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Ben made his MLB Debut with the New York Yankees in 2016 and has pitched in 31 big league games heading into his tenth spring training. He just recently signed with the Tampa Bay Rays organization as he prepares to hopefully advance back to the big leagues after a few injury setbacks including Tommy John surgery and a stress fracture.
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Ben made his MLB Debut with the New York Yankees in 2016 and has pitched in 31 big league games heading into his tenth spring training. He just recently signed with the Tampa Bay Rays organization as he prepares to hopefully advance back to the big leagues after a few injury setbacks including Tommy John surgery and a stress fracture.
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This is the Unparalleled Performance Podcast hosted by Josh Reband. Each week, they feature guests who are ambitious and passionate about success. In this episode, Josh interviews Ben Heller, a professional baseball player who recently signed with the Tampa Bay Rays. Ben talks about his journey, battling through injuries, and finally being healthy for spring training. He shares his love for baseball and the process of improvement. Ben also mentions how a scout took a chance on him and how it changed his life. Josh admires Ben's work ethic and mentions that he coached Ben's brother, Luke, who also had a strong work ethic. This is the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. I am your host, Josh Reband. Each week we will feature guests who are ambitious and passionate about being more than the status quo, because we all know that being average is the enemy to success. We will cover topics that will help you become more disciplined and committed to your goals in life, leadership, and fitness. Now on to this week's episode. And remember, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Enjoy the show. Well, here we are, mid-February, and this is the first episode of the Unparalleled Performance Podcast, and with me today is Ben Heller. He just recently signed with the Tampa Bay Rays, and he's got four years, parts of four seasons in the big leagues with the Yankees, and then has kind of battled through some injuries, had Tommy John in 2018, and then had a stress fracture, and then he's just kind of been battling through some injuries during his professional career, but that's one of the things that I think is really inspiring to me is that through injuries and through some setbacks, how much that you, Ben, have been able to really overcome those things and still pursuing your dreams. So I think that's super cool. I'm really excited to pick your brain here on the show, and so yeah, Ben was at Olivet Nazarene University, which is where I spent two years coaching with Todd Reed. Ben was drafted in 2013 by the Cleveland Indians organization, and then ended up going over to the Yankees on the Andrew Miller deal with four minor league prospects from the Indians, which Ben was one of those, and then debuted with the Yankees in 2016, and then it spent, like I said, four, parts of four seasons there with the Yankees. So Ben, you're at spring training now, reporting. I think it's 10 years, 11 years. You know better than I do, but you've been there for, you've seen a lot of baseball in your professional career, so how's spring training going so far? I know you're just getting there and getting rolling with the new club. Yeah, it's always such a fun time of year. You know, it's like, you kind of feel a little bit of magic in the air, I feel like, in spring training. You know, you kind of, while being from the north, you go down and get into the warmer weather, you put the cleats on, you know, green grass. Being in Florida, you know, you kind of, you got the palm trees and the ocean and all that, and just everything about it. The whole atmosphere is like, just, it embodies, like, the feeling of baseball seasons here. So, you know, it's hard not to get excited about that and, you know, kind of on the baseball side of things for me personally, this is actually my first healthy spring training since 2018, which is, it's crazy to think about, but, you know, I almost forgot what it's like to be out there with the guys doing, you know, doing PFPs and workouts and actually, you know, being healthy, preparing to, you know, make a team and pitch a full season. You know, like you mentioned, I've been through a lot of injuries, so this spring training is extra special as well, because it's my 10th season. Pretty crazy just to think that I've been playing professional baseball for 10 years now and, you know, I never, never imagined that I'd be so fortunate to play for this long. And so, you know, combine that with the fact that I've finally gotten healthy and, you know, feeling good and it's, yeah, just really excited to be here, thankful for the opportunity and, you know, hoping to make the most of it. Awesome. Yeah. So, in terms of, you know, taking, not taking it for granted and been able to do it for a decade and not ever really knowing that you, this would be a part of your life eventually, at what point, kind of growing up, did you realize, A, you love baseball or B, this is something that you might be able to have a shot at to do as a career and do it professionally and that sort of thing? Yeah. I mean, kind of like all kids, you know, I grew up, obviously, hoping and dreaming of playing in the big league someday. And I grew up in Wisconsin, so I grew up a Milwaukee Brewers fan, went to probably 10, 15 games a year, you know, through like my middle school and high school years. And always just, you know, I went, I had one friend in particular, a teammate, who him and I would go together and, you know, we kind of trained together. I actually had a batting cage in my basement. So, we would spend a lot of, you know, long nights down there just taking batting practice, throwing, training, doing stuff. And, you know, we used to dream about maybe pitching for the Brewers one day, but it was always really, you know, just kind of a pipe dream. And I was never the youth athlete who kind of stood out. Like, you know, I was pretty undersized, very average performer, you know, not, I still would not say that I'm athletically gifted and I'm good at throwing a baseball, but that's about it. I'm pretty slow. I'm kind of a, you know, goofy, lanky, you know, athletic figure, I guess. So, I was never kind of like the child prodigy who, you know, everyone knew was going to play professional sports someday. But I loved it. I loved baseball. I loved the process of, you know, training. And I feel like, you know, looking back now, that's probably one of the more significant, I guess, foundations of what, you know, how I have achieved what I have is falling in love with the process of improving, you know, just spending those long nights in my basement. Like, you know, just my average, my typical, like, after school routine would be go home, you know, do my homework right away. So, I could, like, I couldn't go, couldn't practice until I finished my homework. That was my parents' rule. So, I would get it done as fast as I could. My buddy would come over, do the same thing, and then we would just go down into the basement and hit for, you know, two, three, four hours. And as we got a little bit older, you know, we kind of started learning more of like the intricacies, you know, just lifting weights and armchair flexibility and stuff like that. But just the amount of time that we put into training and genuinely enjoying it, you know, I think that was the big, the big separator for me was, like, actually understanding, like, you know, falling in love with the process. And that, I carried that into college. So, you know, went to Olivet Nazarene, NAIA program, not a baseball powerhouse by any means, but I was, you know, I was thankful for the opportunity to play in college. And at the time, even that was not something, like, as a high school pitcher, I was not, like, expecting or counting on being able to play in college even. You know, that was just, like, that was kind of, like, the next step of the dream is, like, I hope I can play in college someday, but I don't know if I'll actually be able to. So, got the opportunity. Coach Reed, you know, he gave me the shot to come play and invested a ton of time and effort into, you know, developing me as a man and as a player. And I'd say kind of, like, the same thing, like, just sticking with the process of, you know, putting in the time, putting in the work. And I think, you know, it was kind of, kind of cool just to see, like, the compounding growth over time of, like, you know, the, all the work that I put in, like, you know, I started to, my VLO just, like, steadily climbed every year, you know, from sitting in the low 80s as a junior in high school to, you know, sitting in the mid-90s as a junior in college, you know, largely due to the work that I put in. And I think that's part of what really got me so hooked on it was, like, actually seeing results. And, you know, I think I was probably fortunate to, to actually achieve, like, to see the results pay off because I know, you know, it's no guarantee that if you put the work in, you're not guaranteed success. But for me, it did kind of work out that way. But yeah, so we got, you know, got into my later college years, junior, senior year, and I was, I knew my velocity was good enough to play pro ball. My command wasn't there, but, and neither was the off-speed pitches. But thankfully, you know, local area scout for the Indians at the time, his name is Les Pajari, I still stay in touch with him, but he saw something in me. And he tells me today that, I was like, Les, what did you see in me? Like, I was so incredibly raw. Like, I, you know, I couldn't compare with these kids coming out of, you know, like UCLA, Florida State, Texas, like all these big time schools where these guys were so much more polished. And he always says, I knew two things about you. You had, you had a heck of an arm and you had a big heart. And so that was, that was why I wanted to take a chance on you. So, you know, that, that means a lot, obviously, to me to hear now. And I think it's cool just to, you know, think back to like, that guy was probably going out on a limb, kind of, you know, taking a risk on me recommending this no name guy from a small school in a cold weather state, you know, for the, for the Indians to use a valuable draft pick on. But it's, you know, I'm so thankful and fortunate that they, that they did give me that opportunity. And it's led to just, it's really changed, you know, the trajectory of my life being able to play pro ball like this. So yeah, it's been a solid journey, that's for sure. Yeah, so there's quite a few directions I could go with this. One, your brother, Luke, I was fortunate to coach in the New York Collegiate League. And you mentioned work ethic, discipline, the process and enjoying that. And having coached Luke, and then also everything that I know about you and your work ethic. When I got to Olivette, when we would have pitchers that would slack off, I just remember Todd would always just say, Heller would never do that. Heller would never do that. And so that's one thing that, you know, for me, I always just kind of innately knew that you were a hard worker. And I knew Luke being a hard worker as well. Where did that kind of stem from for you guys? Just is that something you guys learned from your mom, your dad, somebody else? Where did your it's kind of a family trip for you guys? Yeah, that's, that's a good point. And you're right, it definitely runs in the family. I mean, my brother, Luke is, you know, he's every bit as hard worker. And I feel like we pushed each other kind of through those years, you know, he's two years younger than me. So we weren't, you know, exactly the same age, but we, we trained together, you know, he was right there with me grinding in the basement all those years, too. So we very much had a similar journey. But so our dad owned a landscaping business growing up. And so and, you know, we grew up with four boys in the family. So not not exactly cheap to, you know, to raise a family of four boys and, and he, I'd say, you know, the work ethic that he that he displayed for us and taught us was absolutely unparalleled. I mean, you're obviously landscaping is hard physical labor, but just the volume of of that labor that he would do as well as like, just insane to think about, I mean, you know, five days a week, 1012 hour days regularly, doing hard labor. And as we got older, we would work with him like that was always my summer job in high school and college, you know, go home and do landscaping and cut grass. And I think, you know, looking back, that probably is where a lot of it developed, like, you just put your head down and work, you don't, you don't complain, you don't, you can't be lazy, you can't like you have to get the work done, you got to do it right to a, you got to got to do quality work, take pride in your work, and you just do it every day. It's just kind of what you do. So I would say, yeah, that's probably where where it was kind of rooted from. Love that. Yeah. And kind of jumping topics here. But I think we're going to have probably quite a few guys that have Northwoods League experience or summer collegiate baseball experience that will end up listening to this. And you pitch with the Rapids rafters and you pitch the full season from I think you were there right away. And then I think you were there until the very end when I looked at your your stats there. It just Yeah, what you were there for the for the full season and obviously being a small college pitcher going to the Northwoods League. There's a learning curve of playing in front of a lot of fans and playing with guys from bigger schools. And I think the first question you ask yourself when you get there is do I belong here? That was the first thing when I I started my Northwoods career coaching with the Lakeshore Chinooks. And I remember walking into the locker room for the first time and just thinking do I belong here? Like do I have enough knowledge? I went to Clearwater Christian College in Florida, a really small NCCAA school. For those of you that don't know that does have an extra C. It's not the NCAA. It's the Christian College Association. And so I didn't play at an elite level of college baseball. We played some really good Division II and NAI programs in Florida. But when I got to Lakeshore, I remember that was one of the first things I thought like do I even have enough knowledge to pass along to some of these guys? And I think being a small college pitcher and going into an environment like that, you sometimes wonder the same thing for yourself. But it looked like you had one relief appearance right away and then you entered the rotation and were there for the rest. It was that way for the rest of the season. So what in that experience and also playing in Alaska to just summer collegiate baseball in general, how did that help you develop as a player, as a person, your confidence level, all those things? Yeah, yeah. So I played in Alaska the year before the Northwoods League, and I feel like that was kind of a nice little preparation for the Northwoods and for pro ball. So I played for the Athletes in Action team up in Alaska. So it was a Christian organization. I wasn't just there to play baseball. It was kind of like a development program, more or less, as well as playing for the summer. And that league's pretty solid, too. Not quite up to the same level as the Northwoods League, but you got a lot of D1 guys. And I definitely remember feeling that way my first few games there, first few weeks. And quite honestly, just being intimidated by some of the D1 guys. I think coming from a smaller school, you don't really know what to expect. How do you size up these D1 guys? Part of you kind of thinks that they're just in a league of their own, but you also realize they're the same age as you and kind of similar skill sets. So you're not really sure. But I think I had some success in Alaska, and I think that kind of just gave me the confidence and helped me realize these guys are all just the same as me. They're just all baseball players. We're all relatively at the same level. And I think I kind of realized the main difference from D1 all the way down to the lowest level of college baseball is just that every guy on the D1 program is as good as maybe the best players on some of the smaller schools. So just the depth is really the main thing. It's not like all of them are so much better than you. If you can play at the lower levels and you're a good player, you're every bit as good as most D1 players. And so yeah, kind of taking that into the Northwoods League, I definitely went in with confidence that I was there to prove that I belonged. And that was also after my junior year when I'd been talking to some scouts. I knew that I was potentially going to be looking at getting drafted. And I think I was very much of the mindset like, I'm here to dominate. I'm here to prove that I can pitch at the next level. And this is an opportunity for me to show what I can do against consistently really high-level players. And I think that kind of also laid the foundation for getting into pro ball as well, because I don't remember ever feeling totally out of place, at least early in the minor leagues. It always just kind of felt like a continuation of the previous level, from Alaska to the Northwoods League, from Northwoods League to short season A ball, from that to low A. I was consistently throwing the ball well at every level that I played at. And it was like, yeah, well, at this next level, it's not that much better than the level that I just came from. So I don't see why I shouldn't also dominate here. And I feel like, in a way, I kind of tricked myself into believing that I was a big leaguer with that same mindset. Just kind of carried it. I dominated in low A, called up to high A, did the same thing. Double A, same thing. Triple A, same thing. Every level, I kind of expected myself or I trusted that I was going to be one of the best players at that level. And when I got to the big leagues, it was like, well, it's really not that much different than Triple A. Sure, you have your superstars who are on another level. But I'd say like 80 percent of big leaguers are similar to Triple A players. I think just kind of having that mindset of like, I do belong here. I know that I do because I belonged at the previous level right before this and I belong. And these guys are just regular dudes. That's the other side of it. Seeing that all these big leaguers or players at whatever level are just regular people, just like me. They're not superhumans. They're nothing special. It's just guys who are good at baseball and they do it consistently. And that's just what I am, too. So I think kind of having that certain confidence to the fact that I do belong has definitely played a large role in my career. Yeah. And having that experience and confidence, how has that, in terms of how you're approaching this spring, are you doing anything differently this year with a new organization? Obviously, you've now been, I think, this year fifth organization overall. You've seen so much. You've met so many different players in the big leagues and throughout the minor leagues, climbing up to the big leagues. That experience, is that changing anything in terms of your approach this spring? Yeah. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. I've had this confidence and I feel like the confidence has played a huge role in helping me get to where I'm at and being able to continue playing for so long. But there's absolutely doubts that creep into my mind all the time. Challenges, distractions. A big one for me for a long time with the Yankees was just a constant worry of, am I going to get called down? Am I going to get sent up? How are these people evaluating me? Am I throwing hard enough? Am I throwing enough strikes to keep my job? Who's getting added to the 40-man next? There's a constant cycle of things that are out of your control. And I've definitely let those things get the best of me at times throughout my career. And honestly, that's probably been the biggest distractor from being able to consistently perform at my best is letting those worries and thoughts and distractions creep into my mind on a daily basis. But even when I'm on the mound in a game, being focused on or being scared of walking a guy or being too focused on trying to hit a certain velo instead of just focusing on competing and trying to get guys out. So, I think recognizing that it's taken me a while to recognize that and learn that. And it's a constant battle to actually implement how to overcome that. But I feel like that's my biggest focus this spring. And really, what I'm feeling good with is just truly embracing where I'm at right now and controlling what I can control, as cliche as it sounds. It's like, you just got to do what you can do and let everything else kind of take care of itself. And usually, when I've done that throughout my career and life, things generally work out in my favor, assuming that I've put the work in, that I'm prepared. And I trust that I am right now. So, I'm kind of leaning on the fact that I'm prepared, that I'm feeling good physically, that I know my stuff plays in the big leagues. And I'm not too worried about how the rest of the team is shaping up or how I'm being evaluated or what sort of competition I have above or below me. It's just like, every day I go to the field, I control what I can control, I put in my work, and I just try to be happy and positive as much as I can. Yeah. And I think you hit it on the head. I think distractions that enter our head that can cause us to have doubts about ourselves, those distractions alone, I believe, are the greatest things that take us away from our focus on what our job actually is. And those are things that, just in my experience, and now you're a few years younger than I am, but I think as we just get older and we become more mature, those distractions become less and less to us. Maybe that's through experience. I don't know exactly what to maybe pinpoint that on, but it's something that I wish younger players, like guys that I'm coaching that are in the college game right now, that everybody at that age could learn it. If you can learn that at 18 to 22 years old, you're going to be far better off if you do end up in the minor leagues and start working your way up to the big leagues. Because if you know how to eliminate distractions and you can just focus on what your job is and trying to do it the best you can, then you don't have to worry about the outside noise and what decisions are being made that you can't control. And I think at the end of the day, if we've given our best, then that's all we want for ourselves. Just know that we've given ourselves the best chance to be successful. And you said it earlier that just doing the work doesn't necessarily guarantee success. And I agree 100% with that. There's a lot of people that put in the work, but they don't always see the success. But if you don't put in the work, then you give yourself no chance to see success. So I think as an athlete and being competitive, that's what we want, is to at least give ourselves a chance in everything we do to see that success. So I think you hit it right on the head with that. Yeah. A former teammate of mine had an amazing quote that I still think about a lot. He said, hard work doesn't guarantee you success. It guarantees you honesty. And honesty in the sense that you can find out how good of a player you can be. It doesn't mean that you're going to be good enough to achieve the level that you maybe want to play at or whatever. It's just that the hard work, it guarantees that you are going to find out how good you can be. But even that might not be enough. And I think when you really come to terms with that and just accept that, that's such a freeing feeling. And for me, that's what it's been. And it's hard because as athletes, we care so much about our careers. We care about our performance. We want to do good. And we care so much that failure isn't an option. We're just holding on so tight to try not to fail. But I think when you can let go of that and accept the fact that you may not be good enough, and you may fail, and when you're actually OK with that and accepting, it frees you up to actually perform at your best without that fear of failure. And I feel like that's where the magic really happens, when you can just be in that flow state without any sort of fear, anxiety, tenseness in your body. You're just out there letting it happen, not thinking about anything. I feel like that's the ideal kind of mindset and athletic performance state. Absolutely. No, I love that. That's great stuff. And kind of building on that now with experience and things like that, now you're a dad and husband and all the things that come with that, especially in-season spring training, you don't always know exactly where you're going to be placed at this point after the spring. Obviously, the hope is to be on the 40-man and then end up in Tampa for the big league season. But how has that, now with all the things that you've learned and balancing a family life at this point in your career, what has changed? I know for me and coaching, having a family and especially having a daughter now, things change the way that you look at things. And I think, just kind of give you an example, one thing that for me I've learned is that I just have to be really intentional. When I get time to just spend by myself in the office doing work to prepare our team for games, I just have to be dialed in during that time. I have to be extra focused, I guess, in the time that I actually am working. That way I can enjoy the time when my family's in town or things like that. Being a professional athlete, how has that aspect of your life changed now that you have a family? Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. It really forces you to be a lot more intentional with your time and really deciding where you're going to put your focus and your energy. When I'm at the field, I want to be fully there. I want to be present and giving it my all there. But then as soon as I get home from the field, I don't want to bring any of the emotion or the energy from there back to my family. I want to be completely present with my kids and my wife and be able to enjoy them. That was something that I probably used to struggle with a good amount before kids was letting my baseball performance or things that were going on at the field with my job dictate my overall mood away from work. Coming home, being in a bad mood, or whatever, waking up the next day still overthinking everything. I think having kids, you don't have that option. Well, you do have the option, but if you really want to make the most of your time with your kids, you've got to just turn the page. I think it's been great for me in that sense. It forces me to really separate baseball from my home life. It's been great having the family to come home to. They don't care how I do in a baseball game. They don't care if things are going great or rock bottom. My kids don't know any better. They don't understand any of this. Knowing that they just want their dad to give them attention and do things with them is a pretty awesome feeling. I feel like, especially as an athlete, being in the public eye, a lot of your self-image can get wrapped up in baseball. People see you as a baseball player. That's a whole other side of this discussion, how you identify yourself. It definitely helps having kids to identify as a dad and identify as myself, just being who I am. I'm not a baseball player. I'm their dad. I'm a husband to my wife, a brother, a friend, all this stuff. Having the kids forces me to do it on a daily basis. Even just having these thoughts and thinking through all of this, how this can be applied in other areas of my life too, just being present and really trying to think about what my identity is and what sort of mark I want to leave, how I want people to remember me. It's been good. I've got a three and a one-year-old, so they're a lot of work. They came after the apartment above the funeral home, right? Yeah, they came after that. That would have been an interesting experience. We've got another, hopefully, several baseball seasons, and things can get crazy with housing or logistics. I'm sure there'll be plenty more adventures to come with them. I'm sure. Yeah. You talked about identity, if you want to dive in deeper to that at all. I think most people listening to this know about me, my identity. You mentioned the word freeing as well a little while ago, but my identity, being a Christ follower, has enabled me to really feel free in coaching. If I know that I'm doing everything I can to bring glory to God's name through coaching and through conversations and just the example of my life, that's my identity. At the end of the day, when I go home, my identity, sure, on a surface level, it's based on our team's record at the end of the year and how successful we were. That's the first question whenever I see people after a season. Well, how'd the team do? What was your record? That's our identity as coaches and athletes. Deep down, my identity is fully in Christ and serving the Lord and trying to do the best that I can in doing that. I know you being a Christ follower as well and that being your identity, I don't know if you want to dive in deeper with that and how that has freed you in terms of feeling free when you're out there playing and pitching at Yankee Stadium or pitching at Fenway and clinching your wins in an extra inning game at Fenway, which is pretty cool, but that not being your identity. Sure, like I said, it's in the news or people ask us about those things, but it's not truly who we are as people. Yeah, totally. From a young age, I was a Christ follower and that was kind of my identity growing up. Even in high school, I was never part of the cool crowd. I was a Christ follower and my friend group was all kind of similar mindset. I think developing that sort of identity at an early age and being able to carry that into my pro career has helped me a lot in the sense that, for one, it kind of keeps me locked in on the vision of how can I use my platform of being a big leader to make people's lives better. Honestly, something that I kind of struggle with at times is thinking on the performance side, none of it really matters at the end of the day. Whether the team wins or loses, it doesn't really matter. Sure, it matters a lot in terms of how much money organizations are going to make or maybe might ruin someone's night if you lose, but you're not saving people's lives by winning games. I've kind of struggled with thinking about that. Are there more impactful things that I should be doing or could be doing with my life? But kind of the way our culture is with vitalizing athletes and really looking up to us, I feel like God's put me in this position for a reason, given me these skills and tools and opportunities in order to kind of use the opportunity to point to him and to set an example for younger generations. It is possible to be a really good athlete and live a happy, awesome life and also love the Lord and kind of try and lead other people to seeing how good life as a Christ follower can be and trying to make people's lives better. I definitely feel thankful for that. And I think it's also tempting as a player, too. You definitely start to get tempted to identify as the player. That was something that I really dealt with when I started going through my injuries. My time on the field was basically stripped away from me. I didn't even realize how much I was identifying as a player and just being on the field and the positive attention that comes along with baseball success, all those things that I had going for me for all those years. And then all of a sudden, when the injuries started happening, I couldn't play. Nobody was talking about me. I got released a few times and you lose that side of your identity. And it was definitely a good reminder. In some ways, I felt like that was God kind of tapping me on the shoulder, saying, hey, this is about me. This isn't about you as a baseball player. This is about me. And now I feel like with this opportunity again, it's almost like everything, if anything good happens from it, it's all thanks to God putting me in these positions and giving me these tools. And I hope that I have cool, creative ways to help make people's lives better, opportunities to share my story and inspire kids, inspire people and all the good things that can come from that. So, yeah, it's definitely been a journey. And I think that's how life is. It's not like you're always going to be perfect. You kind of start to veer off path every once in a while. And sometimes it might take something that you don't like so much to happen in your life in order to kind of get you back on track. Yeah, I think with the identity thing, and you're talking about like being in the big legs and the attention and then being released, I think if our identity is so wrapped up in that, it's such a roller coaster to where, man, I'm the man, nobody can touch me. I'm the dude. And then you get released. And all of a sudden, it's just this big crash of emotion. You wake up the next day and you're like, what in the world just happened? I was the man 24 hours ago. Yeah. Or six months ago. And that's where I feel like our identity being wrapped up in sports and what we do, whether it's sports or not, whether you're a CEO, whether you're wrapped up in the identity of just being a mom or being a dad or whatever it is, if that's our complete identity, our emotions can crash. And I think that's where we get lost in this world so quickly. It's just that there's such a lack of foundation in people's minds and in their hearts of what our purpose actually is. So it was really cool to hear you share that. Kind of on that note of success and failure, we're getting kind of closer to the end here, but just in talking about that, have you learned more from your success or more from failure? I think a lot of times people say win or learn. And in my experience, and this is, I don't know if I'm normal necessarily in this thought, but I have learned immensely more through winning than I have from losing or failing. And I think it's probably because when I have seen success, it's validated things that I've done in the process to help get us there. And obviously we know that our success is from God. If we're given success, it's through that. But we also have to put in the work. We're humans. You can't expect success without putting in work. So for me personally, I've learned so much more through success than I have from failure. And I'm just curious from you, your side of that, and if you feel the same or if you feel like you've learned more from your setbacks. Yeah. I mean, I think that's definitely a little maybe against the grain. I think the cliche answer would be you learn more from your failures than your successes. But I think you're right. The way I think about it is having success validates what works. And having failure, failure shows you something that doesn't work or maybe can lead you towards maybe making slight tweaks, but there's really no way to truly validate if something works or if it's the right way of doing it until you actually have success with it. And I think that's kind of been true in my baseball career, in several different areas of it, I guess. But I kind of think of something like pitching mechanics. So making tweaks and seeing how tweaking something might affect the way the ball moves out of my hand. And you might try something and it has a negative effect. So you kind of failed in that sense, but you learned, you ruled something out that doesn't work. You kind of follow that process until finding something that does work. And that's when you can kind of take it and run with it. And then you can kind of like build on that, level it up, start really take that and run with it. But I also do think you can learn a lot about yourself from failures. You can learn a lot about your mindset, your identity, like we were talking about. It definitely forces you to face some maybe uncomfortable feelings or thoughts that success doesn't have. So I think maybe kind of on the mental side of things, failure definitely forces you to grow more than success can in some ways. So yeah, it's a little bit of both, I think. That's a good way to think of it. Yeah. I mean, from a mental side, being like you said, just something that you're able to learn more from failures, but our successes are kind of more practical in terms of how we're actually going about those things. So I think you're right. I think there is definitely a combination. And I should mention that I think I started out my coaching career about one in 16, something like that. So I've definitely had my share of failures. Well, hopefully you learned from it. I think you've had a solid career since then. So obviously you learned something, made some adjustments. I've surrounded myself with winners. And this is obviously about you, but just something that I would want to share with people. When I left Clearwater, went to Olivet Nazarene, which is obviously where you pitched, I knew Olivet was a winning program. And I knew Todd, and I knew how much he cared about the program. And I wanted to go there to learn, to see what winning was like, because I couldn't produce it myself. And so I think I learned so much from that. And then after the two years there as a GA and pitching coach and whatnot, when I was looking for that next kind of coaching gig, I wanted to be around winners. And so I ended up at Davenport here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And Kevin Tidey, he's had a winning program there for a long time. He's had a handful of draft picks out of there and guys that are still in the minor leagues right now trying to climb their way up to the big. So it's a great program. And I think for me, that was one of the things that I intentionally did for myself was try to latch on to a coaching staff and programs that were successful. And I think just through that and seeing success, that's why I feel like I've learned so much from success is probably because I couldn't do it on my own knowledge early on. And not that I by any means know everything, but I feel like I've learned so much being around some winning mindsets and winning people. So I think that's been pretty good. And I think for you, having your experience with the Yankees and the tradition that that has and the success of the Yankees organization and being in the big leagues and playing with some really big names, I'm sure you've learned a lot from that experience as well. Yeah, absolutely. Even thinking back to my early minor league days with the Indians, from the coaches to the training staff and all the players that I played with there and some of the big leaguers, they kind of always had really solid homegrown pitchers like Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco, some of those guys who were around when I was coming up and just kind of like being surrounded by people who were way better than me, a lot smarter than me. And then, you know, going to the Yankees as well, like that bullpen was ridiculous for a few years, like with Geraldo Chapman, Zach Britton, Delon Batances, Chad Green. I mean, it's just one superstar after another. So being around, I just think culture is so important. Like even even today, I train at Trent Athletics down in Charlotte in the offseason. I train there a little bit and the culture there is just phenomenal. I mean, everybody there is just pouring everything out to try and get better. People bouncing ideas off each other. Like I feel like when you get in a situation where everybody is like raising one another to the next level, that's where you could see some really, really cool things happen, you know, a lot of development. And so I try to kind of, you know, replicate that even when I'm on my own to like I've always really tried to like dig into like kind of like the leading minds in the baseball industry. Like I'm I wouldn't consider myself like, you know, like a thought leader, like, you know, super smart by any means. But I feel like I'm really good at finding like really smart people and just trying to like absorb everything they have like a sponge and just think about how I can apply it to my own career. And, you know, you kind of start picking things from like different different areas, you know, nutrition, strength and conditioning, pitch development, all these different avenues of development. You try and just learn as much as you can from really smart people and filter it all through what I've what I already know and, you know, kind of think about like how to apply it to my career and how to go go about it from there. So I think just, you know, culture and learning from from people smarter, better than you is huge. Absolutely. And one last question for you on that topic, you're talking about being there today and, you know, this week and experiencing that culture. What is there anything specific that you could pinpoint that aids in that culture? I'm a big culture guy. I'm right on with you where I think, you know, our culture of our organizations, whether it's a business, whether it's a team, whether it's your family culture is is everything to see success. And so I'm just I'm always looking for different ways to go about it or different, I guess, character traits, those types of things of things that we notice in people that are really successful. So is there anything one or? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's tough to, you know, kind of put an overarching theme to to everything, you know, as far as like, you know, culture of your family, culture of a team culture at like a training facility. I guess if I had to kind of narrow it down to kind of one broad theme, it would be having people who are selfless and wanting to help the people around them every bit as much as they want to better themselves. You know, when I've been around groups that are like where where you can tell people are only in it for themselves. They don't they don't care about helping others get better. And that's I feel like that's where you get kind of a toxic culture. The best cultures that I can think of that I've been around, you know, everyone wants to elevate those around them. And because of that, you get, you know, the individual themselves, you know, gets gets raised to a higher level. And when you kind of have that, that like selfless, you know, selfless giving and kind of mindset from everybody, I feel like that's that's just like when when there's always a good energy, you got great relationships, you got, you know, just the mood and mindset of everyone is like, how can we? How can we all work together? Like, what can I do for you? And it's not not about like, what can you do for me? What can I do for myself? Like, what can I do for you? And in turn, that's also going to like make me a better, you know, whatever athlete, dad, person, anything. So I guess that'd kind of be it. Yeah. Yeah. Selfless. Selfless was the exact word that I was thinking when you were talking about, you know, people picking each other's brains and talking through things. You have to be selfless to do that. And that was the exact word that I thought of when you started talking about that. And then you mentioned, obviously, the same thing. So yeah, it fires me up to think about team atmospheres. And when you have such a good one, you don't want the season to end. And I think, you know, whether you're in the big leagues, whether you're in the minor leagues, whether you're at a high school or a college team, teams that have such good cultures, like I think about the Detroit Lions this year. I bet a bunch of those guys, I know you're a Packers fan, but, you know, I bet a bunch of those guys, they didn't want that season to end, even though they didn't make the playoffs. I think that feeling of the locker room and the culture, the excitement, the ability to support one another, that stuff just fires me up. And it's so fun to watch teams that truly get that. And when you have a chance to be a part of one of those, it's something you'll never forget. Yeah, totally. And then it's like a snowball effect too. Like you start to have a little bit of success and it like amplifies everything. Like it makes it even more fun. And like, you know, I feel like that's kind of what happened with the Lions this year. It was cool, you know, seeing them on hard knocks, but like, so you kind of see like how they set the tone at the beginning of the season. And then like, obviously I started playing well and then it was like, okay, like, yeah, this stuff really works. Like we're, you know, we're, you know, you can't mess with us. Like, you know, you just kind of start to see that like compound on itself. And I feel like the same thing is true in any sort of team environment. Like you, once you start going through, like you have that selfless mindset and you start to have success together, that's when it gets even better. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm a believer that great cultures can overcome bad starts. And like you said, the Lions didn't start out great, but if you have a good culture and you have people that believe in one another, you can always overcome a rough start, whether it's, you know, a few games, whether it's a little bit of a stretch and a skid early on, you can always overcome that if you have people in that environment that believe in one another and want to see each other be successful. So. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. I love it. Cool. Well, I won't keep you any longer, but I really appreciate you hopping on here for our first episode and you've definitely set the bar high now for, for our future guests. So we'll have to have you out at some point. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was fun talking to you. I'm a nerd about this type of stuff too. So it's a good conversation. Absolutely. Yeah. Be sure, be sure to follow Ben on social media. He's been putting out, if you play baseball, he, he puts out a ton of content on his social media. I don't know if you're planning on continuing that as you get busier and busier, but yeah, there's definitely some good content on his social media. So be sure to check that out. And I think that's really cool. You don't see that from a lot of big leaguers that are willing to share information like you do and spend the time and effort that you do. So as a college baseball coach, I really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Trying to, trying to help out the next generation of ballplayers and put out things that I would have liked as a, you know, as a high school and college athlete. So happy to do it. Cool. Cool. Well, thanks Ben. Really appreciate your time and yeah, wish you the best now and as you, in the coming weeks with spring training. Yeah. Thanks Reed. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. And if you enjoyed it, please share with those around you. We'll see you next week and go dominate your day.
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