From Michael Jordan to Randy Johnson, 25 Years of Investigating Excellence - Steve Gilbert, MLB.com Reporter

What can business leaders learn from a veteran MLB reporter who once managed the Michael Jordan media circus? Steve Gilbert shares unforgettable stories from decades inside professional baseball—and the leadership lessons behind them. From a high school coach who changed his life, to speaking up in a crisis, to adapting through every wave of media disruption, Steve reveals what separates professionals who last from those who fade. 

In this conversation with ReliaQuest Director of Mental Performance Derin McMains, you'll also hear Steve talk about:

• Perfectionism is the enemy of execution
• Trusting process over emotion
• Filtering coaching to avoid overwhelm

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Transcript

NSD - Steve Gilbert.txt
English (US)

00:00:01.120 — 00:01:59.150 · Speaker 1
Relaxed mental performance coach Derin McMains interviews top performers across multiple industries to unpack their mindset and their strategies that has helped them dominate in their arena so you can dominate in yours. Welcome to No Show Dogs powered by ReliaQuest. Hey, welcome back to the No Show Dogs podcast powered by ReliaQuest.

And look, if you're someone that's truly chasing excellence, then this is the episode for you. We've got MLB.com reporter Steve Gilbert on the show today, and he's someone that has spent over the last two and a half decades investigating and chasing excellence in his career. He's one of the best in his field, and he's at the top of his game.

And just let me tell you what I love about Steve. He's someone that that not only investigates excellence as a job at the highest level, but he actually applies it to his own life and his own career. He he doesn't just write about it, he actually internalizes it and chases it himself. And before we jump into this conversation, I just want to offer you one thing right here at the top that I just really don't want you to miss.

You see, as a reporter, Steve often gets to witness things that the rest of us don't get to see. So at one point in our conversation, I asked him what he's seen behind the scenes that perfectly captures excellence, and he pointed to his time working in the Arizona Fall League and baseball when he was responsible for the media request around Michael Jordan.

That's right. Michael Jordan playing baseball. Remember that back in the 90s? Yeah. And look, although Jordan was struggling as a baseball player, he'd seen him day in and day out putting in the early work before everyone arrived, before the fans arrived, before the media arrived, before they would even board the bus for a road game.

Jordan kept putting in the work and then he said this. He said, greatness is the fact that even when you're not getting results, even when there's nobody watching, you're still working. You're still trying. There's still that desire to get better.


00:02:00.470 — 00:03:44.580 · Speaker 1
That's it folks. I'm telling you, that's excellent. He nailed it. It's easy to work hard when you're getting great results. It's easy to put in the extra time when you're on a great team and you're crushing it. It's easy to do the work when there is a guaranteed payoff, but it's the effort you put in when you aren't getting results that really starts to paint the picture of someone that's truly chasing excellence.

It's the attention to detail. It's the preparation. It's showing up early or staying late when nobody's watching, and there's no guarantee that the results will follow. That's what reveals the character of a competitor. Excellence is more about the consistent and controllable effort than the inconsistent and uncontrollable results.

There are excellent results and then there is chasing excellence. Those are two different things. You see, excellence is more about an approach and a lifestyle than it is about results. Now look, don't get me wrong, please do not miss this. Results matter. 100% results matter. There are poor results, there are average results and there are excellent results.

Let's not miss that. But when we're talking about excellence, that's in every day maniacal focus on being the best you can be, regardless of your results. Whether you hit your number or miss your number, get good feedback or bad feedback, you are giving 100% of what you've got to give on that day, regardless of the circumstances.

No complacency. No panic. No strutting, no sulking. The sheer determination to get a little better. That's excellence. And with that, let's jump into this conversation with MLB.com reporter Steve Gilbert. Steve Gilbert, welcome to No Show Dogs.


00:03:45.380 — 00:03:47.820 · Speaker 2
Oh, it's good to be with you, Mac. I'm excited.


00:03:47.940 — 00:04:07.460 · Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. I can't wait to jump in to your career. Things you've learned. And we got a nice little surprise coming up here right at the beginning that I don't think people are expected for. But before we get there, let's just talk about you. Like, why journalism? Why did you go into this field? What was it that drew you into this profession?


00:04:07.940 — 00:06:02.650 · Speaker 2
So it goes back to when I was a kid. I loved to write. I don't know why, but I used to write stories. I used to make up stories about my stuffed animals and their adventures, and what they would do at the house when we were all gone. And so I just always loved writing, and obviously I always loved baseball, loved playing baseball.

And once I got to high school and realized that baseball probably wasn't going to be in my future, maybe junior college, maybe small college, but that was going to be it. I still wanted to somehow stay around baseball, and I thought that maybe writing could be that way. And I was a sophomore in high school on the junior varsity team, and my high school baseball coach at Corona del Sol at the time was Ron Devaney and the Mesa Tempe Tribune.

I was looking for someone from each high school that had an interesting idea. Was everyone One guy from each high school will be responsible for calling in all the sports scores from that high school, and that's how they could get it on to the what they used to call the agate page, the box score page. And that helped them with subscriptions, because people always like to see that their sons or daughters name in the newspaper.

So my baseball coach recommended me. I had no idea. I didn't know anything about it, but he sent a note to the editor sports editor saying, hey, this guy's, you know, has a journalism class. He plays on the baseball team. He's a pretty good writer. Why don't you use him? And so I went into the newsroom and started doing calling in scores, calling coaches to get scores.

And I fell in love with the newsroom. This was in the mid 80s. I was 16 years old and watching grown men screaming at each other on deadline and all the excitement in the newsroom, just that it was intoxicating for me. Long story short, I volunteered during the summer to work in the office doing whatever they needed, and when I turned 16 during that summer, then in the fall, they sent me out to cover high school football.

So while I was playing baseball, still during my junior year, I covered high school football and high school basketball for the local paper, and it just kind of took off for me from there.


00:06:03.530 — 00:06:45.130 · Speaker 1
That is so cool. First, I want to highlight the stories you are writing about as a child. You were on to Toy Story in The Secret Life of Pets. You were writing those things before. I love that man. That is so cool. And second thing, I just want to highlight your high school baseball coach, and we talk about leadership all the time on here.

But just knowing your people, knowing what they're good at, knowing their passion and to be able to recognize and one of his young players a gift and a skill that you had and be able to recommend you. I just think that is a really neat thing and how that has fundamentally, fundamentally kind of changed your life, right?

If you really think about it.


00:06:45.210 — 00:07:20.720 · Speaker 2
Absolutely. And when I got my gold card recently for a major League Baseball for 25 years of working for MLB, and I sent him a picture of it with a text. And none of this happens without you. And I think it's important in life that we always remember the people that helped us. We all think we're self-made people, and it may be that we work hard.

You have to make the most of your opportunities, but we also have to be thankful to the people that give us those opportunities or that look out for us or that teach us something, whatever it might be. And for me, that obviously, like you said, change the trajectory of my life. I don't know what I would be doing right now had he not recommended me for that post.


00:07:21.080 — 00:07:27.920 · Speaker 1
That's so wild. And we got to get into what you're doing right now. But before we totally get into it, we got to talk about where you started and


00:07:29.680 — 00:08:39.200 · Speaker 1
of all the things that I ever expect to get from guest, you sent me something that literally my jaw dropped like, and I'm not saying that just as cliche. And so I'll just set this up for our listeners. I always send an email ahead of time, hey, here's what I'm thinking about a theme. Here's a few questions to prepare for.

And then I always put on there and let me know if there's anything that potentially I don't know about that people might find interesting. And only one other guest in three and a half years has sent something, and I don't know if that means they're not reading the emails. I cover it great or whatever it is.

But you send me, you send me a few pictures from a book titled Rebound The Odyssey of Michael Jordan by Bob Greene, and I'm like, what in the world? And as I start reading this, one of the most unbelievable stories unfolds. You gotta tell it. It's your story. You lived it. But this is about you being the director of media relations for Major League Baseball's Arizona Fall League in 1994 and 1995.

Tell us about this gig you got at. I believe you were 25 years old. Tell us about this job.


00:08:39.599 — 00:09:48.789 · Speaker 2
Yeah, I finished an internship with the White Sox in 1993, and their PR department and their teams just weren't hiring in 1994 because there was this labor unrest that was coming, which we eventually would see when the players went on strike before the All-Star break. And so, look, I was looking for a job.

I was doing some substitute teaching anything to kind of just fill the gap until baseball was hiring again. And the Arizona Fall League was looking for a director of public relations. And I went in to interview and they just kind of casually dropped in there. Listen, we're looking for somebody that has some experience like you do.

I had done this internship with the White Sox. I had been PR director for the Phoenix Firebirds for a year before that. And they said Michael Jordan might be coming to the Arizona Plain of Arizona Fall League. So we need somebody with a little bit of experience. And I thought, there's no chance Michael Jordan's coming to play in Arizona.

Fall. Come on. My job went from how do we get coverage for the Arizona Fall League? Because Ezra doesn't get a lot of attention to how to manage this overwhelming circus. When Michael Jordan decided to play in the Arizona Fall League. So it was not quite the job I signed up for, but it was an experience like no other.

I think what you're referring to is is the story when I got to play basketball with Michael Jordan, and that's


00:09:49.950 — 00:10:56.419 · Speaker 2
as a kid who grew up in Chicago. Okay, this is even before Michael Jordan. I was a Bulls fan. And then to actually get to interact with him. By this point, I had dealt with professional athletes before in a variety of different roles. And so there wasn't that like, you didn't get awestruck when you saw professional athletes, except for Michael Jordan.

That was like a different experience when I went to pick him up. The science is so crazy, right? Like, I went to pick up Michael Jordan at the airport. He had his own private jet, and so I had to pull out onto the tarmac. And here he comes down the steps, and it was like a cartoon character come to life. Like this was just.

That was the one time I remember just thinking to myself, oh my God. Like, this is amazing. This is Michael Jordan, and spending every day with him for three months or two and a half, whatever it was, you start to get a little bit used to the fact that, okay, it's Michael Jordan and we have to we're going to battle on what I wanted to do, certain interviews.

Terry Francona was the manager at the time, and he called me in his office the first day and he said, listen, you and Michael are going to have a back and forth relationship because you're going to want him to do everything. He's going to want to do nothing. So just know that and understand that. And so


00:10:57.580 — 00:15:46.160 · Speaker 2
one night, Terry and I, we used to go out for we used to go out for dinner and just chit chat. I love Terry Francona, and he was still trying to work his way up as a minor league manager. And we were supposed to go out to dinner one night and he goes, hey, change your plans. We're going to go play some basketball.

I was like, oh, okay. Now this is like a few months, two months into my experience with Michael. And I hadn't worked out in months because of the stress and I was out of shape and but okay, I'll go play basketball. It turns out he's playing basketball at Michael Jordan. And they got together at Club Star over in Scottsdale once a week.

And he got to play basketball. I got to get his basketball fix in. So I remember being on the court and kind of stretching and in walks Michael Jordan. And I had seen him in a baseball uniform. I'd seen him in street clothes. Michael in a baseball uniform, never looked natural to me, but he comes walking in in his North Carolina shorts with a tank top, and I'm like, oh my God, this is Michael Jordan.

Like, it was another one of those moments where it was like, oh, okay, this is for real. And we played five on five and it was Michael, the coaches and myself against the players. So I was way out of my league. I'm covering a guy who stole 40 bases in Double-A the year before. He practically held on to his jersey the whole time.

I don't remember breathing. That was the most nervous I think I've ever been in my life. There was a moment where I was open. I was down the court. It must have been because I was too slow getting back up the court. It couldn't be that I beat guys down the court. Sure of that, Michael grabbed a rebound, looked, saw me and threw me this perfect pass and whoever was coming back reached his hand up and it went just over his hand.

Now I got the ball. It's right there, a layup. I can always say that. I converted an assist from Michael Jordan, and the guy yells in my ear and I shorted the the layup. Missed it. So Michael's advice to me after that was don't shoot the ball. Oh shoot. Don't touch the ball. Just do your thing. But we get to the end of the game.

We won. Of course, because we had Michael Jordan. Certainly not because we had me. And I can't breathe like I can't catch my breath. And I'm starting to get a little panicked because I can't catch my breath. And we had trainers there. We had people. It was amazing for these games. Like, this was the year that Nomar Garciaparra was in the fall league, Derek Jeter was in a fall league, and so they're in the stands waiting for their chance to play.

And I can't remember if it was Jeter or Garciaparra. It was one of the two had a video camera because this was 1994 before we all had iPhones set up and was actually like recording this. So there's probably video somewhere of Michael Jordan playing basketball during his fall league days, but I couldn't catch my breath.

The trainers were there and the trainer looks at me and he goes, you know, I'd feel better if he went to the hospital and got checked out. I'm like, I can't go to the hospital, man, like, I can't. I want to be able to tell this story for the rest of my life, and I can't tell it if I if it ends with, oh, and by the way, I wound up in the hospital and it's like, yeah, no, you really.

You should go. So Michael's security people take me over to the hospital, it's Scottsdale Memorial. It's a Sunday night. And you know what that's like in the E.R.? There's people everywhere. He goes up to the desk to say something. Next thing I know, I got a private room off to the side of the E.R. getting all kinds of attention, and.

But one thing I have, they give me some oxygen, so I have an oxygen mask on. It's embarrassing, as all get out and have all these doctors and nurses coming in to see me, and before they do anything else, they're like, hey, what's it like playing basketball? Michael Jordan, what's it like playing basketball?

Michael Jordan. Finally, I take off the oxygen mask. I'm like, what's it like? I'm in the freaking hospital. That's what it's like playing basketball. Michael Jordan um, turns out, of course, nothing wrong with me. Just out of shape, out of breath. Uh, I show up in a clubhouse the next day, and Michael's over in front of his locker, and he looks up and he sees me, and he gives me one of these with those big long fingers that he has.

And that's never good. When he summons you like that, it's never a good thing. So I go walking over and he goes, hey, listen, man, no offense, but you can't play basketball with us anymore. Not that I wanted to. I want that clear right now. Not that I desired another round of embarrassment. And I said, why?

And he said, because I can't have a good time if I got to worry about you keeling over and dying on us. So that's my Michael Jordan's story. That's the. And Bob Greene asked me about it because he'd heard about it, and I told him, and it ended up being one of the more popular stories he said in the book when he would go out on book signings.

And I thought, oh, that's great. Everyone wants to lift my my embarrassment. But actually it's a fun story now. It makes a better story to say that I was in the hospital, and so I learned to lean into that aspect of it and have some fun with it.


00:15:46.280 — 00:16:33.560 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Steve, thank you so much for sharing that. Because like I said, when I read it in the book, it was just I can picture it. And I know clubs are the Giants. Spring training was there for a long time, and so it's not a glamorous gym at all. It's definitely not. And actually, I didn't even know it was clubs. Ah, it didn't mention that in the book.

And so when you mentioned I thought like, wow, now I'm like really being able to put myself there, really picture it. It's such an incredible story. And you mentioned right at the beginning the job that you were going for wasn't the job that you really signed up and expected. But I think that's true for a lot of business professionals.

I think that's a lot of it's true for a lot of leaders. And so overarching like when you first got into sports journalism, what did you think it was? And then as you got into it, what did you later discover that the job actually is at least how to be great at it?


00:16:33.640 — 00:19:55.370 · Speaker 2
Yeah, I think when I speak to journalism classes, they all they always ask me, when did you know this was the job you wanted? And I always remind them that the job I have right now, writing for the internet didn't exist when I was in high school, didn't exist when I was in college, didn't exist when I first got out of college.

And so what I knew was I loved to write and I loved baseball. And so I tried to find a path to get to the big leagues doing that. And so initially it was journalism, and I covered the Phoenix Firebirds for $20 a game when I was in college for four seasons. I love that, but then I started thinking, what about public relations?

Like these teams have PR directors and they get to travel with the team, and that involves some writing. What if I tried that? And so the Firebirds hired me to be their PR director in 1992. Well, the first year at the Scottsdale Stadium. And so I was like, well, maybe this PR thing would be a quicker path to to get to cover and to get to being around the big leagues.

And that led me to the internship with the White Sox. And then that led me to the Fall League. And the experience with Michael Jordan got me some attention from PR people, and that landed me a job with the Brewers as their assistant director of public relations. Again, not a path that I started. When I got into journalism, I thought I was going to be writing, so now I thought my path was public relations.

And I spent three years in Milwaukee, and then the Diamondbacks got started, and I really wanted to come back to Arizona. And this was summer, late summer of 97, my third year at the Brewers and Jerry Colangelo PR firm called, and they were looking for somebody. This will tell you how primitive the internet was.

They were looking for somebody to run the website for the Suns, Diamondbacks, Mercury and Rattlers, and they wanted somebody to handle all the writing and coordinating with the people that do the technical stuff, because I didn't know anything about the technical, and they still don't know about the internet.

And I tell the students and they laugh at me. I say, people told me that the internet was the future because back then we were talking about, hey, this could be the future, this could be the way we do it. But we didn't know anything about that. And so I just took the leap and went. And now I thought again, still, I'm in the front office, so I'm going to be doing front office stuff, which I did for a couple of years until Major League Baseball took over and said, no, now you're going to be a reporter, you're going to be covering the team.

And so I just followed where the next opportunity was staying. True to the couple of things that I knew I really wanted, which was to write and to be around baseball. So I just followed the different paths and what opened up for me. So that's what I tell the journalism students, is, you don't know what your job is going to be 20 years from now.

You don't know what the world is going to look like 20 years from now. Keep taking steps towards what opportunities present themselves. Different things will open, doors will open, some doors will close. That you thought there was a job I wanted before the Michael Jordan job with a company called Stats Inc. and they used to publish books and they did all this stat stuff, and the guy wanted to hire me and I thought, this is great.

I can stay in Chicago and this is perfect for me. And I didn't get it. I had this complex math test that they wanted you to take, and I flubbed the math test. Everything else was great, but I could have told them I didn't. I wasn't going to do well on the math test, and I thought, oh man, I really lost out on that job.

But had I gotten that job, then I don't get the Michael Jordan experience. Who knows where my career ends up from there. So that's the message I give for journalism students when I'm asked to speak to them.


00:19:55.530 — 00:19:57.730 · Speaker 1
That's so wild. I would imagine


00:19:58.810 — 00:20:25.610 · Speaker 1
that when you start working in the major leagues, it's the highest level of sport in baseball, obviously, and I think with anybody in any professional struggles with do I belong here? I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with early on. And sometimes you might struggle with it all the time, but I'm sure you probably had that feeling of, do I really belong here?

And did you ever have a specific moment in your career working in the big leagues where you realize, I do belong here and I can do good work?


00:20:26.370 — 00:22:27.000 · Speaker 2
There's a part of me that always feels like I still don't. But if I had to go back to think to when to kind of occur to me that, hey, I could do pretty good at this was my last year in Milwaukee on opening Day, we're playing, I believe it was the Rangers, and it's probably the last time in Major League Baseball that there was a game where the promotion was giving out baseballs to fans when they got to the ballpark, because what happened was the Rangers scored a bunch of runs, fans got ticked, started littering the field, and this is like the one sellout we used to get at.

Old County Stadium was opening day, so there's 50 plus thousand people there, and there's this baseballs raining down onto the field, and they had to stop play a couple of times because of this. And Bud Selig was then the commissioner and the owner of the Brewers. He comes storming into the press box yelling that we got to do something about this.

So we're all huddled up and I'm just standing there listening to them talk about, what are we going to do? How can we get them to stop throwing baseballs? And I remembered that there was that Sam Wyche when he was coaching the Bengals and they were throwing snowballs or something on the field, and he grabbed the mic and he said something to the effect of stop doing that.

And you live in you don't live in Cleveland. It was like something that got the attention of the people in Cincinnati to stop throwing snowballs. And so I just spoke up and said we could have Phil Garner as a manager at that time. I said, we could have GA go out and say something to the crowd. And Bud stopped for a second thought about it.

It goes, great idea. Go make it happen. And I remember going down and we had the Phil Garner say something to the crowd and that we were able to get the game in. And I remember going home that night feeling terrible about the way how embarrassing it was for us as an organization that this had happened, but also that, hey, sometimes when you speak up, these are good ideas and those are things that that's something that that still gets remembered with the Brewers is that we had this event, that we had this thing happen, we had this crisis, and somebody came up with a good idea to.

To put a stop to it.


00:22:27.840 — 00:23:53.670 · Speaker 1
Good for you for raising your hand in that moment. There's the team owner in there, and a lot of times I can see where people would have the answer, but they could talk themselves out of it. Or maybe not even the answer, but maybe a potential solution. And it's so good for you for raising your hand. And it kind of speaks to you who you are just as a professional.

Like these opportunities that come along and you mentioned this before, just raise your hand and go for it. And you bring up a really interesting point, Steve. And that and I appreciate your humility and your honesty. And just around like, I don't know if you ever really feel like you do truly belong. Not sure.

And just in my experience, I've seen that a lot in a lot of really high performing individuals. I experienced that myself, where at times like, what am I? Do I even know what I'm doing? But we talk a lot about like, you can doubt, like thoughts aren't facts and you don't have to accept it. And that's just part of being human.

I think that's a spirit of humility, and I think it's what makes people good. It makes people curious. It makes people dive in and continue to improve their craft. So thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. And last thing I'll say about this, where we move on is we talk a lot about decision making frameworks in here.

And one of them that we always mentioned is like what are the unintended consequences of this decision? And I imagine the it was probably such a good idea. We'll give everyone a baseball on opening day. And I would imagine as a young kid I'd be fired up for that. I'm like, yeah, give me a Milwaukee Brewers baseball.

And then the unintended consequences are, if it doesn't go well, I now have a projectile that I can launch onto the field. Oh, I can imagine, man.


00:23:55.350 — 00:24:15.870 · Speaker 3
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00:24:18.190 — 00:24:30.230 · Speaker 1
You mentioned earlier about writing for the internet and didn't even exist. Like the job that you have now. Didn't even exist 20 years ago. And I just think about how you've had to continually be adaptable throughout your career,


00:24:31.390 — 00:24:46.070 · Speaker 1
from newspapers to digital social media. Now, instant reaction type stuff. It's it's crazy, I think, how much it's changed, huh? How have you managed to stay relevant while media has consistently changed over the last two and a half decades?


00:24:46.910 — 00:27:33.530 · Speaker 2
I think it was easier when I was younger, and I think for all of us, it's easier to make changes and to adapt when we're younger. And I think the challenge becomes when we're older, can we still challenge ourselves? And I think that for me, if I ever stop being able to do that, then it's time for me to go do something else at the time for me to be put out to pasture, whatever it might be.

But I remember when I came over to the Diamondback Suns Mercury Rattler that those first couple of years the internet was it was, I call it the Wild West time in the internet. Nobody knew. And there were no rules. There was no. This is how we do it. This is the format. Like it was just. We just tried things. We came up with our own ticket selling system.

Would people want to buy tickets online? I remember helping to do that in 1999, and just being terrified that this system wasn't going to work, and when we went live with it, it can remember all those things these days. It's tougher for me as I get older and the social media and the way baseball has changed too, with the way people talk about it, it's for me, it's always the human aspect of it.

And now we're we're dealing more in numbers, and I have to learn a little bit more about that. I have to push myself to get out of my comfort zone and understand what Waba is and what all these other numbers are, and launch angles and exit velocities. And I want to incorporate some of that in my writing, but I don't want to lose the human aspect of it.

I don't want to lose what makes me unique. And I say that not in an arrogant way, but unique in terms of my life experience and the way I come at things. So yeah, it's constant. And that's like you said, for any walk of life as we get older. I remember talking with a player about this sitting in the dugout a few years ago, and the player is like, yeah, uh, the 1980s were the best time for baseball.

And I thought, man, you weren't even alive in the 1980s. Like you're watching highlights. You don't know what that was like. And if you constantly compare now to what you felt in in the past, you're going to be miserable. And I have to remember that advice for myself, too. We always we glorify the past, and we forget some of the struggles that we went through in the past.

Oh, I wish I was back in college. Boy, wasn't that fun. Yeah, but I was also paranoid I wasn't going to get a job. And was I going to fit in? And how was I going to support myself and what the future holds. So it's easy to look back and with fondness at those times because things worked out. But what if but at the time you don't know that.

So again, it's a long winded answer, but I think that it's a constant pushing myself as I get older to be adaptable and to understand that things change. And that's okay. And young people growing up today. This is baseball to them. 1980s don't exist. 1990s don't exist for them. And that's okay. And players like to make fun of me.

Like Ryan Nelson teases me all the time. He goes, hey, you covered baseball in the last century. And yeah, that's true. And but now you got to adapt to what's going on in this century.


00:27:34.090 — 00:28:21.130 · Speaker 1
I know you won't say, but I'll say you're one of the best writers out there, and it's because of that human focus. And I hadn't thought about before until you, until you just said it around how you've had to evolve and adapt. And how can you add numbers? Because we can't measure everything now and then, like anything, when we can measure everything, everybody over indexes on it gets really excited about it.

And then we finally get back to, hey, there is a place for this. And how does it help illuminate maybe a story from the human element. So that's what I've always appreciated about you. And you mentioned talking with some players. And before we get there though, I just want to ask one more question about you personally about your career.

And then we can talk about some lessons learned in your job. And it's really when you reflect on your career, what's a moment that you've had that when you really think back, you're like, man, I am most grateful that I was here to witness this moment in my career.


00:28:22.250 — 00:29:29.280 · Speaker 2
I think for me, it was going to New York during the World Series in 2001 and just getting that full experience and seeing what that was like. I mean, there's just it was an amazing World Series on the field, but it was also amazing off the field because of all that was going on in our country at the time and the fear and the morning.

And it was like baseball really brought people together at that moment. You just you could feel that it's a cliche, but you could really feel that that we all came together at that moment. And so for me, that was a rewarding, rewarding time is if I had to go back, I'm glad I got to experience that. I'm glad it was seven games.

I'm I'm just to just to see it all happen and just some of the human moments. Again, I prefer human moments, but like young Hyung Kim, who had those struggles at Yankee Stadium, I'll never forget after game seven being in a clubhouse, and he was so relieved that they won and that he wasn't going to be this the remembered as the guy who blew the World Series for the Diamondbacks, that he was sitting in the corner just weeping.

And those are the moments that you just always will remember.


00:29:29.720 — 00:29:54.719 · Speaker 1
Wow. Yeah, that was it was that World Series was, what, 6 or 7 weeks removed from 911? It was obviously in New York. And it's game seven. What an incredible series. And it's during the Yankees dynasty and Diamondbacks, this new upstart led by Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson. I'm thinking about all the things that went into that.

What an amazing time for sure. So let's talk about what you've learned along the way from working with


00:29:55.720 — 00:30:14.680 · Speaker 1
some of the best baseball players on the planet. So you spent 25 years around a lot of these players. What would you say? First is most people and fans potentially just misunderstand most about these athletes that are chasing and achieve excellence.


00:30:16.080 — 00:31:25.230 · Speaker 2
I think that there's a notion among fans sometimes that they care more than the players do, and a guy strikes out, looks bad at the plate. A pitcher walks off with his head down after getting hammered, and there's this feeling in the crowd of they don't care. I've never run into a player who doesn't care about his performance on the field.

I don't think you probably have either. Now, there are some people that carry a different degrees and are more selfish or less selfish, but they all have this pride. They all have this competitive drive or they wouldn't be where they are. And that's another thing. And that's why we talk about the human aspect of things.

The thing that separates me from somebody who's not at the ballpark, who doesn't have the experience or isn't there, is I have this press pass that allows me to go down and talk to these guys and to get their stories and to explain things how they feel and what they think to fans. And that I always think is going to be the most important thing, is the quotes and the stories that that what they tell and how they see it.

So that's one of the things that always jumps out to me, is that fans think the guy doesn't care. No he cares. He just may not be doing the right things or he might not be working out for him. But he does care. Trust me, he cares. And he hurts when he doesn't do well.


00:31:26.790 — 00:31:35.229 · Speaker 1
That's a great point. I never thought about that. That's such a great call out because especially in baseball, there's so much failure that


00:31:36.630 — 00:32:18.829 · Speaker 1
if I don't come through when I needed to, when my team needed me to and I don't slam my batter, I don't throw my stuff or and I just walk off the field because I'm trying to manage myself, send a message to the opponent, send a message to my teammates. I'm doing all this stuff. It can come across as like, look, that guy doesn't even care.

It's like it didn't even bother him. It's like, that's a trained response on how I'm going to compete on the next pitch or compete in the next inning. And I want to let people know, like this guy right here, he might have got me this time, but he ain't going to get me next time, you know? And so I do think there's this there's so much to that.

That's such a great call out as you bring that up. You mentioned your press packs. You get to see things that most people don't get to see. And so


00:32:19.870 — 00:32:41.390 · Speaker 1
you have something that that you've seen that the cameras haven't caught, that you thought that right there. That thing is excellent in a nutshell. Like if I could bottle that up, I would show that in a movie. Or if someone asks me, hey, what does excellence look like? Steve? I could play this little 1 to 2 minute clip.

Have you seen anything like that behind the scenes that you think just encapsulates excellence?


00:32:41.790 — 00:33:38.540 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Look, Michael Jordan was not a very good baseball player. We all, I think, could agree on that. Now, there's whether or not if he had started earlier, if he continued with it, who knocks. But when I saw him in a fall league, he just wasn't very good. He would tell you that himself. But that didn't stop him from working.

And it was amazing to me the amount of times I would see him come walking in when they had the batting cage of Scottsdale Stadium way back in the day, back out behind the bullpens there. He would go out there and just work. There was nobody else there outside of teammates or whatever. It wasn't a thing for the media.

It was before we would board a bus and go to a to another stadium in the Valley, and he was just putting in the time and putting in the time. And that's, to me is the greatness, is the fact that even when you're not getting results, even when there's nobody watching, you're still working, you're still trying, there's still that desire to get better.

And that to me is was something that stands out always to me.


00:33:40.460 — 00:33:43.740 · Speaker 1
I bet that was a sight to see, man. I bet it was a real sight to see.


00:33:44.060 — 00:33:47.740 · Speaker 2
He was a competitor boy. Like he wow. He was a competitor.


00:33:48.660 — 00:34:06.620 · Speaker 1
That's been the one consistent thing of those that have been around him, or the stories you read is just the relentless competitiveness of Michael Jordan, and it's not surprising to see it show up in a baseball uniform or a basketball uniform, or the legendary card games or the golf cart race. It follows him everywhere.


00:34:07.100 — 00:34:08.540 · Speaker 2
He wins everything. Yeah.


00:34:09.100 — 00:34:18.659 · Speaker 1
I bet you talk to players all the time. You get to talk to them in their best moments, you get to. Also, you have to talk to them during their worst moment. Have there been times where


00:34:20.540 — 00:34:47.260 · Speaker 1
you've talked with just great players that are going through slumps, that the way they talk about it is just a little bit different than the average player? Because what we do know is slumps are inevitable, misery is optional, and I just think great players handle it a little different. In your experience, have you seen what the best players do, maybe a little bit differently during their struggles than those that that are average and maybe fall to the wayside?


00:34:47.659 — 00:36:12.760 · Speaker 2
I think that the best players, from what I've seen, are able to not ruminate on the bad times, like they understand the bad times, they understand what's happening, but they'll go back to their process. What's my process? What's my process? I might not be getting the results I want, but am I hitting the ball hard?

Ball might not be falling, but am I hitting the ball hard? I might have given up five runs but was a bloop hit. Are they hitting the ball hard? Have they found some holes? And they're able to separate that. They're able to separate the bad bounces the soft hits. Because we know baseball look. Baseball makes no sense.

You can hit the ball hard four times right at somebody. And you're zero for four. And somebody reading a box score thinks, wow, he had a bad game. You can go three for four with three bloop hits and then go, wow, you're like, that guy's amazing. Now you're not going to give back those hits. But if you're looking at your process, you're going to say, that's not sustainable.

Like the blue pits probably aren't sustainable over the long haul. When they go back to the process, they review it that way almost clinically, and it's not getting emotional about it, because when you get emotional about it, those slumps tend to just feed on themselves and continue to go on. So that that's I think the separator is can you emotionally not ruminate on something and go back to the technical aspect of it, of is my process good?

If my process is good, I'm going to keep trusting my process until somebody tells me, hey, your process is not good, then I need to look back and make some changes.


00:36:13.320 — 00:36:33.640 · Speaker 1
Yeah man, that's really good. That's really good in these best players that you've been around, are there certain traits? Are there certain habits that that you see that they consistently do over and over, or a trait again that they possess that you're like, man, that is the separator. Have you seen little things like that show up amongst the best players in the league?


00:36:34.080 — 00:38:02.550 · Speaker 2
Yeah, a couple things from Paul Goldschmidt. I think we used to read books together, you know, separately, but then talk about him. And one of the things he was so good at, and I think it's overlooked, is his ability to pick out what works for him and what doesn't work for him, because there's lots of different training tools, there's lots of different books, there's lots of different ways to approach things, and there's no one size fits all.

But he knew himself to the point where he would go. He could listen to somebody talk about hitting, and he wouldn't take the ten ideas that came out of that. He would go, oh, there's one, that one I can use, that one I can apply. And I it always came up when we were reading books because I would be I'm the guy that's highlighting everything, right?

And I'm trying to remember eldest five things to do this okay. There's three things to do this okay. And trying all that. Whereas he could read a book and take two things out of it I just know okay. This is I'm going to try this. Oh dad, I think I could try and see if it works. So you got me. Who's overwhelmed by the information?

I need that with players. A lot of times they get flooded with, especially now with all the numbers and launch angles and bat paths and all that stuff, you get overwhelmed. Whereas he was able to pick and choose, he knew what was valuable to him. Doesn't mean it was valuable to the guy in the locker next to him, but what worked for him.

And so I think that's a real skill that sometimes gets overlooked with players, is that ability to just know what works for you, be able to recognize those things that work for you, Try them and see if they actually do work for you.


00:38:03.830 — 00:38:05.830 · Speaker 1
That's so good. It just affirms


00:38:06.950 — 00:39:51.270 · Speaker 1
a lot of the stuff. I remember when I was doing more mental performance work full time in sports, and I would share this with guys all the time. And I would always say, hey, you got to cherry pick your way to excellence. You got to cherry pick your way there. And I would tell our front office, when we're thinking about who we're going to draft and whatever, I was like, I don't want the two coachable guy and I don't want the uncatchable guy.

Give me the guy in the middle that's self-aware, that is going to listen and learn and but then at the same time go, hey, there's ten things great. I'm going to take 1 or 2 things. And so it's neat to hear your story about Paul Goldschmidt. And I would agree, the best players that I've been around well as well do cherry pick their way to excellence.

They know who they are, they know what they're about and they're going to listen. They're going to be open minded, they're going to read, and then they're going to know, hey, I think I can take that one thing versus I'm going to take everything and try to play it. And I'll tell you, Steve, I was the two coachable person at times, right?

I was like, especially reading books. I'm like, I'm gonna do these ten things. And then I'm like, I did it for a day. And I was like, okay, maybe there's one thing that I can really actually execute on. With that being said, have you ever seen. Have you ever seen a guy, like, completely reinvent themselves?

I mean, in your role, you get to see guys come up as young rookies and then they get into the middle of their career. And and when I'm talking reinventing themselves, the reason why I'm asking this question is because I have a lot of conversations with leaders around in the business world around, like, can this person really change?

Like they're in their mid 30s, halfway through their career? They've had 15 years of experience in the corporate world. Like they see things a certain way. And so we're always trying to decide like, can this person change? Can they change their mindset? Like skill set? Sure you can adapt. You can learn new things.

I can learn AI, I can learn how it works in my role. But so that's really what I'm asking is like, have you ever seen a guy really reinvent themselves from a mindset perspective? More than like, oh, I learned a curveball.


00:39:51.270 — 00:41:32.500 · Speaker 2
I think the best of them grow as they mature into that kind of mindset. And, you know, Paul Goldsmith didn't come up and have all the answers right away. He grew into that and transformed a little bit. If I had to pick somebody right off the top of my head here, it seems like and I'm watching them from a distance now, not in the clubhouse with him because he's on a different team now.

But Luke Weaver seems like a guy who, when he was with the Diamondbacks, it seemed like he was in his head a lot, or he would would struggle in that starter's role and didn't really want to be a reliever. He wanted to be a starter. And now he's a high leverage pitcher on the biggest market he was last year for the Yankees.

He is now for the Mets. And you listened to him talk and he seems like he's a different guy, has different confidence and certainly pitches differently than he did when he was here. So that's a guy that kind of jumps out to me a little bit as somebody who might do that. I also think it's interesting is what you said about you are too coachable.

I've never heard a player who's done with their career, whatever amount of success that they've had, say, I should have done more reps in the batting cage, I should have thrown more bullpens, I should have worked on my curveball more. They all come back to. If I'd been able to make a mental adjustment, my career would have been different, and that's fascinating to me.

Nobody ever. Because everybody works hard for the most part. Some guys work harder than others, but you have coaches and you don't make it to the big leagues. If you're not going to put in the work or you don't stay in the big leagues, if you're not going to put in the work. But you never hear people talk about the physical.

Oh, if I just had different mechanics at the plate. No, they say if I only didn't take that bad at bat into the next at bat until the next at bat, or if I had accepted my bench role, I would have been able to stick a lot longer. Those kind of things. It's a fascinating it's a fascinating world for me.


00:41:32.540 — 00:41:35.740 · Speaker 1
It really is. You bring such a great point because it's


00:41:37.460 — 00:41:53.340 · Speaker 1
when we talk about mindset and the mental game. A lot of people say, well, it's 90% mental, 10% physical, whatever. It's 50ft, whatever. My point is, I'd always say like to play in the big leagues, you got to have about 90% talent. Like, I don't know. Like, yeah.


00:41:56.290 — 00:42:18.530 · Speaker 1
But when we talk about the last 10%. The last. Like if you got 90% of the ability to be there, now we're going to talk about that last 5 to 10% of what it takes to stay there. That, my friend, is 100% mental. You're 100% your ability to adapt and evolve and change and be able to make adjustments in real time and and have the self-awareness to know what you can take and what you can't apply, and all those types of things.

And so


00:42:19.570 — 00:42:34.050 · Speaker 1
you're right. When we do talk to guys about the adjustments they made in their career they wish they would have made. I can't think of one that it's physical, it's always mental, and it is a mindset shift. Um, and that's separator, right?


00:42:34.050 — 00:42:43.450 · Speaker 2
That's a hundred and percent is the separator for everybody like you. Like you said, you got the 90% talent. And then what that separator is that 10% for me.


00:42:43.570 — 00:43:56.440 · Speaker 1
Yeah. No, I I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you, man. Uh, so I know we're getting towards the end this. But I definitely want to bring up just you as a writer and not just what you do for sports, but you actually have a newsletter called Win Your Day. And in fact, that's how I first was introduced to you because I was working with the Giants.

And then somebody suggested, hey, have you seen this newsletter? This is pretty cool. I'm like, what is this? This is Steve Gilbert, who's Steve Gilbert, he's a sportswriter for the Diamondbacks. I'm like, he does it. He he does it like a self-improvement newsletter. Like that's interesting. So let me check this thing out.

I've been subscribed ever since. And so that was I don't I don't know, seven years ago. And so I want you to talk a little bit about that, but I want you to talk a little bit about how the lessons you've learned from the athletes you've covered so specifically around managing failure, because in baseball, I think it's a sport that demands you get really good at that or you just won't be in that sport.

And so I do when I think about athletes that do a really good job managing failure, I do think baseball players are some of the best because the sport beats it out of you. And so what have you learned about yourself and your relationship with failure that you have used in your experience and how that shows up in your Win Your Day newsletter?


00:43:57.280 — 00:46:29.030 · Speaker 2
I think one of the things that struck me early on in my career was when you're writing for newspapers and this is before the internet, there's a hard deadline. Like this is the time whether ten, 30, 11, whatever it is, this is the deadline. And so you might have an hour to write. You might have 30 minutes to write.

You might have two hours to write. You got to have the story done. And I always believe that took out the procrastination that took out the fear of being perfect. I don't have time for that. I don't have time to have a writer's block. I got to get this out. Now, is it going to always be the best? No, that's just the way it is.

And I had to learn that. And that was really hard because then you look at it the next morning as a young writer and you're like, I miss this, or I shoot, I should have focused more on this or what was I thinking, not writing about that. And that's great. If you've got two days, three days to write a story or you can sit overnight with it.

Yeah, great. You can come up with a lot of those things. But when you gotta have something up on the website now by 90 minutes after a game or 60 minutes after a game, and you've had to wait 30 minutes for the player to come out of the shower for the interview. Like, it's not going to be perfect. And so that's the biggest thing I get from some of our younger writers at MLB.com.

And they'll call me at times and they'll say, hey, I just feel like my story tonight wasn't very good. And I said maybe wasn't. But the great thing is tomorrow you get to do it all over again and it's not ever going to be perfect. You're not ever going to feel like, okay, I completely covered this topic the way it needed to be covered because you don't have the time.

You don't have the luxury of like, like a blogger will wait till the next morning and then reflect on everything and read everybody's coverage and then come up with his own thoughts and you're like, oh, I should have thought of that. He or she has all this time to do that. Whereas you are on deadline. And I watched once when I was in college, I watched a young writer who was in college as well, covering a state championship football game.

Absolutely freeze on deadline, and it was horrifying to watch. Like he just couldn't make the words come because he was trying to be perfect. And it doesn't work. It doesn't work in baseball. It doesn't work in writing. You can't be perfect if you're trying to be perfect. If you're worried about being perfect, you're not going to be able to deliver.

And so you just have to sometimes accept that, yeah, this isn't going to be my best effort. You give your best effort. This isn't going to be my best work, but it's the best I can do right now. And as players, sometimes you don't feel as good as you do on other days, and you just got to do the best you can with what you have on that day.


00:46:30.230 — 00:47:23.909 · Speaker 1
Such a good lesson. A couple things I just want to highlight one. Just thinking about it. It's how perfectionism pauses your progress and destroys your performance. Really does like and I think about the times where I've frozen up and haven't been able to do what I know I've trained myself to do, and it's because of that idea of like, how can I make this sound perfect?

How can I make this perfect? How can this performance be perfect? And then the second thing I think is such a sneaky, important thing that I think people forget that you've lived this life of deadlines and constraints. But sometimes in corporate for leaders, when they don't give a clear deadline, when they don't provide a clear constraint, performance suffers.

And it is a sneaky performance enhancer is a deadline. And pushing that deadline up that demands performance. That is a sneaky performance enhancement that I don't think leaders take enough advantage of. And so thank you for bringing that up. I want to get to one more before we get to our final question.

And


00:47:25.270 — 00:47:53.660 · Speaker 1
we've been talking about investigating excellence this whole time. But it's not just what you do as a journalist. It's you're doing this with yourself. You're investigating yourself. You're getting curious with what you can do and what you can do better. As you chase excellence in your own life and in your own career, what would you say have been some of the things that you've discovered Along the way that you would share with young professionals early on in their career.

In any arena, it doesn't have to be in journalism, but in any young professional, in any career.


00:47:54.540 — 00:47:57.140 · Speaker 4
I think you in order to stay.


00:47:57.340 — 00:49:24.420 · Speaker 2
Relevant, in order to continue to push yourself, evaluate yourself on a regular basis doesn't have to be. I don't mean daily that that can be a bit much. But at the end of every season, and I'm not saying this was the right thing for everybody, but for me, this works in October. If the Diamondbacks or whatever team I'm covering is not in the postseason, I'll try to get away for a few days just by myself where I can think and just review the season.

What did I do? Well, what didn't I do well? What could I do better? What could I have more fun doing? I think that's a question that doesn't get asked enough, because when we're having fun, our work tends to be better. Plus we're better teammates when we're having fun and we're more pleasant to be around. I don't ever go in a clubhouse.

When you asked about feeling like you belong, I always feel like the clubhouse is player space and I'm privileged to be in there. And so when I go in there, I have to have the right mindset. If I'm I don't go in there with a bad attitude now, it's not my responsibility. That's not my job. It's not to lift guys up.

But it is my mission in life to be try to be a positive influence on things. I'm not saying I'm perfect at that. I'm not saying I don't have my bad days. Not saying I don't drive people crazy at times, but what can I bring to a room? What can I bring to this situation that that is is fun? Or at least not be a negative, at least not be an energy vampire and walk around complaining and not being a good teammate, a good citizen, a good person to be, to be around.

So I don't know if that quite answers the question, but that's that's what jumps in mind.


00:49:24.820 — 00:50:11.770 · Speaker 1
I think that's great, man. I think it's spot on because it is about what you bring to the role. It's not about the role, it's about what you bring to the role and how you impact others around you while you do your job. Like that is such an important thing that people will probably call it a soft skill, but I think the softest skills are the hardest to master.

And so I just appreciate you bringing that up and reminding people just how important that is. And that brings us to our final question. Can't wait to see what you got for this one, but must know Show Dogs podcast. It's about one thing. It's about doing the work. It's about doing the work. It's like we don't care what it looks like.

It might look ugly sometimes, but you know what? We're going to get the job done. And so the question we always ask every guest is, what have been the things that you've been willing to do that you think maybe others haven't? That has allowed you to have the success that you've had in your career up to this point?


00:50:13.090 — 00:51:07.770 · Speaker 2
I think one of the things is being willing, and I was thankful to be able to do this because I could live at home with my parents, was take jobs that didn't necessarily reward me financially initially. Not everybody has that same ability to do that. But making $20 a game covering Phoenix Firebird games, that's not a lot of money.

Making $900 a month in Chicago with the White Sox. That wasn't a lot of that wasn't a lot of money to be in sports. There is a sacrifice financially. On this end of things like for the players, there's money. But but for the rest of us, it's a love of doing it. And one of the reasons they can get away with paying you less is because, as my one of my bosses said, this wasn't a great example of leadership.

By the way. Said if you don't like it, there's a line up around the block of people who would love to have your job. I think just being willing to do those things and realize that there would be a payoff down the road, not that might not be immediate, is something that's important to delayed gratification.


00:51:08.170 — 00:51:14.570 · Speaker 1
Yeah, that's really good, man. Steve, thank you so much for just one being the person that you are to.


00:51:16.770 — 00:51:52.080 · Speaker 1
For your Win Your Day newsletter that I encountered seven years ago, I think at this point. And so thank you for that because it's free and you do it just to bring joy in life and some insight into people's lives. So thank you for your commitment to do that daily, which is incredible. I keep waiting, I'm like, Is Steve ever going to run out of ideas?

So It's awesome man. Hey, if people want to sign up for that, I know this is not what it's about, but I know we've mentioned a couple of times and I'm sure and I'm just trying to save myself a few questions. Be honest with you is a little selfish, but. So where can people go to sign up for your newsletter when your day?


00:51:52.320 — 00:52:13.520 · Speaker 2
I don't have a website, but you can email me at win your day WINYORY at gmail.com. And like you said, it's Monday through Friday. It's free. There's no ads, there's no religion, no politics. I try to just give something a thought for the day that that maybe can give you something to think about or brighten up your day a little bit.


00:52:13.640 — 00:52:17.200 · Speaker 1
Yeah. They're awesome. Yeah. Steve and their short, which is it's like you can read and.


00:52:17.240 — 00:52:18.280 · Speaker 2
Support these days.


00:52:18.320 — 00:52:36.400 · Speaker 1
It is I can read it in less than 2 to 3 minutes and it's just enough to go. You know what? I like that. That's cool. And I can tell you I've used a few things here at request and also in other walks of life. And so I just appreciate you doing that. And again, thank you for carving out some time today. I know you got a ball game tonight.

And so I just appreciate you and your time and sharing your hard earned wisdom with us here at No Show Dogs.


00:52:36.680 — 00:52:42.080 · Speaker 2
This is great man, I love you. I love the podcast. I love getting to be part of it. It's exciting to be part of it. Honor. Really honored.


00:52:42.600 — 00:52:44.000 · Speaker 1
Thanks, Steve. Appreciate you man.


00:52:45.040 — 00:53:22.440 · Speaker 1
Hey, make sure to head on over to our No Show Dogs Instagram page to hear how Steve Gilbert responded to our three and out questions. You'll learn who's the most misunderstood star athlete that he's ever interviewed. One lesson from elite athletes that he thinks applies to business. And what is one uncomfortable truth about excellence?

And last, we just want to say thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for leaving ratings. And just thank you for helping us grow this podcast by sharing it with others. Look, it's so inspiring for us just to see so many of you making that investment in yourself and your own development so you can make those around you better.

Now go out and make it a great today.