In The Box

This is the full version of Kevin Wilson’s “Directional Hitting” segment on KWB Radio podcast in 2014.

Joe Ferraro (host) – “We only have 5 minutes, so tell me what you know about “Directional Hitting,” what the heck it is and how it’s going to make our hitters better.”

Kevin Wilson: “I like to tell guys, hey listen, the ball comes from 60 feet, 6 inches straight in front of you. And a lot of guys tend to “leak off” the ball, open the front shoulder, fly open – all of the terms that you hear on a daily basis.

There is a lot to trying to be directional and as a hitter you’re trying to slow the game down. You’re trying to make sure you’re “staying in your lane” so-to-speak. So I like to break it down this way.

I like to start with taking the old “rubber band theory.”

I’m in the back of the classroom with a rubber band in my hand and I say to myself, “I’m going to hit that blackboard or these days the smartboard.” I’m going to take this rubber band and try and snap one off and hit the smartboard.

Ok. How am I going to do that?

Well obviously, I have to get the rubber band and I gotta pull it all the way back before it snaps – to the furthest point back I can – and what am I going to do? Line it up to where I want to shoot it. Now when I let that rubber band go, Joe, I’m not going to be worried about what direction it’s going. At that point when I let it go, it’s just a matter of if it’s going to hit the board or not.

And so that’s why I like to paint that picture of directional hitting.

So I pointed that rubber band in a direction knowing that when I let it go, it’s going in that direction. So when the ball’s coming from 60 feet, 6 inches in front of me, when I get ready in the box, I want my shoulders, my hips, everything pointed directly at where that ball is coming from.

And so, sometimes we leak off and we go to shortstop or second base (depending if we are right handed or left handed). Because it’s coming from straight in front of me, I’m going to get my load (pull the rubber band back) and I’m going to be able to get myself in line, so when I let that swing off – let that rubber band go – my swing (aka the rubber band) is going to be able to stay up the middle and stay directly to where the ball is coming from.

So in a nutshell Joe, that’s what I like to paint a picture of to guys is that I have to get on time early enough to be able to line myself up – shoulders, hips, everything like the rubber band – and that when I come down to be able to swing, I’m still staying up the middle because I’m not rushed.

Most of the time when we are rushed and not on time, we tend to fly open because we have to get everything out of the way just to get the barrel there. So this allows us to be on time better. This allows us to get ourselves lined up to where we want to hit the ball in the hitting zone and allows us to ultimately stay through the baseball.

So if we are lined up right, we got our good direction, the rest takes care of itself.

JF: I learned something today, I gotta tell you.

KW: Well it’s not everyday that you do that.

You can listen to the 5-minute episode in its entirety here:

For more than a decade, Kevin Wilson has been one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant to some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. In 2013, Kevin was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18U National Team. Team USA beat Japan for the Gold medal at the IBAF World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan.

He is the author of two (2) Amazon #1 Best Sellers The #GoodBatting Book and Finding Clarity: A Mindful Look Into the Art of Hitting and co-hosts a popular podcast, KWB Radio, that showcases unique conversations with the pros. If you want Kevin to speak at your next event or if you want take advantage of his popular 2-day KWB Experience for players and coaches, contact Kevin today!

Follow Kevin on twitter @KWBaseball and visit his website KWBaseball.com

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Are you happy with where you are in life? Are you happy with how you look? Do you not recognize the person in the mirror anymore?

It’s easy for most of us to come up with grand ideas and visions of clarity. Too often, the actionable steps get in the way of achieving what we want to see in our own reflection in the mirror.

When you looked in the mirror this morning, were you happy with what you saw? If you weren’t, what specific things have you done today to make a difference in your own life so that your reflection in the mirror tonight will look a little different?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. You don’t have to like what you see in the mirror. But if you don’t like what you see, you need to do something about it.

Most people have gotten into the habit of seeing something and not doing anything about it. For example, someone will look into the mirror and see they are carrying around a few extra pounds with them. They tell themselves they need to lose weight – and then go about their day as normal. They have seen themselves in the mirror but they haven’t done anything about their “situation,” thus continuing to carry around their burden with them.

How about the high school baseball player who looks in the mirror freshman year and says he wants to play Division I baseball. But he then proceeds to put in minimal work, with little plan or purpose and a disregard for nutrition, sleep and other things vital to working smarter, not harder, to achieve his goal. We all know this isn’t going to help him achieve his ultimate goal of playing at the next level.

 
We Never Arrive. We Are Always Becoming.

Are you happy with where you are in life and in your career? Are you happy with what you see in the mirror every day?

Life is a series of ups and downs, with every up and down providing valuable purpose in our lives. Some days the mirror reflects back someone we are not proud of. Someone who has not lost, but has learned a valuable lesson. Some days the mirror reflects back someone who we are proud of. Someone who has gone outside of his/her comfort zone to achieve something that they never thought they would ever achieve.

Be cautious of the latter reflection.

Accomplishments in life and on the ball field are moments we savor. Things we treasure. Stories we tell over and over with great detail and as the years go by, with some exaggeration to embellish our small victories.

But when you accomplish something, when you look in the mirror and you’re happy with what you see, it doesn’t mean you have arrived.

We never arrive. We are always becoming.

You see, one of the most dangerous things we can believe in is success. Success is a byproduct of our purpose and our process. Success is the accomplishment of a goal – but it’s not the end of a journey.

Every morning when we look in the mirror, we are reminded of two things.

One, we should be grateful for another day to spend above ground with friends and loved ones. And two, the day is another opportunity to grow and pour into ourselves and to impact, influence and inspire others to get 1% Better.

Every day brings new opportunities to become someone. To become a servant leader. To become a better husband. To push yourself in the weight room to become a stronger player. To take five minutes to have a conversation with a troubled player on your team to help him become that player and person he always wanted to be. The list goes on and on.

Your Reflection Is Your Reputation

Almost anything you do in life that has meaning is going to be difficult. If you want to become a big league baseball player, there is a lot to it that you won’t like. You won’t like the workouts. You won’t like travel. You won’t like the toll it takes on you and your family. You won’t like the politics. You won’t like the feeling of not being able to control 99% of what happens in the game and your career. A lot of it won’t be comfortable for you.

It’s one thing to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you’re going to do whatever it takes to make it the big leagues. It’s another thing to act on your words and actually DO IT.

You have a CHOICE.

You can choose two routes. One, you can choose to do the minimum and get by barely and that’s your reputation, or you can attack your life and career as hard as you can and that’s your reputation.

Are they going to remember you by slowly opening the door and peeking into your career? Or are they going to remember you for kicking down the door and showing everyone that you were the best at what you did.

If you choose to do something – attack it.

Your greatest regret in life is hearing and not doing. Take a few minutes to watch this famous speech from Art Williams that gets to the heart of what we all should do when we look in the mirror.

Love,

KW

For more than a decade, Kevin Wilson has been one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant to some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. In 2013, Kevin was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18U National Team. Team USA beat Japan for the Gold medal at the IBAF World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan.

He is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller The #GoodBatting Book and co-hosts a popular podcast, KWB Radio, that showcases unique conversations with the pros. If you want Kevin to speak at your next event or if you want take advantage of his popular 2-day KWB Experience for players and coaches, contact Kevin today!

Follow Kevin on twitter @KWBaseball and visit his website KWBaseball.com

This is the full version of Kevin Wilson’s “Open Letter to Coaches” which aired on the KWB Radio podcast in 2015.

“I understand that you took this job not for the money and maybe or maybe not for the fame. But at the end of the day, this game is built on players. This game is built on the people that play between the white lines. It’s the player’s career, and not yours. And even though you’re probably at the holiday party tonight telling everybody that you’re the head coach of the 8u travel team that’s number one in the country, it’s still not about you. Coaches, we have an obligation to carry this game, carry the tradition of baseball to the next generation just like it was carried to us. And coaches, we have a huge responsibility to be able to make this game about the players and not us.

Little Johnny started to play this game because of the simple fact that he loved it. Hopefully Johnny will continue to play this game because he still has a love and a passion for playing this great game of baseball.  I pray that you do not ruin it for Little Johnny and a lot of others. Because I see it way too often that very talented players who started playing this game because they loved it end up quitting because of you the coach that is overbearing, screams, yells and just beats the living tar out of these kids on a daily basis – mentally, not physically. And at the same time, you do not know the damage that you are doing to these kids, so I challenge you.

Because now is the time that you have as a New Year’s resolution to be able to turn 2015 around and make this game about the players and not you. You need to put your arm around a player and tell him that he’s going to be just fine. When Johnny strikes out you go over to him and say that’s fine, do you understand what happened? Go get ‘em next time, I’m not mad.

I challenge you in the 3rd base coach’s box to not say a word other than encouragement. I challenge you not to talk hitting and stances and back elbows and squishing bugs at the 3rd base coach’s box. I challenge you to just write up the lineup card one game and sit silent the entire game.

I challenge you to make this game about the players and not you and if you can’t, I ask you kindly just to step away from this game. Not for your sake, but the player’s sake. Because there’s a lot of guys out there that can coach this game the right way and there’s a lot of kids out there that can play this game really, really well if you just stay out of the way.”

You can listen to the 5-minute episode in its entirety here:

For more than a decade, Kevin Wilson has been one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant to some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. In 2013, Kevin was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18U National Team. Team USA beat Japan for the Gold medal at the IBAF World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan.

He is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller The #GoodBatting Book and co-hosts a popular podcast, KWB Radio, that showcases unique conversations with the pros. If you want Kevin to speak at your next event or if you want take advantage of his popular 2-day KWB Experience for players and coaches, contact Kevin today!

Follow Kevin on twitter @KWBaseball and visit his website KWBaseball.com

We start playing the game of baseball because we enjoy it and have fun playing with our friends.

Then after a few years, the fun starts to fade and is replaced with the overly-competitive amateur baseball scene which promotes a rat-race mentality to attain a college scholarship and/or announce to the world via social media that we have verbally committed to college as an 8th grader (I’ll reserve my comments on verbal commitments).

Then a few years later, we focus our attention on wanting to get drafted out of high school.

Then when we get drafted, we want to get to the big leagues. When we get to the big leagues, we want to play every day. Then when we play every day, we want to sign a big contract. Then when we make more money, we want to be in the Hall of Fame. Then when we are in the Hall of Fame….

Where does it end?

What Do You Want?

It’s one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. I’ll tell you what you want – you want your way, you want to do what you want to do, and you want what you want, now.

Every stage of your life requires a better version of yourself. You will answer the question of “what do I want?” differently when you’re 15, compared to when you’re 25, 35, 45, or 55. The younger you are the more what there is. The older you get there is less what – but there is always something that you want. Everybody wants something as they get older, but it becomes less of a thing (i.e. fancy car, bigger house, more money, etc) and more of a value (time with family, enjoying a long walk, having your health, giving back to your community, etc).

In every season of your life you will answer this question a little differently.

As long as you insist on having your way, you won’t get what you really want.

For example, if you started playing the game of baseball for the pleasure of playing the game with your friends, over time you realize that too much a good thing can lose its pleasure. Pleasure is addictive. It can control you. And you quickly discover that what started out as a pastime, was actually a pathway to something that controls you.

And then you wish that you never got the thing that you wanted – the college scholarship, the opportunity to play professional baseball, etc.

This is why “What do you want?” is such a tricky question.

The Value of Time

What we want now isn’t always what we want later.

We want the base hit now. We want to sign with a college now. We want to get the call-up to the big leagues now.

What we want today often ends up in the way of what we want tomorrow.

Think about it this way. What we bought on the credit card when we were younger, isn’t what we are wearing now. What we financed then, isn’t what we are driving now. The high school sweetheart we thought we were in love with, isn’t the person we married.

Regret is having what you want but realizing you’re in possession of something that is of no value in your life. Regret is the elimination of options. It’s the inability to go back to get what you really want because you got what you wanted.

Here is the problem though.

If we always get our way, we lose our way. If we always get our way, we get in our own way. In other words, you got your chance in the big leagues, but you burned a lot of bridges, sacrificed relationships and cut corners to get there. When you arrived, you realized that it’s not the experience you dreamed of because you changed as a person and instead of being happy about where you got to, you’re miserable and wishing that you could go back in time to when it was just a game – or quit altogether.

Why?

Because every step of your journey had lost all of the value it was meant to provide. You never get what you want until you discover what is most valuable.

And if we always do what we want to do, we end up in a place that we don’t necessarily want to be in. And if we always get what we want now, it may keep us from getting what we ultimately want later.

In other words, you had what you wanted but as a result, you don’t have what you want because you got what you wanted, which isn’t ultimately what you want.

How many people choose what’s desirable over something that has lasting impacts?

Make sure what you want today, reflects the value of what you still want tomorrow.

Love,

KW

For more than a decade, Kevin Wilson has been one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant to some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. In 2013, Kevin was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18U National Team. Team USA beat Japan for the Gold medal at the IBAF World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan.

He is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller The #GoodBatting Book and co-hosts a popular podcast, KWB Radio, that showcases unique conversations with the pros. If you want Kevin to speak at your next event or if you want take advantage of his popular 2-day KWB Experience for players and coaches, contact Kevin today!

Follow Kevin on twitter @KWBaseball and visit his website KWBaseball.com

The Mentor Experience

Being a Major League or Minor League hitter is tougher than you think.

They grind out 500-700 at-bats per year. They try to make the most out of their career – one that presents the harsh reality that every day you get to play, is one day closer to the end.

They quickly realize they can’t do this alone. They need someone in their life to guide them and provide support.

They need a mentor.

And the role of a mentor is to stay behind-the-scenes, ready to help when the need arises.

Playing Alone

Being someone more than just a hitting coach was something I desperately needed and yearned for as a player. I needed someone who I could vent to, confide in, seek unbiased guidance from and lean on for support during some of my darkest moments. Sadly, there wasn’t anyone around at that time to facilitate my needs.

There were many times in my career where I would drive home in silence after going 0 for 3 wondering if I would ever make it. Other times, I would walk around with so much built-up anger and anxiety that whoever stood in my way would catch a side of me that still to this day, I’m not proud of – even ashamed of.

I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I went through.

WHY Mentors Matter

Have you ever tried to get through a tough moment in your life on your own? Have you ever felt like you were the only one going through a tough experience? I’m not just talking about trying to handle a 3-51 slump at the plate. More so, going through tough times off the field, that inevitably affect your performance on the field?

That’s where a mentor comes into the picture – me.

In the beginning, players call me seeking advice on their swing and approach. I am happy to sit down with them and listen intently as they share with me their goals, dreams, habits, routines, fears, doubts and anything else they want to share. After they finish enlightening me, I will return the favor by helping them map out a plan and routine for the off season and season, as well as for the remainder of their career.

But as we get to spend more time together, the player starts to realize that I’m not just their hitting coach – I have become a mentor, friend and confidant to them.

You can sit someone down in front of a video screen and playback slo-motion videos all day, dissecting the mechanics of the swing and the importance of launch angles and bat paths.  While it might help their swing, you’ve only started to scratch the surface when it comes to developing the complete hitter.

I prefer to look at the complete body of work.

I want to know where the player is at personally in their life. What does home look and sound like?

Do they compare themselves to others?

Do they know WHY they play the game in the first place?

Do they take the time to pour into themselves before they pour into their swing?

Do they have an ego (you need one to play your best)?

Are they intentional with their purpose? The list goes on and on.

I ask in order to find. I listen in order to understand. I never take for granted the opportunity to listen to a player share his thoughts and feelings on hitting and/or life.

Why am I intentional about taking so much time to grow meaningful relationships with players? Because at our core we are human beings with doubts, fears, anxieties and craving someone who we can trust to walk alongside us in our journey.

Mastery Is a Process, Not a Destination

True teaching requires development of the person first and the player second.

If I can help the player grow himself as a person, the hitter automatically shows up on the field. I’m not in this for flash-in-the-pan results. I’m committed to the long game – seeing personal, as well as offensive growth, over the course of time. I believe in the process – getting 1% Better every day.

Mentors have a passion for what they do.

They have an ability to communicate and relate to others, to express themselves clearly. They can come up with concepts and then find ways to make them a reality, especially under extreme pressure. They have a vision and know how to find ways to implement it.

Has your hitting coach ever taken walks with you to help you get back on track in the batters box? You can read about one of my walks with an All-Star here.

People ask me what #GoodBatting means:

It’s a mindset. It’s a feel. It’s simple. It’s based on your WHY. It’s filled with purpose and intent. It’s individual. It’s genuine. It’s a complete understanding of YOU. It’s confidence. It’s clarity. It’s controlled. It’s repeatable. It’s natural.

It’s not only a mindset, but it’s a way of life.

I’m grateful to work with high schools and colleges through our KWB Experience program. Why is it called an Experience? Because when you’re discovering how you like to swing the bat or become enlightened on WHY you are successful during the games, it’s an experience that you will never forget. My job is to lead you to the moment in your career where you begin to appreciate your strengths and find purpose in everything you do.

Are you looking for a hitting coach or a mentor? Perhaps now you understand the importance of having both in order to experience a meaningful life and career.

Love,

KW

For more than a decade, Kevin Wilson has been one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant to some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. In 2013, Kevin was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18U National Team. Team USA beat Japan for the Gold medal at the IBAF World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan.

He is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller The #GoodBatting Book and Finding Clarity: The Mindful Look Into the Art of Hitting and co-hosts a popular podcast, KWB Radio, that showcases unique conversations with the pros. If you want Kevin to speak at your next event or if you want take advantage of his popular 2-day KWB Experience for players and coaches, contact Kevin today!

Follow Kevin on twitter @KWBaseball and visit his website KWBaseball.com