Justin Turner: The Path

        Something that's been fascinating me more and more is a growing trend of Major League hitters experiencing big jumps at later ages.  Justin Turner, Daniel Murphy, and the resurgence of Ryan Zimmerman this year come to mind.  I think I'm drawn to these cases because they go against conventional wisdom in baseball.  The general thought is that players are who they are by their mid to late 20's.  Justin Turner was a nice utility bat off the bench who could play a couple of different positions and spell some guys.  Daniel Murphy would hit for a nice average and some doubles but not a lot of home runs.  Ryan Zimmerman was a little different because he'd been hit hard by injuries, but he'd become a guy who needed to hit down in the order with some questioning whether he should be in the lineup at all or if he may need to stop playing completely.  Justin Turner became a top-10 in voting MVP guy who was rewarded with a sixty-four million dollar contract.  Daniel Murphy became a guy who led the league in slugging and finished second in the MVP voting.  Ryan Zimmerman is hitting almost .400 through the first month plus and is the early leader for an MVP award.  All three are different stories, but they speak to the value of continual learning and being open to change regardless of where you're at in your career path.

        A quote by Justin Turner is the actual topic of the blog today though.  It reminded me of Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way book.  The entire book is great, but the main idea behind speaks to how our perceptions of what happens in live shapes how we proceed.  When you're injured, for example, do you feel sorry for yourself or attack your rehab?  Not playing as much as you'd like?  Do you pout about it and blame the coach, or do you continue to try to improve your skills?  Justin Turner is talking about how he made a swing change, added a leg kick, and worked to hit the ball in the air more often.  Regardless of where you fall in that whole "Hitting Twitter" debate, it's clearly helped transform Turner.  The first takeaway I have from the quote though is the understanding of the path he's taken.  Everything we experience in our lives makes us who we are right now.  The good and the bad both play a part.  Sometimes it's tough when we are experiencing lows, but our mindset and perception can allow them to be building blocks for future successes.  The second takeaway connects, but it's how he's not worried about several years ago.  Why?  There's no point.  Although I'd love for Doc Brown to show up with a Delorean, it's not happening.  We can't go back in time so there's no great value in dwelling on it.  Being present and focused on the now is a valuable trait of a high performer.  It's one we all can work on and improve at and something Turner is clearly referencing.

        So where do you go from here?  It's your choice.  How will you handle where you currently are in your career or life?  Maybe you're going through a really great time.  You're playing well, experiencing great relationships.  Great.  Enjoy it.  Understand why you're doing well, and look to continue to make it happen.  Maybe you're slumping or not playing at all.  Sorry to hear it, but my guess is it isn't the first time.  It probably won't be the last either.  Learn from it, and you'll move past it.  Enjoy the challenge of it even.  It's all part of your path.

Infuse the Lifeblood of Learning: 3 Non-Traditional Resources

        Learning is the lifeblood of growth.  Without new knowledge, we become stagnate.  It's how we end up with the dreaded, "Well, that's how we've always done it."  Those are not the words of a successful program or business.  "We've done it that way, but can we do it even better?" would be more likely.  I'm no doubt preaching to the choir though.  You know it's important to learn, and you make efforts to do so.  If you're a coach, you probably go to clinics, talk with peers, read books, etc.  If you're a teacher, you go to professional development, reflect on lesson plans (haha), and communicate with colleagues.  In any field, the same pattern applies.  It's what "everyone" is doing.  That isn't good enough if you want to be great though.  If you're only looking to traditional sources of information, you're missing out.  "Your world" is only a tiny sliver of the performance world.  It's "Other" section of the pie chart.  "Your world" is not even showing up on the leaderboard on Family Feud.  With that, I'd like to challenge you to move outside of your world and expand it by looking to some nontraditional resources for an infusion of learning lifeblood in whatever you do.

Resource #1:  People You Disagree With
Yes Men.  Weak leaders surround themselves with Yes Men in hope of making themselves feel better.  They need the constant shots of dopamine because their self-image and confidence in what they're doing is so fragile.  Weak learners do the same.  They read and talk with only those who agree with what they do.  As an example, there is an ongoing debate via Twitter between coaches who like Bunts and coaches who like Bombs.  The condescending banter is a great reminder of why I am not a fan of politics.  Constant bickering and writing off the other side, without any real consideration, is the nature of these "discussions."  An approach that would be more fruitful is one we learned in elementary school of, "Put yourself in the shoes of the other person."  I'm not saying to change your convictions.  Believing in what you do is a big part of success.  What I'd say to do is see if there is anything you can take from the others you disagree with.  Simply writing them off as idiots is a shortsighted move.  Try to see what they see.  Maybe you disagree with trying to hit bombs all the time, but you see value to making hitting a little more measurable than "Good swing" every time they hit a line drive.  Maybe you hate bunting but understand it could be something that could help add to the tool box of the players and/or team you coach.  We're all in it to help players so let's do that to the best of our ability instead of worrying about ego.  This is a great struggle for me as a "newer" Mental Coach, and I think that new coaches, teachers, business leaders, etc. can probably relate.  We want to know we're good at what we do.  We want to know our hard work is paying off.  As a result, we look for validation.  In reality, you're not good at what you do when you're just getting started.  You have strengths, but it's just not realistic to be "good" at anything requiring any level of skill.  We can all look back to when we just started whatever it is we do and recognize how bad we were compared to where we are now.  That's what is beautiful about being human.  Failing, being wrong, and challenging yourself to see things in different ways is all part of ultimately make you stronger in what you do and who you are.

Resource #2:  Greatness Outside of YOUR Field
I'm a baseball guy.  That is no secret.  The sport was my first love and has been a tremendous part of my life.  As I got into sport psychology, I read every baseball mental book I could get my hands on.  A funny thing happened along the way though.  I ran out.  There are only so many of these books to read.  "Now what?" I asked myself.  Fortunately, a friend who, ironically, works in pro baseball made me realize there were so many more great resources out there to learn from.  He told me about a book called Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.  Then, I heard a podcast with someone who works with another organization discussing a book study on Give and Take.  Before I knew it, I was finding more and more new resources that didn't directly apply to baseball but could help nevertheless.  I went from the little kid who had just opened his last Christmas present to understanding every day brings unlimited present opportunities for my brain!  A similar thing happened for me in the experience of working at IMG.  Again, I was a baseball guy... or so I thought.  Working with a variety of people and a tremendous variety of athlete made me realize I was an educator/coach/sport psych guy more than a baseball guy.  I loved it all and honestly enjoyed the newness of working with other sports more than the baseball sessions.  Some of my favorites were with tennis players and golfers.  I found myself amazed by the self-awareness they had, and it made me realize again there is so much greatness out there to learn from (Thanksgiving every day?).  With that, I'd challenge you to look for these similar opportunities.  Get outside of your niche, and learn from others.  It's what great leaders like Theo Epstein, Dabo Swinney, and Dan Quinn are doing.  So should you.

Resource #3:  Your Athletes/Students
It's tough to self-reflect.  To make yourself really look at what you're doing is such a challenge again because we want to be good at what we do.  We want to think we're making all of the right decisions and that we're doing the best we can do with what we have.  In reality, we never are.  We're not perfect, and we can always do better.  We can always do more or do different.  Even more challenging, in my opinion, is getting the feedback of others.  Opening ourselves up to criticism can be a punch in the gut at times.  It's definitely a threat to our feeling of making all the right decisions.  Or, maybe it helps us do a better job.  Maybe it allows us to best serve the athletes, students, coworkers we have.  I'm a big fan of giving athletes an opportunity to give feedback.  For starters, it allows them to see that what they think is valuable to you.  If you're in the position of coach, you're given countless opportunities to show your opinion matters.  Flipping the script is great for the athletes having a voice.  They're pretty important to the experience after all.  Giving evaluations to students and athletes is great for this.  Discussions are nice, but you're only going to hear from those same 4-5 athletes who answer every question and confirm you're always right.  They're the Yes Men of athletes.  They're fun to coach and great for the ego but limit our scope of what is going on.  Evaluations provide a voice for all.  Yes.  They provide lots of warm fuzzies.  I'd be lying if I said it isn't nice to know athletes thought highly of what you've done together.  I like that feeling.  I like the "negative" feedback too though.  Critical feedback provides the choice to write it off or accept it.  A mixture of both can be necessary.  I like looking for patterns in answers applicable to group delivery and trying to understand the perspective of individual responses as well.  Then, I can make improvements to what we do to help better serve future athletes and coaches.

        My hope is by reading this you'll challenge yourself to look for more diverse opportunities to learn.  There are so many out there in the world.  Yes, there's lots of bad information.  You can still learn from it.  There are plenty of examples of "leaders" in various fields who are really poor models to follow.  You can still learn from them.  Despite what the naysayers and media present I'd still say these poor sources and models are in the minority.  There are so many great people you can learn from.  They're out there.  I promise you.  The trick is finding them.  When you do, it'll change the way you do things for the better.  It'll be the infusion of lifeblood you need to take whatever you do to the next level.

You Learn and You Learn

        I love a good quote as much as anyone.  Much of my posting on Twitter revolves around quotes from athletes and coaches.  The hope is to do more than share the words in the quote but also to share the actions or deeper meaning reflected by those words.  In saying that, I also enjoy reading good quotes from others posting and really find it interesting to see what people gravitate towards.  There is a quote I've been seeing a lot saying, "I either win, or I learn."  People love the quote.  I hate it, and here's why.  Although I really like the idea of learning from failure, I think this particular quote is sending the wrong message.  The quote gives two options:  1. Win, 2. Learn.  It's saying the two options are separate.  You win and move on, or you lose and learn.  When we send or receive the message that I should learn only when we lose we're opening the door to panic after a performance.  Think about it from the standpoint of a hitter in baseball.  You go 2-4, 2-4, and 1-3 but don't take the time to understand why you got those results.  Then, you go 0-4.  "Oh man!  I better learn from that performance!"  Time to search for what's wrong.  Time to panic and overreact!  It's amazing how much this line of thinking has hitters quickly forget about those three solid performances.  As I search for what went wrong, the 0-4's start to pile up.  I continue to search and search and try to learn because I'm "or learning" and a slump happens.  I'll get to the alternative shortly, but first I'll tell you the other reason I don't like the saying.

        "I either win, or I learn."  Which would you rather do as a competitor?  I'll take winning, and my guess is you would too.  I'd also guess many of you reading this play or coach teams that win more often than you lose.  My challenge to you then is to think about how if you are only learning from losses, you're missing out on a lot of opportunities to learn.  Among other things, Draymond Green said a couple of nights ago he was glad the Warriors lost.  He said, "I'm kind of thrilled that we lost because you usually make corrections when you lose.  You know, most people don't look at wins and say 'Oh, we need to correct this,' so I think this is good for us."  Draymond is dead on with this statement.  Most people don't take time to think about corrections after wins.  Just because most people don't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't though.  This blog isn't for most people.  It's for you.  Process is a word getting thrown around a lot in the sports world, and I love it when it's truly about process.  If we're truly about the process, however, we are looking at quality of play well beyond the final score.  Process would lead to corrections being made, as necessary, regardless of final score.  Process means learning from every singular athletic experience we have.  When we do that, we become more self-aware both individually and as a team.

         So far I've spent a couple of paragraphs stating my problems with the quote in question, but I haven't given you enough of a specific solution.  That's what we'll do here.  First, I want us to change the options from Win or Learn to Win and Learn or Lose and Learn.  How can you do that?  There's an approach I really like called the 3-2-1.  It's something I first heard Bernie Holliday talk about in one of Cindra Kamphoff's High Performance Mindset Podcasts (the podcasts are great and something I'd highly recommend checking out).  Holliday is the Director of Mental Conditioning for the Pittsburgh Pirates and has a great reputation within the field.  We used a variation of the approach in our reflection about sessions led over the summer at IMG Academy, and it was more productive than any feedback process I've ever experienced as a teacher...by far.  Anyway, back to what the 3-2-1 is.  The concept is that after every performance, or the Pirates I think use it after every series, the player takes time to reflect.  The player first comes up with 3 things that went well and the process that led them going well.  Going back to a hitter going 2-4.  They may want to say, "I got two hits" for what went well.  Okay, but why did you get two hits?  What did you DO that led to you getting the results you want?  This forces the hitter to go beyond that to, "I attacked fastballs early in the count," or "I stuck with my plan throughout each at-bat."  The idea is to produce something in the reflection that helps you moving forward.  It helps create the blueprint for your performance process and helps you get to know yourself a little better as an athlete.  The reflection also provides something you can come back to down the line if things start to go poorly.  After coming up with what went well, the player then thinks of 2 things that could have gone better and the process that led to it not going well.  Maybe that same hitter gave an at-bat away.  "Gave an at-bat away," isn't enough.  Why?  What led to that happening?  Maybe the hitter, "Tried to do too much because of wanting to drive runners in."  Then, the hitter can take that moving forward and "Stay within myself" in similar future situations.  Finally, what is 1 thing you can take moving forward?  In reality, the 3-2 part should give you plenty of options, but the 1 forces you to pick something to focus on.  Maybe that same hitter will work on situational rounds the next day in BP on staying within himself.  Then, he feels a little more prepared going into the game.  I love the 3-2-1 because it's simple and really forces the player to think about what he did.  This is something you can do to "Learn or Learn" after every performance.

        My challenge to you is to try learning from every time you compete.  Really, you could reflect after every single day of training or practice too.  Doing so will allow you to make what you do all the more purposeful.  You'll get to know yourself as an athlete and really take control of a defined process for performance and improvement.  The 3-2-1 Reflection could easily be used by teams as well.  My recommendation for a team would be to wait until the next day to allow for the emotion of a win or loss to fade a bit, and you can reflect a little more rationally.  As a coach, you may be reluctant to have your teams reflect individually because players might not be committed to writing so much.  Something one of my friends and colleagues, Zach Brandon, likes is to take advantage of the technology all of the athletes have.  You can easily reflect by talking into your phone and recording it.  There are a lot of options.  Either it's important enough to be as good as possible, or it isn't.  The point is the opportunity is there.  If we're going to preach process independent of results, let's make sure we are doing it on a consistent basis.  That's true process.  That's win now.

Jason Garrett: One Way to Play

        Monday night the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Detroit Lions 42-21 and moved to 13-2 on the season.  With home-field advantage already in place, the focus over the last week of reporters inevitably shifted to questions for Dallas head coach Jason Garrett about resting players.  After the Cowboy victory, in which Dak Prescott played the whole game, Garrett had the quote below to say.

        For me, this is one of the greatest separators for pretty good and great coaches, players, and teams.  Great teams hold themselves to a standard that ignores the opponent.  Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney, both coaching teams in the College Football Playoff, make this a constant focus of their teams.  That's not irrelevant to their success.  Kyle Hendricks, who has been getting Greg Maddux comparisons, sent the message consistently throughout the playoffs that he would prepare for the next start the same way he had every single start throughout the year.  Jason Garrett is sending the same message to his team.  Every time you play is an opportunity to compete.  

        Sports, or life in general, are a battle for consistency.  The more consistent our behaviors, the more consistent our results.  Both sports and life are filled with things we can't control or have great influence over, but our approach is one we can.  When we place varied importance on different games, we open the door for inconsistency.  In reality, there are differences in games.  Playing in the World Series is going to feel different than a mid-may afternoon start in Milwaukee.  Having a consistent approach and playing to a standard isn't ignoring that.  The expectation of consistent preparation and approach is to be better equipped to handle the differences in situations like a heated rivalry with our season "on the line" or a non-FCS school with no chance of beating us (Both situations bring their own challenges to the approach).  It's what Garrett is demanding from his team as the regular season ends and they head into the playoffs.  I'm not saying it will translate into that elusive Super Bowl run the Cowboys want, but it's a great approach and one we can all benefit from regardless of what we do.

Miguel Montero: Negative Thoughts Are Normal

       The playoffs have been great so far.  They have been filled with some really big, high pressure moments (all of them or none of them, I'd argue).  Something of particular interest to me is every single team who made the playoffs has some sort of sport psychology professional as part of the organization.  What they do, how much they're there, whether it's one or a team of them, etc. varies, but no teams without SOMEBODY made the playoffs.  This is great because baseball, as much as we preach process, is ultimately a very results-driven industry.  Hopefully the ten or so organizations without anyone will do what's best for its players and follow suit.  Anyway, I bring that up because there is a noticeable mental influence present in both the actions during games and the post-game comments of players and managers.  "Slowing the game down," "being in the moment," and "executing regardless of the situation" have been three of the major themes I've seen.  They're great concepts that are empty words unless the How and Why are taught along with them.  With the players and managers discussing the concepts, there is little doubt they have.  Although they're principles of performance I very much believe in,  I found myself particularly fascinated by Miguel Montero's comments about his game-winning grand slam last night for the Cubs.  There is a message behind what he says that is important for all coaches and athletes interested in the mental side of the game to hear and understand.

        "You've got to be positive!"  No you don't.  You want to be positive.  Being positive about your abilities is preferable to being negative.  Over an extended period of time, if you don't believe you are good you probably won't be.  But in a particular moment, it's okay to have a negative thought.  In fact, it's normal.  The average person's daily thoughts are 77% negative!  We can't expect that number to magically be 0% when they are playing their sport!  Understanding this is important.  It's particularly important to the athletes who are their own greatest critics and are "perfectionists."  If they don't understand, then they'll punish for the thought.  The punishment leads to more and more negativity.  That is when the at-bat speeds up and likely results in the turn back to the dugout.  Miguel Montero was down 0-2 and had missed a great pitch to hit already.  He thought about how he should have crushed the pitch before and had trouble letting it go.  What is important is he didn't allow those negative thoughts to speed him up or make him mail in the at-bat.  Of equal importance to mention is how the negative thoughts are more observational than judgmental.  There is a big difference between, "I should have hit that pitch" and "I suck for missing that.  Now I'll never get a hit."  Montero mentions stepping out and in a longer quote how he was just trying to put a ball in play.  He was able to refocus and come through for his team.  The swing he takes isn't defensive at all or indicative of a fear of failing.  This swing probably doesn't happen if he has been told the only way to perform is to be positive 100% of the time.  To have negative thoughts is to be human.  To act in spite of them, similar to acting in spite of fear, is true courage.  It's true focus.  It's true mental game.  Understand this, and give yourself the freedom of the best chance for you to be successful.

Before He Was Thor

        If you're like me, you're excited for the NL Wild Card game tonight.  The pitching matchup of Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard.  The two both have reputations as being tough and competitive on the mound.  Bumgarner's postseason resume speaks for itself as in the debate for the greatest of all time.  Syndergaard won two games last year at the age of 22 and is well known for the first pitch behind Alcides Escobar in the World Series.  Although there is a lot to be written about Bumgarner, the focus of the blog today is going to be Noah "Thor" Syndergaard.  More specifically, it's going to be about how Thor wasn't always Thor.  There has been a lot of time and effort put into becoming the guy who had this to say about pitching in the winner-take-all Wild Card Game Wednesday night:  "It's like every little kid's dream come true to pitch in a real high-stakes game.  So, I'll embrace it.  I look forward to it.  It should be a lot of fun."

        Before Noah Syndergaard was the guy looking forward to pitching in the Wild Card game, his physical stuff was ahead of his mental "stuff."  I remembered people talking about his mental challenges, and a simple Google search yielded some solid quotes from 2014 while Syndergaard was in the Minor Leagues.  They're addressed below:

"I feel like my stuff is there from the physical part of the game.  It's just all about the mental aspect."

The acknowledgement is there that Syndergaard had work to do on the mental side.  Understanding the mental side is something to work on is important to getting anything out of it.  If you ignore its importance, you likely will be an inconsistent player.

"I think I improved pretty drastically....But more the mental side of the game.  It was my first season I really struggled for a certain span of time.  I really had to adapt and really learned a lot."

This quote is from the end of 2014.  Your athletic career, and life for that matter, are a constant adaptation.  Struggles are tough to go through, but you can learn from them if you allow yourself.  Understanding why things happen, rationally, is a major step in the right direction for any athlete or coach.

"I feel like if it was earlier in the season, with where my mindset was at, I would have probably been done after three innings.  I would have been beaten out there....That's just the way things were going and I didn't know how to handle it all that well."

One of the most difficult things for a pitcher is being able to get past a bad inning.  Many times things snowball for any number of reasons.  Thoughts of how the result of the total outing isn't going to be there no matter what after a crooked number, discomfort with your stuff, and just wondering if you are going to be out of the game any pitch now are only a few.  Being able to value every pitch, every hitter, and every inning properly can help with this.  Every pitch is important, but no pitch is ever worth two.  Your job as a pitcher is to compete and throw with conviction for however long you are on the mound regardless of circumstance.  As a position player, it's to compete offensively and defensively and to do so regardless of a bad at-bat or a rough play in the field.

"It's just being more consistent."
Consistent behavior gets consistent results.  You want to be consistent?  Do what it takes to consistently execute pitches.  I can't tell you what that means from a preparation standpoint because it's different for different pitchers.  Ultimately, it takes what it takes.  What it takes, once the game starts, is conviction and skill.


Those are just a few quotes from a young(er) Noah Syndergaard on the mental side of his game.  I think they're important to consider for several reasons.  The first is there is a tendency to accredit mental toughness to just the way an athlete is.  I'd be willing to bet a year's salary there will be a tweet come across my timeline tonight implying as much about Syndergaard and/or Bumgarner (shoot me a message if you want to take the bet!).  In reality, genetics can help, but mental toughness, whatever it is, develops over time.  There has been a clear evolution of Syndergaard over the years.  After all, we have seen that high school yearbook picture!  The development is the second key reason for the piece today.  A strong mental game takes time.  Nobody can make you a "master of the mental game" in one easy session or one book.  If they promise you as much, I'd encourage you to run as fast as you can in another direction.  It takes time to improve your skills whether they are physical or mental.  Be patient, and stay with it.  Thor, like Rome, wasn't built in a day.  Neither are you.

Coach What You Have

        When we think about "keeping up with the Joneses," we tend to think about having all the shiny new toys.  We think of the big house, the newest BMW, or the latest clothes.  Well, it happens in sports too.  As coaches, we're guilty of seeing other teams and wishing we had a couple of pitchers like they have or hitters with the kind of power they've got.  Have you seen their facilities?  Wow what I could do with those.  It's normal to think this way.  The alternative is to focus on what you do have as a coach.  Maybe your best pitcher doesn't throw 92, but he can spin a breaking ball in any count.  You may not have guys banging balls over the lights, but you've got guys who can work the count and run a little bit.  You may not have a huge weight room with the latest gadgets, but you've got enough to do what you need.  Speaking of focusing on what you have, I'm currently reading Bill Walsh's The Score Takes Care of Itself."  To say Coach Walsh was a man ahead of his times would be an understatement.  The book is peppered with lessons on leadership that could be learned from regardless of your field, but it's fantastic for coaches.  I'm about a third of the way through, but it's been great so far.  One of my favorite stories so discusses this concept of working with what you have or "making lemonade out of lemons." It's a story I think we can all learn from and one I'd like to share.

        Before Bill Walsh led the 49er's organization, he was an assistant coach with the Cincinatti Bengals.  One year, he had a quarterback named Virgil Carter.  Carter could move around well and was accurate with his passes, but he did not have a strong arm.  Many coaches try to fit players into a system instead of emphasizing the strengths of the athlete.  Rather than focusing on everything Carter couldn't do and pining away for another QB, Bill Walsh designed an offense that would emphasize the strengths of Carter.  The system was centered around moving the quarterback around and using a lot of short passes.  It would later be known as the West Coast Offense and come to be used all over the league and in colleges across the country.  Walsh didn't create the offense with the intention of it catching on all over.  He was just trying to figure out a way to take advantage of his player's strengths.

        The message behind today's blog should be clear:  "Coach what you have."  Rather than spending your time focused on all of the things your team doesn't have and all of the weaknesses of the players on it, figure out your lemonade.  Find ways to help the players you coach be successful with the skillsets they do have while still emphasizing development of other skills.  This is one of the most difficult balancing acts there is at the high school level, but it's something we have to do if we are serious about helping kids as much as possible.  We've got to do it in order to help the lemons become lemonade.  Start squeezing today.

Gary Sanchez: The Yankee Phenom Who Couldn't Play for your HS/CollegeTeam

        If you're a fan of baseball, you've likely heard about the tear Gary Sanchez has been on since he debuted with the Yankees about three weeks ago.  Sanchez has hit .403 with ten home runs in only 77 at-bats.  That's a pace of 80 home runs in a season.  Not bad.  Unfortunately, while he's good enough as a player and person to be a part of the most fabled clubhouse in baseball history, he wouldn't be good enough for many of the high school and college teams of the coaches reading this.  "What am I talking about" you ask?  What I'm talking about is the toxic atmosphere of coaching Twitter and how the environment not only accepts, but celebrates the constant writing off of kids who make a mistake.  It's the environment where coaches talk about how if a player slams a helmet or doesn't run one ball out the coach certainly has no place for him on the team of perfect people he must have somehow assembled.  How could that kid not be at his peak physical and mental state in the one at-bat that you see him?  Well, it's because he's a kid, and he's not perfect.  None of them are, and none of us are either.

        So what does any of this have to do with Gary Sanchez and how he couldn't get a scholarship from you?  I read a great article about him a week or so ago on ESPN.  The article detailed how he and Aaron Judge are talented, high character guys who have a chance to set the tone for the Yankees for quite some time.  The article also mentions how when Sanchez was 18 years old he refused to enter a game as a sub and declined warming up a pitcher.  Why didn't the Yankees cut him then and there?  How could they possibly keep someone of such low moral fiber?  Yes, I know the financial investment has something to do with it.  Professional baseball is a business.  I'd venture to say that isn't the only reason though.  My thought is they also know that 18-year-old's aren't perfect.  They make mistakes.  They're not finished products by any means, and they have some growing up to do.  The Yankees probably thought they could help too.  My question is, "Why don't more coaches on Twitter think the same?"  We preach how we are helping players become young men and preparing them for the real world.  In what real world do you have to be perfect?  How many of these same coaches would want to be held to the standard they are holding the players they are recruiting?  Curse at an umpire?  Not at your best for 1 minute of practice?  Put up the dreaded chopping signal for a fastball down the middle because you get so frustrated with a pitcher's command?  You're fired.  No, of course not.

        In reality, I know many of the coaches tweeting this stuff are probably really good baseball guys.  They love the game and want to see it played the right way.  We all do.  All I'd challenge you to do is pause the next time you go to write a kid off because of 5 seconds of poor competitive judgment.  Maybe don't cross them off the list until you've had a chance to see him play again or to ask his coach for a little more about his character.  Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't trust our rushing to judgment on these kids.  There is a chance you're writing off the next "Gary Sanchez" in your program's future.

Be Where Your Feet Are

        Alex Bregman has had a monster first full season in professional baseball.  He's hit a combined .310 with 19 HR, 20 2B, and an OPS of over 1.000.  Bregamn was also a home run short of hitting for the cycle in the Futures Game during All Star Weekend in San Diego.  There are rumblings of Bregman being called up any day now to help the Astros make a second half playoff run, and he's gotten more and more attention as a result.  Bregman checked in with a great quote in an article written about him on ESPN recently. 

        Bregman's quote struck me for multiple reasons.  For starters, my philosophy on mental toughness centers around the principle of "Win Now."  It means being fully invested in what you are doing and prepared to perform as well as possible at the task at hand regardless of circumstances.  "Win Now" goes well beyond actual performance within the game, and I think it connects well to what Bregman is saying.  Secondly, a couple of colleagues of at IMG used the phrase "Be where your feet are," just the other day.  Although I'd heard similar phrases, I really liked the way they described it and the great visual it provided to young athletes about proper focus.  One connected the phrase  as a possible reminder to reset during a tough tennis match, and the athletes seemed to really like the concept as well (that's who matters, after all).  The "Technically Police" may say something like, "Well, you can only be where your feet are."  Yes, but we all know there is a canyon of difference between being there and being fully present and engaged.  Skill development depends on it.  In-game performance does as well.  Every pitch, at-bat, game, etc. has a value of one unless you allow it to take greater value.

        Bregman's use of "Be where your feet are," is part of his goal to just play and not worry about when he is called up.  The decision, after all, is not one for him to make (insert required, "Control what you can control" reference here).  It's another great reminder for young athletes all over across all sports.  We know you have goals of playing in college and/or professionally.  Those are great to have.  The challenge for you is to have those long-term goals without them being at the expense of your head not being where your feet are.  Remember the daily effort it takes to get where you are going, sure.  Those who are able to lock in on, rather than glaze over, reps will be at a competitive advantage.  But also make sure you take the time to enjoy the experience along the way.  For one, enjoyment is a major part of why most of us participate in sports.  It's far too often lost at some point in an athlete's career.  A second reason is the joy of being good at something is a major part of what leads to the strong work ethic required to continue to develop and succeed as you move up different levels.  Enjoy now, over and over again.  Then, see where your feet lead you.

The two colleagues referenced in the blog are Taylor Stutzman and Zach Brandon.  Taylor is part of the full-time staff at IMG.  He works with baseball and tennis and can be followed on Twitter @tdstutzman.  Zach is finishing up his Master's at Cal State Fullerton and has worked with the legendary Dr. Ken Ravizza.  Zach is in his second summer working at IMG and can be followed on Twitter @MVPSportPsych.  Both are great people who are in sport psychology to make a difference.  I'd challenge you to look beyond the number of followers of both and understand there is a wealth of quality sport psychology information beyond the Twittersphere(ironic, I know!).

Great Competition is Great

           Right now I'm in the middle of a summer position at IMG Academy in Florida.  The position is as part of the Summer Mental Conditioning Staff, and I'm very fortunate for the opportunity.  Originally, I wasn't planning on writing about it at all.  Those who know me well know I'm very anti-self-promotion (can you double hyphenate?).  This blog is meant to inform not to brag about my work.  Sport psychology is about the athletes, coaches, and parents...not me.  Although I understand the perspective of those who tweet about their work with this team or that athlete, it's not one I share.  That said, I feel like I'm learning so much that it would be a shame not to share some of it with others in some capacity.  Writing allows that platform so I'll try to write here and there.  My hope is it will help You.

         One of the great challenges of the summer is working outside of our sports of experience.  Thus far, I've worked with tennis, golf, soccer, football, and basketball...in addition to baseball.  I wasn't sure what to expect at first, but I've actually enjoyed it a lot.  Tennis and soccer, probably my two least favorite sports of the group, have actually been my two favorite groups to work with.  The kids have been a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed learning from their experience.  Something working with the variety of sports demands is a base level of knowledge of the sports themselves.  This has led me to make an effort to actually watch a little tennis.  The effort has coincided with Wimbledon so that has helped.  This morning I had breakfast at Wimbledon with Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber.  Serena was playing to try to match Steffi Graf's 22 Major Titles, and Kerber had beaten her at the Australian Open earlier this year.  The match was well-played, back and forth, and Serena came out on top.  

         Something very unique to tennis finals is what happens after the match is finished.  Not five minutes after losing the tournament and two weeks of hard-fought matches, the loser has to give an interview in front of the entire crowd.  Could you imagine Mitch Williams giving an interview in front of all the Blue Jay fans fresh off of giving up the walkoff home run to Joe Carter?  Tennis players seem to have a different perspective though, and Kerber was incredibly gracious and articulate in her defeat.  Then, the champ gets interviewed.  Serena also showed a tremendous amount of class.  I loved several of her comments, and the one below in particular spoke to me.  Williams talked about how she loved playing Kerber because of the quality of competition she brought and her "bringing out great tennis" in Williams.  There is a message there for all of us no matter whether we are athletes, coaches, teachers, business professionals, etc.  Great athletes want to be pushed.  They want the challenge.  They aren't satisfied with just beating up on lesser competition.  Defeats against quality opponents can actually often bring greater satisfaction than a lopsided win.  

        With that, my challenge to you is to find people who are good at what you do.  Seek others who are even better than  you in whatever it is that you do.  Learn from them and their successes.  I'm not telling you to not be yourself.  I want you to be the best version of You possible though, but others can help you with that.  It's silly to think you have all of the answers.  Hopefully others will seek you out as well, and you'll be able to offer ways to help them become a better "them" too.  Pushing one another to grow continually makes ourselves and whatever fields we are a part of better.  It's been one of my favorite parts of the summer so far, and it's something I look forward to doing a lot more over the coming weeks.  

        

Body Language by Beckwith

        "That kid wants it!"  "He's such a competitor!"  "Playing with some emotion...I love it!  Take that guy on my team any day of the week!"  Have you heard these before?  Probably.  Most of the time this Coach Speak comes when we see something like a pitcher yell and go nuts after a big strikeout or a hitter comes up with a run-scoring hit in the clutch.  While I'm not saying I wouldn't take those guys on my team and love a well-timed genuine display of emotion, it's dangerous for an athlete to feel like they have to be emotional to perform.  Roller-coaster emotional athletes are rarely the most consistent over the long haul.  It's not so much because of the emotional outbursts but the struggle to get past them and move on.  Anyway, I'd challenge you to base your judgments about a player's competitive spirit on more than these outward displays.  A great example has taken over the last week and a half at the College World Series.  I'm still brain storming a more complete tribute to the performance of Andrew Beckwith and the great example he has set for young players everywhere, but I wanted to share some brief video clips from his complete game, dominant, Maddux-like efficient performance against Florida.  I'll also include some thoughts on what I see.

        The above clips are after giving up hits in the middle to later innings of what was a close game.  There is no sign of panic at all.  If' I'd have told you Beckwith just completed his warm-up tosses before a 9 AM, Saturday morning travel game or that he just read a really interesting article on knitting socks, you'd probably believe me.  There is no visible "bearing down" or "pumping himself up" to get through it.  It's more, "Okay, that guy just got a hit.  It's time to make the next pitch."

        Our next clip is right after making a great play to cover first base on a tweener ground ball between first and second.  The second baseman ended up fielding it, and Beckwith made a really athletic play to cover and catch the ball at the same time.  Again, this was a "big" play.  Or is it enjoying a casual stroll with his dog on a quiet Saturday morning?  Tea and bridge with the ladies next door?  On to the next hitter.

        The next clip is after getting a strikeout for the third out somewhere around the seventh or eighth inning.  Why isn't he running off the field yelling and screaming?  Doesn't he want to psyc out the opponent?  Isn't he happy he just got that "big" out?  Doesn't he want it more than them?  Just guesses here, but I'd say he doesn't need to, doesn't care, is happy, and just wants it how much he wants it.  There is more to be done, and he expects to do it.

        The clip above is one of Beckwith after giving up a hit in the latter stages of the game again.  I took this one though to show his breathing and make a point.  This is not a big breath, but it's an efficient breath.  The use of a breath has become huge in baseball and with great biological reasoning.  Something to consider though is to be a consistent breather rather than a big breather.  Being in control of your breathing rather than being controlled by it.  Using breathing instead of being dependent on it as another thing to remember to do.  Also, you don't breathe with your shoulders.  This breath by Beckwith is more efficient and useful than those huge shoulder shrugs we see all too often.

        The final clip is just after the final out in Beckwith's masterpiece.  It was the first time I saw a smile from him the entire game and a display of excitement for what his team had just accomplished.  There's a hug with his catcher too because of the joy for what they'd just done.  All of the emotions are genuine.  There's nobody who has told him, "Hey, you hug your catcher after the end of the game.  That's big body language"  It's just what he does.  It's "Andrew Beckwith being Andrew Beckwith."  He's playing baseball freely.

        So, what is the overall point of these video clips?  My hope was to show you a couple of things.  The first is what a pitcher who is in control of the game can look like.  Beckwith's high school head coach tweeted something mid-game about the situation not being too big for him.  That is visible in the clips above.  There is never a hint of panic.  This is a guy with a job to do and who is confident in his ability to do it.  He doesn't have to make sure everybody else knows.  Second, Beckwith is one of the most competitive, hard-working athletes I have ever been around.  He really does want it more than most.  That want doesn't take place in the nine innings of the game, and it isn't through the display of eyewash moves.  The want is in his meticulous work ethic and efforts to prepare for the games he has thrown in the World Series.  Before you attribute wins or individual game performances to "wanting it more" in the future, challenge yourself to consider everything that goes into preparing for a game.  Chances are, regardless of your sport, the time outside of competition far exceeds that of the actual competition.  This time, and what you do with it, is the great separator.  Everyone wants to win come game time.  Who is willing to do what it take to do so?  Andrew Beckwith is more than willing.  He's who his teammates, coaches, and everyone else who watches him pitch want on the mound with the game on the line.  Are you?