Zach Sorensen - Author of The Hard 90 and Mental Performance Coach for the Atlanta Braves Artwork

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Zach Sorensen - Author of The Hard 90 and Mental Performance Coach for the Atlanta Braves

April 19, 2022 • Messier Larocque Performance Group • Season 1 • Episode 16

Fresh off helping the Atlanta Braves win the World Series, Zach Sorensen author of "The Hard 90" book and podcast joins us to share his journey and mental performance tips. Zach has been instrumental in helping so many athletes achieve a higher level of performance through taking care of the mental game. He wants everyone to achieve real world results by empowering athletes to develop an elite mindset through learning how to PREPARE, COMPETE and PROGRESS in the Mental Game.

Connect with Zach:
https://www.amazon.ca/HARD-90-Prepare-Compete-Progress-ebook/dp/B08JKXB1BJ
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hard-90-podcast-with-zach-sorensen/id1560368271
https://phenomsports.com

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00:00:04:23 - 00:00:43:09
Unknown
Hey Team Welcome To Benchmarked. Coach Messier, along with Coach Larocque. Thanks for joining us today. And man, do we have a special episode for you guys tonight? We have a very special guest with us, and I'm going to have Coach Larocque handle the intros for this one. Ladies and gentlemen, hold on. Here we have Zach Sorenson, Zach, former Wichita State stud, Cleveland Indians Anaheim Angels, Jack of all trades, currently live in Utah with his wonderful, wonderful wife and kids and currently the mental performance coach for the current World Series champion Atlanta Braves.

00:00:43:10 - 00:01:03:15
Unknown
How does that even sound when I say that? Wow, man, how about that? It was, quite a year. And I think the best part about it is meant everybody was an Atlanta Braves fan this year. It seemed like they come out of the woodwork. Oh, yeah. It was it was quite an experience. Meant Zach is also in the book for our program, specifically awards year program.

00:01:03:15 - 00:01:22:09
Unknown
And so every this is the class that Zach presents himself with. We bought a book for each one of our players to read, which is The Hard 90, which we highly, highly recommend for the price of $14.24. And why is that, Zach? Well, you know, we talk about getting 1% better every single day. And my challenge to you is to is to get 1% better.

00:01:22:10 - 00:01:34:10
Unknown
1% of your day is 14 minutes and 24 seconds. So there you go. There it is. That is unbelievable. So if you check that out, that's the price of the book because he's looking for you to get 1% better every single day.

00:01:36:17 - 00:01:57:10
Unknown
So the hard 90 for the book, the podcast that you're on now, our boys are keep pumping that stuff out and listening and retweeting. Hopefully what you're doing. Such an amazing job with that. Can you walk us through a little bit now? I want to I want to dig in from Zach Sorenson. Maybe some were some of our young men are now sorry.

00:01:57:10 - 00:02:16:19
Unknown
I want to go back to the class beside the book. Sorry I got caught up in the book, but Zach personalized every single book and properly spelled some of those French names for every one of our athletes. But and that's just that's just so is what kind of person you are, man, I know I've said to you before, but I want to thank you again publicly for for doing that for our athletes.

00:02:16:20 - 00:02:48:23
Unknown
I remember one time we had an athlete who joined us later and Zach put a, you know, a 32nd video welcoming the athlete to our two hour program. And you're just first class all the way around. And I'm blessed. God blessed me to meet you when we met in Arizona. I'm so thankful for that to this day. And we keep this relationship going So I want to dig in deep, what from the beginning because some of our listeners right now, either in the podcast or right now in our on our Zoom call with some of our players there, though, at that high school age right now, they're not sure what to do.

00:02:48:24 - 00:03:06:23
Unknown
They're multisport athletes. Do I like to do this? Do I love this? Can you kind of unwrap your story a little bit for us, please? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, so for me, I played I played multiple sports coming up. I played football at quarterback for a while, running back a little bit here and there. Jumped into basketball even though I couldn't shoot.

00:03:06:24 - 00:03:25:07
Unknown
In fact, you know, funny story. Whenever I got the ball, I swear I heard my coach, you know, every time I touch the ball. But maybe I was just hearing things, but I knew I was going to be a baseball player. For me, it was. And but I came up through playing a lot. And that was important for me because I felt like, you know, playing multiple sports helped me to be a better all around athlete.

00:03:25:07 - 00:03:45:19
Unknown
So but, you know, for me, it was going to be baseball. And I love the game. I didn't just love the game. I loved working at the game. I loved putting my time in. And and I'm a big believer in recognizing, you know, we'll talk about this, I'm sure, on the show, but recognizing my strengths, recognizing my weaknesses, and just attacking all of those day in and day out.

00:03:45:19 - 00:04:01:09
Unknown
So. So for me, I had this vision as a young child, as a young kid. I remember sitting in the living room and, you know, back then, the TVs weren't quite as big as they were. A man I saw at Costco the other day, I saw like a 90 inch TV. And I'm like all but back in the day, they were about the size of this school you had.

00:04:01:10 - 00:04:17:16
Unknown
Did you have to get up and change the channel? Are you you must be younger than us. Yeah, well, there were two of them. Yeah, right. The top dial in the bottom dial. Yeah. And I remember sitting in front of the TV and asking my sister if she take a picture and she's like, Well, how come? I'm like, because I want it to look like I'm in the game, you know?

00:04:17:16 - 00:04:33:01
Unknown
And so for me, and I remember at a young age, it was a big deal to me to see myself doing that. There was one other experience. You know, I'm laying in bed at night. I'm just I'm just dreaming of playing in the big leagues. And I woke up and I don't go out and do this. Don't you know, unless you get permission.

00:04:33:01 - 00:04:46:04
Unknown
But then I wake up and I just started painting, and I painted a baseball field on my ceiling. Okay. And the reason why is because when I lay to bed at night, I wanted to see that. And and so me, that's where I kind of started the form of visualization. I wanted to see myself playing in the big leagues.

00:04:46:16 - 00:05:04:11
Unknown
And so, as you could tell, I was, I was I was all in I was, I was, you know, like the kids these days say, you know, I was full sand when it comes to you, not only wanting to be a big leaguer, but I also backed it up. I feel like by putting in the time and putting in the work that is what, an early start.

00:05:04:11 - 00:05:23:21
Unknown
Very few people can say that. Like some people, there's a difference between dreaming at a young age because a lot of us dreamed it. But very few people could say they actually visualized it and took the time to paint it and create it like you're creating your painting of your future, which is just outstanding. Very good. It was.

00:05:23:21 - 00:05:40:10
Unknown
And it was. It was fun, you know? And like I said, that's the beginning of it. But, but for me, it was just the time put in. I remember, you know, going to my principal, my high school and just saying, Hey, I like to enroll in the seventh period, which is the final period of the day, seventh period baseball class, and was like, I don't think we have a seventh period baseball class.

00:05:40:10 - 00:05:54:24
Unknown
And I'm like, yeah, I feel like we need to so I can go hit off the tee. And he's like, Well, are you doing that just so you can skip class? And I'm like, Listen, here's what I want to do in life. Here's where I want to be. The only way for me to be able to get there is if I get the repetition.

00:05:55:14 - 00:06:11:14
Unknown
And he created he actually created a class for me and he'd stop by twice a week to see and I'd be up there just hitting off a tier or playing wall ball. No one else was in the class with me. So it was just myself working on repetition wall ball, ball off the tee, just, you know, repetition after repetition, after repetition.

00:06:11:14 - 00:06:30:19
Unknown
So I feel like, you know, some of those early things I did kind of gave me the edge at that point. And then it became about me just competing so I just got myself unmuted there. Just to cut quickly to mark you letting people still think I'm get crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, this is the part of the editing, Zach, that he gets to do that.

00:06:30:19 - 00:06:50:21
Unknown
I don't think that speech is perfect. So now I want to know about this job you had to get so you can a teacher and you paint your ceiling. You know, you must hopefully pay your parents back for that. So you paint your story, you convince your teacher, which, you know, Coach Mason are both teachers. You convince us to add a seventh period.

00:06:50:21 - 00:07:06:01
Unknown
So you get your work in and then talk to us about like the grind of having to save money. You may be in a lot of showcases to get yourself out there. Yeah. So, you know, my pops and my mom, they worked really hard for us as kids. They gave us everything they possibly could. And and I respect that.

00:07:06:01 - 00:07:26:18
Unknown
They taught me a lot of lessons in life and that's something that I've tried to learn from them and try to implement with my children. So I remember going up and saying, Hey, hey, mom, dad, there's this camp I'd really like to go to, and that's it's called Spring Training. It's down in Mesquite, Nevada, you know? Okay. Well, one is it well, it's, you know, it's and it's our Presence Day weekend or this or that, you know, and they said, okay.

00:07:27:06 - 00:07:30:02
Unknown
And then they came back to me and they said, Just let us know how we can help you get there.

00:07:32:13 - 00:07:50:18
Unknown
And I paused for a moment and I said, Oh, okay. And I said, Well, I'm not sure I'm 14. You know, I don't know what you know, this and that. But a long story short, as they said, yeah, you know, you know, we know you're pretty young, you'll get a job, but we're more than happy to go try to find a job and then we'll come work it with you.

00:07:50:19 - 00:08:12:07
Unknown
Long story. Short, my dad went out and got a job where we cleaned the grocery store floors and we cleaned the floors every single morning. In fact, my alarm went off every single morning throughout my whole high school time. So for four straight years, because it was ninth, 10th, 11th world, my alarm went off seven days a week at 3:50 a.m. and so alarm goes off.

00:08:12:07 - 00:08:26:22
Unknown
I mean, my goal was to get, you know, I needed as much sleep as I could. So the second that alarm went off, I had 10 minutes to get out of bed, do whatever I needed to do. Get my clothes on, and then be to the grocery store, which is about 4 minutes away from the house because I needed to start right at 4 a.m..

00:08:27:18 - 00:08:42:19
Unknown
I got done cleaning the floors by seven, hurried home shower and I was at school by seven 30. So, you know, but what was interesting is I was taught some valuable lessons. I didn't have time to work after school. Why? Because I needed to practice. I needed to play we had games, you know, I played football at play basketball.

00:08:43:04 - 00:09:04:08
Unknown
I played baseball during baseball season. And so I learned a valuable lesson that you need to make well, use of your time when the world or yourself or your family doesn't need you. Okay, so I wasn't needed by anybody, you know, at 3:50 a.m. so that was my selfish time to make money so that I could end up going to these camps.

00:09:04:19 - 00:09:20:21
Unknown
Well, that's pretty outside. And one of the things that we say I see a lot is who and what you are and what you're doing when nobody's paying attention. That really says a lot about it. Somebody and the fact that you're doing that is just crazy just to get yourself to camp. Some guys your age, you're probably looking to save up for the first car.

00:09:21:00 - 00:09:36:20
Unknown
You just going to try to show your skills. Amazing. Such a cool story. It's a fun story. And I give credit to my parents, you know, because they, they they very easily could have, you know, dad could have stayed at work longer and made a little extra money and tucked it in there. But he taught me a valuable lesson, you know, imagine that.

00:09:36:20 - 00:09:54:14
Unknown
So you want something, you go get it. And I think one thing that I see with with even a younger generation a little bit, we want something. It's out there. It's going to be hard to get. And so we're like, you know, maybe it's not for me. And, you know, I kind of had that mindset that if I want it bad enough, if my wife is big enough, I'm going to go make it happen.

00:09:54:14 - 00:10:10:17
Unknown
And I think if there's a lesson from this, it can be this is you got to be willing to do things that I used to say. You got to be willing to do things that other people don't want to do. But let's not compare ourselves to other people. You got to be willing to do things that you don't want to do, okay?

00:10:11:12 - 00:10:34:23
Unknown
You don't want to do something. Go out there and get it done and push yourself and you'll be amazed at what you can actually get done. Man, just letting that sink in for a while. I know, Zach, I want to know, and I'm excited for to hear the story. It's I know not everybody paying listening is ever heard the story like the hard 90 and after reading it, just like it's just such a perfect title for the book.

00:10:35:06 - 00:10:53:24
Unknown
Can you fast forward first of all, what happened? Did you get to the camp and tell us what happened at that camp? Yeah. So I did get to the camp and it's interesting. You know what? You're the story you're referring to actually took place during that camp. No, I went to that camp for the next four years because, you know, I stayed up the money and went there.

00:10:53:24 - 00:11:11:24
Unknown
But I end up going to playing at Wichita State University. And, you know, I wasn't highly recruited out of high school. I had scouts at most of my games, you know, professional scouts. But it got to be that time. And I was like, man, I, I don't, you know, I'm going to get drafted. Hopefully I end up getting drafted in the 16th round.

00:11:11:24 - 00:11:29:05
Unknown
But I felt like I needed to grow up, but I did not get recruited by very many many schools. Will late in the summer before my freshman year of college, I got a phone call from Wichita State. Now, during that time, Wichita State was ranked number one in the country. So we're talking the best team in college baseball at the time.

00:11:29:21 - 00:11:43:18
Unknown
And they called me and man, I didn't even know how to spell Wichita. All I knew is that they had like they had some pretty ugly uniforms. That's all I knew. And I knew they were pretty good, right? So they called me up. They wanted to fly me out for a recruiting trip. And I get out there and and they offered me a scholarship.

00:11:44:09 - 00:12:01:11
Unknown
And as I'm sitting in the office of Brant Kim, that's who was our pitching coach, recruiting coordinator, as well as Gene Stephenson, I said, Have you guys ever seen me play? And I remember them saying, to me, they said, We've been in this game a long time and we know a lot of baseball guys and we trust a couple of them.

00:12:02:07 - 00:12:20:01
Unknown
And they said, one of the guys that we trust said You could play for us so, you know, I actually got his name that day and I wrote it down. And then a couple of years later, after I got drafted, I put a call in to him to tell him, Thank you for recommending me to a program like at Wichita State, because, you know, the trajectory of my career changed that day.

00:12:20:19 - 00:12:34:10
Unknown
And as you know, after I said thank you and you told me I appreciate all he did for me, I said, man, you know, I don't know that I've ever met you. You know, when did you see me play? And he's like, hey, you know, I saw you play down at the tournament, Mesquite. And he goes, Yeah, I was there.

00:12:34:10 - 00:12:56:00
Unknown
For one day. And this is an interesting story. So so, you know, I said, oh, wow, I must have been awesome that I'll be. And he's like, Actually, you're pretty bad. You were you were terrible that day. And I'm like, this isn't making sense. And he's like, Listen. He goes, you know, for the most part, we know who can play you know, we have our seats in front of us.

00:12:56:00 - 00:13:20:06
Unknown
We get our reports, this and that, and we knew you could play from the report we had. He's like, that day you were over three in a scrimmage game. He goes, you struck out, you popped up, and then you hit a 17 hopper back to the pitcher. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, way to go. And I'm like, So why did you recommend me And he said, Because on the 17 Hopper, back to the pitcher your time from home to first was really impressive.

00:13:20:09 - 00:13:46:05
Unknown
And he goes, That's all I needed to see. He goes You ran a hard 90. And so, you know, it's interesting that on a groundball back to the pitcher where I was thrown out by ten feet. Right. One of those that you get frustrated about your emotions get high you're upset this and that that time you know and I hopefully I would say every time I hustled down the first base and that was the moment where this scout said I could play college baseball for the number one team in the country.

00:13:48:07 - 00:14:08:23
Unknown
That gives me shivers just thinking about that. And that's what you never know. I say this to so many people. You never know who's watching ever. Right? You never know somebody you know, is on a you know, a car ride through the Trans-Canada Highway and stops and somebody sees a ballgame at Terry Fox and like, I'm going to I'm going to watch this game.

00:14:08:23 - 00:14:38:12
Unknown
You could be anybody. And you're there, right? It just that is just awesome. So cool. I think we've had two or three stories right now and it's almost like, okay, that's it for episode. Keep pressing it. Yeah. Just like what else are you supposed to even talk about like this now? I think what's interesting real quick, if I can if I can comment on that, you know, to all the all your players and all the players that are listening to this is one thing that you you understand that probably the number one thing we talk about, you know, when the coaches get on with this is you got to be able to control it.

00:14:38:12 - 00:14:56:08
Unknown
You can't control like like I couldn't control that. I didn't get any hits that day. I can control if I got hit, I can't control if I win. There's a lot of things I can't control. And I think we focus on those. But when you focus on things that you can't control, you become out of control, right? So how do you beat that?

00:14:56:08 - 00:15:13:22
Unknown
You bear down on the things that you can control. And I learned at your early age, I can control my effort, I can control my hustle. I can bring those every single day on every single play. And I tried to challenge myself to do that so that the end of the game, it wasn't you know, how many hits that I get at the end of the game, it was okay.

00:15:13:22 - 00:15:32:20
Unknown
How was my attitude, how was my effort, how was my body language, how was my energy today? And what I found out is those things I can replicate and bring those every single day. And so even in a day where or maybe things didn't go the way I wanted them to go, I can still be okay with myself because I control the things I can control.

00:15:32:20 - 00:15:51:14
Unknown
And I know we wear that out sometimes, but I mean, that story that I told you based on controlling what I can control, that got me to Wichita State, which, you know, I'll be honest with you, that's what got me to professional baseball. And even when you're at Wichita State, it's not like you just jumped into the starting role for summer.

00:15:51:14 - 00:16:11:12
Unknown
You had to grind that out somewhat. Also injuries and luck of the draw in certain aspects and how you took what was thrown at you. Because, you know, and one of our shows about performance is, you know, Mike Tyson says everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. So you took a couple of punches in the face can you walk us through a couple of those at Wichita?

00:16:11:19 - 00:16:30:15
Unknown
Yeah, you know, Wichita was amazing for me. I had a lot I had a staff that believed in me and they believed in everybody there. And, you know, my timer was amazing. So I walk on campus the very first day I remember getting there and I'm like, wow, you know, this is I mean, this is number one. And I went from you know, I played it in a nice place, but the stadium at Wichita State was unbelievable.

00:16:30:15 - 00:16:45:18
Unknown
And you walk in there and it's almost intimidating. You know, you got the the murals and you got this and that, and it's just an awesome place. And and then I get there and I remember walking out there and the coaches, you know, they can't be on the field with you because there's the, you know, the blackout times or whatever it is.

00:16:46:11 - 00:17:02:08
Unknown
And they said, hey, we'd love to see you go out there and hit and I'm like, Okay, there's another player here we'll have him throw to you. And of course, they're just people through the windows watching me. So I always wanted to be a switch hitter and and, you know, in high school, we did not have the best team.

00:17:02:08 - 00:17:17:21
Unknown
We had a good team, but not the best team. And my coaches wanted me just to be a right handed hitter because they said that was our best chance of winning was for me just to do my thing. And so I worked hard when, you know, outside of practice, that's, that's that's another topic, right? We were all time out.

00:17:17:21 - 00:17:36:16
Unknown
You mean there's I'm outside of practice. Yeah. So practice, you know, you know, I think Allen Iverson talked about practice. No, no, no, we're not going to go there. But so outside of practice, I said, okay, now that I'm done, given everything I've got to my team and to my coaches, my staff, my parents, you know, all of that, outside of practice, I'm going to work on things.

00:17:36:16 - 00:17:52:20
Unknown
I want to get better at and so I would hit left handed any time I could. So I get there that day, that first day, some of my coaches are seeing me, me hit and I jump in their left handed. In fact, I remember walking in and I didn't I wasn't crushing the ball, right. Let's be honest. But I remember walking in and they're like, Huh?

00:17:53:04 - 00:18:13:10
Unknown
We didn't know you were a switch hitter. And they're like, How long have you been switch hitting? And I'm like, a couple of weeks now, you know, but they're like, you know, we can roll with that. We can see how it goes. So anyway, I'm on campus right there and all the players start coming in and and there's some there's some big names that are rolling through that place at this time.

00:18:13:10 - 00:18:31:13
Unknown
I mean, that year, we had a first round pick and Braden Looper throwing, you know, 98 to, you know, 100 miles an hour. We had some big names. And I remember looking around and saying, Do I belong? And I think we all have that in our mind. We have that thought process. Am I good enough? In fact, I think that's even when I talk to my professional players, that's our biggest fear, is am I going to be good enough?

00:18:31:16 - 00:18:50:12
Unknown
Right. And I was going through that at the time. So I go out there to take ground balls, a shortstop. There's a senior shortstop out there. And and there's a freshman all-American from Texas. And we all know about those kids from Texas, right? Yeah. Right. And then there's myself. And I remember thinking to myself, why am I here?

00:18:50:17 - 00:19:04:16
Unknown
You know, why did they want me to come play? And so I battled hard and this and that. And we're about halfway through the fall season my freshman year, and our coach calls the three of us in the office and he says, you know, we got a pretty good team this year. And he said, he goes, Here's what I need out of my shortstop.

00:19:04:16 - 00:19:20:21
Unknown
I need someone they can catch the ball. And he's like, you know, obviously, we'd love you to hit that. Be a bonus. But we got some firepower and, you know, we had an all-American third baseman. We had some big time players. And I remember going home that day and saying, you know, I'm not sure I can hit at this level yet, but but I can catch the ball.

00:19:21:11 - 00:19:38:21
Unknown
I can do that. All right. And so I went out there and end up winning the job as a freshman. So I had a good freshman year, played well we had a blast. We went to the College World Series my good buddy, actually, he just got hired by the Braves, were back working together. And Kevin Hooper was my second baseman.

00:19:38:21 - 00:19:57:11
Unknown
We both were freshman, all-American, working together, playing in the college world. Series as the middle infield for Wichita State and had a blast there. But, you know, there's going to be bumps in the road. And so I had a pretty smooth freshman year. I almost gave up switch hitting halfway through the year. It was my awesome coach Jim Thomas came to me and said, Hey, let's go get some extra work.

00:19:57:20 - 00:20:13:18
Unknown
Yeah. And again, you know, this has been the theme, but work outside of practice is what got me to where I wanted to be. I was going to quit switch hitting that day. He grabs me, says, let's go get some extra work. And we've worked through some struggles and bam, you know, that kept me switching in that day.

00:20:14:07 - 00:20:31:07
Unknown
Sophomore year, we're, we're thumping some teams. I get ready to hit. We're playing against the team that we should be beating. Okay. Now here's the deal. We always talk about this. The best team doesn't win. It's the team that plays the best. So we were playing against a team who wasn't as good as us and they were thumping us.

00:20:31:07 - 00:20:46:02
Unknown
Okay, so that happens all the time. And I decided I needed to start creating some momentum for our guys. So I try to still third base. I have the bag. I What? I feel like it's stolen. I'm going to slide in headfirst into the bag. You know, they always talk about don't go in head first because you're going to break your fingers.

00:20:46:16 - 00:21:01:07
Unknown
I held batting gloves in my hand so I wouldn't break my fingers. I roll my wrist over and break my hand so I'm out for six weeks. And so it's like, well, what do you do when you're faced with adversity? You know, how do you deal with this? This is this is a big year. It's a sophomore year.

00:21:01:07 - 00:21:30:14
Unknown
For me, this and that. I took about 24 to 48 hours and felt sorry for myself. And then I said, Okay, it's time to work. All right. So I went to my coaching staff and I said, I need a list of all the limitations I have in my game. What do I need to work on? And the biggest one I think that came up is they said lateral quickness going left to right and and so with permission from my, you know, my, my, my rehab trainer, I went out there without a glove on for about five or six straight weeks.

00:21:30:14 - 00:21:49:19
Unknown
And every time a ball was hit, I broke left. I broke right, I broke left. I broke right until my lateral quickness accelerated. Long story short, when I got back from my injury, I was a better player than I was before I got injured because I was working on something I really needed to work on. And I think, you know, that's something that we all can do.

00:21:49:19 - 00:22:18:17
Unknown
And learn from yeah. Well, you got the cops here to talk about overcoming adversity and a big word that's been thrown around, especially in the last three years, is resiliency. And I say to JG, you can't demonstrate resiliency without having faced the adversity first. The resiliency is coming back from the adversity. And it seems like you're you're you're running in obstacles to knock those obstacles down.

00:22:19:02 - 00:22:37:07
Unknown
Nothing, which is really, really cool and is still out a relatively young age, which is amazing. And I can see why now you get picked and to move forward and to go on and play at higher levels, which is pretty cool. Yeah. So, so what comes to my mind when you talk about that is, you know, we all, we all spend time in the weight room, okay?

00:22:37:09 - 00:22:56:10
Unknown
All your guys, you know, maybe they're not right now, but they're going to spend time in the weight room and and if you want to to you know, you want your muscles to get bigger and stronger, what do you do? You go in there and you actually tear them down. You rip them apart and then they rebuild but all of a sudden, in the real world, we're like, oh, no, try to stay away from this failure stuff.

00:22:56:10 - 00:23:11:03
Unknown
We try to stay away from the struggle. But the lesson we learned from the weight room is if you want to get bigger and you want to get stronger, then you need to be able to push yourself to failure. All right. So we you know, we do talk about this a lot. We talk about failure, the fear of failure.

00:23:11:04 - 00:23:25:12
Unknown
We see that a lot. And I see it in some of my own kids. Right. They're scared that we're going to fail. And here's what's interesting. You guys can do this some time. I had a group of kids the other day and I had 22 balloons. All right. And I to the first kid and I actually was trying to teach a lesson to the parents.

00:23:25:12 - 00:23:39:17
Unknown
Not that I ever do that, but I was trying to teach a lesson to the parents. Right. And I said, okay, here's what I want you to do to the first kid. I said, here's here's a balloon. And you know it when it was completely blown up, we're talking like 14 inches. You know, that's about the size of this balloon.

00:23:39:17 - 00:23:55:07
Unknown
I said, I want you to blow this balloon up to where you're you're comfortable with the level of air that's inside the balloon. Okay? So the individual blows the balloon up. They get it's a nice size, perfect round awesome balloon. And I'm like, how does that feel? The they're like, Good, good. I said, Do you feel like you can replicate that?

00:23:55:19 - 00:24:09:06
Unknown
And they're like, Yeah. I said, you could replicate that every single time you wanted to. And they're like, Yeah, and I said, Parents, you good with this performance? And they're like, Yeah, that's good. Looks great. So then I go to the other kid and I said, Okay, now I want you to blow this balloon up. And so they blow it up to about the same size.

00:24:09:06 - 00:24:23:14
Unknown
The other one, I said, Okay, now I want you to give it some more air. And I said, No, I want to give it some more air. I want you to keep blowing now. Now give it some more air. Now, as you can imagine, you guys are probably feeling the same way. Like we're all getting a little bit of I mean, the word we use is some anxiety, okay?

00:24:23:14 - 00:24:37:22
Unknown
We're starting to feel a little bit of, of this and pressure and it's like, okay, when's it going to pop and when are they going to blow? And the person blowing, it's getting a little bit nervous, all right? And then I'm like, Okay, blow it one more time and it pops. And I'm like, Are you okay? And they're like, Yeah.

00:24:38:16 - 00:24:55:19
Unknown
And so then I talked for a minute, and I go back to the first person. I said, Okay, now I want you to blow this balloon up just to the perfect little size again. And they go, and it's perfect. And I go to the other person. I said, Now I want you to blow this one up. Now, this time when they go to blow it up, they've already been through that stress that was created the first time they blew that balloon up.

00:24:55:19 - 00:25:18:11
Unknown
So immediately it got to almost maxed out without any stress, pressure, anxiety, whatever it may be. And all of a sudden now the audience isn't even nervous. Okay. The reason why I did this is you guys have no idea how far you can push yourselves until you push yourself to that spot. And when you get to that point where you fail, you're like, Okay, now I know where that's at.

00:25:18:11 - 00:25:35:21
Unknown
And I can go all the way there without any feelings of nervousness, and then maybe next time I can push it even further. It's amazing how big that balloon can get before it pops, you know? So, you know, when you when you start thinking these ways, you challenge yourself to to be your very best, to push yourself to even make mistakes.

00:25:35:21 - 00:25:56:03
Unknown
Why? Because that's where the answers are. Okay? When you make a mistake, that's where the answer is. That's where you learn who you can be. That's where you learn what to do, what not to do. And then how you can be better from that. So and I learned that in my career, I did as a player, you know, every single time, you know, the story I tell is back home here we have a lot of lakes that are that are around us.

00:25:56:03 - 00:26:11:10
Unknown
Lake Powell is an unbelievable lake. Our family loves to wake surf. We used to wake board. But, man, as I get older, that hurts, man. It hurts when you fall. Right. So so we wake sir, if you slow the boat down and I go to my daughter and I'm like, hey, do you want to learn how to wake surf?

00:26:11:10 - 00:26:25:18
Unknown
It's this coolest sport ever. And she's like, well, I've never done it before. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I mean, we'll be patient with you. Let's do it. So I get out there, and I said, When you're ready, just say. Just say, hit it. And so she gets out there. I mean, she's like, I'm nervous. And I'm like, Yeah, that's part of it, right?

00:26:26:05 - 00:26:45:20
Unknown
And she says, Hit it. And and I, you know, throttle the boat a little bit. And what happens? She falls, and I'm like, No big deal. I swing around, we get to the rope, and I say, You ready? And she's like, Yeah, let's try it. And she says, Hit it. I throttle. Bam! She falls and she fell and she fell and she fell and she failed and failed and failed and fell.

00:26:45:20 - 00:27:05:16
Unknown
Fell fell and fell probably like 25 times. Now, at this point, I'm like, Man, is she okay? Right? Like emotionally. And I pull the boat, really close her, I swing around, I'm like, You're doing okay. And she looks at me and she says, I almost got it. And I'm like, That is the greatest lesson I've ever been taught, all right?

00:27:05:16 - 00:27:25:07
Unknown
Every single time that you fail, you're gathering information and you're learning a little bit more. That's going to make you better. A failure isn't a bad thing, okay? It's a lesson learned and we talk about this a lot. You're not a winner or a loser. You're a winner or a learner. Okay? So when you win, great. When you don't win, great.

00:27:25:07 - 00:27:40:24
Unknown
Because you just learn something that's going to get you closer to being who you want to be. And that lesson that day taught me, you know, that what? That was amazing for me to see that. So how hard how hard is that surfer can you off there? How hard is that? Was that as a father? Because we'll look at it as our coaches with our athletes.

00:27:41:05 - 00:28:00:20
Unknown
Now, you've you kind of gave the spiel about a father with his daughter. How hard was it to see? Because I'm trying to picture some of the parents watching their kids play. We're coaching and you don't we have faith and trust that their son or daughter can see can consider. We're giving them the opportunity. And they're sometimes thinking like, he can't do that.

00:28:00:23 - 00:28:15:18
Unknown
She can't do that. Why he put them in that situation. So how were you able to deal with or what would you have to say to parents in regards to that, like you whipping around? Are you going to be okay? You're going to be okay. Like, what would your suggestion be to some parents in those situations? We're getting deep now.

00:28:15:20 - 00:28:40:05
Unknown
Oh, boy, here we are. The Book of Parenting by Parenting One on One by Zach Lawrence. And that's about that. So you know, so what's interesting here is what I've learned, especially recently, like like art. You talk about the word resilience. You talk about being resilient what's interesting is I feel like our kids are like more resilient than we were at that age in many, many, many ways.

00:28:40:15 - 00:28:55:16
Unknown
So when my kids are going through tough times instead of me going up there and giving them the amazing advice that I'm sure I have for them and I know that you guys do as coaches, right. And parents, right? Sometimes I'll walk up to them when they're having a tough time and they're coming to me and I'll say I got a couple questions for you.

00:28:55:16 - 00:29:15:05
Unknown
And they're like, Yeah. And I'm like, Do you want me to tell you what to do? Do you want me to give you advice or do you want me just to listen in and I'll be honest. 90% of the time, maybe 100, they say, I just want you to listen, okay? And it's been really interesting for me to hear that from them because they just want to hear themselves talk.

00:29:15:06 - 00:29:35:11
Unknown
Now, obviously, if you're putting your kids through, you know, danger in this and that, you've got to step in and make that happen. But life lessons are life lessons, and it's very important that they learn that, right? Sometimes we step in there because we don't like to see our kids go through tough times. And we we we swoop in and we try to save them but they need to be they need to learn those lessons.

00:29:35:11 - 00:29:59:01
Unknown
And I'll be honest with you, if they can learn them on their own, you know, that's even a better lesson taught. And and kudos to you for letting them than learn that lesson. That makes sense. Oh, yeah. I've never had I've heard the analogy before. It's like driving a car is a new driver, teenage driver. Right. Sometimes you got to rub up against the guardrails a little bit to understand how one how big the car is and how wide the road is.

00:29:59:07 - 00:30:14:21
Unknown
And you learn a little bit more that way. So bumping up against the guardrails every now and then is a good thing here in general. And here in Canada, we get a lot of snow. So my new analogy is your parents that love to snow plow for their kids, they just clear the path, clear clear like we had helicopter parents.

00:30:14:21 - 00:30:40:13
Unknown
But now that's been overshadowed by the snowplow. Parents just say, I'm going to bulldoze my way, the way for my kids. So I totally get what you're saying. It's such a great message. Now, here's something that came to my mind is we're thinking about that. So another thing we talk about all the time, in fact, you know, I didn't really make this clear in my book, but the programing that I teach my athletes and this is the Atlanta Braves or this is your guys's team or whatever it may be, is all based on an acronym, like the acronym that I use, this phenom.

00:30:41:00 - 00:30:58:13
Unknown
We want our kids to be phenomenal. So we want them to be phenoms. Okay. So the first skill that I teach is process over outcome, you know, and just like you guys you know, you got your you know, you got your nine pillars that you guys talk about. I've got my my seven skills that I teach a funny story.

00:30:58:15 - 00:31:16:03
Unknown
All right. The toughest day to play in professional baseball is Sunday. Okay, Monday through Saturday, the game times, it's 705. And so you're on your routine. You know what time you're going to get to the ballpark. You know what time you're going to have your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, all of that. And then all of a sudden Sunday, it's like two or five.

00:31:16:03 - 00:31:36:16
Unknown
I mean, sometimes it's like ten 05, and your body's like, no, it's not time to play yet, right? So what do you do to act different than you feel? And that's another thing we talk about right now. What do you do active in the field? Well, I had these shoes that I used to wear in professional baseball, and I was not this flashy player, but these were patent leather, super shiny.

00:31:36:16 - 00:31:53:20
Unknown
Oh, yeah. Shoes. And they were called phenom games. All right. And when I wore those shoes, man, I had to act different than I felt because if I was going to pull that off, I needed to be something special. I need to be quick. I need be fascinating to be awake anyway. Fenham is what I've come with. Process over outcome is skill number one that I teach.

00:31:54:09 - 00:32:14:00
Unknown
And as I think about parenting, we oftentimes focus on the outcome like even your even your question, you know, coach was what do we do in that moment based on the outcome that just took place? And as I think about how I would give advice on that, my answer would be, let's teach him the process. Let's teach him to have a better process.

00:32:14:00 - 00:32:34:16
Unknown
Let's teach them to have a new process. All right. So, you know, oftentimes if my son or my daughters may make a decision that I don't agree with, my response would be that's an interesting decision. Right. How about that? There you go. There's a go to. But but what I try to do on a daily basis, and this works for me as a parent, it's worked for me with my major league pitchers.

00:32:34:16 - 00:32:49:02
Unknown
And maybe we'll get to that story here at some point. But I teach them to do a daily well, better how it's a great way to evaluate everything and anything that's going on in super simple. It's super easy. So when I go laid next to my daughters at nighttime, when I put them to bed how is your day to day?

00:32:49:02 - 00:33:04:12
Unknown
You know, and one of them will say, there you go, right there it is, the Mental Performance Journal. It's just a lot of pages of the well, better how you know, some of my one of my daughters will she'll say the day was great and that's about all she's got for me. My other one will tell me this 3 hours story about how this happened.

00:33:04:12 - 00:33:22:02
Unknown
I happen. But what I'm trying to get to is a well, better how what did you do well today? Right. What do you want to do better? And then how are we going to do it? How are we going to attack it? And again, if you have this process that it's okay to make a mistake now, it's something you want to do better and we can attack it tomorrow.

00:33:22:09 - 00:33:50:05
Unknown
We're going to continue to progress in life. We're going to continue to progress on the field in life as a person, as a dad, whatever it is we may be, if we have this mindset that is that mistakes just lead us into our process for tomorrow. Love it. I love it. But now with the final, so you get the process over outcome, which we've referred to a lot, which it kind of hits on all of our stuff too, because if you don't have that, it's the preliminary steps of success, right?

00:33:50:05 - 00:34:07:18
Unknown
And it's always and a lot of times it's a controllable. Right? 100%. Yeah. In fact, you know, as I break down process over outcome, I then teach for drills underneath process over outcome. Drill number one is control what you can't control. Yeah, yeah. Drill number two, we talked about it before we came on. It's do things on purpose with purpose.

00:34:07:18 - 00:34:26:08
Unknown
So I mean, it's the same thing. Everything's the same as what you guys are teaching us. Right on. It's just that's just my framework. So yeah, yeah. We're going to let's, let's keep rolling now. Here, now. I wonder if anybody in the team has questions for Zach to just tape it in the chat and then we'll I'll ask him.

00:34:27:16 - 00:34:46:13
Unknown
So Wichita State, if you don't mind what we've gone through that. Good. Now, now, minor league baseball the angels, the Indians, that whole process kind of jump in. I have one or two stories I've taught my head, but I'll let you kind of pick maybe one or two for you right now. But then like I said, there's one or two that I want to attack also.

00:34:46:17 - 00:35:03:11
Unknown
Okay. Yeah, I'm curious see which ones you throw out there. But, you know, I got drafted by the by the Cleveland Indians in the second round, so they took CC Sabathia first I'll tell a funny story real quick, and then you can ask me about the other stories. So I'm a couple of years into my professional playing career and, you know, CC Sabathia, we all know that name.

00:35:03:11 - 00:35:20:24
Unknown
What an amazing career. What a great person, what a great teammate. And the lessons that he's taught us about overcoming adversity, dealing with struggle, if you don't know them, look into those. So we're a couple years into this and I'm in Double-A at the time, and three of us from our team got invited to go play with the big league team.

00:35:20:24 - 00:35:35:21
Unknown
That's my first taste of the big leagues. Got invited to play the big league team in the Hall of Fame game. Okay. Now, we weren't going to get Major League Service time, but man, this is our first taste of the big leagues. CC Sabathia now CC 67 left handed pitcher you know, two 80. He looks amazing right now.

00:35:35:21 - 00:35:59:05
Unknown
By the time probably two 80, Roy Padilla was another left handed pitcher from Panama, six, seven to 40 to 50. And me. Okay, so the three of us are decked out in suit and tie walking through the airport because we're flying the Cooperstown to go play the Hall of Fame game. The funny story is this is we grab some lunch at a layover, you know, in our flight and we're sitting there and we're in line to get some McDonald's or whatever it is we were going to get that day.

00:35:59:12 - 00:36:17:02
Unknown
And I can hear a young couple back behind me and they're like, Man, I wonder who these guys are. I mean, we're 21 young guys dressed in suits and this and that. And, and the gentleman in the gentleman is like, Man, they got to be basketball players. I mean, look, at these guys, you know? And then the wife says, he goes, Yeah, and I bet that's their agent.

00:36:20:14 - 00:36:43:08
Unknown
Yeah. Hilarious story. Long story short, I should have probably been six agent. That would have worked out really well. Me, but just a funny funny story about those guys, you know, great teammates along the way. These guys taught me everything that I know, which is, you know, what I threw in the book. So it's funny you talk about because I read some today he had to log seven innings to get a $500,000 bonus.

00:36:43:18 - 00:37:01:14
Unknown
So he's he's pitching the game and they're I think they're playing Tampa Bay, Tampa Bay Dot's one of their guys and they get everybody get some warning and CC comes out the next inning and he dots one of their guys he gets thrown out of the game but that's what they said and that's just kind of what kind of teammate he was he didn't care about the half million dollar bonus he was there to back up his teammates.

00:37:01:14 - 00:37:18:03
Unknown
So I was like, man, that's that's a great human being. Yeah. He's an unbelievable human being, a great teammate. He needed one inning. He needed, you know, three outs. And he went out there and he says, no, this is how I play the game. This is what I'm doing. This is my teammate. And he threw the pitch. He drills the guy and he walked right off the field because he knew he was gone.

00:37:18:03 - 00:37:33:07
Unknown
But, you know, that's what it meant to him to be a teammate. And I think we can learn a lot from that. You know, this isn't just about him, about you. If you want to be your very best version of yourself, then roll in on the other people. You know, focus on them. How can you make somebody else better?

00:37:33:07 - 00:37:46:16
Unknown
I mean, I didn't make it to the big leagues because I was this unbelievable player a lot of the reasons why I made the big leagues is because there were guys that were around me that helped me to be my very best. You know, they really did. And I tell some of those stories in the book as well.

00:37:47:15 - 00:38:05:15
Unknown
So the story I and there's two I want to get into, one is a story you had told me about Alomar when you, Roberto Alomar, sitting on the bench in spring training and he kept coming back to see you pretty much every game, asking you for some if you knew anything about the starting pitcher. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, what an honor to go be on the same field as Roberto Alomar.

00:38:05:15 - 00:38:19:06
Unknown
You know, I feel like he's one of the smartest baseball players to ever play the game. Spent a ton of time in Cleveland. He was up in Toronto forever. Just an amazing player. And, you know, we had a chance to play a similar position. So it's a spring training game. I'm a young player, you know, I'm not playing.

00:38:19:06 - 00:38:40:23
Unknown
Of course, you know, in spring training, all the big boys play for three, four or five innings. And then, you know, they all jump on a bus and take off. And then number 88, which was me at the time to go play. So I'm sitting there one day and he comes and sits next to me and I'm like, man, that's, that's Roberto Alomar and I don't even know to this day if he knew my name at the time, but he says, Hey, what do you know about that guy out there on the mound?

00:38:40:23 - 00:38:58:03
Unknown
And I'm like, You know what? I'm not playing today. I have no I don't even know who's out there. I haven't looked. And he's like, Huh, okay. Well, what's his out pitch? How quick is key to the plate? What's his secondary pitches? What are they? And I'm like, that, sorry, man. I don't know. And he's like, Okay, no big deal.

00:38:58:03 - 00:39:12:23
Unknown
Tap's mental leg goes up, their base, hits stolen base, whatever. Next game, I'm sitting there on the bench getting ready for the game, hanging out. You know, seeing if my family's there, whatever it may be. Alomar comes, sits next to me. Hey, what do you know about that guy in the mound? And I'm like, Ooh, let me see who it is.

00:39:12:23 - 00:39:28:20
Unknown
Right. Let me see who's out there this time. And same kind of conversation. So he kept doing that to me. So I got to the point where I'm kind of paying more attention. One day he had the day off, and I grab him and I'm like, Hey, why are you asking me? You know, why are you asking me to about the pitcher?

00:39:28:20 - 00:39:46:19
Unknown
Are you just, like, trying to teach me a lesson? I need to pay attention? And he's like, I mean, maybe and he's like, No, honestly, I'm asking you if you know anything about that pitcher, because any information that you have, it's worth my time to ask you because any information you have on that pitcher will give me an advantage over everybody else here.

00:39:47:20 - 00:40:04:08
Unknown
And I was like, Wow, this is interesting to me. You've got Roberto Alomar who's like, you know, 12 time All-Star. He's not trying to make the team. He is the team, okay? And he's coming down to me and asking me about this guy that he's going to face in spring training who's not good and probably not going to make the big league team for whoever we playing.

00:40:04:08 - 00:40:21:20
Unknown
But he is always seeking an advantage. What I found out is this the higher up I got in the game and this has been true in mental performance training as well, the higher up I get in the game, those players will do whatever it takes to gain an advantage. They are constantly learning. They are constantly pushing the rock.

00:40:21:20 - 00:40:42:05
Unknown
We talk about that. They're constantly training and working harder. Work ethic is not an issue for anybody up at that level, so we need to learn from them as young players, as high school players, as college players, as younger minor league players. We need to constantly I call it this never ending eagerness to get better. I used to call it a never ending willingness to get better.

00:40:42:05 - 00:40:57:24
Unknown
I'm willing to do what it takes. No, you got to be eager to go out there and learn as much information as you can. And that's why you guys are on these calls. I mean, that's why that's why we get so excited about about these type of calls, because there might be one thing that I say to you tonight, you know, and hopefully it's not go home and paint your ceiling.

00:40:57:24 - 00:41:13:07
Unknown
Right. But no, that might be one thing that I tell you tonight that's going to inspire you to go out there and maybe put in that time outside your practice schedule to get it done. I'm going to go a little lighter, a little lighter in the mood, and then I could I could just sit back and listen. You talk the whole time.

00:41:13:15 - 00:41:29:24
Unknown
I want you to share with our listeners and some of our current players. You're Omar Risk Bell's story with the glove you got to tell that story. Yeah. They said this is a funny story. So, you know, Omar, this gal, he's I mean, we know Omar of a scale. He's one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game.

00:41:30:06 - 00:41:43:16
Unknown
It came easy to him. Okay? The game did not come that easy to me. I had to put in tons of work, and not that he didn't, but the game was easy for him. So, you know, the very first time I met Omar, I was walking up and he introduced himself, and he's like, What position do you play?

00:41:43:16 - 00:42:01:08
Unknown
And I'm like, I'm a shortstop. He's like, Hey, I'm a shortstop. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know. You're so tired. And he's like, Let me see your glove. And so I throw him my glove and he looks at and he's like, You play, you play, you play shortstop with this, this glove. And I'm like, Well, well, not for very much longer, it sounds like, right?

00:42:01:08 - 00:42:15:10
Unknown
Yeah. And he's like, Come with me. Let me show you what you need to be using. So he showed me his glove, and I actually fell in love with his glove. So I started ordering this ordering in the same model as him. We had some glove contracts, and so Rawlins would make me glove on his same model, and I started using them for the next couple of years.

00:42:15:24 - 00:42:31:20
Unknown
I should do spring training like two years later, and you know, Omar, he loves the fans. He's super happy. He's got tons of energy, and we're right in for a spring training game, and he plays catch right out in front of the dugout. Now, I'm not a veteran guy. That would be a big No-No for me, but Omar can do whatever he wants, right?

00:42:31:20 - 00:42:51:13
Unknown
So he's out there and he's like, He's throwing me your glove. And so I just got this glove and have you guys ever got a glove or you take it out of the plastic and you're like, Yes, yes, this this one has magic in it, right? And so I had it on my hand and I reluctantly tossed it to to Omar and he grabs it, puts a man's hand, and he's just playing catch.

00:42:51:13 - 00:43:07:24
Unknown
And he's, you know, he's doing all his stuff and whatever he does, and he comes in, he's like, man, this, this, this a nice glove. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, I finally got that. You know, you get that one, and you don't like anyone else putting their hand in it, you know, me. And he's like, Hey, can I use it in the game?

00:43:08:15 - 00:43:25:14
Unknown
And I'm like, you know, it's not broken in yet. You know, let, let's, let's don't do that. And he's like, Yeah, I'm going to use it in the game. Oh, my God. Yeah. So he goes out there and like I said, brand new glove. He goes out there and first play, first pitch diving play in the hole, throws it across a diamond, bam.

00:43:25:14 - 00:43:42:22
Unknown
You know, just this was great. So playing in at Disney against the Braves that day. And like I said, he plays the first four or five innings, and then they put us in the rest of us. And that day they put me in the outfield because I was a utility player. And so I get done playing after the ninth inning walk in to clean up all my, my gear.

00:43:42:22 - 00:43:58:08
Unknown
I can't find my glove. It's like it's not in the dugout. And I have the point where I'm like, you know, what is going on here? So it's gone. I jump, I jump on the bus, we drive back home, I go in the clubhouse and Omar still at the clubhouse and I walk into Mike. Did you take my glove?

00:43:58:08 - 00:44:12:24
Unknown
And he's like, Yeah, I got it right here. And he's like, I really like this glove. And I'm like, Yeah, I know, thank you. And I take it away from him. He goes, I want to trade you for my glove. And I'm like, I don't want to trade you. And he says, We're going to trade anyway.

00:44:15:10 - 00:44:29:22
Unknown
So, you know, so anyway, long story short, now I have to milk it because I'm not get out of this. So I got an autographed on more of a scale. Bat Rawlins sent me a few more gloves, you know, whatever else it was. But the even funnier part of the story, Omar, on average, made about eight errors a year.

00:44:29:22 - 00:44:58:14
Unknown
Unbelievable. His fielding percentage was was crazy. I went to Double-A after spring training, and Omar made six errors in the first six weeks of the season with my glove. Yeah. And it was a really big deal. So all of a sudden, people are saying there this and that, and there's an ESPN big thing about it. One of the backup catchers, Tim Laker, had like the rubber chicken hanging from the locker and they were burning incense because they were trying to sacrifice the demons that were in the glove.

00:44:58:14 - 00:45:15:13
Unknown
And it's now they made a big deal about it. But, you know, I get home from a road trip a week later and on my chair is a box and this happens a lot. You come off from a road trip, there's boxes in their shoes in there and whatever else. And maybe I open up this box. And on Cleveland Indians letterhead is a letter handwritten from Omar and he's like, Hey, Zach, how's the family?

00:45:15:13 - 00:45:34:04
Unknown
I hope you're doing great. That says, I tried the glove. It didn't work. I basically give it back. And he put the glove box you now, I still have not used the glove to this day. Like I said, that's what I was going to ask you. They'll have it in the box with the letter, all that fun stuff, you know, special, good, special.

00:45:34:06 - 00:45:55:23
Unknown
Very good. Now, Zach, we've got a couple of questions here from the players. Some really good questions. So Martin Martinez what's the biggest adversity you've faced throughout your life yet? You know, tough question. A lot of it. And, you know, I've had surgeries, I've broken hands. I had an elbow surgery during a season. You know, there's a lot of things that you could chalk up as the biggest adversity.

00:45:56:09 - 00:46:14:08
Unknown
But now that I'm where I'm at in mental performance, I would say the biggest adversity we deal with every day is just bring in the energy every single day, you know, and and but that's also the greatest challenge we have. It's also the greatest reward we have. So, you know, I could sit here and say, well, there was that one time.

00:46:14:15 - 00:46:29:24
Unknown
But, you know, I don't I don't want to give all the credit to one of those tough times. It's the accumulation of all the tough days that you have in life that make you tough. So to me, I think we look at adversity is bad. And I want to flip that on you. We do that so much when we talk about mental performance.

00:46:29:24 - 00:46:46:07
Unknown
When you go through something tough that's going to make you tough. Remember that when you go through something tough, that's going to make you tough, it's all based on how you respond to it. Okay, so someone telling me this one time, they said they call it Three Steps to focus and this won't blow you away, but they said three steps to focus.

00:46:46:07 - 00:47:04:22
Unknown
Step number one is recognize what your immediate mission is. What do I want to get done? Step number two is kill the noise, which is right. Get rid of all the distractions. And then step number three is execute. And I went back to them on AM. I mean, yeah, I get it. But have you ever like known what your mission is, kill the noise, attempted to execute and it didn't turn out the way you want, then what?

00:47:05:23 - 00:47:29:07
Unknown
And so my question to everybody is, what happens when you go out there and you don't get things to happen the way you want when, you know, let's say adversity hits or things don't go the way you want? We have this emotional reaction. Okay. So in between the stimulus, right? The event there's been in between. So there's there's an event that takes place and then there's a stimulus, which is your reaction most of the time, if we don't get the way we want or we don't play well, we get mad.

00:47:30:08 - 00:47:48:11
Unknown
What I want you guys to do is to live in that gap. I want you to live in the gap between the event that takes place and your reaction. And that's where you're going to learn everything that takes place. So the biggest adversity you go through in your life, what is that? Well, for me, let's say it was when I broke my hand playing in college that was a really big deal.

00:47:48:22 - 00:48:06:11
Unknown
I got upset for a minute and I said, wait a second. I was given this time where I'm not going to be playing where I can work on some of these things. I struggle with COVID All right. Let's talk about COVID. Huge adversity in all of our lives. All right. For about two or three days, I sat there and I got worried and nervous, you know, income.

00:48:06:14 - 00:48:19:10
Unknown
How are we going to make money? How am I going to get through this? And then I said, wait a second, I'm never going to be given this time. What can I do with this time? And then I attacked. That's when I wrote the book. That's when I wrote my all of this stuff took place during that time.

00:48:20:00 - 00:48:38:10
Unknown
And so for me, it's like before you get emotional live in that gap where you can learn, gather information and then jump into attack mode. Amazing. Love. It sounds like your next question mark. We had talked to us and our previous show. Is that when you think about that? Well, this summer I'd read somewhere it kind of it's kind of like experience.

00:48:38:10 - 00:48:51:11
Unknown
They said experience is one of those things where you have to live it and then you can say you have it. It's not one of those things like, hey, go get some experience. And then all of a sudden you get you got to live it. Then you get the experience, then you apply the different things. Yeah, I love that.

00:48:51:11 - 00:49:10:02
Unknown
I mean, you can't you can't learn to swim unless you check the water. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You really can't like you can't just watch it on YouTube and be like, Okay, I know how to swim like that. You got to go. You got to go do your thing. To summarize what you're saying, we say event plus your response equals your outcome.

00:49:10:02 - 00:49:29:08
Unknown
It's a mathematical it's the easiest mathematical equation you'll ever learn. Is that we call it Eero. And I had a great story, and I said it in another show where I use that with a team and we got something. Exactly. It sounds sort of like it was the team that played better. We were on paper, the better team, and we got subbed.

00:49:29:18 - 00:49:44:18
Unknown
And after the game, the post-game talk was, I said, the boys, we got to go E plus R is O and all right, so what are we going to do about this? And then we ripped off like 13 wins in a row. As the season went on, the guys are chanting P or E or E or and I'm like, I love it.

00:49:45:06 - 00:50:03:17
Unknown
So I asked my emotional leader, like the guy that was like, I'll fire up as like Conner. Like the heck does E or mean he was like, Oh, coach, that's your thing. I was like, It's EA role, buddy. Not anymore. I like it here. Or, or we I was like, what a it was working. We stuck with it.

00:50:03:17 - 00:50:22:17
Unknown
We got it printed on our shirts and after we won championships, so don't mess with it. Yeah, right. So it is a great question here and from Jacob. So lately a huge dilemma in my life has been deciding whether I should pursue baseball or bodybuilding. Amazing. I always felt like baseball was always one of those things that you either have or you don't.

00:50:22:20 - 00:50:49:03
Unknown
I train harder than anyone else just to play mediocre. But with bodybuilding, I've always felt like I got what I put in. Do you have any advice on changing my outlook on this? To trust the process and keep the spark for baseball alive? Request a man. Yeah, that is a great question. And for me, it comes back to it's like, you know, and I may even if we if I think I can do it here, if I can share a screen.

00:50:49:08 - 00:51:06:13
Unknown
So what do you think you need to figure out why you're why? First of all, okay. And you need to figure out what you love. I think that the reason why baseball's such a tough sport and here's one reason why I love baseball. It's such a tough sport because we say trust the process, not the outcome. I guess what baseball's all about outcome.

00:51:06:21 - 00:51:21:10
Unknown
I mean, so so sitting back here behind me, you guys can probably see this a little bit right here. This is an awesome photograph that my father in law took. I was out playing at Yankee Stadium. All right. If you were to look close, you'd see Derek Jeter in the background. You see Soriano was playing second base at the time.

00:51:21:10 - 00:51:45:16
Unknown
Mike Messina's on the mound. Okay. And the funniest part about this is when we talk about baseball, it's an outcome sport. It's a numbers game, right? We all know that I crossed this photo because it had my batting average in there, and I was embarrassed of my batting average. Okay. So so there it is. And sometimes this game will crush you because you're not getting the results that you want.

00:51:46:05 - 00:52:06:23
Unknown
My challenge to you, Jacob, would be to fall in love with the process not just the outcome. So what happens to you when you body build is you love the process of going there day in and day out and grinding and getting after that and part of it's because you like the way you look and part of the you love the way it hurts.

00:52:07:02 - 00:52:24:20
Unknown
Okay. And that's probably more of it, is you love going and putting yourself through that so you got to find a way to really bear down on the process and then make those things happen. All right. When you get out there. So for me and, and going back to you, I talk about phenom process overall. Come on a self-evaluation in the book.

00:52:25:01 - 00:52:51:01
Unknown
Each chapter is based on one of those skills. So if you go to chapter two, it's going to be honest self evaluation. And for me that's where I learn about my processes in my evaluation that well better how that we talked about earlier Jacob is is going to be what's going to drive you and here's why I think so many of us and I'll tell a story if we have time I'll tell a quick story about that so many of us we have some fears in life okay.

00:52:51:01 - 00:53:08:17
Unknown
Well, let me just jump into the story. A couple of years ago, I'm working for the Texas Rangers and we had just signed our top seven draft picks. All right. And we gave them anyway a signing bonus. All high school kids, we gave them anywhere from, I don't know, $250,000 signing bonus to like $7 million. I mean, these guys are the best and I'm talking to them one on one.

00:53:08:17 - 00:53:26:14
Unknown
And every time I see the word best, they put their head down, all right. And I'm like, Holy man, you know what's going on here? So I'm like, Congratulations on being the best and their head goes down. So funny. I ask him, I'm like, Why did you drop your eyes when I say you're the best? And they said, Because we're not Mike.

00:53:26:14 - 00:53:39:18
Unknown
What do you mean you're not? We just gave you $7 million and they're like, We're not the best. Look at these guys that are in the clubhouse. Look at these other guys that are playing for us. They're like, I'm going to be in rookie ball. Those guys are in the big leagues. And so they were very adamant about saying, I'm not the best.

00:53:40:10 - 00:54:04:10
Unknown
And then I say, and I backed it up and I'm like, What's your biggest fear about being a professional athlete? And if you guys answer that question right now, you would probably say that I'm not good enough, that I'm not going to be good enough. So here we have this model of good, better, best, okay? And the way I've taught it in years past is if you're good if you're a good player, Jacob, if you're a good baseball player, my job as your coach is to push you to be better.

00:54:04:10 - 00:54:16:05
Unknown
And if you're better, I'm going to push you to be the best. And I think you're nodding your head right now as I talk about that here's the problem. I run into that you don't think you're the best. In fact, you would tell me that you know you're not. And then your biggest fear is that you're not going to be good enough.

00:54:16:21 - 00:54:33:08
Unknown
All right. So then I'm going to flip this around on you. I'm going to ask you guys and coaches, you can answer this. Can you control if you're the best, yes or no? No, you know, these are tough questions, but but can you control it? The answer? In my opinion, the answer is no. All right. Because we're talking about other people.

00:54:33:08 - 00:54:56:09
Unknown
We're talking there's probably always somebody better than you So then let me ask you next question. Can you control if you're good enough, yes or no? Tough question. What you think what you got The thing that's tricky about this is it's based on what somebody else is thinking, right? Like, I can be good enough for Wichita State, but I wasn't good enough for Stanford.

00:54:56:11 - 00:55:14:16
Unknown
Like they told me no. Okay, I'm the same player, but it's all based on what somebody else is thinking. So it's out of your control. So if you're focused on being the best and this is Jacob, this is for everybody else. Listen, if you're focused on being the best, that's something that you can't control. And when you focus on things that you can't control, you become out of control.

00:55:14:20 - 00:55:34:07
Unknown
And those things control you. So, Jacob, you may really love baseball, but you're focused on being the best at something that you can't control. And honestly, that might be making you a little bit out of control as a player. All right. Now, maybe not. I could be wrong, but maybe not. Same thing when it comes to being good enough because it's all based on what somebody else is thinking.

00:55:34:07 - 00:55:40:16
Unknown
So in that good, better best model, if you can't control if you're the best and you can't control if you're good enough, what's the one we haven't talked about yet?

00:55:42:23 - 00:56:03:00
Unknown
Better. Better. And so can you control getting better every single day, yes or no? Yeah, absolutely. I got some absolutely and I got some heavy nods out of everybody. Okay. So you can control getting better every single day. That's our focus. That is our focus is getting better every single day. And then we lead into the 1% better.

00:56:03:02 - 00:56:20:20
Unknown
We lead into the 1424 every single time when I do a well, better how with my guys. All right. What do you do? Well, what do you want to do better? How are you going to do it next? To it? I have written down what is your 1424. So if I don't see you for six months I can roll into you know, and I could be like, hey, I'm not like, hey, how are you feeling?

00:56:20:21 - 00:56:36:04
Unknown
I'm like, what is your 1424? And if they can rattle that off to me, I know they're getting better every single day and that's all we can ask. And I think Jacob, if you can implement that into your, into your baseball life, you know, you're going to have satisfaction in knowing that you are getting after it every single day because you're getting better every single day.

00:56:36:04 - 00:56:51:06
Unknown
It's not just I'm the best or I'm not good enough. You know, those are hard. But if you're getting better every single day, you're going to love the game again. I think that's what this comes down to is love in the game. Amazing. And that's a great question. And we had a great fall. It's almost like Felix teed this one up for us.

00:56:51:16 - 00:57:10:02
Unknown
And you asked in your career, Zach, working with the Braves, what differences do you see when between good shortstops and great shortstops? Yeah, good. That's a that's a good question and a great question. Sometimes we compare ourselves to those guys we watch on TV, and in some ways that's really good in some ways. And those guys are pretty good facts.

00:57:10:03 - 00:57:32:04
Unknown
People come back to me and they're like, you really struggled in the big leagues. You know, what's what happened? And I and my response is, you know, when I found out when I got there and they're like, what? And I'm like, those guys are pretty good. Yeah, those guys are good. But but what you see in every single person up there is they have relentless work ethic and we've talked about this early on and we laughed about it.

00:57:32:04 - 00:57:51:18
Unknown
But you have your practice schedule, and that's the easy part of the day. Okay? These guys are relentless about that. The other things that are coming to my mind about these guys is they're very, very, very self-aware. And so one thing I teach I talk about in my book, I talk about all the time is every one of you should have a scouting report on yourself.

00:57:51:18 - 00:58:08:00
Unknown
You should know what your strengths are. You should know what your weaknesses are, and then you should attack them. So here's my story that goes along with that. When I was in A-ball, I met some resistance in my performance. Okay. And here's what I mean by that. I had played well all through college. I get into professional baseball.

00:58:08:00 - 00:58:32:02
Unknown
My first year, I hit 300 and I'm like, Yeah, right, yeah. And then I got to A-ball and I was halfway through the season hitting like two 30, and I was like, Oh, oh, this is one. This is what everyone was telling me about. And I'll be honest with you, I was challenged mentally big time. All right. My manager at the time was Eric Wedge, and Eric Wedge was my manager in the big leagues as well.

00:58:32:02 - 00:58:48:10
Unknown
I love the guy. He's at Wichita State right now as a as a college coach. And man, if you have a chance to go play for that guy, you will you will love everything about him. He teaches me a ton. I wrote about him in the book a ton. I had him right for me, a scouting report. And he was very reluctant to do it.

00:58:48:10 - 00:59:03:00
Unknown
But I said, I need you to be honest with me. Tell me everything that I struggle with. He came back with a big, huge, thick thing, man. He must spent hours on this thing, okay? About all the things, all the things that I kind of struggled with. And he was worried about me because he's like, Are you sure you can handle this information?

00:59:03:00 - 00:59:17:19
Unknown
And I'm like, Yeah. And he's like, Why can you handle this information? I said, If you were honest with me, you just gave me the ticket for me to get to the big leagues because the work isn't a problem. And so I took everything that was on that list, and I started attacking it. And I and I put it into what I would call now a 14, 24.

00:59:17:19 - 00:59:38:14
Unknown
Right. About three or four years later, I got called up to the big leagues and I actually asked them, I said, Why did you call me up to the big leagues? And the list that they gave me? The reasons why I call it the big leagues were my limitations three years before they called me up because they said, You know, you can handle the bat and you can punch the ball anytime you want.

00:59:38:19 - 00:59:55:09
Unknown
Your lateral movement, I talked about that earlier, your reads on the ground ball, you know, your approach to the plate, but it was almost word for word is the things that I struggled with a few years before. A great lesson to you guys when someone tells you that you're struggling with something that is gold. Okay, that is great.

00:59:55:09 - 01:00:16:05
Unknown
Information. They're not telling you you're no good. They're saying, hey, if you attack this and become better at this, right? Better. I use that word a lot. You become better at this imagine where you can go and who you can be. That's such great advice. And I love and I'm on your website looking at the your phenom like number two is honest self-evaluation.

01:00:16:05 - 01:00:37:19
Unknown
And I would say it's a lost art for a lot of people because knowing what you and I shouldn't say, knowing hearing what you need to know is really tough for a lot of people. Right. That's like that. Like you say it, it's tough and it's honest and be self honest and accept that criticism. And whatever. Some people may not deliver it in the best way.

01:00:37:19 - 01:00:55:11
Unknown
Like you said, get a big, thick book of whatever. But those are the most important. Those are pivotal moments, crucial conversations. To have with people and yourself knowing what you need to work on. So that's that's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. And going back to the question, the good shortstops, you know, they have this never I talk about the never ending eagerness to get better.

01:00:55:18 - 01:01:15:09
Unknown
They are constantly asking questions. They're constantly asking their teammates questions. They want to know all the information they can because they're their learners, man. They're consistently learning. They put in the work, of course, but they're consistently learning. And because they're consistently learning, guess what? They're consistent. And that's what we're chasing, right? That's what we're chasing. So they don't get too high.

01:01:15:09 - 01:01:32:03
Unknown
They don't get too low. They're going to kind of keep everything this way and they're constantly getting better. It's just it's a challenge to get better. It's not about it's not about getting four hits tonight. It's about getting better every single day. And I use the good degrading analogy. It's a gap. It's not like one or the other.

01:01:32:03 - 01:01:50:07
Unknown
It's that what you're doing in that space in between good to great and filling that space with the process of getting there. Right? Yeah, I love that. Another thing you can think about, too, is, you know, and oftentimes like the biggest question I get from people, especially parents, is can you help my son or daughter with confidence? Right.

01:01:51:02 - 01:02:06:14
Unknown
And, you know, and we could talk all day about confidence, but most of us feel like, you know, we all say confidence comes from the results. All right. If I had a good game, I'm confident. If I had a bad game, I'm not. Okay. So it's like a light switch. It's either on or off. And most of the time it's off, right.

01:02:07:04 - 01:02:29:06
Unknown
So honestly, you know, for me, it's like I know back in the olden days, we used to have those dimmer switches, right? Yeah. I would go replace all my lights with dimmer switches and be like, you know, confidence isn't an on or off thing. It's just a dimmer switch. And, you know, at any given time, if we work the process, we can keep that dimmer switch, you know, illuminated so that we can have what we need to have based because of our process.

01:02:29:09 - 01:02:46:19
Unknown
Confidence comes the preparation. It does. It comes from from working the grind and getting after it every day. Keep the lights on, baby. Keep the lights on and don't keep the lights on. So, Zach, I got a question and I'm not sure if any of the guys in the show here have listened to your podcast. But and I was telling you the pre-show about the part, your podcast.

01:02:46:19 - 01:03:08:13
Unknown
And I really enjoyed the story of The Bumblebee because I think that would pertain to some of the questions we're getting here, especially the age group of the guys are and the idea of confidence. Can you can you elaborate on the bumblebee? Yeah. What the simple concept is, is, you know, aerodynamically the bumblebee has no right to be flying.

01:03:08:14 - 01:03:27:16
Unknown
Okay. I mean, if you pull up on your phone a picture of bumblebee, you get this big huge. I mean, they're small, but in, in relation to everything, you got this big bubble of a body, okay? And then these little, little flappers that they call their wings aerodynamically, there's no way that they should be flying. But no one has told the bumblebee that they can't fly.

01:03:27:22 - 01:03:50:09
Unknown
And so guess what they do? They fly. All right, you tell yourself every single day that you can't. Like, the reality of it is, is you are constantly telling yourself that you can't. And so why would you believe that you can? All right, now, you've got to be honest with yourself. We talked about that already. But why? Why do we have to, like, like, beat ourselves up all day long?

01:03:50:12 - 01:04:10:11
Unknown
So think about this is one of the big things we talk about is the last skill that I teach is is is mastering your self-talk. All right. On average, there's about 40 to 50 thoughts that run through your mind every single minute. All right. Do you have more positive thoughts or negative or do you think negative? Negative Yeah, that's interesting.

01:04:10:11 - 01:04:27:22
Unknown
Sometimes I go to work with parents and they'll be I'll be talking to their son or daughter and I'm like, Do you feel like your son or daughter has more positive or negative? Like, Oh, he's a really positive kid. And the kids like negative mate. And then I throw out there, I'm like, okay, on average, like, what percentage of your thoughts, you know, you know.

01:04:27:23 - 01:04:44:06
Unknown
JJ, you said more negative thoughts. What percentage of your thoughts are negative for Buddy? 70. 80%. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm out speaking to a group of coaches, a couple of thousand coaches, and I'm delivering this message about 40 to 50 thoughts. I'd love to be able to do a study that could determine what percentage of your thoughts are positive versus negative.

01:04:44:21 - 01:05:04:16
Unknown
I finish up, you know, a week later I'm driving in a car listening to an audio book, automobile university. They're like 40 to 50 thoughts running through your mind every single minute. There's been a study done and I'm like, Oh yes. And on average 74% of your thoughts are negative on average. That's terrible. That's terrible, right? And so I pull off, say, the road.

01:05:04:16 - 01:05:23:20
Unknown
That's very important. So I'm not to, you know, mess with my phone while driving and I said, Hey, Siri, what was the average Major League batting average last year in the big leagues? What was the average Major League batting average last year in the big leagues in series says to 60 now. Now listen. Total coincidence. Okay. 74% negative.

01:05:23:20 - 01:05:45:14
Unknown
Two 60 batting average. Total coincidence. But let me ask you this. If we can bring your self-talk, your negative self-talk, if we can bring it from 74% negative down to 52 where you only beat yourself up half of the time, and then I'll send my guys there, I start lying. I'm like, I'm like, okay, you got it. Okay, no, you're not going to hit 500.

01:05:45:14 - 01:06:00:16
Unknown
But let me ask you this. Are you going to be a better hitter? Yeah, yeah. Are you going to be a better pitcher? Yes. Are you going to be a better basketball player? Are you going to be a better person if you quit beating yourself up? Yeah. And then we teach them how to do that. So, you know, there's so many things that these guys are incorporating.

01:06:00:17 - 01:06:18:11
Unknown
What's interesting to me is, you know, you guys are a young, young team that are starting to get this information and and the advantage that you are how many other you know, how old is your average player that's on this call right here? 15. 16. Yeah. How many 15 year olds right now in the world are getting mental performance training right now?

01:06:19:21 - 01:06:39:00
Unknown
I would say none just to you guys. Okay, so you have the advantage and when you, when you, when you dip into a podcast, when you dip into the morning podcast that I throw out there or you know, our mentor Brian Caine's got his mental performance daily podcast. Amazing stuff. When you attack this every single day it's like going to the gym, you know, you're attacking your mind.

01:06:39:00 - 01:06:52:13
Unknown
And you know, when I go around, that's where I got the title of the book and I ask people, what percentage of the game of baseball is mental? I mean, what do you throw at me? What's the number you throw? You throw 90%. That's why it's the hard 90. It's the 90% of the game that we do less than 10% of the time.

01:06:52:13 - 01:07:13:08
Unknown
So, you know, these are things we need to to start attacking in our in our young kids and our young athletes, because honestly, this limited belief system is keeping them from being who they want to be. Zach, we never really got to talk about the craziness about the World Series and the Braves because we just dove into so much of this stuff and I totally forgot who you even worked with.

01:07:13:08 - 01:07:27:24
Unknown
But anyway, if you got any, any. I know you said you went to game two. Would you say 24 I was at so. So we got an awesome email from the Braves. You know, they still were kind of in a bubble this year a little bit as far as the team. So I wasn't hands on with the big league club.

01:07:27:24 - 01:07:44:12
Unknown
I spent a ton of time with the triple-A guys and the alternate guys. I would they called us and said, we'd love to, to treat you and your wife. Two games, three, four and five. So we flew to Atlanta. They put us up and we had some amazing times at games three, four and five in Atlanta. So awesome experience.

01:07:44:12 - 01:08:09:18
Unknown
It was electric and it was neat to see some of the guys that I had a chance to be really hands on with, you know, get a chance to to execute out there during the World Series amazing. Now, did you see it as might be? A tough question to answer off the top of your head, but did you see during any of those games because obviously you've had an impact and an influence on some of those players, were you able to see or kind of pick out some stuff like, yeah, they're using my tools.

01:08:09:18 - 01:08:32:22
Unknown
They're using some of the stuff that I'm talking about. Yeah. You know, and I will elaborate. I'm going to tell a story and I have permission to do so from from a gentleman. Kyle Wright is a name. And if you guys want to look that up and kind of see his journey, it's pretty awesome. I got a call from the big league team two years ago and I got hired to work with the minor league guys and I got a call, you know, during COVID they shut down the minor league season.

01:08:32:22 - 01:08:51:24
Unknown
And so I was kind of sitting here, Hey, how can I help the guys? And they said, Hey, just let them be. I got a call from the big club and they said, We'd like you to spend some time with a player. We've tried everything, Kyle. Right. He's an unbelievable talent out of Vanderbilt, big time first round pick, and we've tried everything we can, and we just need we'd love for you to try it out.

01:08:52:16 - 01:09:13:23
Unknown
And so I said, Well, what's this level of buy in? And here's what I mean by that. You know, many people, when they think about the mental game, first of all, they think they have weakness. And I don't see it like that. Like, I'm not a I don't call myself a sports psychologist. I'm a mental performance coach. And just like you go to your strength coach, your speed coach, you come to me because we're going to develop this mental performance mastery his level of buy in was elite.

01:09:14:03 - 01:09:30:14
Unknown
And here's what I mean by that. For the next seven weeks, we were on a phone. We did. I sent him a video every single day. With an email when we were on Zoom or Face Time every single day for seven weeks. He was only seven when we started working. He had one more loss, which made it eight and then he won.

01:09:30:14 - 01:09:49:01
Unknown
His next four starts in the big leagues was Kyle, and this was two years ago in the playoffs. He goes out there and he gets a win, a victory in the playoffs. Two seasons ago, which is unbelievable. His journey was great. And he he you know, in postgame interviews, he was attributing a lot of his success to the mental performance training, in fact, all of it.

01:09:49:05 - 01:10:03:13
Unknown
And he says, we went back to the basics. We remember the confidence comes from preparation. Okay. It was really cool to hear him talk about it. And then he had a loss to the Dodgers and it was a game that would have put him in the World Series and we end up losing the series. And not going to the Dodgers was a tough loss.

01:10:03:13 - 01:10:20:24
Unknown
And he got beat up a little bit out there. So this this past season, you know, he's hoping to win make the club and he does not make the club goes down a triple AA. He had two spot starts with the team this year and he had okay starts, but they weren't like electric. And so they just let him pitch in triple-A.

01:10:21:06 - 01:10:55:03
Unknown
And so you can imagine what your guys's mindset was going through. You're hoping to make the team you don't you get a couple starts, you got to pitch against the Cubs you do okay. Right this and that. So we just continue to work and he continued to work and work about with the mental game. Well, we had a couple injuries in the postseason and they're getting ready to you know, I started getting text messages from one of our head, our pitching coordinators the night before they are announcing rosters and all of a sudden I it came to my attention that Kyle Wright, who hasn't been with the club all year, got put on the World Series

01:10:55:03 - 01:11:14:22
Unknown
roster. Okay, so put yourself in this. You in his shoes. You haven't been with the team most of the year. And here we go. Okay. So the Braves had a great series. They played well Game four, and it was awesome because I had a chance to be a game for Game four. They decided they decided to go with a spot starter, a left handed reliever to start the game.

01:11:15:10 - 01:11:35:10
Unknown
And then they were going to piggyback him by whoever you know, whatever the game went our end up. So the left hand of starter comes out there and real quick, the Astros have bases loaded. Nobody out bases loaded, nobody out. In the first inning, manager comes out and takes the pitcher out of the game and brings in Kyle.

01:11:35:10 - 01:11:55:05
Unknown
Right. So this is a guy again, he hasn't been with a team, but two starts all year and here he comes on the biggest stage of his life. And the last time he was on a stage this big against the Dodgers the year before you know, he had a tough outing. And here we go. It was amazing to see that he used every single thing that he learned a mental performance to go out there.

01:11:55:05 - 01:12:16:18
Unknown
He goes out there right away, throws a nasty two seamer on Cory, his hands broken back, ground ball out. They did score a run but gets the out. And then I think he strikes out the next two guys. He throws four more innings in that game and just just blew up. The Astros and the Braves end up getting a win, you know, after a couple of big, big home runs and scores.

01:12:17:14 - 01:12:37:01
Unknown
Unbelievable turn of events in the series. And a lot of people give him a lot of credit for for where things went, but probably not as much credit as he should have got now. They would call me and say, what did you do with Kyle? Right. My answer was, I didn't do anything with Kyle. Right. Kyle Wright was the one that put his work in, and that's what this is for you guys.

01:12:37:01 - 01:12:51:24
Unknown
As players, we are going to continue to give you opportunities to learn. We're going to supply you with strategies because it gets to the point where it's not a talent game, it's a strategy game. We're going to pound you with information and give you the opportunity to learn and to grow and to do these things that we talk about.

01:12:51:24 - 01:13:12:16
Unknown
We're going to we're going to teach you how to develop your process, taught you how to manage your emotions. In all of these different scenarios and situations. But it's going to be up to you, right? Because at the end of the day, it's going to be completely up to you. And one of the greatest moments in my in my time in this was during that game the year before we had realized as we were breaking down in his well, better how?

01:13:12:17 - 01:13:30:14
Unknown
Because he'd call me the next day and we'd go over his well, better how we learned that one that threw out each one of his innings. The player that gave him the most trouble was the leadoff guy. Okay. And so we implemented a new routine for him, which was him going down in the tunnel and throwing the ball off the wall real quick to get loose.

01:13:30:14 - 01:13:55:22
Unknown
And then that would allow him to better focus in his pre-game pre inning warm ups Anyway, Kyle Wright goes back out there for the fourth inning, and I'm paying attention and I'm looking and guess what? He gets off the bench, goes down in the tunnel and throws the ball off the wall. A year and a half later, he is still doing the routines that we implemented, that he implemented that allowed him to have the confidence ultimately the success he had because he was prepared.

01:13:55:22 - 01:14:21:02
Unknown
So really some cool stuff took place during that time. And just to see him go out there and and do what he did was was so rewarding to see him have success. So that family is a big piece of the puzzle for for Benchmark, the podcast we have, the Voyager family have here, obviously Mark and I'd been cousins how big of a moment was that to have your wife in that setting with you because she sacrificed?

01:14:21:02 - 01:14:39:02
Unknown
I'm not I don't know this is coming across she sacrificed just as much if not more than I'm sure you have through this whole process. How did it feel to have her at your side to kind of witness this? Yeah. And to me, you know, it's everything and I appreciate you asking that question. And it you know, she is with me through all of this.

01:14:39:06 - 01:14:57:24
Unknown
You know, there's not a moment that goes by that I don't run up by her. And she's like, I don't know. You're the mental performance coach. No, no, no. You're the way you are. Oh, yeah. You're the one that's had to deal with me for all these years. Yeah, but but yeah, so that was so special because we're able to you know, any chance I can to get back to her.

01:14:57:24 - 01:15:13:24
Unknown
Like, what I do takes a lot of my time. Professional baseball as a player took a ton of time. You know, they would call me up. I'm in a after. They call me in the office after the game, like, hey, you just got promoted to triple-A your flight, is it, you know, 7 a.m.. And I call my wife back home because I was on the road.

01:15:14:00 - 01:15:34:08
Unknown
I'm like, pack up the apartment. We're going to a new city. And she'd pack it up and go, you know, and the support she gave me through my professional career was unbelievable. It was so awesome for me. To I made a promise three years ago. So when I was with the Anaheim Angels, my wife was at home on bedrest with twins, and we had an awesome, awesome season.

01:15:34:08 - 01:15:50:03
Unknown
That year and had a chance to go to the playoffs. We beat the Yankees in the playoffs, and then we lost to the White Sox, and the White Sox won it. I promised her that I would get her back to the postseason, and it was interesting that as a player it never happened. And so, you know, that kind of sat on me.

01:15:50:20 - 01:16:08:07
Unknown
But we were able to do it last year, and we're super excited about being able to get back there again. So it was very special for me. I've always said, and I'm not joking when I say this, I will write a book that says the lessons I learned about mental toughness from my wife and in some of the lessons that I was taught came directly from her.

01:16:08:07 - 01:16:22:05
Unknown
I teach about a one hour rule after a game. You have one hour to be as frustrated as you want about that game, and then you got to get over it, right? Because you play again tomorrow. Tell me that's not life, right? You can't carry a bad day into tomorrow because that just means that your chance of having a good day, tomorrow's not good.

01:16:22:24 - 01:16:47:00
Unknown
She taught me that I got one hour to get over it, and she taught me how to flush and to release all these different types of things. So I learned valuable lessons from her. She she still teaches me lessons every single day. And so that was an absolute joy to have her with me. That's awesome. Very cool. I heard somebody I heard the story of somebody who was a professional basketball coach and they had a pity tree in the in the front yard.

01:16:47:01 - 01:17:04:12
Unknown
And when he'd come back from the the arena, he had to let go. He had to he had to touch the pity tree, and that was it. So his neighbors like, why do you come home? He said the team he was coaching wasn't very good. He's like, you can you just hold that tree a lot and he was like, This is my pity tree.

01:17:04:12 - 01:17:20:03
Unknown
I guess I got to let everything go and put it in the tree before I get home. He says, We're not very good this year, so we're good. I won't be touching this tree. So I love that you got something and there's a great connection there. That's awesome, Zach. Love it. Yeah, that's great. I would've had to build a house out there by that tree.

01:17:20:03 - 01:17:50:09
Unknown
Like that tree house, I would add. A tree house? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's good. And, you know, like, to me, all these things that you're saying, Zach, is it's. It's really good. It's well put together. It's it's not a magic wand. And like you say, the, the athletes are doing the work. You provide them the tools to do the work and get better and the idea of kind of what Felix was saying about getting good to great is when you have those tools, it allows you to fill in those gaps.

01:17:50:09 - 01:18:10:05
Unknown
If you're willing to put in the work. That's a big that's a big thing right now. Yeah. You know, I think like, like to all your athletes, you know, and I'm speaking for coaches right here and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, like when we're putting together a team and someone asked me this the other day, they're like, if you could have one character trait in a player, what would what would you want it to be?

01:18:10:05 - 01:18:25:09
Unknown
And I think one thing we want for you guys is when you get out to the game, the lights go on or you, you know, you cross the line or whatever it is, however you want to say it, whatever that visual is for you. We just want you to compete. Okay. So that's one thing we want is we want you to compete.

01:18:25:09 - 01:18:46:01
Unknown
Now, if you have negative self-talk, you can't compete to the best of your ability. If you have doubt, you can't compete to the best of your ability. If you're not prepared, you can't compete to the best of your ability. So instead of us just telling you we want you to compete, you know, that's why we focus on the process, because all of this stuff leads up to the first pitch, and then we want you to go out and just have a blast.

01:18:46:01 - 01:19:04:00
Unknown
We want to go out and compete and have a great time enjoying what you do. That's why you work beforehand. I mean, honestly, that's why you practice, right? So you can work on the things you're no good at or the things you struggle with or the things you want to get better at. So when you get out to that first pitch, it goes back to the term I've used before is I want you to have a Little League mentality.

01:19:04:00 - 01:19:20:14
Unknown
You guys remember what it was like to play Little League baseball? Like, this was fun, right? And it's interesting when you get back up to the big leagues, a lot of those guys that are out there, you know, there's there's some pressure out there, but the best of the best, they have this little league mentality and they're playing a game that they love.

01:19:21:07 - 01:19:43:21
Unknown
And as I try to figure out how and I try to figure out why, that's what it's come down to for me is they've already done all that work stuff, okay? And because they love the grind and they love the work and they love the process, when that first pitch comes out, now it's time to just go out, have a blast and compete well, better how?

01:19:44:00 - 01:20:05:19
Unknown
There you go. Well, better how so go home and take your home. Well, well, listen, first of all, I want to thank all the guys that joined today. Appreciate you guys to come in and spending time. I'm absolutely certain hopefully you're taking notes. We've recorded this. So Coach Lauren is going to share this with everybody as well. And obviously we're going to publish this podcast.

01:20:05:19 - 01:20:31:12
Unknown
So you'll have a chance to kind of follow up with some of the great information that Zach's provided with us. And Zach, I know for sure that in the off season, this is this is a great time to sharpen those that acts of the mental sharpness and all that stuff. But and I know you're probably hard at work right now and getting your athletes right and keeping them going but I really wanna thank you for from this organization from from Gigi and I.

01:20:31:12 - 01:20:49:12
Unknown
Thanks for taking the time to be with us tonight. Appreciate it. Thanks for being on the show. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I love it as well. You know, it gives me a chance to chat about I'm super passionate about this because I set out to do this because I want to help each one of you just just to get a little bit closer and have new perspective and help you to get to be and who you want to be.

01:20:50:08 - 01:21:11:11
Unknown
We love leave it, leaving our listeners and players with some homework. Zach, is there anything you can leave our guys or listeners with for a little bit of homework they can do? Yeah, so so for me, you know, if you don't have the journal and that's fine, if you don't, you don't need to get the journal. But I want you to start doing a well better how and you know, we always talk about doing things on purpose with purpose.

01:21:11:11 - 01:21:30:12
Unknown
So for me it's like every night. What are three things you did today that you did? Well, we're 33. Three things. Why? Because there's three outs in know, right? Three things that you want to get better at and then start attacking them. And I want you to implement the well, better how and see how that goes. And then the next thing is, if you're not listening to to the Hard 90 podcast or listen to that, why?

01:21:30:12 - 01:21:48:12
Unknown
Because you're going to get a little bit of mental performance training every single day. We talk about the 14 minutes and 24 seconds honestly, my goal for you is that I give you 4 minutes and 24 seconds of mental performance training every single day and then you just have to give me ten. Okay, now if you want to add Brian Kane's mental performance.

01:21:48:12 - 01:22:17:00
Unknown
Daly To that he brings the juice and that's something that you really can do with that set a trigger. All right. Every single time excuse me, every single time I drive to the gym, I listen to the hard 90. Every single time I drive home from the gym, I listen to mental performance daily. So if you would just add those pieces right there listening to those two podcasts and then doing a well, better how at nighttime you guys are going to see this this growth man before I forget and I sorry, man.

01:22:17:00 - 01:22:35:24
Unknown
If I'm impeding on your time, I need you to share the story about the CrossFit. The guy who is jogging and his partner could not keep up and how his partner adjusted talk about accountability partners, people pushing each other. Yeah. So we're big believers in having accountability partners, you know, you know, the rock, you know, the Koch rock.

01:22:36:07 - 01:22:51:20
Unknown
We've been this for each other over the course of the year. But I was out in the back. I was I was working out in a CrossFit. I went out back to get some fresh air and this and that. And it was interesting. I saw a gentleman who was jogging. And when I say jogging, I don't want you to picture coaches jogging.

01:22:51:22 - 01:23:13:02
Unknown
Okay. This guy he knows this well enough. I bet I'm not sure his feet ever really touched the ground. And so I did some homework on him, like, who's that? And they're like, oh, he runs these these ultramarathons. He wins most of them. He can run. And I'm like, well, who's the guy behind him on rollerblades? And they're like, Oh, that's his buddy.

01:23:13:02 - 01:23:31:17
Unknown
I'm like, Well, why is he on rollerblades? And they're like, Because he couldn't keep up, right? And so we laughed and we joked, and I'm like, No, that's that's really what's happening. Okay. He needed an accountability partner to push him. And so his buddy says, I'll be that guy. And he goes and pulls out his rollerblades and he pushes him, and he's right next to him.

01:23:31:17 - 01:23:47:13
Unknown
But that's just the speed ride. That's the difference. In the speed. The point is, is we all need accountability partners. You want to take this to a whole new level, then you get someone who's going to who's going to hold you accountable. That's going to push you. And he's going to be honest with you right and they're gonna help you to be your very best to all your parents and coaches that are out there.

01:23:48:01 - 01:24:01:22
Unknown
What do your athletes need from you? I'm a firm believer. They need three things from you. They need to know that you care about them. They need to know that they can trust you, and they need to know that you're going to make them better. If you can do those three things for your athletes, they'll they'll run through a wall for you.

01:24:01:22 - 01:24:26:06
Unknown
Okay. So that's your focus as a parent or or as a coach. Love it, man. Thank you so much for that. Awesome. Well, that does it for this episode of Benchmark. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Keep crushing it. Yeah. Ha, ha. You know that one? I'm going to keep forever. Gigi. I knew it. I knew. I knew I was getting the I knew.

01:24:26:06 - 01:24:31:04
Unknown
It sounds like he's getting me it's it. That's it. So. So here's

People on this episode

Jean-Gilles Larocque

Host

Marc Messier

Host

Benchmarked

Benchmarked

Zach Sorensen - Author of The Hard 90 and Mental Performance Coach for the Atlanta Braves

People on this episode

Jean-Gilles Larocque

Marc Messier

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