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 Mental Hitting Guy- Reveals The 3 Mental Pillars That Separate Good From Great
Colin and Vic explore the delicate balance between learning from experiences and overthinking in sports, examining whether there's always a lesson to extract from every outcome or if sometimes you simply need to reset and try again.
• Finding the middle ground between overthinking and ignoring valuable feedback
• Why some athletes thrive by caring less or by being "so dumb they don't know they're in pressure moments"
• The three pillars of athletic success: mindset, focus, and approach
• How a batter's approach serves as their "basket" – a clear target to aim for
• Why tying your entire identity to athletic performance creates constant pressure
• The dangers of chasing metrics and analytics at the expense of fundamental skills
• How to balance competitive drive and emotional reactions while maintaining effectiveness
• Learning to separate failure (what you do) from being a failure (who you are)
Do you think there's always something to learn? I'm a big believer in using the things that the events that happen to us as data, but when we analyze particular situations like is there always something to learn whether it's from success or failure, are those just kind of anecdotes in a longer story?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it depends on the person. I mean, I think it depends on the person, you know, it depends on the degree of their like. Some people might look for something, even when there's nothing Like maybe the answer is actually there's no adjustment, there's nothing needed to learn, maybe you just need to keep, you just need to try again. So I'm going to relate everything back to hitting. So it's like if you miss on a ball like maybe you took a good swing and it was a good pitch and you just kind of missed it do you need to learn something? Maybe what you learn is that there's just to do it again, just to try one more time. You know what I mean? Um, so yes and no, it's a tough, yeah's a good question. That's why you do what you do.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm, and I think that some people can overthink if they, if they always think that there's something to learn or something I think you can overdo, you can go in any direction and overdo it are. Can we go down this one road and does it lead to them overthinking, constantly trying to learn something? Or do they just need to reset and just go again? And so there's definitely some people that just need to reset and thinking about trying to learn something every time is just too much and it kind of gets in the way of their in this case, sports. It gets in the way of their athletic ability.
Speaker 1:Do you think sometimes it's better to be ignorant than to be someone who's really intelligent and overthinks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you why I asked that question. One of my good friends is a former MLB pitcher and we were talking about guys who are like at the top and he was like there's two people that get to the top in his opinion. Other like obviously you have to have talent. He was like one the guys who learn to care less into the guys who are so dumb they don't know that they're in pressure moments.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent and again it's a. There's no one right way, because everybody's a little bit different in that degree. Um, yeah, like that could be. That could be a. Maybe you don't you're, you're the ignorant, you're kind of dumb. I'll explain.
Speaker 2:I describe myself as kind of a dumb hitter too. Um, but that can also be the wrong thing too. It's like, you know, a broken clock and that was very much my just everything. That kind of sums me up. I like I always use this analogy, like when people talking about like this is another thing we can talk about to go deeper on.
Speaker 2:But, um, when to listen, when not to listen? Right, and I, I tell people, I joke, and I was like you know, I used to, I didn't listen to anybody, so at least I was right half the time, right, so like I was dumb to not listen to the people that I should have listened to. But then, when I shouldn't have listened and I didn't listen anyway, it's like I made the right decision, but I didn't know that I made the right decision. So again, it's like a tricky like question. You can, you can kind of do look at it from different, different angles when can you, when should you be dumb, and when should you not be done or whatever, to think more, think deeper or or know more information? And in the hitting world, oh my gosh, there's so much information out there that really can get in the way in any sport, in all sports now.
Speaker 1:More so in skill sports right, I mean football, basketball. For the most part you have a set skill, set right, a few things that you work on, but it feels like baseball, golf, tennis, these individualized sports where it's a millimeter changes whether you strike out or hit a home run. A millimeter determines whether you hit the ball 300 down the fairway or slice it a million yards, like me to the right when it comes to that side. How do you find that middle ground of what we're talking about here, between that overthinking and then the hey, there's nothing to learn here. How do you get?
Speaker 2:a better feel of that? And how do you coach that with your athletes? I mean, I think you can. So like I could try to teach it to somebody, but that doesn't mean that they're going to learn it. Like I can teach them the principles that I how I would say, maybe adjust now, knowing what I know now as a most of what I've learned to come from coaching anyways. But from my experience player and coach I can try to teach them how to find that middle ground, but they won't. That doesn't mean that they're going to learn it.
Speaker 2:So I think that what's most important is they need to learn it through their own actions. I mean, just like anything in life, when you've lived long enough or you've had certain experiences in your life, we tend to need to learn the hard way before anything changes. So I think let's say we go back 10, 15, 20 years. We go back, you know, 10, 15, 20 years technology, social media, data, metrics, all these things that couldn't get in the way, that can cause you to overthink, didn't really exist. You didn't have those avenues that you could possibly go down. Less turns to make, less wrong turns to make you know.
Speaker 2:So I think that really the only way to really teach it is for them to learn it through their own, to be able to realize this works. This doesn't work, like when I think about this. It messes with what works. You know what I mean. And so, again, it's a very difficult thing to teach. So what I try to do is I try to. I've created things and processes and like frameworks to help teach them the principles of like, say, like how to adjust what is important. So like a player will miss, hit a ball and they'll start thinking oh, my hands, my shoulder, my feet, my barrel turn like all these different, like things that don't actually make the difference. So I teach some principles that can be simple, but they need to learn them and understand them on a deeper level. Versus more information shallow Does that make sense? Right when it's shallow?
Speaker 1:and broad. You can go any, any direction. How do you learn it a little bit deeper?
Speaker 2:um, going deeper again through repetitions, so like they have to do the work on their own. Even for me, I work with a player, at most once a week, sometimes twice a week depending on the person, but for most parts once a week, once every week. Most of them do not do enough reps on their own.
Speaker 1:What's enough reps on your own, Like how do you calculate what's enough?
Speaker 2:Another tough question.
Speaker 2:Damn you're good. There is. No, I don't think there's any set number, but there just needs to be. There needs to be like a certain quality, a certain standard to what you're doing. And, again, nobody's going to be perfect with that. Nobody's going to be perfect in results, nobody's going to be perfect in like a good process repeating it over and over again. But you can definitely be more consistent with a process than you can with a result, and this is what I try to like teach my players.
Speaker 2:It's like, okay, it's not always about the results, this needs to be about the repetitions, of putting in the focus on the process to get the result, and then the results are going to come and go, but the more you do that, which is simple, the more the deeper you'll understand. So it's like we give up on things too early and now you can't go deeper on it, like I had even a couple kids today, even where I hammer this home. I hammer home the approach, the focus, the things that I teach, the principles, and I hammer it on them and I make them do it over and over and over again until something gives and all of a sudden there's like a breakthrough, there's a click and they just go whoa, where did that come from? And I tell them because you kept doing the same thing. You were figuring it out on your own as you were going, your own as you were going.
Speaker 2:But if you take one rep it doesn't work. Oh, I got to try something else. Not necessarily Keep doing it, keep doing it. And so I usually try that principle alone, right there. It's just of letting them figure it out on their own. I coach them, I guide them, but then I need to let them kind of walk the road a little bit.
Speaker 1:The parallel for me, right coming from the football world, is, I think, back to my, my freshman year at buck now as a true freshman corner starting and one of the best coaches in the world, still close to them to this day. Coach wicks used to always say, fundamentally from a football perspective, as a corner or as a defensive back in general, you never go for a straight interception without having your arm around the guy. You want to make sure if you go for the ball, arm on the hip, arm around, get the deflection. If you miss the deflection you're still there for the tackle. So he used to always say do not go for the interception, but I'll never yell at you if you make the interception. And so it was just one of those things that for me I had to learn as a player, particularly as a young player, that alleviating that hesitation to know when to go. And what helped me was one day I heard I want to say it was Ike Taylor, because he was one of my favorite corners of all time as a Pittsburgh Steeler. It might've been someone else, but they said the best defensive backs in the world are the ones that are the smartest pre-snap, but the second that ball snaps. They don't have a thought in the world and they're just reacting.
Speaker 1:And so for me that came down to preparation. And so I would know okay, I get down, I'd watch my film Third down, third and medium. What do they love to go to Third and short? What do they love to go to Third and long? What are their key plays? Splits right, if they're inside the hash, right If they're inside the numbers. What routes are they more likely to run? Okay, what type of set am I getting right? Am I getting a three by one, a two by two?
Speaker 1:My 11 personnel, 12 personnel, and I would start to learn. I didn't have to know every single route, but I would know, okay, what are their go-tos here, what do they like to go to. And then, once I got to that process and it took me a long time by my senior year I'm able to go out there. I'm able to know, okay, pre-snap, here's who's there, here's who's there. I can call out plays here, watch a bubble here, watch a hitch, watch a smash concept. And then I'm able to just go out and play when I get those and anticipate and was fortunate enough to have a good career there. But it's so much different in baseball, and it's like I don't have a pre-snap read, I'm not watching hours of film, and maybe you are versus a pitcher. That's what I don't know. So it's how do you take an approach and create a plan as a hitter?
Speaker 2:The way, and I mean again, like you said, it's well, I mean it's having. You have to create the build the instincts. So that's why I think that when you do get, if you do get too technical on things, it's just information. So, for example, example, you're learning your, your, your plays in football. If you're being told what those plays are and they're drawing it out on the board, even if you understand it to a t, you still haven't ran those, those plays yet. So you know it in one way, but you don't know, you don't truly know it until you've done it and until you can do it without thinking about it. Otherwise you don't know it. You know parts of it.
Speaker 2:It's like having a puzzle. So it's like, well, I know what the picture is, but there's like 50% of the pieces are missing, or however many pieces one piece could be missing, it's still. It's an incomplete puzzle. I know what the puzzle is, but it's incomplete. You know, in a sense, right, and so like again comes back to those reps it's like, okay, you got to know it in multiple ways, you got to know it intellectually, but then you got to be able to apply it, maybe at a slower speed and a practice setting in a controlled setting. And then now it's like, okay, now it's game time, and then that's when you have to shut it off. You have to shut off the intellectual side and just play, be aggressive, adjust or, sorry, react and then adjust as you go. Then you go back to the drawing board. Okay, where did we mess up? Let's train that today. Let's train that today. Let's do that over and over again. Sorry, what is it called? Before I forget, I'm forgetting right now Deliberate practice.
Speaker 1:Do you coach different approaches and plans for different situations.
Speaker 2:I typically coach from a, from a, through like a framework or through um. I basically start with a template, in other words, and then I'm able to help a hitter adjust, to tweak it, to customize it. But I think that every hitter because we're all, all hitters are trying to do the same thing. Baseball, softball, they're trying to do the same thing, the strike zone is the same, the, the results that we're shooting. All hitters are trying to do the same thing. Baseball, softball, they're trying to do the same thing, the strike zone's the same, the results that we're shooting for are the same. We're trying to drive the ball with backspin in the gaps, home runs, doubles, hard hit balls, getting on base, all those things the results are the same. That we're after. Therefore, and we're all human beings, so we're all pretty similar. So there's a lot of overlap, a lot of overlap, a lot of principles that apply universally to everybody.
Speaker 2:So I start my plan, how I my process, how I do, is I teach them a default approach, a starting point, because most hitters simply don't have a plan. So I got to give them one. I use the analogy of like an iPhone. It's like everybody that has an iPhone. I don't know how many probably a couple billion iPhones floating around the world right now? Right, every iPhone comes out of the box the same, with default settings. But once they customize the background, the wallpaper, the app, now you can dim the color, you can do night mode, all kinds of different things. Now, all of a sudden, no iPhones really not too many iPhones look the same.
Speaker 2:So I usually do that we start with square one, with a default approach, and then, based on the hitter's tendencies, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personality, their aggressiveness level, their mindset, then we can structure a plan off of that default to give them something now that they can go and take into the game, that they don't overthink. But yet they're focused. And I call it like you're thinking without thinking. And that is basically what an approach, a good approach, is, is a plan that you don't have to think about, that you can execute, you can attack, you can be aggressive and compete. How do you maintain?
Speaker 1:that under pressure.
Speaker 2:Mental skills is a big piece. Focus.
Speaker 1:What skills would you give them? Like two skills, immediately under pressure to maintain your same plan approach under those situations.
Speaker 2:So it's called the three-step release, and so that is. It was created. I believe pretty sure it was created it was by Ken Reviza Dr Ken Reviza, author of Heads Up Baseball and a couple other books, I think. But he created a three-step system where it's essentially you're taking a, a focal point on the bat, you take a big deep breath and then you reset to like a, some kind of verbal cue and that could be a cue for like a strategic, like an approach-based cue, or that could be like a um, maybe you need a little pep talk to yourself. Like you know, let's go here, I got this. Like that, something, whatever it is that you need in the moment, can fill in the blank on that, on that queue. So that would be like one thing, um, or like um, uh, you know journaling or like meditation, visualization. So those are like actionable things that you can do to help you focus better in the game. All things I never did so there you go.
Speaker 1:One thing. It sounds very similar to the process what I call like routine reset refocus. Like you have your routine that you go through puts you in the mood. Something happens in a game throws you off. You need something to reset in my big thing, like have a physical action, like have a clap, have something, and then you need an anchor, something that allows you to to feel present and ask the next question of what can I do next?
Speaker 2:Perfect. I mean, that is literally like the three steps, like right there, to take that three step a step further. They do recommend there's like yeah, there's an initial physical action that starts it. I just simplify it for people. I just okay, we just do the three step. But, yes, 100%, 100%. If you want, there's the three pillars that I mentioned in the notes. This can kind of go into that Through the years now of not only reflecting on my own career and my own weaknesses, watching and paying attention now to every, every lesson that I do.
Speaker 2:That's why it's tiring, because every lesson that I do, I'm with it, I'm focused on, I can't turn it off. I can go into a cage and I'm tired and I'm just like not feeling it, but when I get there and talking hidden, like I'm on, there's no turning me off, right. So over the years, patterns and I haven't been doing this forever, but I've been playing forever and coaching basically my whole life, and so, and the way that I look at things now, I think gives me a big picture view, and so then I'm able to like see things that maybe some people don't aren't able to see, and so, like you, like you mentioned, um, those, those uh mental skills to keep you, like, focused, to help you reset to the present, and that kind of thing. There's a variable that can mess with that um, and that is like the mindset. So mindset generally right is, like you know, growth or fixed mindset, um, or. But there's also like how you respond to certain uh events that happen, certain things that happen bad strike or bad call by the umpire, bad at bat and out whatever, lost, lose a game how you respond is going to dictate, like the next outcome, what ends up happening next. Okay. So like, if a hitter is frustrated by a bad call, like I was many times, excuse me, then now it's going to be harder for me to focus in the moment. And then the third well, the first pillar. So sorry, I'm all over the place.
Speaker 2:Pillar number one is mindset. That's why it's number one. Number two is focus. So if my mindset is all over the place, it's going to be a lot harder to focus in the box. And then pillar number three is approach. If I can't focus well, or if I don't have an approach, I have nothing to focus on.
Speaker 2:So when I give a hitter a simple like default approach, like okay, fully commit to this approach, do exactly what like I'm kind of instructing and commit to it. They can it, depending on the hitter. They can do it two times, three times, maybe seven or eight. But after they hit their kind of threshold, all of a sudden the swing goes away and the results they were more consistent. They're gone and they're rolling balls over bad swings, bad results.
Speaker 2:I said what happened there, like were you not focused on, on the approach? And they said no. I say why? Oh I, I rolled one over, so it's like they had one miss. And then they, they, they stuck to the mist. They started focusing on the mist and then it messed with the next ones. So their mindset, how they thought about the failure, messed with their ability to focus on the plan. So I started noticing this pattern over and over again.
Speaker 2:Because if you can handle failure, like myself, I wasn't the type that would back down. I never gave up. It was like I would just get more aggressive and it was usually too much, so it didn't benefit me. So I'd get frustrated and angry and attack and just be all over the place. But that was my mindset. Now I can't focus Now, even if I had a plan, I'm not focusing on it. So you can imagine if somebody has a poor mindset, they don't focus well and they don't have a consistent plan. You're going to be limited to what you can do, like I basically wrote on my ability because I really lacked in all three of those areas, especially the mindset.
Speaker 1:Talk to me a little bit more. What an approach may look like. I know it's customized to each player, but so if you were to coach yourself, what would you have your approach be when you were in the minors?
Speaker 2:So I would typically, when I missed, I would be overly aggressive, I'd go get the ball. So my effort would be high. I'd probably be kind of lunging, going it kind of front side like heavy, front foot heavy, uh, and I would, I would hit more balls on the ground because I'm trying to be, I'm trying to go get it. Okay, then when I was at my best, it was like the ball was coming to me. The game was slow, I was loose, I was relaxed, I was confident, I wasn't pressing and it was easy. So I was confident, I wasn't pressing and it was easy.
Speaker 2:So I am, you know, 6'3". I was at the playing years. I was, you know, anywhere from like 200 to 225. I had kind of a big swing but I was a big power guy. I batted cleanup, I hit the ball a really long way and I knew that I could do that and I wanted to do that all the time. I could do that and I wanted to do that all the time.
Speaker 2:So for me, if I were to go back, I would have to know that those are my tendencies.
Speaker 2:I have a tendency to overswing, I have a tendency to go get it and I'm tight and I'm tense because I'm big, strong, I have strong arms, strong hands and I want to use my hands.
Speaker 2:But then when I was at my best, it felt like I was doing nothing. So my approach would definitely be to let the ball travel, which means I need to have some kind of an opposite field approach, typically like a right center field approach, second baseman approach. As a right hander, I need to think lower effort, I need to be loose, I need to be smooth, so it's like how the feel that I want to hold in my body is loose, easy and breathe. And if I can do that and I have my direction, my intention, I'm going to see the ball better, I'm going to stay back better, I'm going to make better decisions and I'm going to hit the ball more consistently because I'm putting myself in the mental state and the physical state that replicates when I'm at my best, because for the most part, that's not going to change for whoever you are, or I am, or McHenry, or whoever when you're at your best, you're at your best for a reason.
Speaker 1:And it's not just because the results are happening. Performance energy drink, the official energy drink of the Athletic Fortitude Podcast, available in Walmart, meijer and select GNC franchise locations. 16-year-old Colin, pretty good baseball player, would have played Division I baseball, but I chose football. However, as a hitter, I'm really fast. Okay, I'm 5'9", but I can run run. I'm really fast. Okay, I'm five nine, but I can run run. So I never wanted to fly out. I also hated walking. I always wanted to swing. I was pull heavy, uh, hit a lot of fly balls, trying not to hit fly balls, but I really just wanted to hit the ball and just run. How would you solve my issues with that little data right there?
Speaker 2:I would say really quick hands.
Speaker 1:I'd really quick hands.
Speaker 2:Good, Then in your early you hit most balls. To what part of the field I would?
Speaker 1:left side, typically your lefty or righty.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I'm already. Yep, okay. So I would say first, do you have a plan every single time? No, I never had a plan Exactly. So it's hard, it's difficult to pinpoint one area that could be fixed. No, I never had a plan approach, something to go to.
Speaker 2:You're going to default to your own tendency because of the nature of the swing that there is and I know some people probably argue with this, but there's, it is. There is rotation, there's rotation in the swing, okay, and we're all rotating toward our pole side, right. So it becomes very easy to not have a plan and just default to a to like kind of yanking or rushing your quick hands and you know they're quick hands and you're you're letting them kind of go and because you have no, you have no target, you're not thinking line drive, you're not thinking ground ball or line drive, whatever, you're just kind of swinging. So it's kind of like you're taking like a shotgun approach versus taking like a sniper approach, so like if you were working with me now, I wouldn't even fix anything. I would just tell you this is your default approach.
Speaker 2:Go hit for a week and then pay attention to what's still wrong, what's still off with an approach and then, when you come back to me now we'll learn, we'll tweak it, because you have to get the low hanging fruit first and the approach is low hanging fruit. It's just an intention, it's just a target, it's just a focus. So until you do that, we don't really know what whatever's left over is what we can address mechanically. But I would say you would probably need a right center field approach, a line drive approach. If you're fast with the hands, you're, you like to use your hands, so you may need more of a, an easier feel with your hands. Right, maybe you're, maybe you're shifting, maybe you were too heavy on your front side, maybe you need to stay back better. So then it's like now I.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're shifting, maybe you were too heavy on your front side, maybe you need to stay back better. So then it's like now I definitely had that issue.
Speaker 2:By the way, I was always on my front leg right. So then, like again, just having the intention of hitting the ball to the opposite field could fix that or could help that, because your brain knows if you give your brain a target, it's going to figure out. You know, communicate with your body to be able to make that happen. I use the analogy in basketball. I use basketball analogy a lot. It's like when you're shooting a basket, right, that's your, that's your. It's like it's your default. See, in basketball there's no question about what the goal is or what the approach is. The approach is get the damn ball in the basket, right. So you're going to focus on the basket every single time. It's a no-brainer, okay.
Speaker 2:So when you miss in basketball, you say you didn't give enough effort, you didn't put your legs in it enough, you didn't extend, you didn't follow through enough. You don't even need to really think that, you just kind of feel it. And then you make that adjustment and you aim back to the hoop. Nope, no-brainer. So baseball, it's a similar thing. The approach acts as, like our basket, we're using the approach as our frame of reference to be able to know what is actually off. So imagine you're shooting baskets and you're not aiming at the hoop and you're wondering why am I missing these baskets? Oh, I'm missing. I miss short, I miss right, I miss left, I miss long. Oh man, there's all kinds of things wrong. You don't know how to pinpoint it. I miss right, I miss left, I miss long. Oh man, there's all kinds of things wrong. You don't know how to pinpoint it. Maybe you should just look at the damn hoop first. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:You got to get that low hanging fruit first. If you had your current mindset, do you think in? You know we're guessing here.
Speaker 2:Do you think you would have made it to the majors? No way to know. But I think I would have made it to the majors. No way to know, but I think I would have gave myself a best, a better chance, to for sure. Uh, it was not a ability or skill issue on my end. Could I have been? Could I have refined and had better, maybe a little better mechanics or a little better, more knowledge about certain things? A hundred percent. But I had ability. I could have gotten to the big leagues. There's no doubt in my mind. People told me that and I don't need to think of people straight up told me that I had the potential to do it and to get there.
Speaker 2:But again, I suffered with consistency Because I couldn't keep a steady mindset. I was so up and down, hot and cold. I'd hit 300 for a month, hit five, six home runs in a week, and I think I did that a couple times. And then in the whole next month I could hit like 180 and just press and just beat myself up and I had external things in my life that would leak over. So a lot of stressors, unnecessary stress from a particular person in my life that put a lot of pressure on me. I already put pressure on myself, so it just compounded.
Speaker 2:And with the type of player, I'm super competitive, super aggressive. I'm Sicilian, so I talk with my hands and, like, make facial expressions, and it's just I have to keep my hands down. I'm gonna knock the microphone over. But, like everybody knew, you know, you knew how I felt all the time and that's definitely not a good, not a good thing, especially when you're trying to be like you know you want to be a professional. You got to conduct yourself in a certain way and I did not conduct myself in such a way and it affected my performance directly.
Speaker 1:It's funny A lot of the things that make you a really high level successful athlete can be the same thing. That's a detriment the hyper-competitiveness, the aggressiveness, the high pressure you put on yourself being a high achiever wanting to achieve more. I've always found it hard when you're working with someone like that to totally say it's bad, because it's not always bad, it's really good. You just have to harness it and learn to direct it and pull the reins back and zoom out. Look at the big picture when that's needed too. A lot of it comes with experience. Sometimes we need to get out of our own way and be able to hear from others as well.
Speaker 2:I've toyed with that thought for a long time now because I was overly aggressive, an absolute madman at times on the field. Yes, mac, next time I mean just like get like no, but really, what was it? What was it? What was he like? Okay, just, I'm sure it'd be, it'd be funny, would you know? And I thought like I just wish I wasn't like that. But then I go like wait, but that's what also made me really good.
Speaker 2:So, like, if I threw it all out, I don't know if I would have been as good. So if I threw it all out, I don't know if I would have been as good. I mean I and again, not to like I'm not tooting horn here, but I was very successful at the lower levels, hence why I ultimately got to pro ball. I dominated in the amateur levels and I wasn't even consistent. I was still inconsistent and I still would set records schools drafted three times times, drafted as a pitcher, twice and then third time as an outfielder. So like I was a very multifaceted, like I was multi-talented as a baseball player and can do great things on a field, hit monster home runs, you know, throw no hitters and like do some really impressive things, but a lot and a lot of it came from my mentality, from being aggressive, from being competitive. So it's like, if I take it away, I don't know what, what would have been left. But then it's like, well, wait, but I just needed to learn how to control it or harness it or redirect it, maybe not even control it. And so that's what I try to teach my hitters too is like when, when you get frustrated, I don't want you to lose that, I want you to be frustrated, you should not like it, but what are you going to do next? What you do next is what's most important.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what to do next. I was out of control and I never really regained it until I, you know, barrel up a ball. Then I start to feel good about myself and then I start to hit. And that's how most hitters are. They need the results, they need evidence that they're good, that they can do this. And I guess I did too. That's just.
Speaker 2:I mean, even though, as good as I was, it's like I still needed that, like I needed that hit to fully be content. And then, once I was content and I was just relaxed, boom. Then it's like potential just comes through and I think everybody is like that to a degree. I might have just been a little bit extreme in some ways, but those are definitely those things that we think are probably our. Our weaknesses are probably your strength, I mean. Mean hence why I was a head case pretty much my entire baseball career and now I'm the mental hitting guy. It's still not like I'm not perfect or anything. I have my own, still deal with my own stuff but it's like I would consider the mental side of hitting now my strength and it was always my weakness.
Speaker 1:When I look at my own career, I was, my big thing was I had a raging temper too. There you go, come here, and so it took me a long time, but now I'm at the point. Obviously I don't play professionally, but I do some things rec league, obviously but I know exactly when I can pull that lever, and when I used pull that lever and when I used to get mad, it was because the opponent had power over me. Now, when I get mad, it's because I know I need a boost, I know I need to get my adrenaline flowing, I know something has made me angry and I know when I need to turn the flame down versus when I'm like okay, let's light the match.
Speaker 1:One thing, too, that helps me be so in tune with that is I work on my identity now of who I am, and something I read in your LinkedIn bio was when you lost the game, you lost your sense of identity, and that, for me, my entire identity was wrapped in being an athlete, and so why I became a chronic overthinker, why I became someone who would feel the pressure immensely, who succumbed to nervousness, was because the entirety of who I was was wrapped in football, as opposed to the millions of different things that is comprised of my identity, including my characteristics and core values. And when I learned that was for me everything, when I organized and engineered who I was, I started to love pressure. I love those scenarios because they become signals to me. Now that this is, I'm getting adrenaline, I'm getting the extra focus and enhanced skills that I don't have in a non you know, butterfly type state. And so for you, I'd love to hear what that identity transition was like for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean definitely something that I think all athletes go through. We typically are um start our sport so young, and usually it it. It fits your mentality, it fits your mind, it fits like your personality. So you just you do it and that's all you do, and everything is about that. You make sacrifices, you skip parties, you skip doing certain things that other, your friends, are doing, just because you got to do your work and it's.
Speaker 2:And again, I don't think like personally I wouldn't. Some people, I'm sure, are pushed a little bit to kind of to do that, but I didn't really have to be pushed that way Like I. It was genuinely my identity, it was who. If I didn't have that then I didn't know what I would have. That was very chaotic, very rollercoaster Of emotions. Baseball was what I had. Baseball was my source Of confidence, it was my life source. So if I didn't have that, I don't know what I would have done or who I would have been Right.
Speaker 2:You can go so many different directions. There was a lot of shit going on that could have sent me In any direction. Most of the directions Probably would not have been very good, but baseball I didn't realize it or think of it this way at the time. It was keeping me together. It was actually helping me. It wasn't who I was, but it was helping me.
Speaker 2:You know, through the stuff that I was going through and I wanted it. I wanted to be great, I wanted to be successful, I wanted to. I used to have dreams of like. I used to remember as a kid that I wanted to give autographs, that wanted uh kids to wear my jersey, like I truly felt that I was destined to be in the big leagues and the skills and everything was aligning. But personal, personal stuff uh made it, made it very, very difficult. So baseball became like it was like it became life or death in a sense. So it was so important. It wasn't just an identity, it was like I don't know what else I have.
Speaker 2:So when I would go out on the field not only do I have high expectations for myself because I'm a very good player I'd put in a lot of work. I demand, demanded a certain standard for myself, at least performance wise wasn't perfect, of course, but like performance wise, um, and it didn't go my way. It was like I had a hard time keeping it together because if that goes wrong now I gotta go home and that's not. That was never really a good feeling, never really had that settled home life. So again it just became this like life, or for my identity it's like life or death, for my ego like it's life or death. And so, no, I don't think anybody can truly play to their potential when they are in that kind of situation all the time. Know people, they handle the pressure, they process it better. I didn't have the tools to process it, to be able to manage it, to be able to harness it, and it was just kind of all over the place.
Speaker 2:So, yes, sorry long-winded response, but like getting to, like the end of my career, and it's like I played up to the to the age of 30. You know my the last six years I played total of 10 years. First four years were I played all the way through the season. They were pretty good, pretty solid, decent years. Three, two all-stars, minor leagues and then one in independent ball. But from then on there was injury. I was released, I was traded. It was just like injury, multiple injuries, and it was just fizzling out year by year. When I walked away from baseball at the age of 30, like what the fuck, am I gonna do now? You know um, I was bitter I wasn't ready, like I hadn't.
Speaker 2:I was 30, but I hadn't really learned yet. And so I started thought about coaching and I was man dude. I was not proud to like say it, but I was like I didn't. I kind of looked down on people, like I just I was so bitter about how everything turned out that I was, I would kind of and I didn't like take it out on anybody, it was just like my internal thoughts, you know. And so then I wasn't ready, so I maybe, a couple years later, um, I ended up finding my way back to coaching, but it was, it wasn't until I realized that I'm not, I don't have to be like that's not who I am, that I can choose who I want to be and what I want to do. Now I can still do it in the same field, but I'm no longer attached to it like I was before. I now just enjoy it because it's a way of learning, it's a way of teaching. I enjoy teaching, I enjoy coaching, mentoring, and now I just use it as a vehicle to teach people the bigger picture.
Speaker 1:Something you said super powerful. You can't always be in that place where you're under pressure a hundred percent of the time, and that's what happens when your identity is wrapped in your sport, when your self-worth is tied into the outcome of what happens. You are constantly living under pressure and it becomes incredibly hard to actually perform when you're under real pressure, because you've been putting yourself under pressure for every single second of every single game of your competitive career.
Speaker 2:Right, what have you You're constantly in pressure when there's no actual pressure. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Then yeah, it's not it goes from a crack to completely fracturing, right. What have you found in your own process to separate that outcome from identity, to be process driven but yet to still be hyper competitive and you should focus like? Outcomes do matter, right, but they can't be the entirety of the conversation. What have you found to kind of separate the identity from the outcome and to be focused on the process while still driven towards an outcome?
Speaker 2:I mean it depends on the player a little bit. Some players do have good, I think I mean perspective is a big piece. I think kids that have other, that play other sports or that have other hobbies, they tend to have like a little bit better of a of a of an overall outlook on things Because they they know they can shut their brain off from one sport and then go to another, and I think it gives them that perspective, it gives them a reset. But usually, yeah, I try to, I try to teach people you know or help people through the process of like you know, like failing. For example, the person in my life would make would call me on the phone or if I didn't answer, which was most of the time, I'd be left messages, uh, telling me how much of a failure I was for having a bad game. And so if you think hitting is hard, try hitting when you you know at a professional level, when you have somebody in your ear, somebody who you're supposed to, you're supposed to trust, and that person is telling you you're a failure and loser, hitting gets a whole lot harder, right. So what I try to do is I try to help people realize that you are not a failure. You may fail, but it's something you do. It's not who you are. Right, knowing that you are, like you mentioned, to detach from the outcome. The outcome says nothing of who you are. It's just information, it's just feedback, right?
Speaker 2:Um, obviously so many players, myself included, we were, we're looking for that, that confirmation that we can, that we are good or we can do this, versus like being able to see, like you know and again, this is easier said than done, if it was easy, I probably would have figured it out too um is to be able to focus on what. What produces the results. So it goes back to the fix and growth mindset. If, when you are in a fixed mindset, you see results as the end, as the end, as like a label, so when you fail, you are a failure versus no, I failed, okay, now. Now what do I do? What do I learn from that? Like we talked about before? Can I take anything from it and keep going versus I failed? Therefore, I'm not good, you know.
Speaker 2:So I definitely had like signs of like fixed mindset when I think back, because I was so like, just wanted to. I knew how good I was, but I wanted to, like I needed to prove it all the time, which I think put me in a, in a tough spot, and then so again that whole identity thing is just that, the disconnect.
Speaker 1:But um, when you have that negative person in your life too, it's it sometimes feels like you're competing for love too.
Speaker 2:You're competing to be loved, and you should never have to experience that as a person, and it makes competition really hard when you feel that your worth is tied to that 100% and, like I said, the way the my personality like the recipe of being super competitive, super driven, super dedicated, like the hardest worker of any team I ever played on, and then you have somebody that's like adding pressure to what was already there, like I said, and a big personality and and it just like it was a recipe for it was a perfect storm.
Speaker 2:You put two or three, a few ingredients that are seemingly harmless by themselves, but when you put them together, boom, and that was me on the field. It was that final little ingredient that just made me go boom and it affected my relationships with coaches. It affected with teammates. I still had good relationships. It was more internal, it was myself. I never really took it out on anybody else. It was purely my own demons, so to speak, that I was battling internal and an external to some demons.
Speaker 1:Sometimes all the time. The internal demons that nobody can see are the ones that are the hardest, because you feel alone, you feel isolated, you don't feel like you have that outlet and the only thing you have is your outlet is now part of the reason that's causing your internal demons to be amplified even more 100%.
Speaker 2:That's what I ended up realizing once I did get into coaching and I started to really kind of embrace that role. And then I started to, instead of looking at myself and my own stuff, I started to look how can I help you? And then I started to realize, wow, like you're very different how you handle your, how you handle stuff, but you're struggling the same way I struggled. You're just beating yourself up on the inside. So almost, uh, you know, almost in a good way, uh, you know, at least my, my, my outbursts, cause I wasn't angry, it was angry. It was slamming bats, throwing helmets, getting ejected from games.
Speaker 2:People ask me you've been injected before? I'm like, yeah, I don't even know how many times, like I've lost count, I don't know so many. My literally my first time getting ejected. I was nine. I got ejected at nine years old there's a fun story for you Dropping the F bomb at nine years old. I got ejected, and that was right when things in my life, too, was also changing, and so that just carried on throughout. I kind of forgot where we were going, though, with that.
Speaker 1:All good Common sense seems to be contrarian these days. Tell me more.
Speaker 2:I know, sorry, I was going to put more on there and I kind of forgot to go back. Yeah, like, especially like in the hitting and I feel like in the coaching world, again, it kind of goes back to the the all this new information that we have about stuff, um, and then we tend to like overlook or neglect, you know, maybe the information that was already there, that we already knew, and we like disregard it. So an example is like how people feel about, like you know, say, older school type hitters, guys that have been around a long time, they've maybe Hall of Fame caliber type players, and they will say certain things and give certain advice, and but you know, the information or the data doesn't match, doesn't match what they're saying, and so people, I think, don't know really how to look at that, so they look at it as in well, they don't know what they're talking about, they don't understand. This goes back to the deeper understanding. They understand it so deep that they don't give a shit what your data says.
Speaker 1:It's like that new meme where it's like you have the really stupid meme person with the drool down their lip, then you have the I forget what the actual picture is, but it's like the rest of the arc where there's like the 95% of people who think they're so smart and doing whatever, and then you have like the genius with their hood up. That's at the exact same conclusion as the dumb person with the drool on their lip. And it is one of my favorite memes because it's so true that there's like this 95% of people that think that they're so smart and have it all figured out and have all the answers and they have all the whatever. And then you have people on the opposite end of the spectrum that get to the same conclusion by immense intelligence and deep understanding or pure ignorance.
Speaker 2:A good way to think about it is is book smarts and street smarts. Book smarts Not bad. It's not bad, but again, it's it's knowing information. You don't know it unless you've lived it, because when you more broad, it's more general. It's just kind of a general population type of book smarts. It doesn't apply to real world application. It's me in this game right now and I need to perform right now. What do I need? Do I need book smarts or do I need the repetitions and the knowledge and maybe a combination of all of it?
Speaker 2:But yeah, the people, there's people out there that are so damn book smart that they don't know how dumb they actually are. So it's uh, I think it was like neil degrasse is a neil degrasse tyson. He's like the astrophysicist guy I think it was him that that said it or he was quoting somebody else but he said people usually know just enough to know they are right, but not enough to know they are wrong. And it's like that just sums it up right there, like you don't know enough to know that you are wrong. So there's this side where there's like the battle of you know, and it can be old school versus new school. Old school it's more like street smarts. New school, it's more book smarts. Street smarts new school, it's more book smarts. There's somewhere in the middle where you should be, because a lot of the the new book smart, like the data is just confirming what we already knew. Do I need to really, how much more data do we need? Personally, I think the data is just confirming that the old school because, remember, we, we study the old school and we like try to apply new school to it if they were able to get to a certain end result in a simpler fashion, like you said, like it's more of a straight line to the end result and do it simpler and easier and it's easier for the individual to actually replicate it. Or do we try to get the same way but we do it through the new school, which is more data, more metrics, analytics and those types of things?
Speaker 2:Hey, if it works for you, fantastic, but you're trying to reinvent the process. What makes you think that that's what you should be doing? Maybe you needed to understand deeper what the old what was, what was already working. So that's my philosophy and maybe it is my, my own little, my own weakness. I'm not, I was not. We didn't have the technology, the data, the metrics, and I understand it to a degree, but I'm not an expert, I'm not a statistician. But I do know is that, at the end of the day, when it comes down to being able to hit in a game, I've been, I was good enough at my time, my moments, to know what it takes to hit against a high level or at a high level, and it trust me, so much of the stuff is not needed and so we're just running around in circles and it's showing. It's showing now because people are chasing numbers, they're chasing metrics, but they're missing out on the actual process. They just want to see how hard they can hit the ball.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, let me throw you a BP fastball in a game and you're going to be out on your front foot. Throw you anything with a wrinkle in it and you're done. Throw you out on the outside corner and you're just going to roll it over because you're trying to hit the shit out of it. You have no approach, you have no plan. The principles, the human being that was doing baseball, playing baseball the last 130 years, whatever it is, hasn't changed. There's changes advancements in performance, training, yes, but I'm saying the human, the human brain hasn't changed. There's changes, advancements in, in performance training, yes, but I'm saying the human, the human brain hasn't changed much. So whatever you can process at the plate when a ball is flying at you, that has not changed. It's not like all of a sudden we have this like extra gigabyte, you know, you know terabyte in our head to be able to, to, to process more information. So we've gone backwards, you've thrown more in the mix and it's just messing with people versus understanding the simple, deeper, better.
Speaker 1:Vic, I can't thank you enough for coming on. Man, I want to wrap it because that was a fantastic exclamation point.
Speaker 1:There we go To end this Because I couldn't agree more. There we go. Good to end this Cause I. I couldn't agree more, I could not. I I've been starting to offer my opinions more on the show. I tried to keep it normally tied in, but agreed a thousand percent. If people want to reach you, they want to get at you or they want to get at you, how can they find your stuff, how can they get in contact with you?
Speaker 2:So I'm most active on like instagram, um, youtube a little bit, but both are at mental hitting guy um and um. Yeah, and that's pretty much it. You can dm me or reach out, send a message or whatever beautiful.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you. Man can't thank you enough for for coming on, absolutely thank you for having me my pleasure listeners. Thank you for tuning in Tune in next week. Check us out at athletic42.com. Download the pod. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Five stars only, baby. Appreciate you, Vic.
Speaker 2:Likewise man you.