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Episode 32—Kevin Wilson on the Comfort of the Uncomfortable, the Power of No Backup Plan, and the Five Minutes That Changed His Life Forever
122 Plays8 years ago
Kevin Wilson, president of Kevin Wilson Baseball, LLC and a former professional baseball player, tells us what #Goodbatting is all about.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hitting and Kevin Wilson
00:00:00
Speaker
I love to say and I put at the beginning of the book, hitting is simple. It's just not that easy.
00:00:16
Speaker
Now I'm just going to read a little bio of Kevin right off the back of his book. It says, Kevin Wilson is one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He should also say he's a former minor league ball player, retired at the age of 28. Since 2001,
00:00:32
Speaker
He has been the president of Kevin Wilson Baseball, LLC. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant, some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. Also, in 2013, he was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18 and Under national team, helping them win a gold medal in Taiwan.
Podcast and Social Media Engagement
00:00:53
Speaker
Oh, and hey, this is the hashtag CNF podcast, where I speak with creators of nonfiction about their lives and their work. I'm your host, Brendan O'Mara. Thank you for listening.
00:01:06
Speaker
While I have your attention at the top of the show, go follow Kevin on Twitter at KWBaseball. It's more than just baseball, as you'll find out when we talk about his career in his book. You could substitute good batting for good writing, or good dancing, or good juggling, which is why I wanted to speak to him about it. Not the juggling, but the universality of a lot of the principles that he preaches in his book.
00:01:32
Speaker
And, uh, well, one last bit of housekeeping. I ask that you subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and my newsletter at brendanomare.com. It's just a monthly newsletter of book recommendations that I think you'll dig. Um, so in any case, that is it. Enjoy episode 32, the first of the new year with Kevin Wilson. Thank you.
Focus and Purpose for Success
00:02:01
Speaker
Given that we're in the beginning of January, I wanted to kind of get your impressions about how you go about approaching the new year and what kind of things that you focus on, because a focus is a big, big mantra in what you write about and what you preach.
00:02:19
Speaker
Sure, yeah. Going into this year, I think a good friend of mine, Joe Ferraro, who's the host of a podcast KWB radio that we both do, he's big into this one word, John Gordon type of thing of one word for the new year. I have not come up with mine yet. No, my wife has come up one. He has one. But I have not come up with mine yet only because it sounds kind of ridiculous.
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm kind of running out of words. You talked about focus and purpose. Those are two of the words that I've kind of locked into in the last three or four years. And for me, I mean, if you want to do anything in life and be successful at it, for me,
00:03:03
Speaker
Purpose and having a focus on what you're doing is a huge part of it. And so for me You know if you're if you're focused on what you're doing If you've got that tunnel vision so to speak, you know that purpose allows you to have that tunnel vision So I'm I'm really kind of focusing on that for for myself every single day I want to have a purpose for everything I do I want to stay focused on the task but at the same time as well I want to make sure I have some perspective to what I'm doing
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, that segues into another thing I wanted to ask
Reading and Self-Development
00:03:37
Speaker
you. Given that your life is so richly focused on baseball and hitting, I wonder, how do you choose to unplug from that? What kind of hobbies do you have that turns the baseball off and lets you live a more well-rounded life and allows you to come back to baseball, recharge, and more energetic than ever?
00:04:03
Speaker
That's a great question, man. For me, it's really tough to balance. And what I've found to work for me in the past is reading and podcasting and listening to podcasts, other people's podcasts like yours and reading books written by other people that tend to focus on leadership, self-awareness, things that help
00:04:26
Speaker
You know just grow you as a person because for me, you know, I'm my own boss I don't answer to anybody other than the players that I work with on a daily basis So for me, I need to go outside of the world of baseball in order to learn in order to learn from others who are way better at leadership way better, you know, I guess growing and maturing and and
00:04:51
Speaker
and fostering their goals than I am. So that's where I learned. So it's funny to unwind. I'll read and listen to a ton of podcasts. Like you say, you read a lot of books on leadership and listen to podcasts. Do you read any narrative-based stuff, some fiction, or do you try to keep it more stuff that you can sort of directly apply to your life and daily practices?
00:05:21
Speaker
Going back to that purpose we're talking about everything I try to do everything with a purpose So the books that I choose have an absolute purpose to them and for me again It's it's growing myself as a leader as a person as a person that's in a position to make positive impacts on others to influence others in a positive manner So for me, definitely the books are chosen with with with a purpose You know, I for example, you know, I've I've got I just finished up
00:05:49
Speaker
Give and take by Adam Grant that book had been on my bookshelf for a while and I finally got around to reading it so You know he he's a local guy in Philadelphia. He's a professor at at University of Pennsylvania. I think he's actually the youngest tenured Professor he's younger than me. He's I think 33 or 34 But that guy's written a couple good books one being that give and take so for me I definitely have a purpose in everything I do and especially when it comes to to what I read and
00:06:18
Speaker
What was your biggest takeaway from give and take? Well, I think it's like all others that have read that book. For those listening that have read that give and take book is the term he uses other-ish. And it's kind of a mixture of being a giver and also knowing when to take because givers can be exposed. And I was exposed to that early in my career.
00:06:42
Speaker
When I was coaching and kind of building my company, I'm a giver at heart. So for me, sometimes I gave and gave and gave and gave, and I was burned by those that were takers. So that middle ground, if you want to take it, the extremes are givers and takers. That middle ground that he calls other-ish is someone who has a really good sense of feel of understanding that
00:07:06
Speaker
still give, but just be aware of the people early on that could be takers, and you yourself have to be able to allow yourself to take a little in order to give more to others, if that makes sense.
Challenges and Mentorship in Kevin's Career
00:07:20
Speaker
So at what point did it become more than, say, a pipe dream that you could advance through the highest levels of ball? Probably my senior year of high school. So kind of the backtrack real quick.
00:07:35
Speaker
broke my leg in 10 places when I was in eighth grade. So I really started to focus on baseball solely my freshman year of high school. So I was a little bit of a late bloomer. I was behind the eight ball, but I was older. I was 16 as a freshman in high school. So I was older than the kids I was playing with. And I always played against older competition anyway. So I was routinely beat down because I was playing with older kids. And if any parents are listening out there,
00:08:05
Speaker
tremendous tremendous opportunity to play up a level or two and to really learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable and I think I think parents today too much they they try to put you know if they're not playing the kids not playing on this team they put them on another team and they give give give and the kid never really understands or learns how to handle adversity so for me
00:08:32
Speaker
I didn't really start getting good until senior year of high school. So for me, that's when I realized like, man, I might have a shot at this, not only at the college level, but at the professional level, because I started to understand, just feel more comfortable, but I started to understand how to play the game. Sounds crazy, but as a senior in high school, things started to slow down. The game started to slow down because of the fact that I just, I was more experienced. I understood what I was doing, how I was going about certain things. So, as a freshman on varsity, I was a scared kid.
00:09:02
Speaker
You know, there's a big difference, even though I was older at 16, I was played against 18 year olds. But when you get to college or beyond and you're playing, you're 18 or 19 and you're playing with 21 year olds or 22 year olds, that's a huge transition too. So my senior year is when I first started to get the inclination that, hmm, I might have a shot.
00:09:22
Speaker
And then when I got to college, my freshman year of college, I realized I have a long ways to go in terms of work ethic, in terms of ability, but I still, I had the talent. I just didn't know how to work yet. So that college experience really helped me formulate that and got me a chance to play the next level.
00:09:40
Speaker
How did your own confidence and your own ability withstand the beatdowns that it took by playing a level up? Because as you well know, playing any sport at any level, it's sometimes talent becomes
00:10:01
Speaker
Almost universal, but it becomes how you deal with the the mental aspect of it and confidence and bringing that and that sort of edge to the game so how did you how did you keep your confidence when you were? Experiencing as you say like these beat towns from playing a level up Wow, I mean I it the confidence part early on it was just non-existent
00:10:26
Speaker
It wasn't there. And I'll just be honest with you. And I think, again, just talking to the line of work that I do now and if you talk to other athletes too, if they're being honest with you, they'll tell you probably similar things where there were times where you just have no confidence. And it's a scary thing. But for me, what drove me is I didn't have a backup plan.
00:10:50
Speaker
So it's kind of similar to the guys that I played with coming from the Dominican Republic in pro ball or they come from Venezuela or they comes from other places outside the US and Canada and they really have nothing to go back on because if you release a kid, you know, he's from the Dominican he you know, I've seen it they cry and you know They cry and cry because they know that they're going back to the island. They had their one shot and they didn't make it
00:11:15
Speaker
in the minor league so it is it's a very impactful thing and so you're playing out of fear you're not playing out of fear that You're gonna go for four. You're just playing out of fear like I have nothing else to do So I better figure this thing out Because plan B is non-existent so plan a I got to make it work so for me at that lowest time to in order to get back to the confidence because of course you regain it and
00:11:40
Speaker
But you know for me it was just that fear of listen I I got to figure this thing out and you know sometimes I overworked too I mean sometimes you spend six hours in the cage where all you needed was 30 minutes You learn those types of lessons almost like what not to do, but but you know in terms of the confidence and For me it was just man. I'm gonna outwork and I'm gonna work harder, and I'm almost kind of you know I got my
00:12:06
Speaker
PF flyers on I'm just gonna go after this thing and I don't know if it's gonna be right But at the same time is I'm not I'm not letting this thing defeat me You know because I really don't have that backup plan
00:12:19
Speaker
Did you have a mentor or a really influential coach who was able to pull you up when you were feeling low and to feed you and give you that validation that allowed you to do purposeful, hard work that ultimately led to that success that you started really calcifying in your senior year of high school?
00:12:48
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you what, there's two people. The senior year of high school and then when I was a freshman in college, there's two people that I want to mention. And I don't think I've really mentioned this in the public before. So this is pretty cool that you ask that question because they know this. But I want to make sure that there's many more people that understand that it takes a village. So number one, in high school, there's an assistant coach by the name of Chris Marchuk. He pitched in the Expos for
00:13:16
Speaker
You know, this is going back. So Expos, they don't even exist anymore. And the Phillies and left-handed pitcher, he pitched at Harvard. He was a math major at Harvard. Then he came back. He went to my high school, obviously before I went there, and pitched for a few years in the minor leagues. And then when he retired, he came back to coach. Well, he had just come off of the playing field and straight into coaching us. So for me, he was the first person that really challenged me.
00:13:46
Speaker
I mean, this guy was all over me with every little detail, like in terms of, you know, he made sure that I understood that practice was starting in a minute, 32 seconds from now. And he would send, you know, 10 seconds later, he said, okay, practice is gonna start a minute, 22 seconds. I'm like, this guy's nuts. What is this guy doing? You know, there was certain things that he really started to dig on me and make a long story short. He's the first one that really,
00:14:15
Speaker
Open my eyes up to everything you do in life has to have a purpose to it if you want to be successful So in terms of that stopwatch, um, I thought it was just being an 18 year old kid. I'm like this guy's annoying Uh, but as he kept wearing on me and wearing on me, it was like man He just kept adding every week something new something new to have purpose on and you know in terms of how to run the basis the energy level you need to be at what to say to certain guys
00:14:40
Speaker
You know where to stand here and there and it's just he wasn't manipulating me and like holding my hand all the time But he picked the spots. So number one he Chris Marchuk in high school He was the one that really started to get me prepared for the next level in terms of what I need to do to stay focused and have that purpose second when I got to I went to the University of Cincinnati and My freshman year was not a good one. You know, I was Philadelphia player of the year in high school I thought that I had it all figured out, you know, the scouts were I
00:15:09
Speaker
talking to me, I didn't, I didn't get drafted in high school. I went to college, but I still was flying on cloud nine. Now the backstory a little bit to this is I never played, we didn't have travel ball back then. This is the mid nineties. So we didn't have any travel ball. Perfect game wasn't around. Um, we just played, you know, uh, what do you call a town ball?
00:15:29
Speaker
And so in Philadelphia, for those that are not familiar with baseball in Philadelphia, especially at that time, I mean, I don't think I faced a kid that threw above 85 miles an hour. Now I go to college, the first kid I faced in the fall was throwing 94 miles an hour. He got drafted by the Reds six months later. And so I'm like, I'm getting my doors blown off. So there was an assistant coach that was there and I still stay in touch. By the way, I still stay in touch with both of these guys, but at Cincinnati, there was a guy by the name of Kerry Daniel,
00:15:58
Speaker
had just got done playing. And I remember that fall, I mean, I was, you know, I came there, I was one of the better players that come in, you know, with recruiting class that had come in there. By the way, I had signed to go to Cincinnati after I graduated high school. Now kids, if they're kids, you know, listening to this now, then in 2017, they might be like, well, how'd you get a chance? Because everybody seems the verbal so early. But so again,
00:16:26
Speaker
I sign late, I go there, I don't know anybody other than the coach. And we have a guy that is our third baseman by the name of Kevin Uclis, who won a World Series with the Red Sox. We're in the same grade. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm coming in, hot shot this guy. And I see this guy over here, Uclis. And I'm like, man, you know what? Who is this guy? He doesn't look like the prototypical baseball player.
00:16:51
Speaker
You know he doesn't you know he's kind of you know I mean he's the same of what he was when people saw him in the big leagues can absolutely rake The guy was just a pure hitter, and I'm like wow. I don't know. I don't have a shot I don't know how I'm gonna do this, but Kerry Daniel pulled me aside because halfway through fall ball. I wanted to quit And I was like I can't take it. I can't take it now I told you before I played up up levels and I played against older guys, but again coming from where I came from and
00:17:18
Speaker
I didn't face this type of competition, even when they were older. And so I was, man, I was just overwhelmed with everything. You know, going away for the first time, you got school, you're at a pretty decent high caliber division one program. And this guy took me under my wing. He goes, no, you're not stopping. You're not quitting. And he really was the person. If it wasn't for him, I would have quit.
00:17:44
Speaker
Now, I don't know what it would happen to me. I probably would have picked it up later on somewhere, transferred maybe closer to home. But Kerry Daniel is the reason that I stayed at Cincinnati. And he's the number one reason where I got a shot to play professional baseball because, you know, he kept me there. What was that conversation like that you had with him that ultimately persuaded you to stay? He just believed in me. As simple as that.
00:18:10
Speaker
I mean, not that my coach didn't believe in me, but I mean, Brian Cleary was our coach and I'm dear friends with him now, but he was 28 years old and we were 18, 19. So it was his first head coach job too. And he come from Tulane to Cincinnati. And so we were all trying, this is our first kind of rodeo. It was his first rodeo as a head coach. It was our first rodeo as freshmen. He was trying to change the culture of the program because before I got there, they only won 12 games.
00:18:38
Speaker
all year out of 56. And so my freshman year, we only won 15, I mean plus three in the scorecard. But the next year we won 30, so we doubled it in two years. But my point being is that Brian had a lot of things going on. He was recruiting, he was trying to establish a culture. It's not his fault. He didn't have much time to really take Kevin Wilson aside and say, hey, listen, how are you feeling? Later on he would do that for sure down the road.
00:19:08
Speaker
but Kerry, he just believed in me. And I think that's a, no matter what walk of life you're in, you know, if you're in baseball, if you're in business, if you're an author, if you're a singer, we're human beings at heart, right? So if someone tells you genuinely that they believe in you, we all need that reassurance. We all need somebody that we trust to tell us that every once in a while. So Kerry Daniel was that person that told me, it's like, listen, I believe in you.
00:19:35
Speaker
You know, I may be the only one on this campus that does. But at the end of the day, all it takes is one person. And so from there, that's where I started to believe it, because it was a simple five-minute conversation. And that's why I like to say a lot, you know, on our show and when I talk to people, I like to say all it takes is five minutes to change someone's life. And for him, that five minutes, he changed my life.
00:20:02
Speaker
What did it feel like leaving his office or wherever you had that conversation after those five minutes? What happened to you chemically in your body? It must have felt like you were reborn in a lot of ways. So how did that feel when you left that conversation? Well, yeah, the cool part about it now looking back is that conversation was had in a hallway that not on the field, not in an office, was in a hallway outside of our locker room.
00:20:30
Speaker
And no one really knew that that conversation was going on. And I love that. I do that to this day. I have those kind of five minute or those side conversations where no one knows what's going on. I just I love that part of it. But when I left that conversation, there was
00:20:45
Speaker
Mix of emotions. I mean, I remember like it was yesterday. I think like anybody, you know those impactful moments You just remember them so clearly And so I left and I had all these emotions. I was walking back We had to stay on campus our freshman year in the dorm So my dorm was right next to the baseball field and so, you know, it wasn't a long walk but I was going to go to the cafeteria afterwards and have Dinner and I remember that walk and it's a short walk. I mean, it's probably a hundred yards
00:21:15
Speaker
But it seemed like I walked for 30 minutes. And because it was such a slow, like I walked so slowly because I was just, just all this pressure was released from my shoulders. And I started to really feel for the first time that it's okay, I belong here.
00:21:38
Speaker
Because like I said, this whole process was late. I signed after high school, and two months later, I'm on campus. And everything just really, really happened really quickly, so I didn't have a chance to really, I don't know, appreciate or to really comprehend what was going on. So that walk to the cafeteria, it felt so long because I had all these thoughts going through my mind, but the biggest thought was, you belong. You belong. Because that's what he told me. He's like, Kev, you belong here.
00:22:07
Speaker
You absolutely belong here. And don't worry about what anybody else says. I see it in you. I believe in you. I know you've got that talent. But you've got to do me a favor and you've got to do yourself a favor. You've got to act like you belong here. And that was just the conversation. So that walk was just a bunch of emotions. But I really started to embrace the campus, embrace me being a Bearcat, Division I baseball player, believe in my talents, believe in myself.
00:22:34
Speaker
And so when I got to eat, I just sat by myself. I didn't, I didn't eat with anybody. I sat by myself, sat in silence. I went back to my room. My roommate was gone the rest of that night. And so I just sat in silence by myself and I just, as the hours went on, I just started to really, really appreciate everything I was, I was having. And then I started, by the end of the night, started to get really excited.
00:22:57
Speaker
about, let's go. We had an off day tomorrow, of course. The next day we had an off day. I'm like, man, I just wanna get on the field. I wanna get on the field and I gotta wait. So I remember going in on an off day. It's not really an off day, but coaches can't be around whatever in the fall. So I did my own stuff on the tee and the cage and the weight room. I was just getting after it. I had this renewed sense of energy and belonging. I knew it was gonna be a tough road. I mean, that conversation wasn't gonna cure everything, but at the same time, now I had a renewed sense of urgency.
00:23:27
Speaker
to going through it. So it was pretty cool. That's incredible. Like you said, how five minutes can change a life and you get a sense that that was the lead domino that got you through college and ultimately you get drafted and you play in the minors and everything.
00:23:49
Speaker
That's incredible. So how did your approach change after that? You said you had that renewed sense of energy. How did you put that energy on the spearhead and work ahead to what you wanted so much? Yeah, I wish I could tell you that it translated into the stat book. And so, I mean, I don't even know if the stats exist because this is
00:24:17
Speaker
internet was around but definitely not accessible by all but I think I hit 130 my freshman year but I played and I tried it and so for the biggest thing for me was just I knew there was gonna be a long road but again and he continued to have those conversations with me. He continued to empower me. He continued to embrace what I was going through and so it wasn't just that one conversation and then he didn't talk to me the rest of the time.
00:24:47
Speaker
Constant I shouldn't say care but constant encouragement, but the biggest thing is I just went after it man I I decided to to what's the worst thing can happen, you know, I strike out. I don't get a hit I
Daily Improvement and Team Dynamics
00:25:00
Speaker
realized really quick that oh I'm not the only one going through this because as I looked around at my other teammates as well at that perspective started to flood in and say oh This guy, you know, he's struggling too I'm not the only one because I when I got there normally I growing up I always I
00:25:15
Speaker
Compare myself to the best player that I thought was on the field and at that time like I said you was the best guy in terms of hitting I knew I could hold myself defensively, but hitting was a little bit behind behind the eight ball there, so You know I compared myself to him and I learned pretty quickly like you can't compare yourself to ukulele or anybody else you are you know Kevin Wilson you you do the best that you can so it really just
00:25:42
Speaker
You know, it's funny, I knew what I was doing back then, but I didn't know what I was doing. So basically now being older and can look back on things, I think this is a great lesson on life too, is like my good friend Joe Ferrero says, just try to get 1% better. Every day I was trying to get 1% better, but I wasn't thinking in that way. I was just like, I'm just gonna get after it today. And eventually it's gonna work out. I know it will, because I've always been behind the eight ball and my senior year, it finally came. So if it takes me four years to get to that same point, I'll do that.
00:26:12
Speaker
That's fine. I'll just keep going with it. So for me, it was it was just that constant effort every day. Now, there's days that that that stunk. You know, I didn't do my best, but I had a purpose for what I was doing and a purpose being that I'm just going to I know I'm going to get there now because Kerry said that he believes in me and he says I can do it. So I trust him. I believe in him and I'm going to prove him right.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's a hit on something that's really important. I think it's real easy for artists, athletes, dancers, and anyone to compare yourself to other people. And it's one of the most toxic things you can do. It's like you really just have to run your own race and focus on the work. And it sounds like once you say you didn't look beside you to you and what he was doing, and then when you put your head down and be like, all right, I'm my own player,
00:27:03
Speaker
I have my own, you know, I've got the team at heart, but I've also got like my own needs at heart. And as soon as you kind of put the blinders on and focus like that, that's probably, I don't know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I suspect that's when you started to see a lot of growth and real development in yourself as a player. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's baseball is so unique that in my mind, it's an individual sport built within a team concept. Yeah. So to to echo what you're saying, and so you do have to look out for number one.
00:27:33
Speaker
But at the same time you got to be aware of your teammates and you encourage them or whatever But you know you're on the mound by yourself You're at the plate by yourself the ball gets hit just to you and you got to move that ball somewhere else to another individual So yeah, it's it's it's unlike in my mind It's unlike any other team sport out there and it really teaches you a lot about life really because think about it in life we have to we have to be our own boss and
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, we may have bosses if we work in a setting that we have bosses that answer to. But at the same time, we're in charge of our lives and our careers. And that's something that I think sports really teaches you is you have that sense of urgency and that purpose to be able to, you know, master the things that you do well, master your strengths, I feel like. And that's what I was doing. I was worried so much about my weaknesses.
00:28:27
Speaker
I think a lot of people can relate to this. You worry so much about your weaknesses and you know, you don't think about what you're good at and mastering what you're good at. I mean, the guys in the big leagues, the guys I work with, they're good at one thing usually, maybe two, but I mean, David Ortiz, you think he's good at running bases or catching a ball or no, he made all his money, his real money, I call it, like the millions by doing one thing, hitting.
00:28:55
Speaker
Or you know an author is really good at putting words on paper And you know what he may not be a very good long-distance runner, or he may not be a very good speaker But maybe he's a little introverted, but he's really good at sitting by himself for six months and banging out a book Master what you're good at and that's the big thing that I learned going through that that process was I was spending way too much time on the weaknesses and not enough time to
00:29:24
Speaker
on mastering my strengths. And when you were going through the miners, and this is something I'm always interested in, because it's one of those deals where everyone's there, but they don't want to necessarily be there, if that makes any sense. Because everyone wants to keep ascending the ladder of the professional ranks and so forth. And I always wonder, how do
00:29:50
Speaker
having lived it for so long, how do you balance wanting to be the best teammate while knowing that everyone wants to kind of keep climbing up through the A's and ultimately try to reach the show? I'm just gonna be honest and I think that's for life in any way, that's the best way we can go about things. But when you're in the minor leagues, it's all about you. And so for me, the biggest thing is as a minor league baseball player is you have to look out for yourself.
00:30:18
Speaker
And, um, you know, some organizations will preach, you know, it's about the team and this and that. And again, you don't want to be that guy, you know, that's all about you and you don't talk to anybody else or whatever. You'd be cordial, you know, but at the end of the day, everything that you do is going to be the betterment of yourself. Um, because even in the hit, even the hitting coaches or pitching coaches or whatever, there's some good guys in professional baseball, no doubt. Um, but I always tell guys, uh, you know, no one's coming up with you.
00:30:48
Speaker
You know, I'm not coming up with you. I never played a game with you, even though I help you. But at the same time, you're the only one that's going to get you where you're going because no one, no one signs a professional contract to be a career minor leaguer. But 90% of guys are career minor leaguers. Yeah. And I'm one of those guys. And so, you know, there, there are things that you learn that professional baseball is cutthroat. It is not fair.
00:31:13
Speaker
There are a ton of politics involved in professional baseball, but the average fan has no idea about. But you take those three, at least those three right there, and you put it into any job. I mean, people are listening, and your line of work, those three things are probably present, at least two of them. That's definitely the politics, they're everywhere. So when you go in, you gotta look out for yourself. And so when you go see a minor league game,
00:31:39
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's, we want to win the game because it definitely makes a long season more enjoyable. I can tell you that when you're winning more games, if you're 30 games out of first place and it's August and you got, it's August 1st and you got 30 games left. Um, it's not fun, but if you're winning, uh, definitely makes the bus rides more enjoyable. You know, if you can make a 16 hour bus ride enjoyable, uh, and makes getting, uh, getting up and ready for that game at seven o'clock.
00:32:07
Speaker
on August 26th more enjoyable. So, but you definitely, definitely have to look out for yourself and it's not really a balancing act other than, you know, you just make sure that you're taken care of and you respect the people around you trying to do the same thing.
00:32:22
Speaker
And something that you said on the podcast with Joe really struck me.
Principles of Hard Work and Individualization
00:32:28
Speaker
It was really the final eight minutes of when you were talking about good batting. And I was physically arrested when I was just sitting in my chair and I just listened to it and then rewound it and took some notes. Oh, wow. Thank you, man.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, it really what struck me was you said, you know, I know for a fact, I didn't know what effort it took to be the greatest. And then and you're like, guys, you are not working hard. And it was like you people who think they're working hard really don't they're working, but they're not working hard. And I wonder,
00:33:06
Speaker
How does one reach that definition of what hard work looks like and maybe what is that gauge? How did you come to know what hard work looked like so then you had something to measure your own work against? Well, the number one thing, and it's funny you say that because I have this conversation more and more.
00:33:29
Speaker
You got all this social media, right? And I mean, obviously I'm on social media and I love to use it. And I think there's a lot of good to it. And obviously we've all seen the bad, but a lot of it is you see these kids that they'll post on their Instagram or Twitter of them lifting and doing this and that. And you're just like, well, if you were really working hard, the hardest guys that I know that I've been around, hardest workers, I don't see anything on social media. Not that you can be the hardest worker and put stuff on, but my point being is
00:33:58
Speaker
If you are in from a little town, oh, you know, you you you've lived over here. So, you know, this is more populated than other regions of the country. And I do a lot of traveling, too. And I want to I want to, you know, tell kids, like, listen, you think you're working hard. And I was a case in point two. I thought I was working hard in high school.
00:34:17
Speaker
And I go to college and like wow, man This is I never lifted by the way lifting was still taboo in high school for baseball and I go and I go from zero to a hundred Like I got this guy that you know, Mick who I ended up going to Notre Dame being Notre Dame strength coach for many years and you know, I got and I think he's at Ohio State now he was an urban Myers book and
00:34:38
Speaker
So Mick is sitting there and he's just destroying us and me I'm 162 pounds six foot two coming out of high school I never lifted a weight that my minus five aluminum bat was the heaviest thing I lifted And so and I saw what that football player Look like and then I saw what that Kenyon Martin basketball player look like lifting and working out I'm like, I'm not even close. So my point is I like to tell kids like listen, you're not working hard because you haven't
00:35:09
Speaker
experienced being around the greatest in the game. Now it's very, very tough to get that access. That's the problem. I'm very fortunate. I have access to that. And what I try to do in certain instances, I try to bring, I've done this, I brought guys with me to work out with guys that I feel are the best at what they do. And just to watch, you don't have to work out with them. I just want you to see it because seeing is believing, right? Just to feel it.
00:35:38
Speaker
Right? I'm big on feel and I want you to feel the atmosphere I want you to feel because there's one thing it's like going to a live event, right? You can listen to the guy's album You can watch a guy on on like if you ever been to an NFL game on the sidelines like that's the thing or an NHL game Alive and see how fast the game is because TV was slowed down a lot But even even a baseball game, but but feel it sense it smell it Just get that sense because then once you see it
00:36:07
Speaker
you're definitely gonna believe that while not working hard enough and i got a i got a you know really turn it up you know a notch or ten notches or twenty notches yeah his if if think of you know guitar sir something in a you know that make it the other big guys and metallic or something that kirk and that they're lead guitars he's you know when you were coming up their plan they're on their guitars eight hours a day and i'm reading bruce springsteen's memoir right now and he when he was coming up he's playing
00:36:35
Speaker
He's playing eight hours a day noodling on his guitar. That is, I mean, you have to see it and you have to read it, but a musician might be able to say, okay, well, I'm playing a half an hour a day or whenever I want. Now I know what hard work looks like. So that must be such a valuable lesson for you to be able to give that to your athletes and be like, okay, well, if you wanna be the best you can be, that's what you have to do. And now you know how to do it, so get after it. So that's just an incredible,
00:37:05
Speaker
Thing that you give those players those certain yeah that want to do it. Yeah, and you bring up a good point I mean what you're describing with the with the guitarist and anybody that's that's a master of what they're doing. It's it's deliberate practice You know, it's having a purpose like we're talking about before for everything that you do. It's deliberate practice deep work You know
00:37:28
Speaker
That kind of stuff is what makes you good. It's not, you know, swinging a bat once a week, getting in the gym three times a week for an hour and just doing beach muscles and, you know, posting a pic. It's that continuous, you know, I mean, Malcolm Gladwell has a 10,000 hour thing. I think it gets a little bit blown out of proportion where people just, like in anything in today's society, I feel, everybody takes it literally.
00:37:52
Speaker
So they say, oh, I got to set the clock now. 10,000 hours, I should be an expert. No, it's not what he was saying. He's saying that the- A thousand the go, yeah. Right, right, exactly. But to your point, those, the people that are the best at what they do, that's that deliberate work. That's that just 1% better, as Joe talks about, just every day. You just continue just to grind away, grind away, grind away. And someone asked me on a show recently about, well, how did you get to,
00:38:22
Speaker
Doing what you're doing or how you know, I think they said how good you're i'm not i'm not that good I just i'm trying to get better every day But I said, you know what? I look back and I did I had 10 years of baseball academy doing lessons And so for me, I look back on it. I didn't realize until he said something about it like it asked that question I'm like, wow, you know what? you know 10 years And doing at least five days a week sometimes seven depending on the year uh time of year And you know, you're doing it at least four or five hours a day
00:38:51
Speaker
And I'm working with all sorts of different guys. Earlier on I could work with a 10 year old one hour and a 17 year old the next and a college player the next and as years go on I start working with the pros and stuff like that. But all those experiences, what I was doing was it was deliberate practice. Every day I was learning something new. I was testing things out. I was mastering my speech, my communicative skills,
00:39:18
Speaker
the way I was going about things. I learned what to do, what not to do. I learned what worked for this guy, but didn't work for that guy. So all that stuff, I was doing it too. And so I'm forever grateful for that opportunity to have those 10 years of really just that deep work that delivered practice. And I think anybody, you talk about that artist or the author or whatever, I mean, people that really, it takes time and people that really are deliberate in what they do and they have a purpose and they understand why they're doing it, then all of a sudden, yeah, 10 years, 20 years,
00:39:48
Speaker
30 years down the road, you're seeing that tip of the iceberg, right? But people don't know, understand or they never seen what lies below that ocean surface to see how many years and how many hours that took you to get there.
00:40:02
Speaker
And what I love about the Good Batting book is that it's such a principle-based book. I feel like anyone, you don't even have to be into hitting, and I was obsessed with hitting when I was playing, so I was just eating up some of the technical aspects too, but I really just love how it's...
00:40:20
Speaker
you could almost substitute hitting or whatever for whatever your profession or pursuit is. And I love that it goes out of its way not to be technical. It's a very sort of meditative approach to a craft. And so I wondered, how did you come to that as your approach for the book? And then why did you decide to sit down and put these principles on paper? Well, I mean, the first part, I mean,
00:40:49
Speaker
For me like I say in the book, you know, you know good batting. It's a hashtag is something I like to use You know a lot with guys and it's kind of a kind of catchy thing says like he said good hitting it's a good batting But like I say in the book, it's not only a mindset, but it's a way of life
00:41:06
Speaker
And the reason I wrote the book the way it is is because for me, I'm big on teaching the person first and the player second. Like we talked about a little bit before today in terms of, you know, we're dealing with human beings. So, you know, I don't know whether the guy plays 10 years in the big leagues or he never steps foot on a pro field or he never steps foot in the big leagues. I want to make sure that he understands what it takes to succeed at something. In this case, it'd be baseball.
00:41:36
Speaker
So when they're done playing, if they want to go into business or they want to open their own car wash or restaurant or they want to do something else, hopefully the things that we talked about throughout their career expands way beyond the playing field and they've got to know themselves better. I'm big on knowing thyself. I want them to know thyself. Now that takes time. You don't wake up one day and say, oh yeah, I know what I'm doing. That's that deliberate practice we talked about, but for me,
00:42:03
Speaker
The reason that I wrote the book the way I did was because I wanted, it's a baseball book, I know I can grab you with the baseball part, but hopefully by the time you get done reading it, you've taken something out that you can implement in your daily lives. And I read a lot, like I told you, and I've read a lot of books. And for me, I hadn't come across yet something that did both. And it's a very short book. The reason I had it so short is because of the fact that I know
00:42:31
Speaker
people's attention spans nowadays, especially with the younger players. A lot of high schools buy this for their team and there's a lot of young kids that read it in teenage and stuff like that. They're so used to clicking on their phone and something coming up. So I know if I wrote a 300 page book, there's nobody gonna read it. That it could affect. Now, maybe somebody like you or me would read it and maybe turn it around and implement it to their kids that they're working with.
00:43:01
Speaker
I really wanted this to, not only where the coaches could read, but also the players in the short. And on purpose, I left pages blank in the book to take notes. And I don't, you know, this is the first time I'm telling people about it, but there's a reason I left it blank, because I want people to be able to take notes in it. And so it doesn't read like a book in terms of, it doesn't flow, it's not a narrative. It's 10 chapters that's broken down into stuff that you can use right away. Almost like the stuff I wish I knew
00:43:31
Speaker
before I got to college baseball. One of the things I wish I knew before I started my high school baseball career, it's kind of a book like that where it just, every opportunity, the biggest, the big things that you're gonna go through in your career, high school and college, and even in pro ball, a lot of the pro guys that I work with, they read it and they love it, because it kind of reinforces what we talk about or makes them really think in a different way in terms of, okay, that's the way I wanna do it, because now you've helped me push me to say, this is the way I'm gonna do it, not anybody else
00:44:00
Speaker
tell me what to do. So the reason I have it the way it is and structured the way it is is because I definitely want it to be something that people can, number one, read, translate into their own language. I'm big on that. I'm big on individualization, customization. I want people to do it the way they want to do it. I'm just going to help you nudge yourself in that direction. I'm not going to tell you what to do, not one way or the highway. And then two,
00:44:26
Speaker
I wanted to be a book that you reference over and over again in different parts in different chapters as you just pick up, boom. If you're having trouble with your approach, boom, the chapter on approach, reread that and then all of a sudden hopefully that'll get you back on. And something to carry around with you in your bag, you can keep it in your suitcase, you can keep it in your backpack, whatever the case may be, it's pretty easy to ship around with you and just keep in your back pocket for reassurance.
00:44:53
Speaker
You brought up a point about knowing yourself and I had a conversation with a former professional ballerina a couple months ago and she was dancing in New York City and everything and I'm always curious what
00:45:09
Speaker
what separates what artists who make it and those who just sort of like languish and squalor even though they have a lot of talent. And she said the best dancers are the ones that are the ones that know who they are as an artist. And I was just really struck by that. And then you bring it up in your book and then you talk about like ugly swings like a hunter pence. And it also made me think of an anecdote. I think like Kari Stremsky used to have sort of an off kilter swing.
00:45:36
Speaker
and people tried to change them and I think Ted Williams said like if you can hit 400 standing on your head don't let anyone tell you to you know hit on your feet like basically you know more or less that's it is like just like you're saying like know yourself and lean into your strengths and I think that's just you know so important and how often have you
00:45:56
Speaker
To that point, how often have you seen people just try to carbon copy their swing, say after like a Pujols or Ken Griffey, and instead of just saying, oh, this is how I can get from my shoulders and chop down to the ball, point A, point B, this is how I do it and this is how I'm able to make full contact.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think you can look to social media to figure out how many people are trying to get kids to do it one way, you know, like a pull holes or a Cabrera or Donaldson. But what's lost in all that, in my opinion, is all those guys, to your point, have figured out how they do it and how she was talking about. I mean, I was a switch hitter.
00:46:38
Speaker
I had two different swings, two different mentalities. I was bipolar, if you want to think of it that way. So I was carrying two luggage racks to the field every day and hoping that at least one of them worked. So that was a whole different ballgame in itself. But I think, I talk about, we had 12 Days of Christmas on KWB radio and Joe kind of set me off on the last day about
00:47:05
Speaker
You know, it's something that I talk about frequently is why are there so many hitting coaches out there today, but at the same time, so few good hitters? Because in my mind, if you have all these hitting coaches out there, and again, I'm included in that group, I'm a hitting coach. Shouldn't there be an abundance of good hitters if we have so many hitting coaches? But the sad part is there aren't. I mean, I talked to scouts, I see it myself. It's tough to find a bat, you know, to draft and you're getting guys that are getting drafted and God bless them.
00:47:35
Speaker
You know, some of the guys I work with, they're very fortunate to get a lot of money to sign. And they're great athletes. And some of them are really, really good, you know, swingers of the bat. But just like anybody else, they just haven't learned how to hit yet. And they will because, you know, they're 18 or they're 20 and eventually they come around. But my point is that there are so many coaches out there that are forcing kids to swing like a player.
00:48:02
Speaker
that, and they don't realize that, okay, you spoke about pool halls. Well, that guy is what, six, four, 250, whatever, his body moves way differently than a 12 year old, way differently than a 21 year old. He's his own person. So he's gonna, he's gonna do things that are different than everybody else. But he's found out how he likes to do it. And it's a it's a copy and paste league. And I think so, you know, the first team that had a
00:48:31
Speaker
R&D department now seems like everybody has one, you know, it's a copycat league I think all of them are like that hockey NFL whatever but these coaches are trying to say wow This guy does this so therefore because he's great and he gets paid a lot of money. Let's copy what he's doing Well for me, it's like let's not copy the swing right because to your point I don't see anybody teaching a hundred pen swing I don't see anybody teaching a David Eckstein swing and I'll see anybody teaching a
00:48:58
Speaker
Jeff Bagwell's swing, if you wanna go back to it, Jeff Bagwell, anybody. But teach their work ethic. Teach their purpose behind everything. Teach their process. Right, teach the process. Kind of going back to what we talked about, if you can find tape or you can bring a kid in, again, it's just tough to find access to these guys, but to be able to just to show them what it looks like in terms of all that stuff we just talked about. Instead of trying to copy a swing,
00:49:27
Speaker
that kind of stuff. So I think it's actually a disservice being done to a lot of players nowadays, but instead of copying that swing, copy the other stuff we talked about, the work ethic and so on and so forth.
00:49:40
Speaker
And as we were alluding to with the book, it's very meditative. It really brings you into the approach and sort of that between the ears part. And as you know, sometimes as athletes, sometimes thinking is quite possibly the worst thing that can happen. At some point, you have to rely on instincts. But when you start thinking too much,
00:50:05
Speaker
it can be crippling and now you're talking an over 15, over 20 slump. So I wonder, how do you coach a player who might be thinking too much? And how do you sort of rein that in or strike that balance between the necessary mental approach but also learning to turn that off and let the hard work and the instincts take over? Yeah, I mean, I'll reference Tim Grover who wrote the book Relentless.
00:50:34
Speaker
Those who haven't read it, it's definitely a high recommendation of mine, but he talks a lot about, you know, he was Michael Jordan's trainer for years. He does, uh, he trained Kobe D Wade, all, you know, all the big, big guys in the game. Um, I think he's even in football now, but the point of his book was in relentless was, you know, how do we make players not think just be reactive, like you're saying. And I love that book because it reinforced everything that,
00:51:01
Speaker
You learn as you play and you start playing with these big stars and these guys that have slowed the game down so much compared to you as a youngster. But it kind of goes back to if you know thyself, if you know the way that you're going about it, the purpose of everything that you're doing and you know why you're doing it, you just fully submersed yourself into being comfortable in your own skin. You're not trying to do too much. It's a purely reactive,
00:51:31
Speaker
Environment where you you're just you're like it's lit for hitters. For instance, like I'll give you an example There's a player that I had Recently in the last couple years who was really good got to the big leagues and then a year after he he led a lot of things that were out of his control really really deter him during the year and really put him in a bad mental state where he started to think of everything that you could imagine under the Sun that
00:52:00
Speaker
he shouldn't be thinking about, or you're like, why are you even thinking about that? Things like that. But what happened was, because the pressure's so high, you start to go outside of your lane. I love to talk about staying in your lane, but sometimes now you're swerving. And that year, that next year, he had his worst year of his pro career, swerving. And then the year after that, he came back and he kind of reprogrammed, recalibrated, and he said, you know what, I'm not worried about that.
00:52:31
Speaker
And then he had a better year. He got himself back to neutral. And then the year after that, he had an absolute monster year because he stopped thinking. And the way that he stopped thinking was because the fact that, number one, he found himself knowing that, okay, why am I dealing with all this extracurricular stuff where I don't need to worry about it?
00:52:55
Speaker
Why am I trying a bunch of different swings to gain a result? Whereas I'm going to do what I do. I'm going to do what that got me drafted. I'm going to do what got me to the big leagues. And number three, it's the peace of mind knowing that I don't care what people think. I know I'm uncomfortable, but I'm learning how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. So the way that he went about his training, I put him, I put him on a machine. He never hit off a machine in the wintertime and I blew his doors off the first couple of weeks.
00:53:24
Speaker
and breaking bats, uncomfortable, but you know what, to his credit, he got through all that. He learned a lot about himself because he was willing to put himself through that uncomfortable stage where he came out on the other side not worrying about what other people thought, not worried about what the picture was going to do to him, total control of what he was going to do, and he was in what the people called his own.
00:53:49
Speaker
He was in total control of everything and that's where the confidence came from and the confidence allowed him not to think, if that makes sense.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah, you hit up on two of your big principles, which are being comfortable, being uncomfortable, and also trying to control the controllables, which is something you write about. And it's very simple and really tweetable, to use a modern term. But when you think about it in those terms, you can really ground your process and control what you can control. And when you do that, it really does, things seem to start to almost
00:54:26
Speaker
almost like you're doing this Jedi mind trick on the whole scheme. But you have to get to that place. And I think what you've written here is getting people to that place. I'm sure this is 50 pages of pure power when you think about it. No, I appreciate that. I really do. And to add to what I was saying, in order to learn, you have to fail.
00:54:52
Speaker
And I feel like a lot of parents and a lot of coaches, probably more parents because they're around more than coaches, but they don't allow the young person to fail. We're in this society where we're going to coddle them. If Johnny doesn't start on this travel team, well, we're just gonna pick him up and move him over to this travel team, where he's gonna play more. Rather than, well, Johnny's not playing for a reason. So probably the reason is because he's not good enough.
00:55:22
Speaker
And let's train. Let's get them better. And if you can't get any better, well, that'll tell you, well, that's not the sport for you. Or that's not what you want to be doing in life. So a lot of it stems from early on, you know, they're not comfortable being uncomfortable because they've never been given the opportunity to fail. And I'm talking not just fail a little bit. I'm talking fall flat on your face and fail. If you think about it and you look at the stats of every athlete that's
00:55:52
Speaker
played any sport. There's always one year in their career. There's always that one year where they absolutely tank. If you think about it, you go back. Again, the internet's great. You can go and look, but there's at least one year in everybody's career that they tank. But they have two choices, as we all know. They either accept that and they're done for the rest of their career or they take that and they turn it around and they go and have an unbelievable rest of their career.
00:56:23
Speaker
But there's every year there is one year that they have that they absolutely tank. And so they have two choices. They can either take that and let it ruin their career. Or second, they can learn from that like that guy I was just telling you about. He absolutely tanked and then he got himself back. And then the rest of their career.
00:56:45
Speaker
They just take off and they have that sustained consistency throughout their career that people don't even remember that one year that they tanked. I mean, that's to me, the separators, how you react to a situation can completely change the situation itself.
00:57:02
Speaker
What's it like for you to see the light go on in a player that might have had that bad year or they have never quite achieved what maybe in their head they want to achieve, but then through the principles you coach them on,
Emotional Rewards and Simplifying Hitting
00:57:21
Speaker
to see it finally go off and then all of a sudden the game is slowing down and the ball grows and their back grows and they're just playing blooper ball out there just mashing to the alleys. So I wonder what that's like for you as a coach to see that light go on. Well, like I said before, I mean, the why, my why every day is to help somebody. I mean, I get out of bed, number one, I'm grateful to have another opportunity on this earth. Number two is how can I help somebody? Those are the two things I
00:57:49
Speaker
I sit on the foot of my bed every morning and I'm grateful and I'm determined to help somebody today. So when that happens, I get emotional and my players have seen it. I'm half Italian, so the tears are readily available. So for me, I get emotional because for me, people say you're living vicariously through others. I am living vicariously through others because I've been there. I understand.
00:58:18
Speaker
know what it feels like to fail. I understand what it feels like to be at the bottom rung and the stresses of pro ball and the pressures of pro ball all that kind of stuff. What I do not know from personal experience is what it's like to be an all-star in the big leagues even though guys I work with have have achieved that. I don't know what it's like to have multi-million dollar contracts being given to me from a personal experience but I know guys that
00:58:46
Speaker
I've lived I've been there with them and experience it with them, but only vicariously through because I'm standing next to them so when they go from The bottom and they they come out on top because of all the effort that they've done the hard work They've done. They just I'm just very grateful for the opportunity to be able to help along the way at times So when I see them Succeed for not only them because you got to think about it too some of these guys have families because you're playing for either the family or
00:59:15
Speaker
You don't have right now. That was probably the best piece of advice I ever got playing. But the piece of advice was, take care of the family you don't have right now. I was like, whoa. And I was at 24. We didn't have a family then. Our son was born in 2009. And it was like, think about the family you don't have right now. Make decisions based upon that. So either that or they have families. They have three kids, four kids. And you gotta take care of your family.
00:59:45
Speaker
So when you see that and you see them getting emotional, obviously you've seen everything they've gone through. You've been there at the lowest of the lows. For me, it's just pure emotion and it's just beautiful to see them be able to achieve their dreams and their goals.
01:00:02
Speaker
That's wonderful. And I know for a fact that I would have had a much more fulfilling career in baseball if I had had this little volume. And I was able to walk on to the UMass Amherst team as a freshman on a torn PCL. So I made it on my arm and my back.
01:00:23
Speaker
And so it was, I know for a fact, I was cut my sophomore year. So I know I would have had a much more fulfilling career had I had something like this because it keeps, not only does it have discrete principles, it keeps things in perspective in a way that
01:00:41
Speaker
that I think every player would just benefit. Every high school coach, when you're a freshman, you should have to read this. I think you would just have much more satisfied ballplayers, not to mention better ballplayers, if they just took an afternoon and read this and started applying the principles. So I think you've done a service to the baseball community by writing this book, Kevin. It's really wonderful.
01:01:09
Speaker
Well, thank you very much, man. I really appreciate that. And it has. I mean, like the number one team in the country, Barb High School in Louisiana, they purchase it for their team. There's been other teams that have purchased it as well for their players. And like you said, I mean, if you read a cover to cover, it takes you maybe an hour. If you're a slow reader, maybe a little bit more. But again, the point of the book is to be able to reference it. You can take notes in it. It's very like you said, just hopefully it provides that perspective.
01:01:40
Speaker
to players and so that you're not so hard on yourself. And I love to say, and I put at the beginning of the book, hitting is simple, it's just not that easy. And so what we're trying to do is just simplify the most complicated thing to do in sport, I think.
01:01:53
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. I could talk another two hours with you about ball and hitting and just these types of principles that make for just a much more fulfilled creator of good work. But I'll let you go on this Sunday afternoon. And thank you so much for taking the time, Kevin. And we'll certainly be in touch down the road, I hope.
01:02:19
Speaker
Thank you so much Brendan. I really am grateful for this opportunity to be on your show and and I love the work that you're doing and It's pretty cool to know that you've got some local roots too. So I would love to continue this conversation another time Fantastic looking forward to it Kevin. So I you take care and I will be in touch down the road. Thank you so much No, thank you. Sounds good. All right, so long