EP100 – It’s Been One Hundred Episodes – What Have I Learned Since Then?

In this landmark 100th episode, Dan reflects on some of the important things he’s learned in the 3 years that have passed since the Dear Baseball Gods podcast began back in March of 2017. A LOT has happened…

To submit a question for the Q&A segment, email a voice recording to Dan at hello@danblewett.com. Want to support the show? Buy a copy of Dear Baseball Gods on Kindle or Paperback, or listen on audiobook. Or, pick up Pitching Isn’t Complicated, his advanced-but-understandable pitching manual. Enroll in one of Coach Dan’s online pitching courses or his mental skills course. Use code BASEBALL GODS to save 20% on any course, just for being a listener. Sign up for Dan’s Email list and get a free pitching checklist, and follow up with him on the interwebs: YouTube Channel | Twitter | Danblewett.com

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Transcript: EP100 – It’s Been One Hundred Episodes – What Have I Learned Since Then?

All right, folks. Welcome back. This is the 100th episode of the deer baseball gods podcast. So if you’re listening to this number one, thank you for being here. Maybe you’re brand new. Maybe you’ve just picked up the show recently, or maybe you’ve been here from the beginning, who knows either way. Thank you for listening to my musings, ramblings, uh, teachings, whatever.

You’d call it over these three and a half years now, actually. So, uh, in today’s episode, I’m going to talk about things I’ve learned over the years, over these past three and a half years, that. I’ve felt I’ve made a positive change in my life that I would like to convey to you. Maybe one of these 10 hits a chord.

Obviously some of these are going to be moderately COVID related. I mean, I think, I think, uh, one of the sentiments about, uh, COVID-19 is that it’s been an accelerant. So, you know, accelerating agent for change. So things that were going to happen maybe in a couple of years have suddenly all, all of a sudden happened in three months or in six months or whatever.

And I’ve found that’s a been the case with some of my, my endeavors and things. Yeah. As well. So without further ado, I’m going to get to 10 things I’ve learned since the deer baseball gods podcast started back in March of 2017. Alright. Number one. If I had to give some advice, it would be, and this is going to be number one.

And number two, it’s both follow your passions and follow your skills. Now I’m 34, so I don’t need to Dole out too much career advice because I’ve only been living in the real world for about a year. And I consider my descent into the descent or ascent, whichever way you’d put it into the real world.

Really just this past year when I left. My Academy Warbird Academy in Illinois, sold it and moved out here to the East coast to be closer to family and sort of start over. So, um, for all of my life, I followed my passions as a baseball player. Um, school didn’t really interest me that much. And so I chose philosophy as a, as a major.

I’m not sure if that was a passion then, but it’s a, certainly a passion now. Um, and what I found was that. Getting paid for your passion is quite hard. You know, I had a successful business in the sense that we paid our rent every month and we paid ourselves a Meeker salary every month, but I was certainly not successful in, uh, creating, you know, a lot of wealth for the business.

Um, and not a lot of wealth for myself personally or, or, or my partner Lucas. It was just, you know, baseball academies are difficult to have a lot of money left over at the end of the day when you. Paid all your bills and paid your employees. And, uh, you know, it’s a seasonal business and you have, uh, you know, limited hours in the day to, to harvest hay, I suppose, you know, that old farmer saying whatever it is.

And so a lot of people, and this was a thing I learned from Mike Rowe and his podcast. He said, look, Most people can’t follow their passions and make ends meet. And I do think that’s true now. I am making my make ends meet, following my passions. I still, um, make a significant amount of my income from my baseball endeavors on the web.

And so part of that is this podcast and other things, a lot of it’s indirect and a big, weird web. Um, but part of this is following your skills and that’s number two. And I want to explain how these two are intertwined. You know, I, I think when we only follow our skills, we lead ourselves to a path where we’re unhappy, where, you know, we do work behind a computer or we do work at the construction lot or whatever it is.

And it’s not really what fulfills us, right. For me working with people and educating people and spreading, I think a positive message and helping people avoid mistakes that I made. That’s my passion. And. I’m continuing to build skills, to help me parlay that into, you know, my career, which in at least a percentage it is.

But with that, and this is something I’ve had to come to grips with is that some of my skills that I developed from baseball and from, you know, learned to podcast has made me marketable to other companies. And so like I do consulting these days and I enjoy it. Do I enjoy it as much as my baseball endeavors and, you know, being here, talking I’m pitching here with you on this podcast?

No. Um, but I think there’s a balance that has to be met and I’ve heard this advice from many. You know, smart people that you do have to find a balance between stability, which is following your skills that people will pay you for. And also following your passions, the things that get you out of bed and, and keep you, um, you know, fulfilled at the end of the day.

So, number one, follow your passions. Um, do this with a grain of salt and number two, follow your skills. Also do that with a grain of salt. So number three, the third thing I’ve learned in the last three and a half years since this podcast started is that social media is I think awful. Uh, so this past year, some of the positive things that I’ve made, and this was before actually, uh, COVID-19 hit, but it was accelerated because of it I’ve been off Facebook for years.

So if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, I don’t follow you. I follow literally not one person on Facebook, including my family. And I have not made a Facebook like a personal post, except for maybe like announcing my book and some other things in the last many, many years, I think Facebook’s the worst people bicker.

They argue. It just seems to suck the life out of everyone. So I, I cut ties with him. They spoke a long time. I still have a long time ago. I still have a professional page, obviously that I repost content, stuff like that because it’s, you know, people find stuff there. Uh, but I don’t participate in Facebook in any way personally.

I don’t follow anyone. So I don’t see anyone’s feed. And I’ve been a lot happier for it. So I’d highly suggest this, that if you find yourself being, you know, your blood boiling, because of something, someone posted on Facebook, I guess, ask yourself if that person and their opinions really matter. Cause they probably don’t.

And so stemming from that, I had to make a, a difficult business decision this past year, which was sort of cut ties with Instagram. So if you follow my Instagram account, you’ll notice I have not made a post since probably. March, which is pretty that’s six months by now, seven months. And that decision was, was like, look, yeah, I’m a, I have a brand, whatever you want to call it.

I hate using that term. Um, but I can’t possibly post a Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. I do have a Pinterest account. That’s like automatically posted with my content. YouTube. I run five podcasts. It might be six soon. Um, I can’t possibly post like original new content on all of them. So I finally was like, after feeling guilty about Instagram, because everyone’s on Instagram, right?

Like you need a big following on Instagram. I finally said, screw it. I just, I’m not happy on Instagram. I’d rather have the app off my phone. Cause I scroll and look at nothing and don’t get any value from it. And I don’t personally like making Instagram content. I don’t like making one minute videos. I don’t like putting a photo up and trying to make a caption.

Just, just for me personally. I don’t, I don’t do well with Instagram and I don’t like it. So I finally in March after feeling guilty you about it, I said, I’m done with it. I’m just not sure going to pose. I don’t care if it hurts my brand. I don’t care if it costs me money. I just don’t care. I’d rather be happier and not.

Waste time on it and feel this nagging guilt that I should be doing more on it when I just don’t. I just don’t do well with it. So I decided I was going to allocate more of my time to podcasting, to writing and to YouTube, which are things that I actually do enjoy. And I do like being long, more longwinded and teaching people more legitimate things on YouTube.

That’s my number one thing. So if you don’t follow me there, definitely follow me on YouTube. So. My lesson here is not just rambling about my own personal stuff, but the question is, what do you actually get from social media? Do you actually get something from these platforms? I’m I am active on Twitter.

I interact with people there. Um, I kinda monitor stuff. I post my content there automatically. Um, but I am like semi, uh, on Twitter and I don’t hate it. I don’t really like it. I’m kind of neutral to it, but I kind of liked being in the dialogue. To an extent. So, but I think it’s important for people to think, Hey, do I need to be on any of these social media platforms?

And you’ve probably seen the movie, the social dilemma, and I’m going to talk about reading in a minute here, but I read two of a Jair on land years. I think that’s his name? He, uh, he was in that he was a number of times in that, in that movie or that documentary, he has a book called 10 reasons to delete your social media.

I read that back in like April, here’s a couple other ones. Uh, just talking about how these companies like Facebook, Twitter, their siren servers, that they draw you in, like the, the, the mythical, Greek, um, sirens who were these women on this Island. Who, you know, like their song and their beauty drew sailors into crash on the shore, on these rocks.

So he said these servers like Facebook or sirens, like they draw you in with free content. You know, you don’t have to pay anything, but you give back a lot that you don’t realize that is, uh, is, is hurting you. And I know that was the point of this, um, documentary, which I recommend watching, uh, called the social dilemma on Netflix.

But anyway, I have learned a lot about social media, what I’m good at, what I’m not good at. What’s good for me and what’s not good for me. And I think that’s been a valuable thing. And I think that’s valuable for you as well to consider in your own life. Number four, I would encourage you to follow the rabbit hole and I’m gonna use myself as an example here.

I still don’t exactly know what I want to do with my life. And I know there’s lots of interesting people who feel the same way and they express that sentiment even very late in life that they still don’t really know what they want to do. Now. I know what I want to do. I want to continue to write more books, which I’m working on four, which is just nonsense because I can’t really get through any of them.

Um, and I want to speak. Mostly full time in front of groups of athletes and parents and coaches. So I, I know those things are true, but also other things that I’m interested in, I. Pick up a new project every week. Um, it often precludes me from finishing projects that already have, but one thing that I’ve done, and this was starting with my business long ago in learning to, to, uh, blog and then develop websites and do YouTube.

I’ve learned a lot of skills in the last couple of years that going back to number two, follow your skills, have maybe marketable and other areas that is just been like very happenstance. So. This is coming to terms with, um, some different things. But if you look at me on LinkedIn, I am like author and coach, right.

And there’s my sort of professional photo there that I actually took myself. Uh, so ha ha fooled you. It wasn’t actually, particularly for me nationally, but that my LinkedIn profile just says, like I was a baseball player and I owned a baseball Academy and I would do baseball things. Right. And I’ve been putting off for quite a while now, actually making a professional marketing website and consulting website, which I do on the side.

In part, because I was just, I didn’t want that to be my job title. I didn’t want to admit to myself that maybe I, I couldn’t or does wasn’t making a full time living as a baseball guy for the time being, cause I had always done that prior. And so I was kind of just denying the fact that, you know, this is really part of who I am like, I’m good at helping other people, um, get podcast started, do YouTube videos, like produce all this stuff.

Like I produced an audio book, which was an absolute nightmare, but taught me a lot of stuff about audio production. And that’s part of the reasons that I run five podcasts and, um, and I’m a consultant for two and possibly soon to be a third. So. This is following the rabbit hole. Like I just started to learn skills and dive in.

I’ve had great mentors, including one of my clients, Alan, who’s probably listening and he’s a huge encourager of mine for Luna learning new skills and doing these things. Um, and so it’s, it’s continues to be like, learn this new thing, like see what, where it takes you and just go with it. Just throw stuff off the wall.

And if nothing else for the last three and a half years, since this podcast started, I’ve been throwing a lot of stuff off the wall. Like a lot of stuff, online courses, my books, um, I make money, lots of random ways. And I’m really not driven by money at all. Uh, but all these different things, you know, you’d try to do to like pay the rent and free yourself up for other time to do stuff that’s really important to you.

So. Ultimately one day money’s important to me because I want to just be at a sit around and speak and write and not have to worry about anything else. And so to do that, you throw things off the wall and see what comes back. So if you are considering starting a side hustle or your son or your daughter are considering a new sport or a new activity or a new, whatever, Do it, like, let them do it, throw some money at it.

See what happens. Cause you just never know. I mean, I just started doing YouTube videos just about, really about two years ago because I wanted to support my online courses. And what I figured out over time is I don’t really. Want to sell online courses, longterm. I’m very proud of the courses that I’ve created.

I think they’re very valuable. There’s a lot of great content and that’s all video obviously, but really I wanted us make videos for free for people so people can have access to the best quality stuff I produce, uh, at no cost. That’s my longterm goal. And so selling online courses will allow me to have the money to not be homeless, to eventually get to that point.

But my YouTube channel is at about a thousand subscribers a month now. And it’s slowly getting to that point. So that all started from just like, what is this online course thing? What can I do to support it? I guess I’ll make some YouTube videos. How do I make what you do, videos better? How do I be better on camera?

How can I. Make these more valuable to people. And then it’s just like slowly starting to grow. And obviously I’m not where I want to be, but all that stuff stems from just sort of trying new things, developing new skills and following the rabbit hole, number five, uh, meeting new people. So. I’m an introvert by nature.

People don’t really guess that as much anymore, but I definitely do get my energy from recharging at home by myself. I’ve handled for, for COVID-19 lockdowns, essentially. Although I did really learn the value of relationships and just how important and restorative, um, time, quality time with other people, um, is.

So I’m definitely an introvert. Who’s learned the value of interaction a lot more in the last year than I have probably in the whole, my whole life, when it was always readily available. Isn’t that helpful? Everything works. Right. You’re you don’t appreciate until it’s taken away. But one of the reasons I do like living in a city, no, I live in DC.

Is that your, Oh, as to way more people, right? Just way, way more people. Um, you know, you walk all over, you take the Metro, um, there’s so many more activities you can do. Everyone knows someone. So with all that stuff, it just, you know, sometimes you lose perspective on just how important connections are and just from meeting people, taking an interest and genuinely listening.

Um, that’s a really big thing. So one of my, probably listened to read. Three books on listening, like specifically about in the last two years, because I had to deal with conflicts at my baseball Academy. I was sorta like the guy to handle that. And then just trying to, I don’t know, be better at it. And I think meeting people and having the courage to talk to them and then actually genuinely listening to them, which this is also a skill has been.

Integral in my podcasting. Uh, so if you listen to my other podcast, the deer baseball guy, or, uh, the morning, brushback really all I do. And I’ll, I’ll let you in on a secret here, Bobby and I don’t prep much at all for that podcast. Now, obviously it’s not a, we’re not famous podcast, but what I’ve learned is.

Podcasts that get a lot of listens. It’s really tied to how famous those people are. There are some that take off, they take, they catch fire. There’s definitely some like that, but a lot of the podcasts that are very heavily listened to, or because of name recognition, right? Like famous dude X starts a podcast.

He’s got a pretty big following, you know, famous woman why starts a podcast. And then her podcast has a lot of listens because she already has a big following. It’s not really necessarily because of the podcast quality itself and as someone who’s recorded enough episodes, I think I’ve done probably close to 500 between all of mine, including the twinsies podcast with my former partner Lucas cook, which is now defunct, um, between all these podcasts.

I think I have enough of an ear to say who’s good at them and who’s not. And a lot of people aren’t very good at them. They’re not very good at interviewing and then a lot of boring podcasts out there. Now I won’t, you’re the judge of whether my podcasts are boring or not, but the point is. Being a really good listener is probably the most important skill that I have in being a half decent podcaster because in the two podcasts that I’m at that are not my expertise, one’s an aerospace engineering podcast, uh, called the struc podcast.

And the other one is a, um, A wind energy podcast called the uptime podcast, which I highly encourage you to listen to either of them. They’re great. Yes. My, um, cohost, uh, Allen hall, super smart engineering guy. So if you’re interested in wind energy or aviation, check them out. Um, I don’t know anything about any of those industries I’m learning, but.

The way I hack it is that I listen. I like really listen to try to say, what can I ask him next that follows this conversation. And I’m just trying to be curious and genuine about trying to learn more about all those topics. And it’s the same thing with all my guests in the morning. Brushback back podcast that I don’t know what they’re going to say next.

And we don’t script out too much of it. So really I just try to listen and say, okay, here’s a question I have because I actually listened to him. Where can I go with that? And then obviously when I do this, I realize that, Oh, I don’t listen to my mom and dad as much as I should. I should probably apply it to the people that I love most.

I don’t listen to my friends as much as I should. I should probably apply it to them too. So. You know, listening is a really important skill. And I think when you meet new do people, the more you take an interest in them. And listen, when they talk and can ask a thoughtful question that follows you just never know where that’s going to take you because they might know someone.

And it’s not obviously about trying to help yourself from everyone you meet. That’s certainly not what I’m saying, but. When you just take a genuine interest in people and listen to what they’re saying and engage with them in the conversation. And again, I’m certainly not saying that I’ve always been great at this because I’ve definitely been poor at it in times.

Um, I think like all of us have, it takes effort, um, but meeting people and the connections that you form and listening and really trying to hear them out, I think is a really important thing that I’ve come to appreciate in the last year. Number six, um, setting aside time for yourself to think. So for me, I do suffer from this sort of like creator syndrome where I feel like I have to be producing something at all hours, but with COVID and hitting sort of rock bottom with screen time, and then getting rid of my phone and then, um, getting an Apple watch and being very unavailable.

And now I’m sort of like only moderately available and very disconnected from screens and social media, you know, I’ve definitely. Figured out that there’s two things that you need, you need to take time for yourself. I think everyone has sort of learned that lesson. So that’s not a, really a profound one here, but I think time in your own head.

To just think and not do anything I think is much more important. I do think this is also something that other people are, are coming to learn now as well. But about a month ago, I’d made a concerted effort to not listen to stuff when I’m walking and I walk probably 30 miles a week, not probably, I do walk 30 miles a week on average, and that’s typically like 16 to 22 miles on the weekend.

And then typically like 10 ish miles during the week, depending on what I’m doing. And so. With all this, I could listen to audio books and podcasts continuously as I’m walking around all these miles. I mean, you walk, you know, two miles an hour, so that’s 15 hours of walking. I’m doing a week. Yeah. That’s two full audio books.

Um, which is really not that significant of a pace for me, depending on the time of year, but that’s a lot of listening to stuff. And then suddenly you don’t really, and then you’re working when you’re done that. And then you have to start to ask yourself, like, when do I actually have time? To just shut up and let my brain wander and be like silent in their world.

And like, what happens? Like am I afraid of walking without listening to music? Am I afraid of sitting in a room that’s quiet and I think I was a little bit, and I think a lot of us are, and what’s odd is most of the time now. With those 30 hours, I’m proud. I probably went down from 25 hours of listening to audio or music to maybe five hours of listening to audio or music.

And the other 25 now are, are silent. I’m just walking and just like walking outside, which is like really weird. And it’s become not weird again because I’m used to it and it just lets my brain have time. To just think, and I have ideas and I’ve write some of them down. Some are really stupid. Some are just inconsequential, some are pretty good.

And I think that’s an underwriter. The thing that I didn’t appreciate until recently when I made this concerted effort to, I probably just need some silence. To like, kind of reset my brain and, you know, get rid of some of this, the screen time sludge that’s like stuck up there and, um, just disconnect from media too much.

It’s not just screen time. It’s also airtime. I think. And so that’s been an interesting thing for me and I think it’s valuable. And so I’d encourage you to try to, to not listen to stuff when you’re just passing time, whether it’s in your car or it’s in your walk, I think try it and just see what happens.

Give it a couple of weeks and then see if you really want to go back. I haven’t really wanted to, I don’t really listen to much music anymore because my default is just walking number seven, you have to feel it. So if you’ve read my book, dear baseball gods, or listen to the audio book, uh, which that’s my memoir.

The advice to me though, the advice that was given to me when I finally retired, which was so crushing to me, um, was from my longterm a long time coach and one of my many mentors who’s in that book, you know, the sort of like the, the number of, of beacons that helped guide me. Um, you know, he told me about how.

His heart was ripped out when he retired from baseball on that, you know, just like with any other process of grieving, you just have to let yourself feel it and you have to listen to it. Just sort of just deal with it. And so I did that when I retired and, um, this is not about that, but that piece of advice is specific.

Um, you know, to that moment in time for me, but with COVID-19, a lot of us, I think, have found ourselves. Just like kind of miserable, stuck at our desks at times. Like, you know, I, I know a bunch of teachers and they’re like, this just sucks. Like I want to be with my students. I like the zoom thing. Just, it’s not good for anybody.

You know, there’s like too much screen time, not enough outdoor time, too much at your desk time, all that stuff. And people are also, I think, Tend to push down their thoughts about their work. And they say, you know, like this job is not very fulfilling to me. Like I wanna, you know, I should do something else, but what would I do?

How would I pay the bills? Like I think people push away their emotions too often and sometimes want to think, all right, you know, I’m depressed. Maybe I should go see a therapist, which I think is a very healthy thing to do. I’m not saying that it’s not. Um, but I think sometimes people medicate in different ways.

And I think sometimes we need to think about the purpose. And this was something that we talked about, um, in philosophy class was we had a. Uh, professor in one of my classes we talked about what were the point of emotions? Like what were emotions? Number one, and number two, what was the point of them?

Should we listen to them? Should we not listen to them? And so one of the examples, um, in, in class that we talked about was, you know, a farmer builds. Um, you know, or he plants his crops on a piece of low land on, on his property. Right. And in year one, it floods, they’ve, you know, pretty normal rain and it floods and kills his whole crop year two.

He plants his, and he’s very sad. He’s very depressed. Year two, he plants his crop on lowland. Again, it floods again, he’s very unhappy struggles to feed his family. And he’s very upset now, and I’m not making any judgments about anyone’s specific condition. So don’t, don’t jump there with me. But in class they said, all right, so this guy has done something that’s causing him mental pain, right.

It’s causing him mental anguish. He does this thing and he feels sad about it. Right? He feels unhappy. He has all these negative emotions because his crops keep getting wiped out. Should he medicate himself and now he doesn’t feel unhappy when this bad thing happens or should he listen to it and say, you know what?

Maybe that maybe this emotion that I’m feeling is actually like a signal, like a warning, just like any other type of actual pain, right? You like put your finger on a hot stove. It says, Hey, take your finger off that. Um, and we actually know that people, well, that grow up without pain receptors. It’s a really rare disease.

They don’t live very long because they end up just tearing their body to shreds because they end up, you know, cutting themselves and twisting an ankle, not realizing it. And then they keep walking on it and they kind of. Tear themselves limb from limb. It’s a, it’s a really sad destructive disorder without actually having pain and the same, I think, and this is something we just talked about in class.

And I don’t know that we ever came to a conclusion, but I was relatively convinced that our emotions serve a purpose. And I think we would all agree. The same thing is that when you’re unhappy and you feel the emotions of sadness and whatever. You know, it’s telling you that maybe the thing that you’re doing isn’t best for you, right?

With this farmer, planting his crops in lowland. Hey dude, maybe you stopped doing that. And you’ll be happier. You know, this is saying, make a change now again, there’s so many, very, very real mental illnesses that require medication required therapy, all that stuff. I’m certainly not saying anything about that, but for all of us who just have these typical everyday emotions, I’m not as happy as I could be.

We need to, I think, listened to those a little bit more sometimes and not run to whatever it is that we do in our lives. And all of us have different ways of medicating. But listening to them and saying, maybe I need to make a change in what I’m doing, whether it’s my career, whether it’s my exercise regimen, whether it’s the food I eat or the people that I hang out with or who I’m married to, who I’m dating or whatever, all those things can, are our sources of emotions and we’re, and we’re really happy.

We know it. And when we’re not, as we’re not as happy, sometimes we convince ourselves that we aren’t. So just something to think about. I think I’ve felt a lot. During COVID about what makes me happy, you know, is working more for more money making me happier. I found out the answer. No, I found out that finding a strong balance and volunteering’s on my time to help other people.

Bull is kind of like where I feel best. So yeah. Um, for me listening to a little bit of my, like, I’m working too much, I’m behind the computer too much, even though this is like stuff that I like doing, it’s still just like too much. I need to go try to find some meaning outside of my computer. Um, that was positive for me listening to that emotion and going out and starting to like volunteer a little bit of my time and just do other things to get me outside of that.

So. Whatever’s going on, make sure you take some time to feel it and listen to it and ask yourself what it could be urging you to do. Number eight, celebrates who you are and who used to be so another. Story from my year, this is 2020. A lot of these are pretty recent. So when I retired and you could find this YouTube video on my YouTube channel, obviously I made a video about why I didn’t like working out anymore and it featured me riding an elephant.

And, uh, of course it was, uh, you know, fake, um, computer graphics. But when I retired from baseball in 2017, I was just very, very beat down. I was tired of being in pain. And as soon as I stopped, I realized that I probably never loved weightlifting. I’d been a strength coach. I was passionate about it. I read so many strength, conditioning books.

I did internships. They got me no college credit. I did lots of things because I wanted to be. Very knowledgeable and be a better ballplayer. And so strength conditioning for me, I later learned was not really a, a true passion, like in and of itself, but really a means to an end. And when I took that end away, when my baseball baseball career was done, I kind of found out that there were just like, wasn’t that much left there for me.

And so I was very burned out. My body was very broken down. And so I was just like, get away from me. I don’t want to lift a weight ever again, or at least for a long time. And so over time that started weigh on me. I didn’t want to be out of shape. Everyone’s definition is of out of shape is very different, but I was always like the most in shape.

So. Getting out of shape was weird, but for a solid two years, I felt fine with it. And then the last year started nagging me. It’s like, dude, you got to start doing something again. It’s not like as healthy. Like you need to move your body. You need to start restoring some of your old self then this year with COVID.

I actually finally got, I found a gym that I liked. And I made myself go there. And just for like, honestly, 15, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, my workouts were profoundly short and I just like, it was so hard to swallow. It’s still, I still don’t enjoy it, but I started lifting weights again in small doses that I could manage.

And after that I still was searching for reasons. I was finally consistent. I’m still consistent. Now I’ve been lifting for, I think four or five months now consistently. Um, yeah, about four months and I’m happy about it. Like, I’m happy that I’m working out again. I still do not like the act of working out.

I don’t feel rejuvenated. I don’t feel like it’s my time to mentally be free. Like, I don’t get any of those benefits that you might get, which I’m glad that you get them. I just don’t. Um, but I was still searching for a why to do that. And of course, part of the why is just health and looking a certain way and all that.

But. Looking a certain way on like a speaking stage wasn’t enough. Like that wasn’t enough motivation, um, to really make me. To drive me. And so finally, one day this was a couple months ago. I was in the weight room and I was like squatting and looking out the window and looking through the, through the plate glass window.

And I kinda caught a reflection of myself and I had this weird deja VU moment where I just felt like I was 19 again in my college weight room. Just like struggling and striving under that bar. And it felt like a weird visitation from like my old self. Like he was there with me. And after thinking about that weird experience, cause it was just, it was just a strange that I decided that my why was kind of, because I want to, I looked in the mirror in the future, like from that point on.

I want to see my old self. I go one to see him and the things that we went through together. That was my why. And so for me, lifting weights today, I’m still struggling with it. Like it’s not my favorite thing. Well, I think I just told you that I really don’t like it very much, but my reason for it is part and just like honoring who I used to be.

Like, I don’t want to be some. Skinny arms, like kind of like dad bod sitting at my computer. I’m like not really bearing any resemblance to the guy who did all these cool things in baseball and came back from two Tommy, John surgeries and played some pro ball and had some cool experiences and, you know, made it pretty far for being a, you know, a no scholarship kind of kid.

So I decided that that was, was my why. And I decided there’s just in general, I think finding some way to honor who we are and celebrate what we’ve been through and kind of keep ties to the past. I think a lot of us do that. I don’t remember who told me, but, um, people said, you know, like when you see a, you know, you see like an old military veteran still walks by in his, like, You know, he wears his army fatigues or he wears it not as fatigued, but he like wears his army jacket all the time.

Right. Or you see veterans still wear there. You know, I served in Korea, hats as they’re just, they wear it every day. Right. And, and the sentiment was that people were. The clothes that put them in their happiest place in life or where they fit in the vest or where they’re, where they’re doing the most purposeful thing.

And I think a lot of that, some of these ex military guys who still, you know, you see again, you see them once in a while, where it’s like, why is that do wear like army issue stuff all the time? It’s like, probably because he was his happiest. He was his best self in his own mind. When he was in the military and he doesn’t want to lose and he doesn’t wanna lose, lose that.

Like he needs to put on his, you know, some chunk of his fatigues every day. To feel like his best self. And I kind of get that now. So for me, I don’t feel any competition with their men. Like I can see a man who’s in better shape than me. Like bigger muscles, like better abs like whatever. I don’t care.

Cause I know what I’ve been through. I know who I am. Like I don’t compare myself to other people in that way. That’s not what muscles mean to me, but looking like my old self, where I was very muscular in great shape, that kind of stuff. Just seeing him in the mirror and saying. This is what you and I went through that I think is an important part of me going forward.

And I think that’s probably an important part of a lot of us just knowing that this is what I did and whether that’s, you know, staying in contact with people from your past, or maybe it’s, you know, continuing up some art that you used to make. Like, I know a lot of people who. We’re like huge creative people when they were younger, but now they have full time jobs and they just don’t have a number of time to paint or to draw, but they’re still really artistic and it’s like a piece of them.

And I think for them, it’s the same thing. Like just taking time to paint or to draw or to, you know, to go jam on the guitar or whatever it is. It just maintains a connection with their old self when they did some, some pretty special, cool stuff that, you know, maybe other people couldn’t do or just was unique to them.

So I think maybe you out there, whoever you are listening, there’s probably something like that in your life where, you know, maybe you just need to reconnect with your old self. Number nine don’t compare yourself to other people. So I mentioned this briefly in the last one that I don’t compare myself and my physique to other men because they’re not me.

And that doesn’t matter. Um, I think comparison. To other people is important in a sense of understanding, like what the set point is like, what we should be doing with our lives. Like you shouldn’t be way out of shape, like your body deserves better than that. Right. We should be eating healthy food. We, we deserve to be pushed a little bit by hearing like, you know, other people’s great habits.

That’s a good thing. But at the same time, One of the things that pisses me off is this like a love affair Americans have with productivity and a book I read, uh, recently talked about productivity and work and whether it actually brings, um, you know, us more meaning out of our lives and how much, you know, how many hours do we devote to work and is that really what we should be doing?

Um, and part of it is like this American obsession with productivity. And again, I think I admitted that I have a little bit of that earlier. Is that, why do we have to be productive all the time? And, and do we have to do everything in our life to be okay, more productive? And does this person schedule, that’s like so crazy packed and they get up at four in the morning, you know, all that stuff.

It pisses me off because sometimes idolize, wow, this dude gives me four 30 and like goes, goes and do, does this, and does that, you know, so discipline like, Oh man, if only I can be as productive as him. Like people are all people like, no one is just up at four 30, you know, 10 mile run and then goes right to podcasting.

And then it goes right to all these meetings and just crushes it, then writes, you know, 20 pages of his book then does this, then does that, like, that just isn’t reality for anyone. Like if you follow it around some of these people that we idolize who are super productive, like impressive people and including myself, like if you look at, and I’m not saying that I’m impressive, but if you look at my.

Body of work on the web. There’s a lot of stuff out there and believe me, there’s lots of days where I don’t get out of bed as fast as I should. And I waste a lot of time. So don’t act like, you know, you know, yeah. I put out a lot of stuff on the web and I create a lot of things, but believe me, I waste plenty of time too.

So it’s all smoke and mirrors. I’ll tell you that right now. Um, but you know, comparing those people is, and this is my son. I remember there was this thing about Mark Wahlberg, who Mark Walberg seems like a cool dude lived a cool life, right? There was this thing there showing his, his, um, his daily routine, where he was getting up at three 30 in the morning to start his day.

And I’m like, this is idiotic. And I was reading through the comments of like, you know, this Instagram post showing his, his actual like daily schedule. Cause he shared it on like a, either a television show or a podcast or something. It’s like, we’re all still humans. If you get up at three 30, it just means Mark Wahlberg is laying down in bed at seven 30, which is stupid.

Why would you want to go to bed at seven 30 or eight o’clock or nine o’clock to be able to three 30? Like that’s stupid. Cool stuff happens at nine o’clock. Cool stuff happens at 10. O’clock like you, you only have so many hours in the day and that’s my point. So if you want to get up at five to get all your stuff done great.

But you’re probably going to, you’re probably going to be at a 10. I don’t go to bed at 10. I go to bed at 11, sometimes 12, I get up at six 30, six 45, sometimes seven. Sometimes I lay in bed till eight. And I feel a little bad about it, but it happens. Um, we all have a need for sleep. As humans. We all have a need for decompression time.

We all have a need for spacing out. We all have unproductive time in our day, and those are just facts. So I just don’t compare myself to be able to get up at 5:00 AM. Cause I just don’t like being up at 5:00 AM. You know, sometimes I do, sometimes I do. I’m like, wow, this is great, but you have to pay to get up to that hour.

Right? Like. Even if I do sometimes like being awake at five 30, I’m like, this is so peaceful. It’s kind of nice, Bob, why’d you get so much stuff done. I have to get my seven hours or seven and a half hours of sleep and really more like eight to be typo free and actually have like cohesive, like coherent thoughts.

Like for me personally, every half hour below eight hours of sleep, I see more and more typos in my writing. It’s like completely obvious. And when I get close to six hours of sleep, I re I reread my writing and I’m like, are you an idiot? Like, what are you doing? You’re like, you’re leaving out whole words.

You’re leaving out the last two letters of words. Well, you know, like I’m writing the word, your like, why are you ? And just as you, like, I’m a, I’m a babbling moron when I get six hours of sleep. So if I want to give a three 30, like Marky, Mark, I got to go to bed at, well, let me do this ridiculous math. I would have to go to bed at eight 30, four and a half hours plus three and a half hours.

Yeah. I have to go to bed at eight 30 and that’s an asinine time to go to bed. Like I’m not, I’m not a, an old, I’m not a 95 year old, man. Why would I do that? So people get upset. So I think it was comparing themselves to other people’s wacky schedules. And look, if you have to give it five to do stuff before your kids will get for school and everyone’s in bed at 10, like that’s your life.

I completely get that. I’m a single guy. My life is skewed in different way. Right. I understand. But I’m not going to compare myself to someone who gets up earlier than me and feel bad about it because I know I’m putting in the same amount of hours in the day getting my same seven hours of sleep. So I have no remorse about it.

Right. If I go to bed at 12 and wake up at seven. Same as going to bed at 10 and waking up at five. Right. So if you’re out there and you’re comparing yourself to someone else’s productivity, someone else’s workload, someone else’s wake up time, someone else who’s working out in the morning. I also cannot work out in the morning.

I can, but I hate it. I’m my best self working out at like three o’clock. So I try to make my day. You know, kind of like it gets cut in half by my workout. So I’ll be up at six 37 trying to get moving, doing good work from like eight to two 30 and then two 30 to three 30. I’m typically trying to get my workout in.

And then I try to get back to it from like four to seven, something like that. So typical, typical schedule. Um, but you know, again, the point here is just that everyone’s life is different. Everyone’s circadian rhythm is different, but we’re also humans. We all do the same things. And, um, you know, if you’re out there feeling bad that you don’t have the productivity or the schedule of someone else just move past it.

Alright. Number 10 is read a lot. So a couple of years ago, I kind of had this, I guess, immature view of reading in that I felt a competition because I wanted to be a writer. And I mean, I am a writer I’ve written two books, like whatever. Uh, but I, I kinda felt like I didn’t want to validate other writers by giving them my money and read their book.

Like, it was almost like a weakness that I had to read their book to acquire something that I could figure everything out myself. Right. But as I was doing some new digital endeavors, I realized that like I legitimately knew nothing about marketing and I need to learn more about it. And I also needed to learn more about, um, like dealing with conflicts and dealing with people because in my Academy, and we had a lot more parents to balance with our teams.

And, um, I was just having to deal with more parents and more just issues between coaches and parents and all this stuff. So I just started to say, okay, like, I need to read some books and, um, you know, figure out. Things, I don’t know, and, and be better at this. So as I did, I started to realize like, wow, I’m learning so much, but no, that, uh, yeah, you just get so much when someone gives, you know, they’re their life history with a top.

This was what my career was in marketing. And I’m giving you all this insight. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s amazing. And that seems like super obvious and dumb, but most people don’t read and I didn’t either. And so I started reading. I found it to be just like really deep and broadening me. And, uh, I started to find myself again, going down that proverbial rabbit hole, where I read one book and I get these ideas.

So I start doing this new thing on my website, or I start writing this new way, gives me new ideas. Then I read other books about that. Then I read other books about that thing. And then I do this new thing and I did read more books about that. And I had this goal to read a hundred books in a year and I fell short, but in 2018 and 2019, I read about 70 books each year.

And this past year alone, I’m about the same pace, something like that, where someone’s, and I’ll admit that I did mostly audio books. Um, but somewhat, some months I’ll. Read 10 books, and it’s not that big of a deal. And when you think about an audio book, most audiobooks are somewhere around eight ish hours.

So if you have one extra hour a day, whether it’s in your car or just, you know, while you’re in the shower, you can just aggregate a lot of time, listen to an audio book, especially a lot of that just dead garbage time. But if you do one hour of garbage time, a day to an audio book, you’re pretty much finished or the audio book a week.

And then if you could find a second hour a day, That’s two audio books a week and that’s a hundred a year. So when you do the math, it’s really not as hard as it seems, but really the harder part just is staying with the stuff that you actually liked. So, For me, like sometimes I’ll do 20 books in two months and then do like four books in the next two months because I just kind of an out of, out of ones that I actually want to read and can’t find any titles that really interest me.

And I try a couple and they’re really boring and I, I quit, but, you know, I just found a really profound change in myself and I found so many new skills and new. Thought provoking ideas. And it really is like having a new mentor when you read someone’s like life work and when they’re sharing their expertise.

Cause that’s what, you know, nonfiction books are. The people that are sharing their expertise with you from, you know, 10, 20, 30 years doing something. I mean, it’s, it’s pretty incredible. When you think about it. And, you know, one of the books I read was general, uh, general Madison’s book. And of course, you know, every person in Trump’s administration is heavily politicized and people think he’s an idiot, but that man is one of those well-read people probably living today.

Um, he’s an incredible reader. And he was just talking about in his book, call, sign chaos, but how, when he got a new job promotion or a new job title, they didn’t exactly know how to do that job. He said, okay, What 20 books can I compile to read two, to prepare me for this job? And I thought that was such a profound thought that, wow, you know, here’s this general who, when he gets in, he gets promoted.

He’s like, you know, all right, I’m going to grab these two books from Marcus. A really is. I’m going to grab this book from this old general, this book from this, you know, Asian philosophy, a tome about, about war. I’m going to read, you know, these couple of books. This is from like, Gangas Kahn. This is from here.

And he basically said like, look like everything in war has been done, everything every possible scenario. So why wouldn’t I read everything written by every day general possible so that I can be better prepared for situations I’ve never faced before. And that’s exactly what reading does. Just, it lets other people which is, you know, part of what my memoir do.

Your book, do your baseball gods is, is, look, I’ve done this. Don’t do some of the stuff I did read my book and you’ll figure it out that. This is what you should do and don’t make the mistakes that I did. And I think that’s what everyone does as authors. Um, especially with nonfiction, uterus, try to like pay forward some of the stuff that you learned along the way.

And so I finally that clicked with me and I’m like, I need to read as much as I can. Like I want to read as much as I can, like, this is just, it’s preparing me for so much more. And this is what general Mattis, you know, one of his criticisms of, of, of Trump was that he doesn’t read. He’s like for all the people that are trying to govern and lead and deal with these tough situations, these people need to be reading what people who came before them were doing.

And, uh, you know, for everyone, if you’re not a significant reader, I just find so much value in a personally that I’d urge you to try whether it’s audio books, whether you can try to get into them or pick up a new paper book. And I’ve been reading more paper books recently, just because screen time is so terrible.

So I’ve been trying to dislodge my brain with actual staring at wood paper, tree books, but, you know, it’s, that was probably the most profound thing that’s changed in me in the last three years. Just how much I read now. And it’s a habit and it’s something I really enjoy, even though I’ve definitely taken some time recently to not listen to stuff.

As I mentioned before, as I’m walking and not fill some of my time with reading, but I’m still not gonna give that away by any stretch. Like I still at least read one book a week and, uh, you know, and that’s down quite a lot from, from some months. So. I think that’s probably, again, one of the most impactful things you can and do, especially if you’re considering a career change, you’re considering a, some sort of side hustle, you know, considering a new way of looking at your life or relationships, right.

That stuff. Um, there’s just like so much, so many people we’ll have done this before, whatever you’re trying to do. And you know, there’s, there’s a little laundry list waiting for you. People who will mentor you through whatever. Change you’re going through in life or thing you’re trying to tackle, you know, through their books.

So I think if I have one recommendations, it’s this last one that no matter how much you’re reading today, try to read more and I’m going to take that, that advice myself, that I’m gonna continue to, to charge on. And for me personally, it’s trying to read more physical books. Um, cause I feel like that’s good for me at the moment with how much screen time I have.

Um, but you know, whatever way you do it, I just think there’s so much benefit. That for a lot of people is just, it’s just really left on tapped. So that’s it for dear baseball guy episode 100. Now, if you haven’t read my book or listen to it, cause it is on audible. It is on audio. Um, I highly recommend it and it would support me in the show and all this stuff going forward.

So if you haven’t yet picked up a copy of dear baseball gods or my other book. Pitching isn’t complicated. Um, we’ll give it a try. I’d appreciate it. And before I go, I’m gonna let you know about a couple other projects that I have going on. So. Number one, I am about 50% done. Two books. One is, um, a book for parents and yeah, and it’s essentially the life cycle of any of them, young athletes.

So it’s in three parts and it’s for parents who haven’t played sports themselves, or even for parents that have it’s, this is what you should potentially do to build your son or daughter’s passion for the game. And how, you know, I think, um, you should encourage them and some of the things that you should and should not do to really foster a love of the game and a good work ethic and help them along in their sport.

Section two is how to get along harmoniously with coaches and recruiters and what to do and what not to do, and when to let your kids start to break away and take care of themselves. And then part three is sort of the sit back and watch phase, which is probably either high school sports or college sports, or maybe pro sports.

But there’s a point. Yeah, parents you’re done and you’ve got to watch your kid fail. You’ve got to watch him or her become miserable because of how hard their sport is. You’re going to have to watch your kid become incompetent at their sport, because if your kid gets the chance to play D one sports. A lot of kids who played D one sports, don’t get to see the field or they get a couple of limited chances and they hit one 80 and they’re done, and their career ends that way.

And it’s really hard for everyone involved to watch, you know, a young man or young woman who’s put her heart and soul into a sport. Hit her and competence point at age 19 or 20, where she just not good enough to play at that level, or he’s just not good enough to, to be, uh, on the field anymore. And also some of the things about, um, how to walk away from the game and how to help your kids walk away from the game and also how to.

To help them recognize some of the amazing things they’ve learned from their sport and what some of those things are going to help prepare them to do, um, in the real world. So that’s one of my projects and I’m excited about it. One of my other ones is, uh, a book about pitching strategy, which I think I’m.

Um, as, as much as of a plebeian of a nobody as I am in the actual scheme of baseball, I think few people actually poised to write the very detailed pitching strategy book that I’m working on. And it’s in part because I’m fully aware of how difficult it is. Like I’m a very. Easy writer. When I wrote my first book, pitching hands and complicated, I wrote it in six weeks and it just like poured out and I just like hammered it.

This book is a slog it’s really difficult. It’s really difficult to break down. All the different scenarios in which you might throw a change up all the different ways in which a Oh one count is different than a one, one count all the different ways in which, you know, pitching with a runner on third is different than pitching a with runners on second and third, and this book is breaking down.

Lots and pretty much all, I mean, all the word all is certainly not accurate, but a lot of the mental and strategic side of pitching it’s, it’s everything that’s not physical about. Pitching is essentially going to this book. And again, for me being a very capable writer, this book is extremely challenging for me.

And it’s a subject that I know very, very well. And that’s why I think. There’s probably not many other people who would either even think to do it. Number one, um, would have the platform where they’d want to do it because financially, unless someone’s paying you a significant amount of money to write a book, which no, whatever pay you, significant amount of money to write up a baseball book.

Um, the question is what’s the payoff from my investment. And it takes, so this book is just taking so much organization and, um, yeah, rewriting and, uh, it’s just, it’s extremely difficult to pull out of your brain and actually make it make sense on paper and flow logically. Um, a lot of the situational stuff that happens in baseball.

So that’s what I’m doing. Um, I’m looking. Hopefully finishing one of the two within six months, but we’ll see. And then I have, um, two more that I’m not going to mention. Cause they’re so new that it’s just not worth mentioning, but, um, two other projects that I’m excited about that we’ll see how they start to materialize, but the goal for me and my process is, uh, sort of just starting it and seeing what happens and how easily it flows out and then kind of going from there.

So. That’s kind of what the future holds for me, but anyway, I appreciate you being here for the 100th episode of dear baseball gods. This is a long one. I know it’s three times longer than the typical episode that I’m putting out my typical format today, but I think that’s okay. So appreciate you being here and hopefully for the next 100.

Well, that’s it for today’s episode of dear baseball gods. If you enjoy the show and would like to support me while improving your baseball IQ by one of my books were enrolled today in an online pitching course, sign up for any of my courses, do the links in the show notes and save 20% with code baseball gods, just for being a listener.

My online courses, walk you through pitching mechanics, strategy, learning new pitches and mental skills training their start to finish an amazing solution for pitchers, parents and coaches who want step by step instruction pitching isn’t complicated. My first book is a thorough pitching manual with strategy pitch, script, mechanics, mindset, routines, and other high level pitching concepts.

Not sure what your son is in for. He falls in love with the game. Dear baseball gods. The book is my memoir, a story of growing up in the game, persevering through injuries and setbacks and struggling with identity. When I finally had to clean out my locker by a copy today via the links in the show notes available in paperback, Kindle, and audio book.

If you just can’t get enough of my voice, be sure to subscribe to my weekly email list where you’ll get updates on all my new videos and episodes. Nearly 4,000 people get my emails and you should to sign up through the link in the show notes. Lastly, who do you know, who can use some good advice? Please share this podcast with a friend, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to my YouTube channel where you’ll find this podcast and hundreds of baseball, instructional videos.

I’m Dan Blewett and I’ll see you next time. .