This is a show that’s about using and aligning everything that’s around you and within you so that you can be your very best. You have that vision, you have that goal, you have that dream, let’s align our beliefs, our values, our thinking patterns, our strategies, whatever we possibly can so that we can go out there and not only perform at the highest level but enjoy it more than we’ve ever had before as well. Live life in the zone.

Today we have a great guest, a dear friend of mine, a guy who was a former Major Leaguer as well, Mike Colangelo. This guy has done not only tremendous things within the game but I have the highest utmost respect for him as a man and as a father and husband. One of the things that I really love about him is he is a straight shooter, real talk. That’s what we should be calling this episode, Real Talk with Mike Colangelo. As a man who works with so many young and up and coming athletes in baseball with travel programs, with the showcase that he puts on, with now coaching a high school team, the man knows how to get the best out of them, how to shape all of them. He has his own beliefs on them and he shares them. I love him to death. I can’t wait for you all to hear it as well. I think it’s going to open the minds of a lot of other coaches and a lot of other parents as well. Hopefully a lot of athletes will be able to walk away with things that they could focus on, that they can improve, that they can go out there and apply their next practice or their next game.

With that being said, one of the things I want to start doing more of on these little openings especially when we have guest interviews is to give a tip of the week or a little assignment for you to go out there and maybe spend a little extra time focusing on or applying as well. I know in the past episodes maybe if you’ve gotten back and you’ve caught up on them and you’ve heard them all, you heard me over and over talk about finding the positives in failure. Finding the wins, there’s always little wins that you can find in failure. The reason why this is very strong in my mind right now, last night I had a conversation with a player, a good, young, up and coming kid. We had this game plan. We did the visualization before the game for him to go out there and pitch and to have this outline of the successful game. He had his attention set. He’s going to go out there and make quality pitches. His focus is reducing his number of walks. Instead of saying, “Going out there and let’s not walk people,” I’m always re-emphasizing to him, “Let’s go out there and make quality pitches. Let’s control the ball and let’s put it where we want it. Always speak in things in a positive manner, positive statements.” He goes out and he pitches. I got a text, “Three innings, two walks.”

When I get him on the phone I hear in his voice, he’s talking about the walks, “I’m having a walk two guys.” He didn’t get up any runs by the way, he didn’t get up any hits after a walk. I was surprised that in his voice he sounds so down. In my mind, I hear about the walks in the way he’s speaking so I go ahead and asked him, “What happened? Walk me through each pitch of these walks? Did you lose your focus? Did you not use RESPA? Did you not take that centering breath to calm yourself down when you got a little distracted?” In my mind, the way he’s talking, the way he’s referring to these walks and being disappointed, I’m thinking in my mind that he went out there and threw eight consecutive balls, that he stuck up the joint on these walks. They sound horrific.

He walks me pitch by pitch, both at-bats. They happened in different innings. One of the at-bats, the first one was nine pitches. He went 3-2, hit the spots, the batter kept falling on the pitchers off over and over again and finally he missed just a little bit outside the zone. He was spiking in the dirt. He didn’t overthrow the catcher and he didn’t hit the ball. He missed by a few inches.

Then another one, in the last inning, pretty much a very, very similar thing. He’s like, “I thought it was a strike.” I said, “What are the things that you did well there? You went through all these pitches. Was that a quality pitch? Was it not a quality pitch?” We went through these eighteen, nineteen pitches of the at-bat and he made sixteen quality pitches, in his mind, his definition. He made sixteen quality pitches. How was that failure? Eventually, after a couple of foul balls in 3-2 count, you throw a ball four. You’re human, it happens, the best of the best in the game.

The point of this whole thing, the way that I want to explain it to you so you could take it and apply it is just because one thing didn’t work out in the result, you have to speak about, “I walked these many guys. I went 0 for 4 today.” Give yourself a credit where credit as due, breakdown a pitch by pitch. Don’t just over generalize what you did in the at-bat and think it was a pass or if it was a fail. There are little things you could take away. There are things that you do every at-bat to give you the same explanation from a hitting standpoint. I know that some ideas of quality at-bats is spreading. When I go to any high school they talk about quality at-bats. The example I give is obviously if you were a hitter and you go eight, nine pitches into the at-bat and you end up swinging and miss and striking out, that’s a quality at-bat. Majority of the people are starting to learn that.

Let me ask you this though. What if you went five pitches? I haven’t seen a place where five pitches automatically turns into a quality at-bat. I haven’t seen that example yet. That wasn’t mine, either. You strikeout, let’s say, you chase a slider in the dirt on that fifth pitch and it was a strikeout. You can sit there and over-generalize and say, “I feel horrible. I struck out.” Maybe you do that multiple times in the game. Now, you really feel bad. Let’s just say that of those five pitches, the first pitch was a slider just out of the strike zone, just below the knees, you take it, you lay off of it, not your pitch, ball one. That’s a great job. That’s doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. Say the next pitch is fastball out of the play. You take a big all hack at it. Hitting a round ball from a round at-bat is hard sometimes. Sometimes you take great swings and you just happen to barely miss it and you fell off, but you did everything you’re supposed to do. You got the pitch, you took the swing, aggressive swing and you fell off. To me, that’s a great job. You did great on the pitch. If I’m the coach on the baseline, majority of them I imagine are clapping their hands on those swings.

The next one is a two-seamer just inside off the plate. Umpire goes ahead and calls it a strike. You did an outstanding job again. You did what you’re supposed to do. You can’t control that the umpire just called it a strike when it wasn’t. He makes another pitch just out of the strike zone. As he split fingers, you see it early and do a great job, you laid it off of it and goes diving into the dirt, ball two. Outstanding job again. He goes fastball up out of the zone, it’s up in your letters, maybe it’s in your chin and you chased it, strike three; horrible at-bat. You struck out. I know sometimes this is a little extreme and maybe this is a little silly but what I’m trying to do is open up your eyes to see that a strikeout isn’t just a strikeout always. Sometimes we have strikeouts like that situation.

Four of those five pitches, you did exactly what you’re supposed to do. Don’t be happy with a strikeout. Don’t be satisfied with only doing four out of five outstanding jobs on pitches. Go out there and at least give yourself a credit. Don’t beat yourself up that you suck the entire at-bat. If you develop this habit, if you take the time to write pitch by pitch down in a journal or in your phones or at least think about it after the game in your mind for a little bit. Spend a few times just reviewing and giving yourself credit for the pitches that you did exactly what you were supposed to or you did something you were really excited about. Give yourself that credit.

What it will do is it will help you keep the ball moving, the confidence ball, the confidence wheel, as I’m starting to call her. The confidence wheel will keep moving even if you’re not getting the results that you want. You’re going to take the time to focus on things you’re doing well that maybe you’re grateful for or you’re proud about or that you really appreciate about yourself. If you keep feeling those three things, this confidence wheel is going to keep moving and so you’re not going to fall down in such bad ruts or cold streaks. When you come out of it and you get hot again and everything starts working in your favor, you’re going to go even higher, I guarantee it. That’s the focus I want you to have this week. Don’t just generalize, “It was a bad game. It was a bad at-bat.” Really get intentional with how you break down pitch by pitch and give yourself credit. Be a good self-evaluator. Don’t make things worse than they are. See them how they really are.

That’s the tip of the week. I’m very excited to bring you this interview with Mike Colangelo. He and I will see you on the other side.