Athletic Fortitude Show
Athletes all over the world endure countless mental physical and psychological adversities over the course of their careers. We are here to bring you the solutions to those adversities with some of the top professional athletes, coaches, and sport and performance psychologists around the world!
Athletic Fortitude Show
The Surprising Truth About Finding Your Path - Steven Brault
The podcast episode features a candid discussion with former MLB pitcher Steven Brault on stress management, focusing on the importance of routine, action, and open communication in navigating pressure. Brault shares personal anecdotes and practical strategies for reframing nerves as excitement and overcoming the tendency to catastrophize, emphasizing the significance of self-talk and adaptability in both sports and life.
• Discusses the role of routine in an athlete's life
• Explores the difference between routine and superstition
• Highlights action as a means to combat stress
• Examines the dangers of catastrophizing
• Introduces the concept of reframing nerves as excitement
• Considers the importance of open dialogue with teammates and coaches
• Encourages celebrating wins and maintaining perspective on losses
• Connects stress management techniques to everyday life
Welcome back to the show everybody. On today's episode we have former MLB pitcher and current broadcaster for the Pittsburgh Pirates, steven Brault, and this episode is brought to you by All Black Everything Performance Energy Drink, the official energy drink of the Athletic Fortitude Podcast, available in Walmart, meijer and select GNC franchise locations. And on today's episode, stephen Brault, talk to me about your process of dealing with stress.
Speaker 2:That's a good start. Just right into it, hard hitting. You know my process of dealing with stress comes in a lot of different forms. I think that if you there's something to be said for routine, I think that, especially in baseball, you learn that having a routine can be very helpful. I was a starting pitcher most of my life and the whole thing about being a starting pitcher is developing a consistent routine and sticking with it, because throughout the course of a baseball season you're going to have good starts, you're going to have bad starts, you're going to have days where you slept wrong, you're going to have days where you know something's just not right and you have to be able to figure out how you can get yourself to the best playing version of yourself that you can be that day, whatever that is. That's actually one of your former guests, clint Hurdle.
Speaker 2:Something I learned from him you know he has a lot of kind of sayings and some of them kind of bounce off, but for me, one that really wow, sorry for me, one that really stuck with me was you give 100% of whatever you have on that day. So say you only have 80% to give that day. As long as you give 100% of that 80%, then it's a success. And so for me that's kind of how I dealt with stress Try to process it internally and then to be able to express it to others, sometimes in any way that makes you feel better. But for me, dealing with stress always came down to kind of a blind confidence. I portrayed this a lot before that I'm overly confident and as I go forward and try new things and do new things, people think that because I'm able to do that, because I'm so confident in myself as a person confident in myself as a person but really when it comes down to it, it's just like the courage to say that I don't know if I am confident in this, but I'm still going to do it anyway. And that's something that's helped me, because I don't know sometimes that stress, like it, is internal, it's not necessarily real. It doesn't have to be given power If you can say you know what? I just I'm just going to pretend it's not there, I'm going to push forward, push through it instead of kind of dwelling on it and sitting in it.
Speaker 2:I've always found action to be the biggest fighter against stress. If something is stressing me out, you know, and I'm at home, I'm going to the gym or I'm going for a run, something like that, just doing something. Action has always helped me, so I think that's what it would be Like just finding what works for you. And what has worked for me has been sometimes just not giving it the light of day, sometimes just saying you know what I am stressed this is scary Having a kid just did you know for the first time, and, yeah, it's terrifying. But you know, when people ask me, well, you know, are you nervous, like yeah, but I'm excited, you know, and when something arises, we're going to figure it out. I truly believe that, and so you just kind of just don't necessarily have to sit in that and let it fester.
Speaker 1:With routines. How do you maintain a routine that's not too rigid, to the point where, if you don't do something certain, you may not be able to pitch that day? How do you keep it flexible and adaptable?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a difference between routine and superstition. Routine is what you actually need to do to make your body feel its best. Superstition is I ate Chipotle last start, so I have to eat Chipotle again today or it's not going to work. There's a big difference there. There has to be some leeway in routine and I think that's why it's so important to have one, Because, let's say, my routine for a start is a certain stretch pattern right the same stretches I always do.
Speaker 2:Well, one day maybe I'm going to have to focus on one of my hamstrings a little bit more. So I can't go through this routine and say, oh no, I can't lengthen this hamstring part because I'm going to have to take away from something else. You have to be able to read yourself and what you actually need to make micro adjustments in the routine and to be able to. You can still feel like it's that same routine, but you can customize it for whatever you actually need. If you are stuck and you need, need, need to do everything the exact same, that's superstition. That's not actually doing what you need to do. That's more of a mental crutch sometimes, instead of actually using it as something that's preparing yourself for whatever you're doing.
Speaker 1:Going back to the stress piece you talked a lot about. Action Is part of your action. Do you ever talk with teammates or coaches about it? Is it something that you just purely internalize?
Speaker 2:No, I mean you can talk about it. Whenever I was asked in interviews are you nervous or was that stressful? Yeah, I mean it was. It's not like I'm pretending that everything is okay all the time.
Speaker 2:Having conversations with people can be very helpful, but I think having those conversations needs to be in a productive way, something that, if I'm coming to you, I'm not just saying I'm stressed out, I'm saying this is why I'm stressed out and I'm coming to you because I think you can help me.
Speaker 2:You know, I think you can add something that maybe I haven't thought about. And I think it's the same way when you have a close-knit group of people, that you can bounce those ideas off of each other and you can feel that comfort and trust and talk to each other about that stuff. But when it so, when I talk about internalizing it, that for me is like if it's just something that I know has, like it's getting a power over me but it doesn't need to right, like it feels like it's a thought that crosses your mind and then, all of a sudden, that thought starts to grow and grow and grow and fester, and then it's big and then it closes in on you and so, in taking some kind of action to try to make yourself feel better or to move forward or just to do something, prepare in some way it can kind of open that box up a little bit. That's kind of how I imagine it. You just want to try to keep it where it deserves to be, which is not your main focus.
Speaker 1:It's that path of catastrophizing, when a thought starts in one place and then turns into something completely different, more dramatic, more drastic. One thing I've actually found that helps me when I start catastrophizing or when that initial thought pops up, is sometimes actually playing it out, playing it out the entire way through, just to realize it's ridiculousness, right. That thought process of, like you know, for this interview, if I come into this interview and I do, bad, stephen's going to think I'm an idiot. If he thinks I'm an idiot, all my guests are going to think I'm an idiot. Right, and you play it down and at the end of the day, it's just your own mind creating fear where it doesn't need to exist.
Speaker 1:You know the amount of people I've interviewed. You know the number of different athletes I've talked to are like I'm prepared. I know this moment. Same thing when I played as an athlete right Now, granted, I didn't know how to handle it properly when I was an athlete, and one of the things that I think helps the most when you feel the sense of nerves before you get to the thoughts and catastrophizing is nerves and excitement present themselves in the same way, right, you get the same physiological feeling. The reality is that initial nerves and stress is just priming your body for competition and so being able to just say I'm excited, like, yes, you can acknowledge that there's like some type of nerve or stress system there, but the reality is it's just allowing your body to get into a heightened sense of focus and that increase of adrenaline you can either use to your advantage or it'll be used against you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I would. So two things on that. First of all, I love that One of the when I was with the pirates, one of the big things that we had in the minor leagues we did a lot of mental coaching and stuff like that, and one of the things that really took to heart was this conversation. We had a, we had a whole meeting talking about all of the symptoms you get when you're nervous. You know you get sweats and your hands start to shake and all that stuff. And you, you know it's all.
Speaker 2:It's like you said, like these are all explainable things that are happening to your body because your body is getting ready to perform an action that you are, your body knows it's going to have to get built up for, and so that's, you know that's dilating your blood vessels. That's why your hands shake, that's why you get a little bit warmer, that's why you sweat, your stomach shuts down, because your body doesn't want to work on digesting anything anymore, and that's why you got to poop, you got to pee, you got to throw up, whatever it is. That's because your body's literally like I'm not doing this anymore. I'm getting all my blood to my muscle organs that I'm going to be using to perform this task and it's so interesting. That really helped me kind of deal with those nerves, because before every start you know it's every time just shaking, you know just it's natural. And so to be able to kind of harness that, like you said, and realize this is my body helping me out, you know, this is not, this is not a bad thing, you just kind of kind of slow your mind down because it's also accelerated, because your body's getting ready to do this. So it's very important, I think, to make sure that people understand that it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing I was going to say you were talking about catastrophizing. Oh yeah, I do a little exercise and I think this is pretty fun and I actually saw it in the movie recently, or a show or something, I don't know. But just literally think what is the very, very worst outcome that could possibly happen in this situation. And then once you find out what that is and you can kind of realize that that's the worst that can happen and that's not going to happen, you know. But if it does, that's it, and you already prepared yourself for it. And I had to do that with starts sometimes, because it was like man, I'm pitching against the Cubs in Wrigley Field and they crush me and this is I'm just going to get so much crap from everywhere and the internet's going to hate me and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And then it's like yeah, but I still got to pitch in the major leagues today. So you know like you can kind of find the positive still even in the very very worst situation.
Speaker 1:I think that exact thing. One thing I've learned from it too is typically in most case scenarios, right Like there's nuance to this, but if the worst does happen, then you're in the exact same spot that you're in today anyway. So even if the exact worst happens, you're still in the same place and you're still okay. It's not going to be as bad as you think.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, that's same as like asking a girl out. You know what's the worst that could happen. I get embarrassed. She says, no, I look like an idiot. Oh well, like life goes on, man, that's, that's what you do no-transcript.
Speaker 1:The funny thing you bring up Clint Hurdle with that because I had that exact conversation with the athletes I work with right now about hey, we're not 100% all the time, we're actually never really 100%. So it's whatever your best is that day, just bring your best that day and fully commit to whatever it is. I was working with a football team and I was crushed with the flu and I was like guys, listen, I'm like maybe 40% of what my normal 100% is. I was like but I promise you guys are going to get my full 40%. So it's just being able to understand that and understand our performance isn't always going to be the best ever. The best ever only happens once and it's recognizing. Hey, let me just raise my average.
Speaker 2:The baseball thing version of this is as a starting pitcher let's say you get 30 starts in the season I was always told you're going to get five starts where you're at your best and you are going to dominate that day, and it doesn't matter who's against you, that's just going to happen. Those are the days. That's why you're a major leaguer. Right Is because you get five days where you are one of the best pitchers in the world, even though the rest of your starts you're not. Then you're going to have five starts where you're going to be terrible and it doesn't matter. Your body's not going to work, something's going to be out of whack or it's just going to be a bad luck day. The other team's going to see the ball. Well, you're going to get a bunch of runs.
Speaker 2:The difference maker is what you do with those other 20 starts, that where you're somewhere in the middle. How do you get yourself to the highest end of that middle every single time when you're in one of those middle games and I think that kind of plays in the same idea You're going to have bad days, you're going to have really good days, but most of the days are going to be somewhere right there in the middle. And how do you make the best of that middle? I think is important for baseball, but also important for life, because most days are not going to be a day you're going to remember for the rest of your life. Most days are going to be another day where you try to progress in some way towards something, to get somewhere. And how do you deal with those middle days, which are most of them? And I think that's an important thing to think about.
Speaker 1:The days where you were at your absolute best. Is there anything that you can point to that helped you get to that, or was it randomness of the day?
Speaker 2:See, that's where I think this comes in. I don't think there's anything I could have done to recreate that. The great days. I do think that there are parts of the great days that you can take to try to make your middle days better. Um, you know whether it be? Oh, I did this today and it actually felt really good. So maybe I'll try that on a day when I'm not feeling as well as I am today, something like that. But I think there is some randomness to it. I really do Think about it. You wake up in the morning and sometimes you're just in a bad mood. We literally have a phrase for it Woke up on the wrong side of the bed. It just happens, and so how do you deal with that?
Speaker 1:I think how do you deal with that? I think how do you bring yourself out of that hole is important. I love the saying if I can have a bad day for no reason, I can have a good day for no reason. I can't remember if that was Clint Hurdle again, but I know I learned it from someone. I learned it from someone.
Speaker 1:But, in general, right that process. Right, like some days you do just wake up and you're like I hate the world today. Yeah, you do just wake up and you're like I hate the world today. And to try, and you know, raise that middle or raise that average, I was trying to flip a wall. I can have a good day for no reason too, and so just looking for things that you know either make me make me feel good or things that give me energy, um, that's how, in a smaller way, day to day, you know, I try and enhance that, that average and just my general, uh, general mood there. What was your mentality like each day? Are you a fired up guy? Are you a calm guy? Well, how did you approach, you know, approach day to day in the majors?
Speaker 2:Uh, I was a calm guy. I believe that you know I'm a very fierce competitor, so you know I've been like that my whole life play, pick a basketball games and we're we're gonna get, we're gonna get an argument. You know, like it's just, this is what happens. But I tried to harness that to use that solely on, like during competitive. You know atmosphere, because I think if you let it bleed into always being hyped up, you're going to burn out and you're going to make people hate you. Honestly, you don't want people to hate you. You want to make friends. It's always nice. So I think that the best of the best are always so chill and then 30 minutes before their game, whatever they're like, nobody talked to me. I'm turning it on now. This is me focusing, getting into this, getting ready for it. So there is a middle ground there For me.
Speaker 2:I always knew if I was not doing well you know, bases loaded one out and I've already given up two runs, and my pitching coach comes out to talk to me. I don't need you to hype me up, I don't need you to try to make me angry or more intense, because I'm on the mound seething right now and saying the worst possible things to myself because I'm so intense and I want to be great, um, and so I always needed the opposite. I needed somebody to come talk me, like calm me down, distract me. Hey, you see that kid in the third row like has a whole hamburger on his face because he doesn't know how to eat something like that, right, so something that just takes you out of it.
Speaker 2:That helped me. And I think you have to find what you are, where you are in that balance, and then only then can you figure out what you need when things are going wrong. And so, for me, I knew I got too hyped up, I got too intense and I needed somebody to calm me down. So, yeah, I mean, I guess that's it.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, I mean that's that's. Um, I guess that's it. What did you do with the voice in your head when you're in those seething moments when you don't have the pitching coach or they've already used the mound visit and you need to get a pitch, and you just have that voice of doubt creeping in your head telling you how tired you are, telling you, for example, the Cubs, they light you up. How did you deal with that voice in the middle of the game?
Speaker 2:So my voice was, I like to say, if you heard what I was saying to myself, you would think that I was insane, but also that I hated myself. But that's not what it was. I mean sorry, can I cuss on this podcast?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can, okay. So for me it'd be something like I would be on the mound after giving up a double or whatever and I'd be like you fucking idiot dude, like that is a terrible fucking pitch. How could you put it there? You're better than that. You know what I mean. So I'd be really angry.
Speaker 2:But it's because of my confidence in myself that I knew that I was better than that, and whether I took a pitch off, I didn't try or I tried to be too perfect instead of just executing whatever it was. I was very angry at myself for it, but because I knew that I could do better, and so in my head it's still a positive way of self-talk. It's just it sounds really angry, that's you know, and I think a lot of baseball players do that, because you get really mad. But instead of pitying, you know, oh, pity me. I'm terrible. This guy hit the ball off me. I'm so sad and I'm so tired. It's like you need to get your ass off the ground and figure it out, because you're better than this, and so that kind of you know intensity, I think, can make people think it's negative, but it's not. It's a positive, but angry, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:You have to know yourself too, and there's a lot of nuance to this, and so I love getting different perspectives. I'll give just a silly example. So inside my like office studio here, it opens up into a gym and some days when I'm just like working a lot or doing a lot of podcasting, I'll have to get up and go like do something in the gym. And some of the trainers were out there with some of their athletes and there was like a cone sitting on. Whatever you do, box jumps on right, a box, a box, yeah. And there's always a tennis ball that I like to play wall ball with and the challenge was hey, hit the cone off like the box. It wasn't like a highly elevated cone, it was like a really like small flat one. You kind of had to like throw it, perfect.
Speaker 1:And it was a Friday like evening and I was like getting ready to go and I was like all right, I'll do it and, like you know, tried like to breathe in, keep myself calm and just focus, and I missed for 45 minutes straight and I'm like really competitive and so finally got to the point where he could see I was getting mad and he's like I love what like seeing the competitive side of you and I was like he could see I was getting mad and he's like I love what, like seeing the competitive side of you, and I was like, no, I just need to stop being a fucking bitch and hit this thing Next one.
Speaker 1:I hit it and so I just like no one went to like bring that side, because I used to be that version, that ladder version, all the time and I did get that burnout Right and I learned, of course, after my playing days, um, how to like bring that like calming sense and like being able to like stay focused and energized without, you know, being furious all the time. Um, but now, knowing when it's time to pull that out, to get that little, that little extra from me. And I, you know I always find this battle with, like, what's scientifically proven versus what works for me. I always tend to go with, hey, what works for me.
Speaker 2:I always tend to go with hey, what works for me? Yeah, I agree, I think. So. This kind of would bleed into my next point about being generally well-rounded. But I think it's important to read about these kinds of things, to learn options that you can try for yourself, that you're never going to know if something works for you if you don't try it. So I think it is important to see what else, what is out there, what has been researched, what has worked for other people, and see if it works for you. But then you have to have the strength and willpower to, if it doesn't go, try to find something else. You don't have to force something on yourself if it doesn't work for you and there are other options. There are people who do things differently, who it works for them that way, and I think that it's important to make sure that you don't sink yourself into something unless you know it really works for you. So I mean, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:And I also think the other part of the in order for the it sounds negative, but you know, like you, getting angry at yourself and then hitting that cone with the tennis ball is the other side of that where I don't think people give themselves enough credit. A lot of times, especially personally, like I get, you should be your harshest critic, but I think you should also be your own biggest fan and I think that you know, like if I struck out the side, you bet your ass. I'm walking off the mound thinking to myself like, yeah, I'm good, I'm nasty, that was good. Like that's where I am, that's who I am, that's where I'm at my best, you know.
Speaker 2:And being able to have both sides of that I think is important, because if you're always angry and you never take a step back to real, to when you do something well and say that was really good, then you're never going to be, you know, you're never going to be able to replicate it because you aren't, you aren't storing it in your brain. You're saying, oh, I need to be better. Oh, I struck out the side, I need to be better than that. Well, you literally can't be better than that. So how do you recreate that? It's not trying harder, it's remembering that feeling and using that feeling and kind of you know, feeling yourself a little bit man, brush your shoulders off, like that was really good. I should be proud of myself for that. I think that's important.
Speaker 1:A lot of the identity work I do with athletes on creating an identity outside of sport. That exact thing comes into play all the time, because oftentimes we have things that we want to be and we don't always live up to that standard. Well, when we do live up to that standard, we should celebrate it. It's meant to be a good thing, it's meant to be empowering and further creating the person that you want to be. So when you do hit those things, celebrate it, make it more attractive to get to the next time, and I think the negativity bias that we naturally have as humans takes over too much.
Speaker 1:It's like if you had 10 people come and tell you you had a really good start and then one person told you how much you sucked. The one that you know who told you how much you sucked is probably going to sting the most. And you know trying to. You know, the ability to reframe and reorder our body into I hate using the word positive, but into, like a positive, you know facilitator of our emotions and thoughts is really difficult. So I love that you said that, because it is so true and you need to be your biggest supporter, biggest fan, because you are with yourself all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that that's something you can bring into your daily life to try to get the best out of others too, or to help other people. One of my main goals in conversations, especially when I talk to people, are where I want to be in their careers or whatever it is. I always ask them questions about what was a time when they thought they were at their best or a time when they you know whatever to give them a chance to like kind of brag about themselves a little bit. I want to know how it felt that day that you did the best thing you did and I want to know how and I please like brag about yourself, tell me how awesome it was and how great you did, and it makes them feel better and it makes you kind of get to be able to take that positivity and use it for yourself, and I do think that's important, yeah.
Speaker 1:It just creates. It's the confidence cycle. It just creates confidence when you're able to focus on the things you actually do well. It just proves that to yourself and increases your own self-belief. What was the difference between you and maybe players who were more talented than you that didn't make it as far as you.
Speaker 2:Well, this is a many-pronged question. I think I'll start with this I was never the best player on my team in my entire life, except maybe one year in my junior year of college where I just tore it up as a hitter and a pitcher. But I was always like the second or third best player on every team I played on and it was always that kind of drive. I think, that I just kind of kept getting better. I was a bit of a late bloomer as well, and that probably played a part in it. I went to small Division II school because I wasn't good enough to go Division I out of high school. So there's, I think, a lot that goes into it. Also it can't be overstated I know I had really good people in my corner, which is helpful. I have an incredibly supportive family. My parents are amazing. My wife is great. There is a lot that goes into this. That is because of the people who surrounded me. They kept me humble but also kept me working hard, and my brothers I mean I'm just very lucky in that regard hard. And my brothers I mean I'm just very lucky in that regard. But I think surrounding yourself with good people who support you is very, very important, because it doesn't matter what you think you're doing, it's really really hard to do anything alone like actually alone and so I do think the parts where you have to be alone, you're more prepared for if you have a support system around you that you've used before. That's helped you get out of tough spots. So that's part of it, I would say.
Speaker 2:The other part is that I was genuinely very passionate about baseball. I love baseball. I still do. I will always. I grew up loving the game and I worked hard at it, but I didn't let it take over my life and, as life kept going on, I just kept working hard and, honestly, I got lucky.
Speaker 2:Sometimes there were a bunch of injuries. That's the only reason I made my debut in 2016, because there were like eight injuries to the Pirates starting pitching staff. So I mean there's a blend of opportunity and a little bit of luck and a little bit of the fact that I was a left-handed pitcher. That's part of it too. You know there's a lot of things that go into it, but look, everybody is, when you get to that level, is very talented. So it's the little differences you can make to try to separate yourself, and part of that, I think, is a mentality thing how consistent can you be? Because you're going to suck in baseball sometimes. That's just true, and so when you do, how do you make sure it doesn't happen again the next time? I think is important and I think that can be a big separator.
Speaker 2:How'd you create some of that consistency. Well, I'll tell you this when I was a kid, I learned pretty early that baseball is really hard and I fell in love with how hard it was. Hitting is so difficult. Anytime, I gave up a hit when I was pitching I was you know, I'm the worst pitcher ever and a big part of that was learning how to fail. I gave up a hit when I was pitching I was you know, I'm the worst pitcher ever and, and there, a big part of that was learning how to fail.
Speaker 2:And you, when you start playing baseball, I look I'm a little bit old fashioned when it comes to the, you know, like giving trophies to everybody and all that stuff. I don't necessarily believe in all of that. I do think that people should be celebrated for effort and trying, but I do think that there is something to be said for being allowed to fail and learning from that from an early age. And baseball, no matter what, you're going to fail, because if you're a hitter and you hit 700 in a tournament because you're playing against people that are way worse than you, well you're only going to be thinking about the at-bats that you didn't get the hits because you think you should have. And then if you're playing against people who are better than you and you actually really fail, then you have to be able to say I'm okay with that. I'm okay with the fact that I failed, this is why I failed, and next time I got to be better.
Speaker 2:And dealing with failure is important in so many parts of life, because you're going to get rejected from job opportunities. You're going to see somebody else get a promotion you want. You know there's going to be things that happen that mean that you failed in whatever goal that you were currently trying to achieve. Now the question is how do you, how do you spin away from that and kind of find what you can do next? And I think baseball teaches you that really well. This is why I love baseball. It teaches you early. Sometimes you're just going to suck, so how do you make that not happen?
Speaker 1:How did you learn to make that not happen? Because I think of myself right my own journey not happen. How did you learn to make that not happen? Because I think of myself right In my own journey? I was one of those guys who was really talented in a lot of different sports. Up until college, I was probably always the best player on my team in the things that I did. Even in college there were periods where I was the best player, but I became so outcome-oriented that it really affected me when not only just when I would fail, but when I would just challenge myself. It became harder to challenge myself because I began to see that failure as part of my identity. So how did you separate outcome from identity?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that it's the same thing for me as taking a test or doing a music performance, whatever it is. If you're prepared and if you work hard in getting there, then when the actual event comes to pass, the outcome doesn't matter as much, because you know that you've done everything you can to get yourself to that event. I think that the main thing that comes from failure that people, I think associate with failure is regret, but that's not from the failure, that's from the failure to prepare beforehand. You regret that you didn't do enough to actually be ready for this, but if you know you did and you still fail, I do think that takes away some of that sting and kind of being able to separate that. That's something you have to work on. That's just the truth. It's just like anything else. You have to practice it. You have to try. When you realize something doesn't go your way, you can't just blame it on something else. You got to. You got to find out what actually went wrong Is was there anything you could do better? And then, if there, and if you couldn't, then that's that can be a satisfying feeling. Okay, then maybe I just need to pivot, maybe I need to do something else you know and and that's I stopped playing basketball my sophomore year of high school because I was like, let's be honest, I'm not getting anywhere with this.
Speaker 2:It's fun, but I'm just going to do it as a fun thing. I do with my friends. Same thing with football. I'm not. I wasn't going to get anywhere in football. I enjoyed it, but I stopped playing after my sophomore year, like all I'm going to do is get hurt. I'm not going to go to college and play softball or football. I'm just not good enough.
Speaker 2:And I think people can kind of take that as like a as a bad thing. Being realistic with yourself and I don't think that is. This is the whole point of finding something you're passionate about. I think that you have to. You have to find something that you have a little bit of talent for, that you want to work hard for. That's where you find the passion to be great at something, and it's okay to try something and for it not to work out and then to say that's not what I want to spend all of my time working on, working towards. I want to focus on something else. So I think that's part of it is being able to compartmentalize the loss, with the regret, all those feelings, and say and kind of break it down, why am I feeling this way?
Speaker 1:And then you can make decisions and go forward of preparation to getting to competition, and I talk about affirmations a lot. I think affirmations can be beneficial, but an affirmation isn't going to change the fact of whether or not you prepared. So it doesn't matter what you say, you can't trick your body into thinking it's prepared for something that it's not. And so the preparation piece you inherently know when you get there, particularly at your level, you can't fake it and there's no amount of faking it that's going to overcompensate for that preparation piece.
Speaker 1:One thing in general that I've really learned, that is something I incorporate every single day now into my routine, is storytelling. And so when there's a big failure or a small failure or an injury or something happens, being able to learn how to write it into my own story as a chapter and to make it serve a greater purpose. And sometimes hey, listen, you just lose and it sucks. I've talked to people where it's like you lose game seven of the NBA finals, I'm not going to be on this team next year. It's like this sucks Because you lose bomber dude, it sucks, heartbreaking. And so nothing's ever going to take away that pain and sting. When you're a competitive athlete, particularly again at your level, the fierceness of it you can never get rid of the full feeling level, like the fierceness of it, like you can never get rid of the full feeling. But what you can is learn how to get in and out faster and in and out in a more efficient and proper way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1:What was the difference in mentalities and approaches between being a bullpen and a starter and having to balance that, you know, throughout an entire season going back and forth starter and having to balance that, you know, throughout an entire season going back and forth.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think my main issue is that when I first became a reliever the first time I ever did it was in the major leagues I was a starter my whole life, and so I think that my main issue was that I made them two different. Everybody told me there's you know, when you become a reliever from a starter, that now you can go like 100% every pitch. And you know, when you become a reliever from a starter, that now you can go like a hundred percent every pitch. And you know, and you have to depend on your nasty stuff.
Speaker 2:So when I was in the bullpen like I'd never threw my change up because it wasn't a pitch that I like ripped you know I I ripped my fastball and I ripped my slider, but my change up that's kind of more of a field pitch, and so I would just kind of like not want to throw it because it didn't feel as aggressive to me. And so eventually I found out that for me I was much better when I didn't treat them as differently as I initially did. But I do think it's different for everybody, because I think some people get changed to a bullpen and they genuinely really like that. Oh, now I can just go and not think about going six innings or whatever. Um, but I but that, that one. That's for me a little wishy-washy. I don't think there's a definitive answer there.
Speaker 1:Tell me about, um, some of your call-up stories when you had to go from being in the minors to the majors.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, most of them are pretty anticlimactic. My major debut was great. I got to call my family and they were having a family party at the time, so I actually got to tell everybody all at the same time, which was fun and nice.
Speaker 2:But I have one very specific story that is kind of indicative of what a lot of people don't really realize. When people think of Major League Baseball players, they think everybody is Mike Trout, bryce, harper, whatever Guys on these huge mega million dollar deals and everybody's super rich and whatever. But that's not how it is for like 90% of major leaguers. Most guys are just trying to survive. You're trying to stay there as long as you can. The truth is, when you get to that level, there's just unless you're, you know, the Mike Trouts or whatever like there's just a bunch of people that are better than you because they're the best baseball players in the world, and so you get to count yourself amongst them for as long as you're up there. But the truth is like when I faced Chris Bryant when he was at his prime, like he was better than me and he hit lefties really well, so like I had to be perfect for it to go well and he just had to be pretty good, and he was always pretty good. So, okay, anyway.
Speaker 2:So I was in Syracuse, new York. I got called up. They called in the morning about 10 am, like, hey, we're going to have you come up fill the bullpen tonight, because we need an extra arm down there just in case something goes wrong. So, all right, awesome, sounds good. I got to go to the airport in Syracuse and fly down to Pittsburgh Very short flight. So I go to the airport and all the flights are canceled. Okay, so turns out that all the flights out of Syracuse have to fly through Newark, no matter where they're going, and Newark was completely closed for some weather or something. So there were no flights.
Speaker 2:So now the pirates call and say, hey, uh, nevermind, we're going to get you a car. Um, it's about a six hour drive and you know, at this point it was like noon, the game is at seven. So, like you know, we'll have a driver pick you up at the airport and we'll get to you there like an hour before game time. Okay, so I wait like 30 minutes. Nobody shows up, and so then I call again. Turns out there's no drivers available. So then they literally say, um, so you know, uh, I guess we'll, we'll, maybe we'll call you up tomorrow when you know. And I'm like, uh, I don't trust that you're going to call me up tomorrow, I'm going to go today.
Speaker 2:So I rented a car at about one o'clock-ish and drove the six hours from Syracuse to Pittsburgh. So I got to Pittsburgh, the game was starting. It was like 7.05, first 7.05 game, and I pulled up in my rental car in front of PNC Park, just right in front of the front gates. I just parked the car, I left the keys in it, just right in front of the front gates. I just parked the car, I left the keys in it and I took my bag and I walked in the front gate and then walked down to the clubhouse. I got changed. Like I said, the game was already going on at this point and we were playing against the Dodgers and my buddy he's one of my best friends now, his name is Trevor Williams Was starting that game. He pitches with the Nationals now. Friends. Now, his name is Trevor Williams, he was starting that game, he pitches with the Nationals now.
Speaker 2:And so I go down to the. I have a clubby after. I'm still like putting my uniform on, buttoning up everything and a clubby is driving me around the outside of the stadium, back where the bullpens which are behind the outfield. So I finally get there. I walk into the bullpen as the phone is ringing and the bullpen coach picks up the phone and he looks at me and he goes, yeah. And he hangs up the phone and he goes, brault, get hot. And I look and there's already been four runs scored and there's only one out and Trevor's already thrown like 40 pitches or something like that. And so, like it's like, get hot, you know.
Speaker 2:And I just driven for six hours and got there and just changed. So I just do whatever little stretches I can do. I start throwing the ball three batters later, bro, you're in the game. So I, I, whatever. I was like all right, here we go. I went in, I got out of the inning, I ended up throwing four and two thirds against the Dodgers that day and only gave up one run.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it was like a really good outing. I was super pumped. After the game I got called into the office and they said, hey, thank you so much for saving our bullpen today, but we're going to need innings for tomorrow, so we got to send you down. So I got sent down that same day as I drove myself six hours and went four and two thirds against the Dodgers coming out of a six hour drive. It was tough man. It was tough to deal with, it was very frustrating. I was angry, but that's what, like that's kind of the that was. That's what it's a light life is like for a lot of guys right there on the cusp man, it's just it was, but it was cool. It's a fun story.
Speaker 1:That is ridiculous. Yeah, you know it's funny because it relates similar to, like football practice squad. So I know people who cause you can pick people up off of other practice squads. If I'm the Steelers, I can go sign whoever, Billy Joe, off of the Ravens practice squad. And so I know people who have gotten called to get signed to a different practice squad and on they land from the flight and they're like hey, sorry, we're cutting you. We were able to get so-and and bring you in.
Speaker 1:So you know exactly, like you said, people see the stars or the guys who are there all the time, but what they don't see is exactly stories like that, where it's like, if you really are about this, like you have to be willing to go through the ups and downs and everything involved to stay there. You talk a lot about passion and obviously you were passionate about baseball. I guess how do you find if you actually have that passion and commitment level?
Speaker 2:Well, this is my spiel to children everywhere. Whenever I do anything with kids, I try to make sure that people understand that it's okay to not pigeonhole yourself, especially early in life, to only doing one thing. There's, of course, a lot to be said for focusing on one thing and putting all your eggs in one basket and all that stuff, and great if it works out for you. But there are a lot of kids across the country doing only baseball all the time their entire childhood, and their parents are paying crazy amounts of money and they're never going to make it. That's just the sad truth. There's just not that many spots, and I can see why you would do it, especially now with a lot of. That's how a lot of people are working now. Is you join a travel ball team when you're seven and you play year round your entire life, got kids doing velocity programs when they're 12. It's just I mean it's crazy to me, but whatever. But I think that it's more important to be able to become a more well-rounded. So, if we're talking about sports, become a more well-rounded athlete in general, to learn how to use your body in athletic motions, and the best way to do that is by doing a lot of different athletics playing football and basketball and soccer and baseball because they're all different movements that all use the same kinetic chain. Anytime you're generating power, you are using the same kinetic chain, whether you're throwing a ball or you're delivering a tackle in football or you are, you know, hitting the lane in basketball, like there's always whenever you are using your kinetic chain, it's always from the bottom up. And anytime that you can work on that in different ways, we'll just get your body more used to being able to improvise, and I think that's really important. And so, when it comes to sports, I think you should play a bunch of sports, but I also think you should extend your mind and you should be trying arts and music.
Speaker 2:And if you want to try painting, I took a painting class in college. I was not very good but I really enjoyed it. I've been drawing my entire life. I like to draw. I can play a little bit of piano. Obviously, I was a music major in college, so I sang. But I only found that out because when I was in sixth grade there was a, there was a flyer for community theater and I was like I mean, I did the school plays in elementary school, like maybe it'll be fun. So I went and auditioned and I was terrible and they were nice enough to let me be in the show and then I found out that I loved it and I continued to do that for the rest of my life. You know, and I never would have found that if I hadn't have been okay with the fact that I might just get turned down at this audition because maybe I'll be horrible and then, and then that's okay, I'll go do something else, but might as well try it, and and I think that's, I think that's how you find something you're passionate for.
Speaker 2:If you, let's say, let's say your, your dad played baseball, okay, so when you're growing up, your dad is teaching you baseball and that's all you do is baseball, um, then you're gonna either you're gonna be obsessed with it and it's going to work out and congratulations, you're the next Bryce Harper, or what's most likely going to happen is you're going to hate it Eventually. You're just going to hate it, and I think you have to kind of diversify yourself, for your brain even more so than your body, just to let yourself kind of get out of baseball for a little bit or whatever sport it is, and my dad was great with that. My dad loves baseball. It's his favorite sport. We're going to go watch a baseball game the night together. But that didn't mean that he was forcing it upon me 24 hours a day. It was like, oh, I'm playing football. Well, now he is learning how to be a quarterback coach, cause I want to play quarterback, you know, like stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Um, and so you have to be able to diversify yourself, because if you pigeonhole yourself early and you don't love what you're doing, you're never going to love it. It's not going to grow. There's. It can grow if you start with some kind of love for it.
Speaker 2:But I always say there's a very simple equation here for passion finding something that can really hit that passion high note, you know. And it is find something that you have a natural innate talent for. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be the best ever. And it's just like you know, the first time you toss a shuffleboard thing and you realize, oh, I actually I kind of feel how I'm supposed to control that and it's not just going off, flying off the end of the table.
Speaker 2:And then if you find that you have an innate talent and you also enjoy it. Now you have the talent to have a base, but you also have loving it. That will make it so that all the work that you're going to have to put in to be great at it you'll enjoy, and I think that that's the only way you can find something that you're really passionate for. Because, just to be honest, if you're just not any good at it like you're just not going to be any good at it, so I'm sorry, that's the truth. I can't do everything. I can't ice skate. If anybody was like you got to ice skate. Save your parents' lives that's unfortunate, my poor parents, because I've tried ice skating so many times and I'm horrific at it. Okay, so like just realizing that it's okay to not be great at everything, you don't have to hate yourself for not being good at something that you think you're supposed to be good at. You're never going to find what you are good at if you don't try other things.
Speaker 1:Something I talk about with higher up levels you're talking about guys who have that talent and have the ability to go pro is at birth. Particularly with football, you are twice as more likely to be a billionaire than you are to be an NFL athlete. You are almost six times more likely to be a billionaire than an NBA player. I forget the numbers for baseball, but it's along the lines of twice as likely to be a billionaire than an NBA player. I forget the numbers for baseball, but it's along the lines of twice as likely to be a billionaire than an MLB player. I have that same conversation with parents. It's like if I said to you, is your kid more likely to be a billionaire or an MLB player? They're all like oh, mlb player, but it's just factually not true. And so when I talk about that with parents, it's I'm not trying to shoot down any goals. I think 10 X goals you know, professional athlete goals are phenomenal, it's like. But that pressure can't be simulated on your 12 year old kid.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And it's. I'm not saying you know little with little Joey here isn't going to go to the MLB, but when you make something a singular focus, there's a lot of science that supports when you have one singular focus in your life and in your identity, the pressure amounts that is going to make you absolutely crumble, whether it's real pressure or internal pressure. That pressure is going to feel so you know insurmountable that it's going to suffocate you and go ahead. You're about to say something.
Speaker 2:No, I mean you're, you're so right. It can be really hard to understand. People think that giving up is always giving up, like it's always negative. But it's not. Here's a good one.
Speaker 2:I found a piece of paper from when I was like five and I said what do you want to be when you grow up? And I wrote I want to be a major league baseball player and a food tester. Well, I'm not a food tester, but I did become a major league baseball player. But when I was in high school I never got scouted ever. And people I was on Joe Musgrove, who's with the Padres on a $100 million deal. He was on my team in high school. He's a great dude, I love Joe, but the scouts were there to see him and not me. They didn't care about me.
Speaker 2:And so when I decided to go to play Division II baseball, so that I went there specifically so that at Regis University, so that I could also do my music major, because other schools would not allow me to do both because the time constraints overlap a lot so I went to Regis and I had basically accepted I was not going to play professional baseball. This is a small division two school in Colorado and I've been playing baseball my whole life. But I had this other thing, this music passion that I had. That at the time seemed much more reasonable for me to be able to make it Right. And so I was like I get to play competitive baseball for four more years. I'm going to a school that I know is actually going to let me play, so I'm not going to be sitting on the bench bored out of my mind and I'll get to do the music and then, once the years are over, I'll move into music.
Speaker 2:But that didn't mean that I wasn't working my ass off in baseball. I still had committed to giving everything I had to that baseball team, and so I still did, even though I had given up on the dream of being a major leaguer. Well, I took that pressure off myself and guess what happened? It ended up coming back right my junior year I never got scouted. Freshman sophomore year. It up coming back right my junior year I never got scouted.
Speaker 2:Freshman sophomore year. Junior year, new pitching coach. We redid my mechanics. I grew a little bit, put on a little weight, started throwing 90 miles an hour and all of a sudden that dream became a reality because a scout came up to me and said hey, here's a scouting profile. I didn't reach out to anybody, I didn't send out any videos, I didn't do anything like that.
Speaker 2:It was, you know I had given up on that dream, but that doesn't mean I had given up on the commitment that I had made to putting in a hundred percent of my effort when I was playing baseball. And so guess what? Then it worked out. It's still. It ended up working out for me and it doesn't work out that way for everybody, but I'm what I'm trying to say is giving up, giving up but still giving your all in whatever you're doing is is not giving up. It's not the same thing. It's not a negative thing. It can actually be helpful, if you know, but it's, it's all in situation, but it's just like I don't know. Man, you can make a commitment, you do it, and giving up is not always giving up, as in, you know, failing it's hard to explain.
Speaker 1:I hope you understand One of my buddies I spoke with was a pitcher in the Marlins organization and he always talked about. I don't want to insult certain people, but the pitchers who were really good mentally were either really dumb and didn't think at a deeper level, or really smart, but learned how to not care while simultaneously caring a lot. And that's very similar to what you just said. It's like you care so much with the way you train and the way you come after it and the way you want to succeed, but you learn to just not give a shit with the result and just go out there and play.
Speaker 2:It's like look man, the truth is I'm going to give you everything I have. If I know that I'm giving you everything I have and it's not good enough and I never get up to the big leagues. Ok, I mean I gave it everything I had, but I mean that's. I got drafted after my junior year and I went to meet up with my parents, you know, and I was going to say I was going to do it. You know, I was, I'm going to go play baseball. And I and my parents were just like, well, yeah, I mean, it's division two school, like you're probably not going to get drafted again, you can always come back to music, just go play and see what happens. And then you know, 12 years, 13 years later, whatever, it ended up working out pretty well.
Speaker 1:Was there any intersection between music and baseball that helped you at all, or were they just two completely different things?
Speaker 2:I think that this is why I think you should be well-rounded, because I think if you know something well enough, you can draw anything together. You can figure out similarities. Music and baseball are actually very similar because it's a performance, it's a one everybody is focused on you while you are performing, right, and so that stress can be pretty similar. The difference isn't baseball Somebody is on the other side actively trying to make you fail and music, usually people want to see you do well, because nobody wants to go to a show and you know, be like this sucks, you know, everybody wants to be amazed. Um, so there there's the difference there.
Speaker 2:But when it comes down to it, dealing with the stress of performing when you're out there and you are on the hill and everybody's looking at you, that's, it's a tough thing to do, you know, and and I think that it's, it's very similar, when I, when I sang the national anthem the first time before the major league game with my uniform on dude, I was terrified. Terrified because I knew that if I screwed it up it would be a huge story because I was putting myself out there. Um, you know, like this is, I'm a current major league baseball player and I'm saying that. I was, I studied music and then I can sing and if I go out there and I'm terrible, it's going to be a huge story, it's going to be all over the internet and I'm going to be a laughingstock. But you know what? That's the worst thing that can happen.
Speaker 2:Look at that full circle and then, when it came down to it, you know it was fun, but that you can absolutely pull. You could probably draw similarities in anything, as long as you have. You know them well enough and you worked in both of them to be able to draw them into each other and use those experiences as one collective human that you make and not Steven the baseball player and Steven the musician, but Steven somewhere in the middle Right. So you try to use all the lessons you learned from everything you do to make, whatever you are doing, an encapsulation of all of the things. I like speaking in circles.
Speaker 1:See that of all of the things I like speaking in circles. See that? No, that's perfect. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on, man. This has been a really cool full circle moment, from trying to get your attention in the bullpen to getting you on the podcast, man. But if people want to reach out to you, if you got anything going on, what do you got to promote or where can people reach? But if people want to reach out to you, if you've got anything going on, what do you got to promote or where can people reach you if they're looking to talk to you?
Speaker 2:I mean, hit me up on Instagram. I actually really enjoy using Reddit. I have a Reddit account. A minor leaguer. I made that when I was a minor leaguer. It turns out you can't change your Reddit account name, so who knew? But on Twitter X, whatever it's called hit me up If you have any questions. I am. I am an open book. I'm not afraid to share about my experiences in the past. Success is failures. I've had plenty of both, and it's 30, about to turn 33. Got a lot of life left to live, a lot of failures to come and hopefully a lot of successes as well.
Speaker 1:That's awesome man. Thank you so much for coming on Listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Make sure to tune in next week. Check us out at athleticfortitudecom. Download, subscribe. Five stars only, baby. Thanks, steven.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man you.