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
Clint Hurdle - The Power Of Self-Discipline and Redefining Success
Clint Hurdle shares his journey from rock bottom to becoming an author and respected MLB manager, revealing how vulnerability became his greatest strength and sobriety his foundation for success.
• Writing a book required discipline and consistency, with most writing done during flights to maintain family time
• Vulnerability in sharing personal struggles including alcoholism, divorce, and professional failures
• Moving back in with parents in his 30s before climbing to manage two billion-dollar MLB organizations
• Identifying rock bottom as the catalyst for meaningful change in his life
• Recovering alcoholics must prioritize sobriety above everything else for sustainable recovery
• Developing an internal validation system rather than relying on external accolades or championships
• Balancing tradition with innovation in baseball and player development
• Effective coaching requires ensuring players actually hear feedback, not just nod in agreement
• Helping young players by observing first, then sharing experiences rather than dictating approaches
Find "Hurdle-isms" on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and Hudson News.
But you're an author now, Coach.
Speaker 2:How does that feel? Well, you know it's been an interesting ride. It's been a very good learning journey and I think the biggest encouragement I was getting is from people, young and old, boys and girls, men and women from across the board, not just always sports related either. It seems to be a book that has some traction on sharing some life lessons, things I learned the hard way and people can identify with.
Speaker 1:Now, you said it was a learning journey. What part has been the biggest learning experience through it?
Speaker 2:Well, truthfully, all of it. I've never written a book. I didn't know what that consisted of. Initially, my thought was to co-author a book, to actually write a book, with somebody that would do all the heavy lifting, and I had actually written some books that had been published and had done a good job with it. It didn't work out that way. God had other plans. I ended up writing every word in this book. So I learned about book formatting, I learned about word counts, I learned about fact check, spell check, how to set up a book theme related. We opened this up like it's a baseball season where it's spring, it's summer, it's all-star break, it's it's fall and then it's the off season. So to take the hurdleisms and compartmentalize them. I learned a lot, man.
Speaker 1:at the end of the day, I just learned a whole lot what was the uh, the biggest challenge of writing the book that you faced?
Speaker 2:It was just being disciplined and I think that spoke to me, that anybody I've met in life that's been really, really good at something just has not seemed to have another level of discipline self-discipline and I did 95% of my writing on the plane travel where I could just have quiet time. So when I was home I was with my family. When I was traveling, I did enough flights from Tampa to the West Coast or Tampa to Spokane that there was plenty of time. But I was knocking things down, meeting the deadlines, learning from other people and kind of feeling like I was being on a team again. Colin, you know I'm on a team again and I had responsibilities and I needed to be accountable and dependable to the people I was working with.
Speaker 1:What did you do so we talk about discipline? What helped you enact that discipline? Was it a conversation you had in your head? Did you have things that put you in a position to write? Tell me a little bit about that process, things that put you in a position to write.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about that process.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, one thing that has helped me in my career has been attention to detail and to be steadfast and consistent with a calendar, not so much, you know, just taking notes and reacting to the day, trying to work off a calendar where I have prioritized things.
Speaker 2:So having priorities is to prioritize my day, my writing. And then there was time limits. I would set where you know, if I got fatigued or I got tired, I just stopped and if I had a question I would hit pause and I would ask somebody a question, because when you're writing about experiences that can take you back as far as you know, 50 years, I want to make sure I got the facts right. So it also gave me an opportunity to reconnect with some people whether it was coaches, players, family on different situations, which that was fresh. But the discipline part of it is important, because I've never done well when I've kind of waited or procrastinated and said, well, I work better under a deadline, I work better under pressure. No, that's not me. So I had to be disciplined. So I had space and I had time in which to do my normal day as well.
Speaker 1:Did you have any particular goals when you set out to do this, like number goals, number of purchases or people reached, or was it as simple as I learned a lot and I want people to learn from me too.
Speaker 2:That's probably your last statement. I'm just hoping to share some experience, strength and hope. I'm hoping that the book will meet somebody where they are, because it's very vulnerable. I share a lot of dark times, a lot of hard times, the fact that I failed in a lot of different areas. I was divorced twice, I'm a recovering alcoholic, I've been fired three times, I've been traded, I've been released.
Speaker 2:But I've also had some mountaintop experiences along the way and I guess the biggest one is no matter where you think you are, if you think you're alone or you think it can't get any worse. It probably could get worse, but it can get better. But for it to get better you got to put a foot down and head in a different direction. And I went from a guy, you know, having to move back in with his family in his early 30s, his mom and dad, to a guy that had two opportunities to manage in the dugout of two organizations that are worth over a billion dollars in charge of things. So you know that shows you there was obviously some character defects that were dealt with and hopefully gotten to a better place where people started to trust me. And you know, loyalty wasn't a question. Trust, integrity weren't questions. It became staples.
Speaker 1:If you could point to one thing that really changes you from being the 30-year-old living with your parents to ultimately climbing to getting to manage two Major League Baseball teams, what was the number one thing that you would say pushed you?
Speaker 2:I needed to find the best version of me, which I hadn't done. Truthfully, I had to admit number one I became an alcoholic. I had to deal with my alcoholism and I had to admit that my life had become unmanageable. I kept some jobs I mean at the time I got sober I was a major league hitting coach but there was too much collateral damage along the way and maybe some unfulfilled experiences, you know, as a player that never came to fruit because of some shortcomings. So I had number one to admit there had to be a better way. I couldn't do it by myself. I tried that a number of times so I sought out help and I think that's one of the other biggest encouragements I have in writing.
Speaker 2:The book is that you know I can't speak for women but I can speak for men, that I have this mentality. I got myself in this hole. I'll dig myself out, which you know over the years. I just call that jackass mentality. You're going to trust the same guy that drove the car into the ditch to get it out. No call AAA. No call a friend, call somebody. And so many times we don't reach out because we think it's a sign of weakness or it's a sign of being less than Truthfully. It's a superpower, it's real. You're just saying hey, if I break my arm, I'm not going to try and self-fix it, I'm going to go to somebody that fixes broken arms, if it's a broken heart, if it's a broken head, whatever it is. There's other people that work in those areas, that are very helpful and intelligent.
Speaker 1:Um, that can can be of service I think the problem sometimes athletes in particular is if they don't have someone they trust right, or they feel that they may come to you as a manager and be like, hey, coach, I'm dealing with this, I'm really through it. They may perceive that you would hold that against them, not like hold it against them, but like view it as like I don't know if I can trust this guy if I put him out on the field, if he's going through this, can I give him a contract extension? If he's dealing with this all the time? How would you advise athletes to navigate that space, particularly in the professional setting?
Speaker 2:It's going to depend on their individual makeup. You know one of the staples of AA is Alcoholics Anonymous. It's anonymity. In my case, I chose to share my recovery out loud, to use the platform that I had at the time, just so other people could understand that again, you're not alone. It's happened to other people. There's other people that have worked through it and out of it. Here's how they did it. You might want to check into that, but there's other ways to do it. If you're a player, even a manager, a coach, there's EAP systems involved. There's different ways to do it if you don't really want certain people to understand or talk about it initially.
Speaker 2:But when I went through my interview process, I asked you know, the Rockies were aware of walking through it because I had been a coach and gone through a lot of things there before I became a manager that they were privy to. And then, when I interviewed for the Pirates job, I asked them what have you heard about me? And they did their due diligence. They had a lot of information. I said, okay, you did a really good job and they're like well, here's what I'm going to share with you about is the collateral damage that's in the past the road I'm on now, the years of sobriety I got and I just told them my story just so they heard it from me. You know they had some good facts and they had the information they had wanted to discover and they talked to other people who had been around me for five, ten years.
Speaker 2:But I do think for the most part you know there's different people you can confide in, that you trust. But that goes back to what kind of relationships you can build and most times trust is earned. You know, back when I was a kid you were almost encouraged, trust was given. You know if it was a teacher, policeman, anybody, you know the cafeteria lady. You just trust them. My dad taught me you trust your elders, you trust them, you trust your boss. You know now society's changed in a lot of different directions about that. You've got to earn trust and when you people have earned your trust and obviously you can be more open with them, they've shown already an ability. They can share things they can keep. He ultimately became a drug addict, went to prison.
Speaker 1:And him and I discussed the point of change in humans and he viewed it as your own version of rock bottom. He's like no, not everybody has to go to his version of rock bottom, which was in prison as a drug addict. But his big thing was humans make dramatic change when they hit their own version of rock bottom. Now, it's a varying level. I've also had guests come on here and say the point of change is when you want something so badly that will drive you. You don't necessarily need to hit a rock bottom. In your own experience, what really increased the trajectory of your own career? Was it more of the rock bottom or more of the chasing? Hey, this is really what I want to get to.
Speaker 2:No, mine was a rock bottom. There were red flags along the way, but mine was a rock bottom. And then, one of the things that I think anybody that's gone through the AA program and has been successful with their recovery and maintained sobriety You've got to want to be sober more than anything else. You've got to want to not drink more than anything else and people say well, I got to put my wife first.
Speaker 2:You know what? No, you don't. You got to get sober first and then you got to. That's becomes your staple, because by being sober and the best for yourself, you're going to take care of your wife. You're going to take care of your family, you're going to take care of your boss, but you really should not put anything else above that. I'm going to get sober for Colin. I'm going to get sober for my mom. Those don't seem to have the same impact as you doing it for yourself first, and one of the things I share with people in recovery. All the time when I'll hear about a birthday, I'll say I'm proud of you and I'm really happy for all those that have loved you along the way, because now they're getting to see, you know, the version of the person they prayed for these years. They've stayed in that bunker with them. They've stayed in that foxhole with them. They've seen the man or the woman go through hell and back and come out and now, wow, it's a miracle.
Speaker 1:Do you ever battle with feeling worthy of your accomplishments? There's this quote I love from and I've wrestled with this too, but from Coach K to JJ Redick, and JJ Redick talks about. He said it was the most important and hardest thing he ever heard in his life when Coach K told him you weren't a national champion because you weren't worthy of being a national champion. And I wrestle with that, because sometimes I feel that there are champions who aren't worthy of being champions and there's people who are worthy of being champions who didn't achieve a championship. And I even just reflect over your career in Pittsburgh. There were teams that were worthy of being championship caliber, teams that just didn't get to win a World Series. I'd love to hear you unpack that quote in your own perspective and how you compare your own career to it.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot of depth to that and a lot of layers, I think. First and foremost, your definition of championship. I mean, truthfully, how many people do more people identify with the guy holding the trophy above his head or the guys that don't hold the trophy above their head? You know one team in every sport at the end of the year holds a trophy One team Everybody else figures it out has a long winter and tries another shot at it the next year.
Speaker 2:So definition of championships number one and yeah, we can be identified and compartmentalized in our sport by a letter, a W or an L, and there's times when I actually think you know what I've had, I think, with my coaching staff, and I've done a really good job, really good job and we didn't finish first.
Speaker 2:In Pittsburgh for three years I thought we were on a tremendous organizational spike. So many fingerprints on success. And you know it was two wild card games which is a crazy concept when you think of it and one playoff appearance. And then we lost to the Cardinals. And then you peel back layers. Yeah, the two times we got knocked down the wild card we faced the Cy Young Award winner both those years. You know what's the luck of the draw in that I've been to a World Series three times and finished second. I've gotten that close.
Speaker 2:So I think it's personal where how you identify with what you've been a part of and what that group has accomplished, I don't feel less than because I'm not one of the championship I've actually had. There's been a handful of people over time that say you're a losing manager. Your record's below 500. Yeah, it is. And then there's people in Pittsburgh that know that well, I managed. In Pittsburgh we had over 500 records, which is pretty impressive with how things have gone on there for a long time. It's very challenging At the end of the day.
Speaker 2:If my mom and my dad think I'm a champion, I mean truthfully, you've got to get to that space. I'm not that guy anymore that's motivated by external accolades. I don't need the world to applaud me to feel good about my performance. I know when I perform well. I know, but I do know I'm in control of my preparation. My execution is up to me and then my review is up to me. Outside of that, what kind of result I get? Well, that's the grade you get at the end of the day for taking the test.
Speaker 1:How long did it take you to get to that point?
Speaker 2:Oh, it took a while, it didn't happen overnight. And I think the first time I really really realized that when we lost the World Series in 1980 to the Phillies and you see a team jump up and down on a field, knowing you were that close and we had the lead in like three of the games. It was a five-game, I mean, it was six. Yeah, we won the first to no but we had the lead in three of them. So you know, normally the custom finish was we had a lead late Quiz would come in and of them. So you know, normally the custom finish was we had a lead leg, quisenberry would come in and save it. It didn't happen that Quisenberry, dan Quisenberry, it didn't happen that way. But to see grown men jumping up and down and then the World Series trophy, I was like wow, so am I a loser? You know, I'm like I. Just I had trouble saying no.
Speaker 1:I couldn't say I was a loser. I said we lost the World Series, but I'm not a loser. I have this concept I talk about where it's competing relentlessly but being able to let go completely of the outcomes. And I think people can misconstrue it as you're losing that competitive edge when you talk about losing or letting go of the outcomes. A lot of times outcomes are out of our control. There's varying factors that contribute, there's different things that just completely come out of random, and it's not that you care any less. It's that you're able to separate that outcome from a label onto yourself. I'm still going to come, I'm still going to prepare, I'm going to do my best to execute, I'm going to give everything I have to this, but I'm not going to let the outcome solely victory or failure define me, and it's something that I struggle with to this day. It's something I'm always working on. What maybe was the biggest thing that helped you get over that hump where you could accept that mentality fully?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a couple things that probably factor into that for me personally.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have a faith. You know I'm a Christian. I'm responsible to an audience of one. My preparation, my focus, my work. I'm accountable to my teammates, I'm accountable to the organization I work for.
Speaker 2:One of the challenges I had in managing and you see it happen throughout years in different places where a manager or coach gets fired and three coaches or assistants leave because they're loyal to him, one of the things I would share with my coaches was for me, I had to have a different spin on it. I said be loyal to the organization, because the organization has 250 people. People sell tickets, people sell corporate sponsors. There's a lot of people engaged that get the W or the L impacts them as well. And when you're loyal to the organization, you're going to be loyal to me.
Speaker 2:And it's also much easier to be loyal to one person than it is to be loyal to 150 or 200 people the scouts that are out there on their own spiritual meccas every day looking for players, the people in player development that are, you know, in the Rocky system, that are polishing rocks, still going to get up and play at the major league level. So I found out through the process of probably managing how important it was to be able to check the boxes on our preparation, our attention to detail, our review, execution. Some nights is going to be better than others, but I know when there's effort and the intensity level is where it needs to be and the guys are cohesive with their effort and their direction. What we get is what we get and if you don't like it, you figure out how to do a little bit better to get a better result.
Speaker 1:You talked about polishing rocks there just a moment ago. I know you're chief rock polisher. How are you and you had an amazing post on this the other day how are you balancing that old school and new school and in school mentality with your young rocks?
Speaker 2:You know that's the beauty of what I get to do. I mean we've got kids that are 20, 21 years old, some kids, you know, a couple of years out of high school, some kids first year out of college. So it's a fresh perspective. As I've said before, you know, when I go into town I'm in Fresno now, when I go in, hopefully they're happy to see. And I get that because you know I've been in the Meyer Leagues where rovers would come in and they were happy to see them. And some guys would come in and the team wasn't happy to see them. They were happy to see him. And some guys would come in and the team wasn't happy to see him. They were happy when they left, you know. So it's a good feel when you walk in and guys are smiling, they're happy to see you.
Speaker 2:Then I just try and pay attention. The first couple days I'm not there to fix anybody, and I think they've picked up on that now. I'm just there to hey, how are you doing? And I look, I use my eyes and my ears because sometimes you can. I've been through enough that I usually can feel from a kid looking at him is he beat down mentally? Is he beat down physically, has the game gotten a hold of him, starts shaking him up a little bit, and then I'll just share some of the things that you know. The third or fourth day, that hey will tell me well, I'm struggling with this, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what I went through that one time. Here's what I tried. I found some success with this, but it's basically not telling them what to do, it's just sharing some things with them. Tell them what worked for me, and I definitely can tell them what didn't work for me. I said you can probably try this too, all you want. This is not going to work and there's years, hundreds of people that have tried it this way. Trying harder doesn't work. You know how many times do you hear in sport from a player maybe from a coach, evaluator or manager, head coach say well, you know, we tried to do more than we were capable of. You hear that from hitters I tried to do more than I was capable of. After a while I would share with my teams and even players. I'd go. That becomes an excuse Stop, stop. It never works for anybody. Trying to do more than you're capable of does not work. So let's not do that. Let's eliminate that one. We just need you to be the best version of you you got signed.
Speaker 2:You're here for a reason your skill set plays. Let's play within that skill set.
Speaker 1:Let's not try and play outside. I heard this quote that I really liked. It's. Tradition is incredibly important. If it's been around for 100 years, there's a good chance it'll be around for 100 more. But when does tradition get in the way of innovation? Yeah, yeah, where do you know when it's like, okay, this needs to change.
Speaker 2:No, that's a great question. We used to share. Kelly McGregor and our organization shared many, many years ago. Tradition is a wonderful thing. It can be a vision killer as well, and it's accurate. I mean, just look at the evolution of technology. There's some technology that's really good. There's a lot of newer doesn't always mean better, right? As you said, some things are good and they've been good for a long time.
Speaker 2:They'll continue to be good, but some things can be tweaked to be better or updated or more relevant for the topic or the situation or the season, and I think that one of the cool things about you know, men and women, is we're always looking to improve a product right, and sometimes it's a small tweak. There are a number of analytics you can grab and you and I could probably sit down and talk about 50 of them. I'd probably handpick, you know, half of them have value to me, other ones I can see where other people like them. To me, they're just eh, I'm not in on that one. I don't need just to be the information gatherer. I need to be able to relay information, use what makes sense to me, and then I've got to be able to share it with somebody else. You see it in food branding. I mean, there's a whole discourse going on about food. Now, are we smart? As smart as we are? It's still amazing how we don't do some things very well.
Speaker 2:I was in Florida back in the day when we had the big Chad problem counting votes. I mean technology. You've got everything in your hands and all of a sudden the whole system blows up. You can't count your votes. And this isn't about politics, this is just about some things that haven't worked. You've got everything in your hands and all of a sudden, the whole system blows up. You can't count your votes, and this isn't about politics. This is just about some things that haven't worked. You've seen different automobiles come across it Now that has short shelf life. We're always trying to create which is cool. We wouldn't have got to the moon if we didn't.
Speaker 2:I was a part of watching the space program. I grew up in Florida. My dad worked at the Space Center for years. I mean, look at the chances that were taken there. They got so good at it that the first time one spaceship didn't go up and blew up. I mean, think about it. It's like catastrophic. It is catastrophic, but was that the reason to shut the whole program down, as eventually happened down the road? Nah, we have a tendency to overcorrect when maybe we got out in front of ourselves and something doesn't work. I don't want to get too philosophical on this, but I do understand. There's things to honor and there's things to hold on to and there's times to move on from them, and I think it's a gut feel. Or you ask the people that are using them.
Speaker 1:Is there a better way? When you're bringing a player in, is there ever a point where I know there's multiple ways to skin a cat, multiple ways to win, but you're bringing a guy into a culture and is there ever a point in time where it's like, hey, you need to do it this way, or you need to buy in or you're out?
Speaker 2:Well, you may get to that point.
Speaker 2:I think there would be a conversation or two before that when there's a final, final, final, final, um, you know, I've used it. I've used a conversation themed uh template where, okay, we're going to have a discussion about what I'm seeing uh, whether it's production level, performance, whatever and I said at the end of it, I want you to give me at least two things you heard me say a lot of times. You draw a player into a room, you talk to them, they nod their head. They're not listening to a word. You said they're uncomfortable in the room, they're nervous, they don't like whatever it is, but they don't listen. I was that player. I just couldn't wait for you to be quiet so I could get on down the road and try and get better, so I don't have to come in here again. But when you ask, look at the end, give me something back, that you hurt me. And I didn't do that for a while and I would have the players go out and we'd have a conversation.
Speaker 2:And a week later he's doing the same thing. Have another conversation a week later, he's doing the same thing, and it got maddening until I reached out to a friend. He goes. So are you self-regulating? Are you asking them for feedback on what was said and what was heard, message delivered, message heard, and I said, no, that's brilliant. So I've been doing that ever since. And then you get to the point where you know what. Here's what I said. He gives me what he heard.
Speaker 2:I go, all right, go out there and do this now for your team. This is about doing it for me. I said do it for your team, do it for the guy to your left, do it for the guy on your right. Your teammates need the best version of you out there, because if this doesn't happen, the next conversation we have will be completely different than this one.
Speaker 1:Are some people beyond saving, for lack of a better word?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a term that I didn't like when I first heard it, but it's so appropriate and I heard it from a doctor that was a friend of mine and you know I was talking to him about a situation. He goes Clint. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn in medicine was sometimes the patient dies, but it's real, and sometimes the players just run out of steam. You know, he's tapped out. The skill level just doesn't.
Speaker 2:It's not good enough to maintain at a major league level or the kid's not good enough to keep in your minor league system. Not everybody can be a major league player. You know it's like a one percenter if you're and then you get up so but they can be a gold. They can be a gold human being. So hopefully there's lessons going on along the way so when they walk out they still have their pockets full of things they've learned on how, when you grow up in society, you've still got to be a good teammate. You know, when you're in your home with your wife or your kids or your significant other, it's still important to be kind and to listen and be a good teammate and be unselfish. So a lot of things play for the right reasons because not everybody's meant to be a big leaguer either.
Speaker 2:Some people are meant to be doctors, to be lawyers, once they get out of that career. They chased the dream. It didn't happen. They're usually the resilient ones that can pivot in another direction and make something wonderful for themselves.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, coach, I know you're on a tighter time limit today. I can't thank you enough for coming on again for round two. Maybe in the future you know, I'll give you some time away We'll, we'll, we'll get you back for round three. But you know, I know you talked in the beginning about impacting and and you're hoping to help people, and you know I can't speak enough on what you've impacted my life and improved mine. So, thank you, thank you for coming along. If people want to, where can they get it?
Speaker 2:Amazoncom the best way. I mean it's on sale at Barnes Noble. It's on Books A Million. There's a few different places, I'm not aware. It's actually in Hudson News now. I saw it going through the airport the other day, but I don't see one behind you. So it looks like I'm going to have to get one from you to put in your little book file there. So on the side low, you text me your address and I'll get you a book I'll personalize a book, unless you don't think I'm worthy of hanging up there.
Speaker 2:Those are big time authors. You got up there, brother.
Speaker 1:I do. I got some good ones. I have some good ones over here, I got some good ones in my bag and I have some good ones at home. You don't have to sell me one, I already have one, so it hasn't been completed yet. Those are the completed ones. So once I read multiple books at a time, so once I finish them all. I get them up there. But hey, thank you listeners. Thank you for tuning in Tune in next week, five stars only. Baby. Appreciate you, coach, thanks y'all Enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Five stars only. Baby appreciate you, coach. Thanks y'all enjoy it.