In The Box

With the Major League Baseball Draft recently completed, many players heard their name called. But what about those who waited by their TV’s, phones, tablets or computers for three straight days and never heard their names called?

Any person, in any walk of life, faces a number of circumstances throughout the course of their lifetime. Events and situations (not hearing your name called in the MLB Draft) can cause feelings of fear, doubt or depression. Players ultimately find themselves in a situation which forces them to make a decision – a decision that could completely change their outlook and their life. Even guys in the Big Leagues face challenges that can completely change their outlook.  If you haven’t already, take a look at this conversation with an MLB All-Star when he was at a crossroads.

How many of you have been in a situation where you felt that you had no control of the environment around you? The MLB Draft is a great example of this. It’s an incredibly nerve-wracking experience as you wait by a piece of electronic equipment with the fate of your baseball career in the hands of someone you may, or may not, know. So many thoughts run through your mind as the draft unfolds, but what happens when you don’t hear your name called? How do you react?

Or better yet, how do you respond?

I like to remind players that how you respond to a situation can literally change the situation itself. Because the way you choose to interpret your experiences determines the way you live your life.

You worked so hard to get to a level in your career where scouts start to take notice. They start to know you by name and face. They start to spend a few minutes with you before or after your game. You learn their first, as well as their last names. You get the opportunity to fill out questionnaires. You start to feel like your dream of getting drafted into Major League Baseball, could actually become a reality.

Not just a hope.

Not a wish and a prayer.

A real thing.

But after sitting by the computer for three stressful days, your name is never called.

You are numb. The memories of your hard work, blood, sweat and tears race through your mind. The fog lays heavy in front of your eyes.

You can’t believe it. It was all for naught. What a waste of time.

That’s it.

It’s over.

How Will You Respond?

If you want to be a professional baseball player, this is the question you will need to ask yourself.  Will you fill with anger? Will you blame the scout who said he loved the way you played? “If he loved me so much, why didn’t he draft me then?”

Or do you blame the system?  “They don’t know what they are doing. They drafted a kid who barely played last year!” Or, “I hit .280 in the SEC, but they took a kid who hit .330 at a small DIII school in North Dakota?!”

If your name wasn’t called in the draft, what I’m about to tell you is not what you want to hear, but it’s what you need to hear.  You are not responding.  You are simply reacting to the event and its outcomes which didn’t play out in your favor. If you ever want to play this game professionally, you must stop reacting and start responding.

So when adversity knocks on the door, how will you respond?

Will you become soft and wallow in your pain and suffering? Will you be steadfast in your approach and be too proud to change or adapt? Or will you evaluate the situation and see it at face value, knowing that how you respond (your attitude) can literally change the situation itself?

Responding (instead of reacting) to not hearing your name called on draft day changes your current situation as well as your future. When you step back and view the draft situation from a third party lens, you begin to put the draft in its proper place. Through your eyes, it’s the most important and significant event in your life. But from someone just walking in on this particular chapter in your life, it’s just one experience in your overall journey in life.

Reflecting on this situation allows you to start creating a vision. You can see how many experiences are available just on the other side of the present. You learn that the obstacle (not being drafted) turns out to be your path; that in every wall, there is a door.

Stepping back and observing the scene before you take any action, requires practicing a key part of the process – patience. It’s something we all have the ability to do, but it’s also the hardest thing to implement. We live in a microwave society where patience is severely lacking, and we are more likely to be “first and wrong,” rather than be “last and right.” Practicing patience allows us to make the right decision for long run, rather than the right decision for now.

We don’t choose the experiences of failure and defeat in our lives. But we can choose how we respond to them. We are not responding to the event itself, rather, we are responding to how we interpret that event. This is how you turn defeats into triumphs.

Whatever challenge you may be facing today, take a step back, take a breath, then have the courage to respond to whatever stands in your way.

Remember, you are always in control.

Simply respond.

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 voices inside our head have been there from the day we were born. They have found real estate, built a house and have secured residency. They are the neighbors who never move, never stay quiet and never seem to take a vacation.

Many of us have heard others tell us to “listen to your heart” or “listen to your gut.” when faced with big decisions in our life. While this isn’t necessarily bad advice, it’s certainly limiting.

Throughout a typical day, there are hundreds of voices that dance around in our head. They typically play it safe – frequently talking us out of doing things, as well as create serious doubt during the most significant moments in our life.

Some experts say you should quiet the voices in your head to focus better. You have to find ways to squash the noise, in order to release your anxieties. In theory, this sounds good, but when it’s applied in real life, you can’t just put a band-aid on an open wound.

“Self-talk” is one of the most underutilized tools when it comes to courage, confidence and resilience. And most of us don’t understand that we “talk to ourselves” constantly throughout the day.

For starters, sometimes we talk ourselves into things. We might say, “I know the pitcher has a nasty curveball, so I don’t want to hit that. I can hit his fastball, so with less than two strikes I’m going to get ready to hit only his fastball in my zone.”

On the other hand, we talk ourselves out of things. When thinking about starting a company, we tell ourselves it’s too risky. When trying out for the team in high school, we can find a multitude of excuses why we will never make it. Whatever it is, we are constantly talking ourselves into or out of something.

If we are more conscious and purposeful about the conversations we have with ourselves, the more effective we can be as leaders, coaches, players and human beings.

Going Against The Grain

Exactly ten years ago I decided I wanted to embark on a 10-year plan with the end result being that I would work as a private hitting instructor for Major League and Minor League hitters. I would be a behind the scenes mentor, who would be able to help a hitter not only with his swing, but more importantly his mindset and internal faith.

In 2007 when I made the decision to chase my goal, I was six years into being a successful hitting instructor, giving lessons in and around the Philadelphia area. At that time, I only shared my vision with a few of my closest advisors and mentors. In fact, one of my mentors forecasted it most accurately when he said that in 10 years I would not only achieve my goal, but would find my next 10-year plan in the process. I’m still amazed how accurate he was and I’m so grateful for his guidance and belief in me.

I share this with you because when more and more people found out about my plan, it wasn’t always welcomed with such optimistic and genuine support. I had more than my fair share of doubters, but so is the case with anyone doing something considered “outside of the box.” One person, in particular, scoffed at my idea saying I didn’t have the experience or knowledge at the big league level and that MLB hitters would never trust a guy who never played in the big leagues. If I ever see this person again, I will thank him from the bottom of my heart for doubting me. Because he was the fuel to my fire.

As the doubters entered into my life, the voices in my head became louder and louder.  And in a moment of weakness, I thought maybe they could be right.  Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this dream, and maybe this journey would inevitably end just like my journey playing this game. It was tough not to listen at first because they reminded me of my own fears.

 With every step forward I took, my fears followed. They told me everything that could go wrong. They told me I wasn’t qualified. They told me no one else was doing what I do, and it will never catch on. They began tripping me at every step, and at every cross-roads, they tried to steer my ship onto a bed of rocks.

The voice in my head threatened to derail my journey and end my goals and dreams – if only I had listened to them.

I had enough. It was time I stopped listening to myself, and I began talking to myself.

Walk The Talk

I began talking to myself in the mirror, telling myself that I could do this, that I was good enough and I was brave enough. In my car on the way to the facility, I told myself I was “the man.” I constantly talked to myself, instilling any piece of confidence I could day in and day out. I knew I had to be consistent in order to squash the negativity and doubt.

Some days, I felt like it was never going to happen. One rejection after another came through, and those were the moments when I caved and started to listen to myself, “maybe I’m not cut out to do what I’ve been dreaming of.” But then, I forced myself to start talking to myself again, “In every wall there is a door, we just have to find it. Don’t stop. Never quit. Keep going.” It was a never ending cycle of ups and downs, but through it all I worked extremely hard to make sure there wasn’t a day that went by that I talked to myself about what I could do.

And if I had listened to myself instead of talking to myself, I wouldn’t be living out my WHY today – to help, inspire, impact and influence others in a positive manner.

The Road Less Traveled

The self-help market is flooded by so many “roses and rainbow” strategies. People who have never had a bad day, or haven’t experienced trauma in their lives, selling us their “10-steps to becoming a better _________.” Now, I’m not indicating that I wish hard times on you, but if we want to bring a dream into reality, we actually need a few roadblocks and failures in our lives to push us, define us, and reveal our purpose and true WHY. Then, and only then, will be we qualified to share with others the real meaning of perseverance.

So, if we are going to give ourselves the best chance to succeed, we should think about talking to ourselves more and listening to ourselves less. Because if we listen to ourselves, the little person on our shoulder will probably undersell our talents, squash our dreams and prevent us from living a life filled with purpose.

How we react to a situation can literally change the situation itself, so talk your way into becoming that person you are called to be.

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 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

They say it goes by quick. But when you’re in the middle of it all, each day can be mired in  emotions, adverse situations and may sometimes feel like a never-ending cycle of situations and circumstances.

I remember someone telling me years ago that you’ll know when it’s over. That you won’t have any desire to go to the ballpark or to the gym, for a workout in the off-season. I thought he was crazy, but that’s exactly what happened. I lost the joy in playing the game I loved. The level of commitment was no longer there. I was exhausted both physically and emotionally. And just like that, it was over.

As I travel the world speaking to and working with players and their coaches, I am constantly reminded of the pressures the young player performs under today. Whether it be the pressure from their parents, coaches or even the pressures they place on themselves, it’s an unhealthy environment to work in.

Where Did The Fun Go?

My daily work as a private hitting coach to Major League and Minor League players constantly requires me to reflect on my playing days. One of my goals is to make sure that I connect with the player in a genuine manner. I never want to forget what it was like to play the game, especially at the professional level. I make a conscious effort to remind myself just how hard the game is to play, let alone try and hit Major League pitching. When I do this, I can relate to the player in a way that shows him that I remember how tough the game is. I can show compassion, while at the same time helping them figure it out on their own.

Throughout a player’s career, I will pick my spots to remind them to be grateful for the opportunity they have. I want to make sure they stop and look around to appreciate all of the good things in their lives. Because at that level, it’s so competitive and cut throat that it seems like all we do as players is focus on the negatives and the shortcomings. It’s easy for a player to get trapped in his “bubble” (the grind of a full season), and have no knowledge or understanding of what’s going on in the outside world. I recently shared a good example of how a player worked to gain perspective in his career which you can read about here.

Learning To Stop and “drink it in”

First, our baseball careers never last as long as we would want them to. It’s similar to death. We know we can’t live forever, but we consciously put the thought of dying in the far recesses of our brain so it doesn’t trigger the anxieties which can arise from a truth of that magnitude.

Second, in order to have a long-lasting and productive career, it requires us to reach inside and care for the internal self (the person) first before we can start relishing in the external rewards on the field.

And you don’t get to this place without being mindful and taking a moment to be grateful for where you are at, no matter how good or bad you’re doing on the field. Sometimes we think that we can only be grateful when things go well. Or more commonplace, we don’t give ourselves permission to be grateful when things are going bad. A popular thought amongst us is, “What can I be grateful for if nothing is going right for me?”

I’ve had many years to reflect back on my playing days and the older I got, the clearer it became that I failed. At first, it was disheartening. It was a tough pill to swallow. I left the game bitter. I was on an emotional rollercoaster because I hadn’t had any closure. Over time, it hit me like a 98 mph fastball to the helmet what I had been missing, what I didn’t do and what I should have done better – I didn’t let go and enjoy the ride.

It was the best advice I had received in my career, but I was so busy plowing forward and trying harder, that I failed to understand and put to use this powerful piece of advice.

It’s easy to gloss over advice on your way to the top. When you’re young you think you have it all figured out. You feel you know what you want. You know what you need. And everyone else is just trying to put their fingerprints on you as you ascend the ladder of success. While part of it is surely true, a larger and more important piece to the puzzle is knowing when to listen to people who are in your “circle of trust.”

My father gave me this piece of advice. He told me to let go and have fun. He told me to enjoy the ride. But what did my father know about baseball? He never played past high school. He didn’t know what it was like to play in front of scouts. He didn’t know what it was like to play professional baseball, but it turns out he knew a heck of a lot more than I did. What he had that trumped me and everyone else going through the ranks, was life experience. You simply can’t teach that.

They say you can’t teach wisdom. It’s something that only comes from experience. And as I reflected back on my playing days I saw that I had plenty of knowledge. I had knowledge about the game, myself and the techniques. But what I lacked, was the wisdom which would have allowed me to stop for a moment to listen to that advice, absorb it, reflect on it, understand it and start to implement it. Instead, I was charging hard through my career like a runaway train, only changing directions when I hit an obstacle or someone was blocking my path.

Advice comes in all shapes and sounds. Sometimes it’s recklessly thrown at us or ill-timed. But it constantly surrounds us. When we are younger, we tend to default to deflection mode, much like I did. I knew my father was right. I knew that it was crazy to go through my career and my life by only being happy and enjoying it when I was going good. That was easy. What was tougher and more essential to my growth not only as a ballplayer but more importantly as a young man, was to heed his advice and do as the military does, embrace the suck – to let go and enjoy the ride regardless of my circumstances.

I figured it out too late to implement it during my playing career. But I’m not mad anymore. I have found my WHY and I use the advice to help many others enjoy their playing careers more than I did. People ask me all the time if I would do anything different when I played. I quickly tell them yes – I would have been more grateful for the opportunity I had, and I would have had more fun.

Because after all, it’s just a game right? I couldn’t give myself permission to have fun so maybe I can help you give yourself permission to enjoy your journey through the game of baseball and life.

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

Square peg, meet round hole.

We all know where this is going. It’s well known that we can’t force the square peg into the round hole, but we sure as hell try from time to time.

As a professional hitting coach that has been teaching the art of hitting the past 17 years, I certainly have tried to force the issue from time to time – especially early in my coaching days. But in recent years, I’ve seen a disturbing trend of the “online hitting coach” forcing their philosophies and ideals down young player’s throats, only to derail promising careers before they even start.

With technology readily at our fingertips, more and more hitters and coaches are crowded around computer screens and hand-held devices. This has led to the over-analyzation of the swing and overly-complicated terminology that is being fed to the younger generation of hitter.  

I’ll give you an example of a scene that played out for a few years over and over when I was still giving lessons in the academy.

The player comes in for a session. He is looking for a new set of eyes and is frustrated with his results, or lack thereof, in the games. He’s been going to another hitting coach, otherwise known as the “guru,” for a few months who is all into the new gadgets, terminology and complicated data of the game. The guru has watched endless slow motion videos of Major League hitters – the majority of which, are grown men who are much stronger than people realize and whose bodies all work differently because of their massive strength. They take out their protractors, rulers and radar guns and measure launch angles and exit velos of a 12-year-old and try and compare him to the big leaguer on the screen. The guru has pointed out how the shin connects to the toenail, when the barrel has been turned, and when the elbow has slotted. The player has been working on strange drills that consist of twisting and contorting their bodies into pretzels in order to get the right launch angle or exit velocity. The guru has a 12-step process to the swing that would make a big leaguer’s mind fry, let alone a young, up and coming player. They are teaching movement patterns to try and match their swing perfectly to what they see on the screen, rather than teaching a thought process, feel or the intent needed to make it look like that.

The player is all excited to start using the online hitting guru’s famous swing equation and reap the benefits of their hard work, but alas they finished the season feeling further away from their dreams than ever before. The player swung through fastballs down the middle, the same pitch they were used to crushing just a season ago. The player had so much movement in their swing that they could barely recognize the pitch as it barreled toward them at the plate, causing them to chase balls out of the zone. They were working on fly balls in the cage, so when they did make contact they did exactly what they were working on – F-7, F-8, F-9. It was an emotionally draining season in which the player was the one who was hurt the most, while the coach went missing in action, free from consequence and accountability.

So now, it is my turn to have a conversation with this hitter and begin to help him put the broken pieces back together.

Hitting Is Simple. It’s Just Not That Easy.

I like to remind hitters that “Hitting is Simple. It’s just not that easy.” They constantly hear this from me. I love the simplicity it brings. I am very conscious of the words I use and my goal is to speak the player’s language, not mine. I spend a lot of “man hours” learning how the player thinks, what’s important to him and the “language” he speaks. Communication is key when you’re trying to relate material to a player. You must take very seriously the opportunity to keep things simple, while at the same time delivering actionable steps and principles. I go more in-depth on how I do this in my book The #GoodBatting Book which you can purchase here.

A long time ago, I learned that you couldn’t tell hitters how to hit or swing a bat. It was a lesson on the human element. Just like the old saying goes, the teacher only appears when the student is ready to learn. I see a lot of coaches who are charging hard with their information but fail to step back and ask themselves if the player is ready for the information or not.

Each player will hear your message through their own filters based on their perceptions and experience.

If coaches don’t understand this basic fundamental of teaching, they will never influence, impact and inspire as many players as they ultimately want to. Sometimes coaches think they are giving the player what he needs, but they fail to recognize that they need to give them what they want as well.

For example, the coach wants the player to hit more home runs. The hitter is a 6’5” “power hitter” and is a man amongst boys at his level. The coach thinks the player needs to hit more home runs in batting practice because he feels that will translate into the games. The player, on the other hand, knows himself really well and knows he needs to hit low line drives to CF in practice, so when game time comes, those low line drives turn into home runs.

Simply, there is a failure in communication because the coach didn’t take the time to ask the hitter how he prepares and WHY he takes batting practice the way he does. This leads to disconnect between the coach and the player, resulting in the player losing trust and respect for his leader. I’ll come back to this very important “teaching point” later in this post.

What Are You Selling?

Think about it this way. Coaches are always selling. In fact, every human transaction has a sale attached to it. Some may call it convincing or persuading, but I like to call it selling. Either way, there is a layer of persuasion that occurs to gain a result from an idea.

I am accused every once in awhile – OK maybe it’s more than once in awhile – of tricking hitters into thinking they can hit. I will neither confirm nor deny this since a magician never reveals his secrets, but my main objective is to help the hitter figure it out on their own.

Think about being a teenager. Some of you reading this are teenagers, and some of you are older, like me, and have already gone through that rebellious time in our life.

Let’s shine light on this classic example we have all encountered before, whether we were the teenager or the parent.

Parent: “Hey son, I don’t think it’s a good idea to swing at those curveballs in the dirt.”

Son: “Dad, what do you know? You never played in the big leagues!”

Parent: “True, but I’m just trying to help you and from what I’ve observed watching you, you’re much better hitting the fastball.”

Son: “Whatever.”

Now let’s insert a coach, or someone perhaps outside of the family circle, who the teenager respects and holds in high regard.

Coach/Mentor: “Hey man, why are you swinging at those curveballs in the dirt? Stay on the fastball. You hit those better.”

Teenager: “I know, I know. You’re right. I need to stop swinging at them. But how do I do that?”

Coach/Mentor: “What do you think you need to do?”

Most of you are either smiling, shaking your head, or both, after reading the exchanges. Most times when we laugh, it’s because something is true. And there is a lot of truth in the above narrative. But for the sake of the topic I’m discussing today, I want to focus on something important that transpired.

For starters, the information provided by the parent and the mentor are identical. It’s not the information that was bad from the parent. It was just that it came from the parent of a rebellious teenage boy.

Did you notice how the coach responded to the player after the player asked him how he should go about fixing his problem?

He said: “What do you think you need to do?”

This is key.

This showcases the power of the question and results in throwing the ball back into the player’s court so they can start taking ownership of their career. By asking that simple question, the coach is forcing the player to think. And when you start making the player think, he’s one step closer to finding the solution to his problem.

And the best part about it all? You didn’t tell him how. He figured it out on his own. You just asked really good questions and became the world’s best listener.

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 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