe. He did a much better job than me. Go check him out. I love him dearly. He co-hosts KWB Radio, our podcast.
01:22:50
Speaker
But no, man, I'm just so grateful for the opportunity and this conversation was really uplifting and it was awesome. So thank you. Fantastic. Well, thanks again, Kevin. And we'll certainly be in touch. And yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. The world needs people like you. And I am thankful that we know each other. Likewise. The same to you. Keep up the great work, man. All right. You too. Take care.
01:23:15
Speaker
Thanks for listening, are you as fired up as I am? Thanks to Kevin and thanks to you for listening. If you don't already subscribe, consider subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music. I deeply appreciate a rating or a review on iTunes if you can spare the time. Be honest, I'm not begging for 5 stars.
01:23:36
Speaker
I just want you to be honest. We speak the truth here on the Creative Nonfiction Podcast. Show notes are available at brendanomera.com. There you can sign up for my monthly reading list newsletter. It's a fun bit of goodness that hits on
01:23:52
Speaker
the first of the month in your inbox once a month no spam and you can't beat that. This show is produced, hosted, booked, and edited by me, Brendan O'Mara. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Brendan O'Mara.
01:24:10
Speaker
The podcast is at CNF Pod on Twitter and at CNF Podcast on Facebook. Lastly, I asked my wife what kind of job I was doing as I near a hundred episodes of the podcast. You stink at this. I'll see you right here next week, CNFers. Later.