Podcast

By Luke Melms

Unlike a baseball stadium which you can physically see a foundation laid and walls go up, the best you can do in business is have a plan on paper.

Playing baseball is like speaking our first language. There’s no thought to it. When it comes to business, we are all at different levels of comfort and may not have this same level of certainty.

This message is tailored to current pro players and building a personal brand. One of the questions I hear is, “How to do I know if I go after building a brand people will follow me?”

The great movie Field of Dreams echoes the line, “If you build it, he will come.” However that is Hollywood and we are living in reality. If you simply start an account, people wont just magically show up. There has to be an intentional strategy.

Building a personal brand needs the ingredients of consistency, authenticity and time.

To use a practical analogy I want to contrast two different MLB franchises to show what these personal branding ingredients look like in a different setting.

To do this we will compare the Yankees and Marlins. Both teams have built new stadiums within the last decade but have had very different results when it comes to a having a loyal fan following.

While the Yankees have a longer history, both teams have demonstrated an ability to win. In fact it was the Marlins that beat the Yankees in the 2003 World Series.

Consistency is the biggest key to building a following whether it is on social media or an MLB organization. The Marlins biggest challenge is that the previous ownership group was not consistent with words and action.

When the stadium was opened in 2012, they acquired a lot of talent heading into that season which fueled the buzz around the new stadium. Ownership said they were committed to winning and spent some big money in free agency. However shortly after the season they traded several of these key pieces away. This is after fire sales after winning a World Series in 1997 and 2003.

When people know what to expect, you will gain and keep loyal followers. Using Baseball and Business as an example, we have consistent content schedule. #MoreThanAthletes Monday, the weekly article on Wednesdays and On the Field Fridays are the pillar pieces surrounded by content that can be shared as it arises.

The Marlins new group has taken heat for trading their entire outfield which was arguably the best in baseball. However as someone who lives in South Florida, I’ve seen how small the crowds were despite these stars on the team. It is not a player issue before or after these trades. Fans feel burned and have never a strong following that has stayed for the long haul.

Derek Jeter knows winning better than most and what a winning culture takes to build. He is focused on findimg ways to change the culture and repair the badly damaged relationships in the South Florida community with the team. As an example, he invited the Stoneman Douglas baseball team to play a game after the tragic shooting and also had the team come to a game and met the whole team.

To build a great following is no different than building a physical structure. You have to focus on the foundation first which as days go on seem like the walls are a long ways off.

That being said find something to share more days than not. Whether that is a video or picture, give access to who you are a baseball player and beyond. This authenticity is the second most important ingredient. Once you get someone’s attention you have to keep it and can do it by providing access no one else can. No one else can share your story better than you.

The last element is time. No different than understanding there is a journey to the big leagues, time is on your side in building a brand. It won’t happen overnight but realize that most people are not willing to put in the effort to be consistent. This is what separates baseball players from the world. Playing a long season is a grind but develops an uncanny ability to show up and go to work everyday.

Use this to your advantage as you compete for the valued asset of someone’s time and attention.

If you put these three elements together, I confidently can say people will come and stay. Companies will pay you to partner to be an ambassador with products that organically fit who you are and can create an income stream beyond being a W-2 employee as a baseball player.

Social media is a game changer not just in how we live and can be more easily connected to one another but in how baseball players can capitalize on opportunities.

By Bob Gast

There is no “professional self” or “home self” or “personal self”.

We are who we are and wherever we go, ‘there we are’. The only question is whether we are learning, growing and breaking down the illusionary walls we have created. Sometimes the small and silent moments yield the largest hammers to breaking down barriers.

After I was drafted and signed by the California Angels, I was invited to work out with the team as they came to Baltimore for a series against the O’s. I was scheduled to throw for Buzzy Bavasi who was the GM at the time. I will never forget how surreal it was for me to walk into the clubhouse at Memorial Stadium where I watched the Orioles for years as I grew up. I never forgot how the then Angels manager, Jim Fregosi, looked up and said, “You that new kid they just signed?… get him a uniform!”

I had a “field of dreams” moment that day which still gives me goose bumps. After throwing in the bullpen and showing some good heat for the brass, I did my running with the other pitchers and was shagging fly balls during BP. As I was out there doing what I loved, I thought about how hard I had worked, against more than a few naysayers, and then I looked up at the upper right field bleacher seats where I remembered sitting with my Dad at my very first Oriole game when I was around 6 years old.

I know that my Dad did not always agree with all of my decisions but I realized right then that he always supported me and was my biggest fan. It all came flooding back and it was, for a moment that seemed to last longer than it did, like a reconciliation that had been long overdue. It seemed appropriate that I was able to find my Dad among the many friends who had come into the stadium by then. I remember catching his eye and just nodding to him as I walked in to the dugout and when I saw him nod back with a smile.

I knew that the reconciliation was complete without speaking a word. Some moments do not require words and yet “say” more than a thousand words could ever express. This was one of them. A couple of years later when I watched Field of Dreams, I knew exactly what Shoeless Joe meant when he told Ray, “No, Ray… it was YOU!” when Ray suggested that the voice which told him to build the field was for his father.

If we hope to grow, we need to always be open to those surprising moments when our prior weaknesses and those places where we were heretofore “stuck” can emerge and teach us. I would say that humility and gratitude are the key attributes to look for in determining a growth mindset. Leave the tired old “keywords” du-jour at the door and go deeper. You have to be in the moment – even if you are a numbers guy.

What good are numbers if you do not have the vision to “see” what they are really saying?

To connect with Bob on LinkedIn, click here.

By Joey Gorman

As I entered a 6 AM lift in October of my freshman year at Saint Joseph’s University, I thought I had many baseball games in college to be played.

I never imagined my career could potentially be over before it even started.

One of my favorite movies is Field of Dreams.  If you are unfamiliar with the movie, Dr. Moonlight Graham is a character in it.  As a kid, he made it to the major leagues, but only appeared in one game.  He played the field but never got an at bat. He retired from baseball after that season without ever batting and went to medical school to become a doctor.

When asked about his experiences by Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, Graham replies, “It was like coming this close to your dreams and then watch them brush past you like a stranger in a crowd. At the time, you don’t think much of it. You know, we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening.”

Back then I thought, “Well, there’ll be other days.”

I didn’t realize that that was the only day.

Entering my freshman year of college, I had a game plan for how I thought things would go. I was ready for what I thought would be my challenges as a Division I baseball player.  Just how a baseball game can change in an instant, my life did.  I never dreamed of the obstacles I would have to face including the possibility of never playing baseball again.

While lifting in the weight room, I felt a zap down my neck and lost feeling on my left side.

An extremely long story made short, my brain tapped my spinal cord.  I was diagnosed with a Chiari Malformation.

Two brain surgeries, a cyst beginning to deteriorate my spine, an artery wrapped around my brain stem only found when they opened my skull, dead bone in my throwing shoulder from meningitis, and a total of 8 surgeries (one that was only performed on a horse before) in a three year span all resulted from this. Chiari Malformation.  I had to have been a first team All-American in surgeries at Saint Joe’s.

Baseball, the love of my life, should have become an afterthought.  It never left me though.

I try to live my life one day at a time to the fullest.  In baseball, we play one pitch at a time.  Sometimes the hops or umpire’s calls do not go our way, but baseball’s not easy, it’s like life.

I love this game because it has taught me about and prepared me most for life.

The ultimate measure of a person is not where he stands in moments of ease and comfort, but where he stands in times of challenge.  Martin Luther King Jr. said this, and it relates to baseball for me.  How we handle the tough times on the field reflects how we will handle things in our lives.  The only difference is that life is much harder.  We are able to forget about a bad game once we leave the field or perhaps when we start a new one the next day, but in life, we simply can’t forget or move on from some of our toughest obstacles.

I know my baseball mentality helped me survive the toughest opponent of my life.  I know it saved my life and continues to help me heal each day, physically and mentally.

The hardest part of baseball to me is watching one of my teammates go through a tough time and not being able to help them.  The hardest part of my struggles with Chiari Malformation was watching my family feel like they could not help me.  I rather be the pitcher who gives up a game winning home run than watch my teammate hurt.  I was thankful to be the one suffering with Chiari and not one of my family members.

At this point in my life it was hard coming to the realization that baseball was an afterthought and I should be happy to be alive.  But, as an athlete, we always want more.  I wanted to get back on the field, because that would mean I was healing.

Baseball is a game of inches and now I have an 8 inch scar that runs from the back of my head to my neck as a constant reminder of the toughest times of my life.  Through it all, the thought of never playing ball again was what motivated me most to get better.  When doctors told me to give it up or “find a new hobby”, it reminded me of other times…times when scouts or other teams doubted my abilities and ultimately motivated me.

“Losing Is Not An Option” was the mentality in this battle with Chiari, but it was also my approach on the baseball diamond.  It is impossible to win every game, get a hit every at bat, or strike out every hitter, but our intent or approach to each opportunity should be “losing is not an option.”  Chiari was not going to strike me out.

The “Losing Is Not An Option” mentality an inscription that rested under the brim of my cap in high school became the motto and name for the nonprofit organization I create while being unable to play baseball my first two years of college.  I wanted to help others that would be in my situation in the future and raise awareness for a rare condition.  Our efforts for awareness consist of raising money for research and creating t-shirts to raise awareness.  Our efforts have reached three continents, 10+ countries and almost 25 states in the U.S.  I have been able to talk to athletes of all ages about my efforts including professional athletes such as Tim Tebow (my role model), Bryce Harper, and J.J. Watt.

When I had Meningitis after my second brain surgery, I was unable to stand let alone walk.  So, I began crawling. The thought of someday crawling before walking, and walking before I run down the line on a base hit was my motivation.  I envisioned this moment happening before it did just like a hitter would on the on deck circle.

Perhaps I have faced more adversity than most have in my brief 24 year life.  But we all have our own battles no matter how big or small you may think it is.  It is still something bothering us and our lives.  But finding a thing to relate to, to help us in those times of adversity, can make it a bit easier.  The athlete and baseball mentality in me did not see it as battling a life threatening condition, but seeing it as trying to pitch out of a bases loaded jam or rally from down four runs in the ninth.

How you react after giving up a home run or striking out at the bat defines you as player more than success.  Perhaps you go out in the field after a strike out and make a diving catch.  It is just like life.  When things don’t go your way, which they won’t most times because life is pretty tough, how can you bounce back?  The game isn’t over until the last out is recorded.  In my life, I wasn’t going to be counted out unless I went down swinging in the ninth.  Never give up on a game or a team because anything can happen.  Never give up on people or a diagnosis because anything can happen in life. If I gave up when my life took a turn for the worst early in the game, I would not have had the most amazing experiences of my life on a baseball diamond these past few years.

A game with so many lows that outnumber the highs is only when you are result oriented in the game itself.  In baseball, the highs always outweigh the lows when you have amazing teammates, coaches, and all of the people and experiences you make along the way.  That is why we love this game.  Our lives would not be the same without it.  Through all of the difficult times in life, they lead us to people and experiences we would never have expected and make our lives worth living.

Baseball will always be life. This game has given me and taught me so much about life. For that, I am forever thankful. But what I am most thankful for is the people that baseball brought into my life. Without these people, my life would not be anything.  The dream as a young kid throwing a ball up the schoolyard with his dad to play college baseball came true. The road may have been tough, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love the journeys, experiences, memories, friendships, and lessons baseball has brought me. Six years ago, I thought I had lost everything. Little did I know it was just the beginning and going to be the best thing to ever happen to me.

To all of the people who came into my life through this wonderful game especially these past six years, thank you will never be enough. I am here because of you. Their impact on my life has made me a better human being especially when I struggled the most.  In baseball and life, when things seem to be heading for the worst it is these people who carry you around the bases of life.

My favorite quote from Field of Dreams once again comes from Moonlight Graham.  As Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) continues to ask Dr. Graham why he gave up on baseball before getting an at bat, words that ease my heart and mind come from his mouth.

Ray says, “Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within… y-you came this close. It would kill some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they’d consider it a tragedy.”

Dr. Graham replies by saying, “Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.”

While most people tell me it’s a shame what happened, how I had such a bright future ahead in baseball or a potential professional career was taken away from me, it does not bother me.  My brain tapping my spinal cord that day six years ago was the greatest thing to happen to me.  It ultimately saved my life before something way worse happened to me and I have been given this platform to help so many people struggling with health conditions especially Chiari Malformation.

I have been blessed to probably have made more an impact on lives through this path of life than if I perhaps had a wonderful baseball career.  Making it back on to the field after all of that happening to my family and I was like making it to the major leagues.  My favorite quote of all time comes from the late, great Jackie Robinson.  “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

The things that most people would say would kill others to be so close to a lifelong dream and not touch it, that it is a tragedy, I would just have to reply like Moonlight Graham.  If I’d only gotten to raise awareness for Chiari Malformation and help those suffering with horrible conditions/illnesses for five minutes…now that would have been a tragedy.

To connect with Joey on LinkedIn, click here.

By Luke Melms

With the amateur draft last week, there is an important lesson to take away when looking at business in the context of players hearing their names called.

Unlike baseball, there is no draft in business.

However this isn’t how it always used to be. There used to be barriers to entry that no longer exist. The Industrial Revolution required big dollars and big influence to accomplish something significant. Most looked from the outside in regards to building any type of business or brand.

We are living through the greatest era of change in the history of the world. There’s never been a better time to create business opportunities.

Because everyone has a smart phone though, there is a lot of noise. There is nothing stopping anyone from making a video or creating their own blog. The key to standing out is no different than baseball…talent and work ethic.

Consistency is the key. If you have talent but don’t put out content on a regular basis, you can’t build a true following. If you don’t have and develop existing talent, the same is true.

What does all this have to do with baseball?

On its own, it has nothing to do with it. If you are reading this though, there’s a high likelihood both baseball and business are a part of who you are.

Business and social media are like playing the field and stepping into the box. You have to do both if you want to build a business or brand of any kind.

As a baseball player, you are living out a story that will never have a carbon copy of it. The beauty is that social media is all about storytelling.

However, you have to decide if and how much you want to share of it. If not, at best the media will give a glimmer into who you really are.

For some, this comes more naturally and others may require more work to develop this brand and following. That is not what matters. We are all on our own race and have something of value to share with the world.

Each of us face the battle of people wanting to put labels and limits on us whether it’s in baseball, business or both.

Whether you were drafted last week into pro ball, are grinding it out full time in business or somewhere in between, the same is true for all of us. We all want to slide in safely to home.

We can’t get there though without running the bases in order. Don’t worry if you aren’t playing in front of a crowd size you want to. It is a process. You can’t touch home without running in order.

The biggest enemy is comparison. Some drafted last week will be in the bigs in a year or two and others may have to grind it out for 6 or 7 years before sticking. In a business setting, some will hit a single and have to go station to station while others will hit a triple and be able to make it quicker all the way around the bases.

Whether it is endorsements while playing or writing a book on the other side, the opportunities are endless. While few get to walk away on their own terms, a brand and following is something no one can take away once you earn it.

We are baseball players. No one knows how to grind like us. Just keep going. We are #MoreThanAthletes.

By Jeremy Wolf

Dear Reader,

I get to live my dream every day and night. I get to work for a company whose symbol hung on my wall since I was a kid. I give my heart, soul, and body to this job and have sat quietly as my colleagues, my brothers in arms, have sat quietly on the sidelines for far too long.

It hurts to know that my work isn’t enough to allow me to live, and it’s a testament to the complications of the system that I’m berated, laughed at, and disallowed from earning what’s due to me.

A seat at the table, a fair shake.

The system itself is a flawed, but it’s the American way. I work 70 hours a week and play in front of thousands of screaming fans a night, and I’ll go to bed hungry. I have to purchase my own equipment and sleep on an air mattress. This is minor league baseball.

I’m a “seasonal apprentice”, an “intern”, a “lucky son of a bitch”. I know. Trust me, I know.

People would give their first born child for the opportunity to do what I do, and they call me selfish for asking for what’s due to me, they call me selfish for my attitude, and they call me ungrateful for playing for money and “not for pride.”

My pride was taken from me when I signed those papers. My rights and my freedoms as an employee, as a worker, as a man, gone.

“Go put on this jersey, do what we say, eat your crumbs, and when something happens to you we’ll find someone else.”

So while I’m here, I’m gonna fight.

Minor league baseball players work in a system that is fraught with corruption; billionaire team owners collectively suppress wages of their lowest employees, won’t let them build a union, and won’t let them talk with team officials about their treatment. Whereas, Minor league owners profit off of free labor, use public money to build gaudy stadiums, and neglect to spend the money on the well being of the players, the entertainment.

I have played a game for a living ever since I was five years old. It was never a hobby, it was a job. And now I get to practice next to those who I watched growing up. But is this really it? Is this living the dream?

Sincerely,

The Indentured

I wrote that piece during my career, a sixteen-month stint with the New York Mets. I wasn’t lucky to be there, I earned it. I worked my ass off to get to that point in my career and wouldn’t change a second of it. But, I was treated like property. Speaking up now has taught me a lot about this country: I should be grateful for the opportunity and keep my mouth shut about the quality of life they present to me.

My 2017 season lasted seven months, March through September. March was unpaid. April – unpaid. May – unpaid. Sixteen days in June – unpaid. For 8-10 hours a day, six days a week, for sixteen weeks, I made $0. For my short season (72 games), I was paid $45 per game, or $3 an hour for 70 hours a week. I was guaranteed two meals in my contract and rarely got food to eat. I had to purchase my own equipment (bats, cleats, batting gloves, first base mitt, etc.), rent, travel, and $80 a month for a group of rich high schoolers to clean my jersey. I played in front of 8,000 people a night and went to bed hungry. I made less money that summer than the batboy and after seven months of work, I left with less money than I started, and $2000 in credit card debt.

I was ultimately released after that season due to a back injury. I couldn’t even walk as I received that phone call.

For those who get drafted this week… enjoy it. Love it. Cherish it. But don’t forget your brothers. Look to your left and right and see if they have as much as you, not if you have as much as them.

I’m now able to fight for my teammates rights as employees, as human beings. Minor League baseball players deserve a seat at the table. I guess the million dollar question is, will they?

Jeremy Wolf is the Director of More Than Baseball. To learn more, visit their website at MoreThanBaseball.org or Instagram @mtb_org.

To connect with Jeremy on LinkedIn, click here. To connect with him on Instagram, his handle is @_jeremywolf. 

By Keith Clingman

As a high school player in Oklahoma, I was fortunate to live in a city and state that took baseball seriously. A decent high school career (and likely more relevant, a lot of enthusiasm) got me some looks from a few colleges and pro scouts (all who wondered if this 5’10”/150 lb. catcher could play another position). I ended up playing my first two years of college baseball at Oklahoma City University before I decided to fulfill a dream to play for Oklahoma State where I walked on after a shoulder surgery my sophomore year at OCU.

After spending a year rehabbing my shoulder while at OSU, I re-injured it during a summer league game and decided that I had had enough of the band exercises and physical therapy. It was time to hang up the spikes.

I had a hard time without baseball but I approached my next chapter with the same drive and determination because that was the only thing I knew. I began pursuing a career in the music business since music was the only thing I was passionate about in the same way I was passionate about baseball. An internship with a music management firm ended up being the beginning of a fun and productive stint in that industry which led me to my next career step with Red Bull where I spent almost 13 years in marketing management and leadership roles.

Throughout my baseball career I knew I was learning valuable lessons. It’s just that I didn’t know which ones and how they would apply later in life. That was until I was found myself in the business world.

All the obvious lessons that I expected to take from baseball (strong work ethic, teamwork etc. etc.) certainly applied. But there were many other lessons that I was not aware of as they happened and only realized them, and how they applied to business, many years later.

If only I had known that these lessons would be highly valuable later in my career, maybe I would have paid more attention to them then. I hope that my sharing these in hindsight will help some of you recognize these as you experience them so that you can take more advantage of them than I did.

1) How to take feedback

Feedback in business is crucial. It’s how leaders shape their teams and it’s how individuals gain insight that makes them better.

Sounds a lot like baseball, huh? Your hitting coach has some feedback on your swing during BP. He gives you this feedback in a very direct, maybe even short, way. But you know that his intention is to make you a better hitter so you listen and apply the feedback without reading between the lines of his tone or words. You don’t take this feedback personally and you certainly don’t let it offend you or make you question your abilities as a player.

Somehow this scenario can feel different, and can cause people to react differently, in the context of business. It can feel more personal or harsh. But what if hearing and absorbing this feedback could feel like it did when your hitting coach was giving you feedback?

It can. You just have to understand that it’s being given with positive intent to make both you and your team (or business) better.

2) How to work with people who are different from you

My experience with college baseball was drastically different compared to high school. Most of my high school teammates came from an almost identical background as me and shared the same interests, thoughts and opinions as I did. College changed this quickly.

In college ball, I had to learn to work toward a common goal with others who were different from me in every imaginable way. That championship became our common ground. Differences no longer mattered. At the time, I had fun learning about other cultures, backgrounds and personalities. But little did I know, the ability to find common ground with someone and align toward a common goal would be crucial in business.

3) How to talk about yourself without making people hate you

As a baseball team, you and your teammates are used to one-upping the other and talking about yourself in ways that are equal parts humble, confident and bragging. You dropped a bomb off of your roommate in an intrasquad. He’s definitely going to hear about that one all week. But there won’t be any bad blood or hurt feelings. Why? Because so much of baseball is failure and you know for certain that a swinging strikeout is inevitably just around the corner for you just the same as that home run.

This scenario forces you to have confidence while at the same time understanding the reality that you won’t always get a hit. In the professional world, this translates to the ability to have perspective and to be self-mocking. Two things that can help when you want to be recognized for what you’ve done but also don’t want people to hate you in the process.

As our hitting coach at OCU, Keith Lytle, would say whenever someone threw something in disgust after a failed at-bat, ‘What, do you think you’re so good you were never going to get out?’. Perspective and self-mocking.

4) The value of respect

I’ve had the best and worst of managers (to be fair, I’ve also likely been the worst manager at times) in business. One thing I realized halfway through my work career is that the level of respect I had for my manager was directly correlated with how much I enjoyed what I was doing, and also how successful I, and the business, was. This felt a lot like my experience with baseball.

Why were some coaches loved and some hated? In my experience, it came down to how much they were respected. The best players want to play for the best coaches, who are usually the most highly respected. Even if you ‘hated’ your coach for kicking your ass at 5 am practice, you still respected him because he was doing what needed to be done to give the team the best shot at being successful. The same holds true in business.

Would you settle for playing for a coach whom you didn’t respect because of how he treated players or how he managed the program? Would you stay in that situation or would you start considering what other programs you might be able to play for?

It can be easy in business to settle for working for someone you don’t respect. But you will likely be less fulfilled and I’d bet less successful.

5) How to tinker

How many hours did you ‘tinker’ with your swing or pitching mechanics? A lot, I’d guess. Because you were always looking for the next insight or change that was going to make your hands quicker or your curveball break more sharply. You looked at this tinkering as a positive. You may have even enjoyed it. Because it was making you better.

Change can be met with resistance in business. But the lack of change is many times what kills a business or stunts an employees growth. Keep the tinkering spirit alive. Tinker with your area of business the same way you tinkered with your game.

Don’t be afraid to put in the extra hours tweaking your sales route until you get it to perfect efficiency. You’ll be the one that sells the most, and does it the most efficiently.

Don’t be afraid to try something completely out of the ordinary like that time you used a frisbee for lead arm hitting drills. You’ll be the one to stumble upon the best solution that no one else could think of.

Don’t be afraid to find your lucky routine before a big presentation the same way you talked to the ball before a start. It will give you the confidence to deliver.

To connect with Keith on LinkedIn, click here.

By Eric Byrnes

Shortly after my last season playing professional baseball, I began working at MLB Network. Once or twice a month, I would fly between San Francisco and New York City. On the 5-hour flight each way, I had plenty of time to reflect on many of my early life and professional baseball experiences. I eventually began writing down the stories and a few years later I had compiled a pretty epic collection of life experiences.

As you can probably imagine, many of the stories were comical to say the least, yet, no matter what emotion I felt reliving the experiences, the one thing I eventually realized was that each story carried with it some sort of invaluable life lesson. Then, as I transitioned into broadcasting, ultra-endurance sports, and fatherhood, the collection of stories continued to grow, and so did the lessons.

For a long time, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the writings. My initial thought was to keep them in the diary form in which they were written, then one day pass them on to my kids.

In 2016, I had the opportunity to run the Western States 100-mile endurance run. A buddy of mine who had done the race before compared running the Western States to “living a lifetime in a day.” He couldn’t have been more right.

As I approached mile 97 of the race at No Hands Bridge, I had an epiphany. Maybe it was because earlier in the race I was sure I was getting stalked by a mountain lion or because I thought I saw an orangutan. It might have been the nasty fall I had around mile 20 or the fact that my feet were so jacked up with cuts and blisters, every step felt like I was running on glass. Regardless, I knew I needed to share what I had just experienced.

Then, in my delusional and incredibly emotional state, I also decided I wanted to share all of the stories I had accumulated. If for no other reason than if just ONE story, or ONE life lesson drawn from a story, is able to put a smile on somebody’s face or motivate somebody to step outside of their comfort zone and challenge themselves, it will all be worth it.

Click the image below on desktop or click here on mobile to hear a personalized video message to the Baseball and Business guys from Eric Byrnes

A post shared by Baseball and Business (@baseballandbusiness) on May 23, 2018 at 9:43am PDT

When I was in college at UCLA, my roommates and I would playfully argue about who would get the most activities done in a day. Of course, that led to a competition where we got a big ass dry erase board and would actually chart our individual activities throughout the course of the entire day. No doubt, it was a pissing contest with 4 dudes that had way too much testosterone to burn but the list taught me a lot about myself. More than anything, the list taught me about the incredible value of a routine. For the past 20 years now, I have continued to develop and modify the daily list of activities in order to do everything I can to optimize my current lifestyle.

Its name…The F*ck It List.

Because Mom was mortified by the title, I promised to refer to it as The F*It List 🙂

When I played professional baseball, I had the tendency to fly around the outfield and run into a few walls. Early on in my career, Hall of Fame writer and broadcaster Peter Gammons gave me the nickname ‘Human Crash Test Dummy’. It took a while for it to grow on me but just like any obstacle we face in life, we are always much better off embracing it.

So…To Peter Gammons, and all of the original F*It List participants: Mike Seal, Bryan Sidensol, Bob Angus, Eric Valent and Royce Valent…This title is for you dudes.

To Mom, Dad (Double Sky Point) and my sister Shea: Thank you for teaching me how to LIVE my life. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to make mistakes and fail. Thank you for your endless support and unconditional love.

To Tarah: Thank you for being the best wife and mother to our children I could have ever dreamed of. Thank you for your unwavering commitment. Thank you for accepting my many flaws and challenging me to become a better person on a daily basis. It has been a helluva ride…

To Chloe, Cali and Colton: Thank you for teaching me a love so deep I never thought possible. Thank you for continuing to fail and learn from your failures. Thank you for pushing limits and defining your own boundaries. There are only two things in life I will be able to give you that nobody will ever be able to take away: EDUCATION and EXPERIENCE. Always keep learning and NEVER STOP charging.

To everyone else along the way that has made my life difficult: Thank you for that. Without failure and the lessons we are able to learn from failure, we are nothing. Whatever successes in life I have been able to achieve are a direct result of leaping over hurdles. Thank you for being that hurdle.

No matter what I have done in my life, whether it was playing Major League Baseball, performing on TV, competing in Ironman triathlons, running 100 miles, breaking a world record by playing 245 holes of golf in 12 hours or in this case writing a book, I have been and will be critiqued and ridiculed by outsiders in just about every way possible. I am extremely grateful for that. These are the people who have helped me realize there is no sense ever wasting any sort of energy worrying about external opinions and events outside of my control. These opinions and events are what has allowed me to focus all of my effort and energy on what is actually within my immediate control.

When you learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable and live a life of vulnerability, you will finally be authentically LIVING YOUR LIFE. As the 26th President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, so brilliantly pointed out…

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

F*It…Let’s Go!

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