The Daily Stoic - MLB Pitcher Scott Oberg on Overcoming Adversity with Stoicism | Will You Answer the Call?

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and launches the pre-order for his new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave which you can check out at https://dailystoic.com/preorderToday���s interview with MLB relief pitcher Scott Oberg focuses on how an athletes career can be cut short in an instant, how Stoicism has helped Scott overcome physical and mental adversity, and why maintaining a positive outlook is important not only for yourself but for those around you. DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing everything you need so much easier. Get your DECKED Drawer System at Decked.com/STOIC and get free shipping.Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com/stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.Streak is a fully embedded workflow and productivity software in Gmail that lets you manage all your work right in your inbox. Streak gives you tools for email tracking, mail merges, and snippets to save time and scale up your email efficiency. Sign up for Streak today at Streak.com/stoic and get 20% off your first year of their Pro Plan.Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. They are a direct-to-consumer company, no middleman so you get premium fabrics, trims, and techniques that other brands simply cannot afford. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc and enter code STOIC to receive 15% off your purchase.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Scott Oberg: InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic podcasts early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each weekday we bring you a Meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace in wisdom in their actual lives. Will you answer the call? Courage. It's always been in short supply, but today we're in

need of it more than ever. Because courage is that powerful force which enables us to overcome obstacles to fight for what's right, to serve others, to drive change, and ultimately to become who were truly meant to be. From the ancient Spartans to the civil rights movement, from pioneering scientists to mold-breaking CEOs, from Charles de Gaulle to Florence Nightingale, there is no greatness that is not rooted in bravery and sacrifice. Just look at the history of Stoicism, Xeno carrying on after a devastating shipwreck, building a new philosophy from scratch. Cato, battling, Julius Caesar, Rutilius, Rufus, braving, a false prosecution with dignity

and poise. Thrasia, defying Nero, Marcus Aurelius, sharing absolute power with his brother. George Washington, signing his potential death warrant to form a new nation, Stockdale's effort to cultivate a culture of resistance against his captors in a POW camp. It's long been held that there are two types of courage, physical and moral. Physical courage is the stoic in battle. Moral courage is the stoic fighting the silent internal battle against the forces of corruption

and cowardice to do what is right or to speak an unpopular truth. But in reality, these two conceptions of courage are closer together than you think. As I write in my new book, Courage is Calling Fortune Favors, the bold courage at its core is about putting your ass on the line for something, for someone, literally, figuratively, financially, perhaps even fatally. This tradition of courage, the one we have studied here now for half a decade at Daily Stoic, is in danger. Cowardists of all types, political, corporate, artistic, cultural, are endemic. People are afraid to take risks.

They're afraid to follow their own path in life. They're afraid to do what's right. And this is not good. And it's more than just social criticism. It is an Urgent threat must one point out the writer and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn one said that from ancient times a decline Encourage has been considered the first symptom of the end Well, it doesn't need to be this way, because courage isn't rare like some natural resource, something that must be mined or refined. It's there

within reach, within all of us. In fact, it's reaching out to all of us right now. Courage calls to each person differently at different times and different forms. But in every case it is, as they say, coming from inside the house, will you answer? Can you be brave enough to try? I hope so. And I'm so excited to announce that my newest book Courage is Calling, Fortune Favours the Brave, is available for pre-order. It goes on sale September 28th, but you can pre-order it now. We have all sorts of awesome bonuses that I want to tell you about, but look, it's been my great honor to write this daily email to you all every day since the summer of 2016. And if you've gotten anything out of it, if you enjoy my writing at all, I'd love for

you to consider picking up a copy. We have a bunch of cool preorder bonuses, as I was saying, among them is something I've never given away. These are signed numbered pages from the original manuscripts of the book. I have one on my wall from Stephen Presfield's Gates of Fire. It's a prized possession of mine. If you'd like to check out the book and preorder it, I've got a bunch of things to make it worth your while. We even have signed copies as well. You can learn more about that at dailystilic.com slash pre-order. You can pre-order the book in any form, audio, digital, physical, sign, unsigned.

You can buy from your local independent bookstore. You can buy from my bookstore. You can buy it unaudible. You can buy anywhere books or sold. But if you go to dailystilic.comcom slash preorder and order courage is calling fortune favors the bold you've got a bunch of preorder bonuses there for you I really hope you support the book it comes out next month but if you could support it that would be awesome courage is calling I hope you answer hey it's Ryan Holiday welcome to another episode of the Daily Stillestoke podcast. It's sort of an interesting story to open today's episode. I got sent a link about two months ago.

For an article for writer for the Rockies, the baseball team, I named Jack Etkin was talking about how he had asked one of the players, Scott Oberg, a relief pitcher for the Rockies, he'd asked him for a signed baseball for his daughter, which as he opens the piece, he says, it's sort of an unwritten rule in sports that you don't do that. You don't abuse your press privileges to ask for autographs or favors or whatever from the athletes. But he had a very good reason for doing this.

He'd written a long story about Scott and about how Scott had experienced some blood clots in his right arm and it had jeopardized his career. And the reason that this came up is that not only did Scott suffer from this, but he'd suffer from some arthritis early in his career, but basically a bunch of medical issues. At one point in college, as he talks about in today's interview,

he was walking with a cane as a 20 year old. He had to walk with a cane. And the reason that this struck the writer is that his daughter, also near 16, was dealing with crippling arthritic pain. And so he reached out. He thought that even though his daughter's not really a baseball fan, he thought this might be meaningful

to her as they sort of share this medical journey. And he said, yeah, sure, Scott said, yeah, sure, I'll do it. And so he asked for it, but then like some time went by, he didn't get the book and he wondered if it wasn't, like if you forgot about it, if he'd been pissed off, it was sort of a kiss off, and then Scott shows up with this ball. And it wasn't just a sign ball.

As the writer is saying, he thought there'd be the ball would say, best saying, he thought there'd be the ball. It's the best wishes, you know, Scott. And with a signature, but instead, it was covered in writing. And as he writes, he says, the ball was dated 91916 with a greeting to Julia, signed Scott Oberk 45. And it said, these are a few passages that have helped me when faced with adversity.

Best of luck and I will be thinking of you. Now on one side of the ball, it said, just remember, you can endure anything your mind can make indurable by treating it as in your interest to do so. And that quote might strike you as familiar because it comes to us from Marcus Aurelius, and that's book 10 of meditations. And then on another portion of the ball, and this is what really floored me. It says, excellence is a matter of steps. The process is about finishing those steps.

Even mammoth tasks become just a series of component parts. And then it says, Ryan Holiday, the obstacle is the way. So it's just so blown away. Here's a guy I've seen play on TV before, not only doing this, you know, generous, nice favor for a young fan, but that he not only read my books, but he'd read the original Stelx, and here he is passing along the advice of Marcus Realius to this young person who's dealing with this painful condition. I just love that so much that I reached out to another friend of mine, Steve Gilbert,

who runs this amazing daily email called Win Your Day, which I've gotten for a number of years as popular in sports. Steve is a beat writer for the Diamondbacks. And I said, hey, is there any chance that you might be able to put me in touch with either the writer of that piece or Scott himself? And he did.

And here we are with today's interview. It was a wonderful honor to be able to interview Scott. Scott is currently with the Colorado Rockies in Major League Baseball. He played at the University of Connecticut. He was drafted in 2012 in the 15th round. He's gone up and down the majors a bunch of times, but he is again struggling with this blood clot issue. And still has put together a pretty incredible career. He's won 18 games in the major leagues through the 2019 season. But as we talked about in today's interview, what's made it more impressive is the role as he's trying to get back into the game, trying to get cleared medically just what a wonderful

teammate he's become. We talk about that. And that dovetails nicely with one other sort of shared connection that Scott and I have, which I opened the interview with. Chris Bosch, who I did this great book, Chris Bosch, who I did this, I was fortunate enough to be able to work on this book Letters to a Young Athlete with, also had his career

significantly impacted, in his case, permanently cut short by blood cuts, so I connected the two of them and they're talking. So, Scott is an incredible dude. I think you're really going to like this interview. I was so excited to bring it to you Do check out Chris's book letters to a young athlete and Enjoy and you can follow Scott on Instagram. He's Scott Oberg 45 send him some encouraging words perhaps and Watch him do what he does

Talk to y'all soon send him some encouraging words perhaps and watch him do what he does. I'll talk to you all soon. I thought I would open with a passage. I know I sent you this book, but a passage from this book I did with Chris Bosch that sort of remind me of your situation and I wanted to from this book I did with Chris Bosch that sort of remind me of your situation and I wanted to, I wanted to get your thoughts. Okay, so Chris is quoting from this quote that passed around the internet, people attribute it to the movie Sandlot, but it's not in the movie Sandlot. But it says, at some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time and nobody knew it.

And Chris says, my last game in the NBA was against the Spurs on a Wednesday night in February. We didn't win. We didn't play particularly well. It was a pretty ordinary day and an ordinary season in the history of the league. All I was thinking about was getting the team good enough to make a run for a championship after the All-Star game. The Braun and Lefton was defending the Eastern Conference

title with the Caves. I think we had this stuff. I think we could have done it. What a series that would have been one for the ages, but it was not to be. In the winter of 2015, the doctors found a blood clot in one of my lungs. I thought it was just one of those small health setbacks. Any athlete has to deal with from time to time. I took some time to recover and finished out the season, but of course he would never play again, right? Talk to me about this idea of you think your career, your life is going along in a certain direction and then suddenly you get a not to be, not to use the pun, but life through as you curveball.

Sure, yeah, no, I mean, you know, I think we're still holding out some hope, but you know, with that passage that you just read, I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there certainly burning a lot of similarities to the situation I'm going through. It's interesting now that I reflect on the last game that I have, that I played at the major league level. When was that? It was, I don't remember the exact date. It was in August of 2019.

Early August against Miami, I went in, I closed the game out, I got the save. You know, that's really what was on my mind at the time. We were kind of struggling a little bit. So it was, hey, let's continue to finish the season out strong as a team collectively. And we'll take it into the off season and we'll build from there. And, you know, I just remember that I think it was maybe the next day or later that night or whatever it was, just like my arm felt heavy. It was very similar to some of the symptoms that I'd had in the past. So, I kind of knew right away that there was an issue going on that needed to be addressed

and all the other surgeries that I had had previously, because at that time it was my third blood clot in my arm. And we thought we kind of had an under control to a certain degree. And then this one, like you said, it just, you know, throws you another curveball. So I think that's really interesting. I want to talk about all that, but something that you brought up, I think, is worth diving into there for a second.

There's this interesting thing, I think, with all athletes and all driven people, right? Which is that your body or your mind is your tool, right? And so you have to listen to it. You have to be very much in tune with it. And yet, you wouldn't have gotten where you've gotten if you didn't also regularly ignore and push through pain. Right? So there's this interesting tension between like,

my arm feels heavy, but I'm gonna gut it out. And my arm feels heavy. I gotta take this seriously for both my health as a human being, but also my long-term career interests. Right, right. And, you know, there always seems to be, and I'm sure it's across other sports too, where there's this adage between knowing the difference between whether you're sore or whether you're

hurt. Oh, sure. And it seems that, yeah, like, you know, if you're sore, it's like, all right, well, that's just the body recovering and you're gonna be all right You can push through those and even even the very first time that that all of this had happened to me It was very it was very confusing. I had felt like some forearm tightness. I'm like, okay, maybe it's just that time of the year You know, maybe let's let's get in the trainers room and you know, let's have the guys work on me a little bit and see what happens and then it got to the point where I was losing blood and the blood

wasn't rushing back to my middle finger. I'm like, okay, well this is different. This isn't what I've ever seen in my life before. Maybe this is something we have to address. But you're right. There's plenty of times and instances where you almost have to go to another level mentally to kind of overcome some of those aches and pains or soreness or whatever it might be in the middle of competition or in the middle of season or what have you. I remember hearing a story about Cal Ripkin when he was going through his His streak where he was having some really bad chronic like nerve issues in his back

And the doctor said that it wouldn't get any worse if he kept playing and I can only imagine How agonizing that must have been and then I got to a certain point in the season and the pain dissipated Yeah, and then he just continued continued on in the season and the pain dissipated. Yeah. And then he just continued on in the streak and went from there. And it's just like, wow, the human body and the human mind are really truly capable of amazing things when we just really go through these things. No, that is the tension. And I'm writing about Lou Garrag in the book that I'm working on now.

And it is true. Like anyone who's ever pushed through pain knows that at some point it does like just go away, except when it doesn't. So like how do you know, right? That's, it's like you push and it works for you, but you can almost be learning a pretty wicked lesson, which is one of those times

it's going to be your knee was warning you and you ended up blowing it out. Right, right. And that's where in the situation that I was in, it was almost fortunate that I had a lot of the same symptoms every time that this medical this medical issue kind of kept coming up, where at least I knew that this is what feels normal and this is what doesn't feel normal. And the telltale signs are always there, the warning signs are there.

And this is not something that we can push through. This is something that we have to address. We have to get the attention of the medical staff. And if it has to be, then, we're on our way to the hospital to spend a few nights there. And that's understanding that difference and understanding intrinsically what your body is capable of doing versus what, when it's time to say,

all right, we need to take a step back and reevaluate some things. It's kind of the tricky part of of being in athletics, especially at such a high level where there's a lot more pressures. There's other factors that come into play. Sure. And sometimes guys are, they want to just keep pushing because it's like, hey, I've worked my entire life to get to this position. I'm not going to just sit it out or think that I'm being weak mentally or physically or whatever it may be. And sometimes guys have to push through it and sometimes they cross that line

and then they're hurting themselves even worse. So. No, I think about that as a writer, right? There's like today. I was, I started out okay and then it just wasn't working and it's this tension between, am I just not feeling it today? Or is this one of those days where pushing through

gets you to the other side of something? And then there's this other question sort of hovering above it, which I imagine you feel in the professional level of sports, where you're like, this is not a profession where you can just only work when you feel like it. You know, like this is, if this was about like only when you're having fun, only when you're inspired, like you're an amateur, a professional is somebody who shows up and

works whether they're feeling it or not, right? And I think it's all of those things in a balance that makes it so hard to know whether to rest or push, whether you're sore or hurt. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, even just I think in the baseball sense, it doesn't seem to matter too much whether you're a position player or a relief pitcher. The starting pitchers seem to kind of just, you know, they have their schedule, they have their five-day routine, and, you know, even them, it's like, hey, look, like, you know, they might get to a bullpen session, and it's like, hey, I'm not feeling all that great, but, you know, let's maximize what I have this particular day, and that I

think ends up being what a lot of guys end up doing. They know that internally, it's like, hey, maybe my mind's not here, or maybe I'm not as motivated. Maybe I've been playing a lot recently, sometimes, hey, I've pitched eight out of the last 10 days out of the bullpen. I'm not feeling that great, but I still have a job to do. And when the manager makes his phone call, it's like, hey, look, you know, we gotta make the most out of everything that we have. You gotta go to the office and get to work.

100%, 100%, even in the off season, when it's like, you know, you're by yourself, you're training, you're doing all the work, you know, I live in the Northeast, so it's very cold. And it's like, yeah, man, you know, it could be really Northeast, so it's very cold. And I'm like, yeah, man, you know, it could be really easy for me to just not do this today, but this is my job and things that I'm going to do today are going to have that effect six months from now. You know, but I think the older I've gotten, I've also kind of learned that,

you know, the times where I'm not mentally, physically, you know, exactly where I want to be, it's like, okay, those are the days where I got to work smarter and not harder. Yes. And it seems like, I'm still going to get some sort of a benefit out of this training session or out of this throwing session or whatever it may be, but I'm going to get the most out of what I got on that particular day. Well, that was something I wanted to ask you about, this idea of being intentional, which I think is, and I want to go back to the blood clot thing, but I was reading something where

a manager sort of pulled you aside and talked about sort of being more intentional in practice. And I wonder if that's sort of how you kind of thread this needle, which is like, look, some days you're just at 100%. So you do everything at 100%. Some days you're not. So you focus on like, where can I make a little bit like, what am I focusing on today? What's the most important thing today? How can I get some benefit out of this workout? Is that sort of what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And there'll be times I can recall where I've been pitching

in games where I'll warm up in the bullpen. And I don't really feel like my body's moving as fast as I want it to, or I don't feel like my fastball is where it could be at. The days where I feel like, hey, I feel great. Here it is. I got the high velocity fastball. It becomes a little bit easier to pitch.

The other days where it's like, I'm not really sure. Some doubt starting to creep in a little bit. And now I kind of really have to narrow my focus as to the location of my pitches. And those are the times where I almost find those to be, you know, those are the most challenging, but, you know, when you come out successful during those times, you know, to me, it just, it kind of reiterates that, hey, look, you know, yeah, I'm going to have days where I'm not, you know, 100%, but if I can redirect my focus and I really have to focus my slider in this particular area

of the plate or with this particular batter, I really have to focus and put my pitches in better spots. And at that point, I'm not really so much worried about what the velocity on the scoreboard says and more so about being deliberate with my pitches and being intentional. And now I'm gonna, there's another kind of adage where you get guys that are throwers and guys that are pitchers.

Oh, what's the difference? So to me, the guys that are throwers, it's like you get all kinds of guys that are throwing 97, 98, they don't really have a clue to where it's going, whatever pitch the catcher puts down. It's like, oh, slide, okay, I'll throw that pitch and it just kind of ends up wherever. The guys that are pitchers are kind of,

you can see the attack that they're trying to instill upon the batter. You can see the game plan. You can see how they recognize how to play a pitch off of another pitch and set or hit her up or they throw a fastball in one area. It's like, okay, look, like, you know, maybe I can throw a slider right off of that pitch and he's going to think it's a fastball because I just threw the pitch before in that same area and those are the days where, you know, to me, it's more of an art form when you're out there and you move the base

through our round and get a lot of movement. And people love to talk about Greg Maddox in this way because his whole thing was about execution. He didn't really necessarily care about how hard he was throwing or who the batter was up there. He was solely focused on executing his game plan, executing his pitches. So I think sometimes where I'm not feeling

at my full capacity, it's like, okay, we might have to reevaluate things a little bit, take a slightly different approach, and pitch to very specific areas, so that way I can be successful and help my team win that day. Sure. No, it's funny how timeless this stuff is. I was reading something not that long go about Socrates and Socrates was having this discussion about sort of courage and endurance

and whether endurance was a virtue. And he says it's too simple to say that endurance is a virtue because what if you're enduring in the wrong thing, right? Like this idea of when do you keep going, when do you pull back, you know, when do you got it out, when do you rest? So I'm curious for you, you know, it wasn't just this one instance two years ago where you have the blood clot, this has been an ongoing medical issue for you. And I suppose at some point, you understand, inevitably you will have to make the decision as all people do at some point in any career.

Why not quit, right? Like how do you decide to keep going to try to come back versus I've had my run, life is telling me that it's come to an end. Like, how do you know when to walk away and when to keep trying? Man, that's, I think that's the million dollar question right there, you know, and I think sometimes people want to ignore that little voice in their head that might be telling them it's time to walk away. And, you know, maybe they do some more damage or, you know, maybe they persevere and maybe they get through it.

You know, we've had a guy, Daniel Bard, who had pitched with the Red Sox for a long time, back in mid-2000s. And he'd been on the shelf for a while, and he had some his own medical issues. He was out of the game for a little bit. He kept his arm in shape, and then last year he made a comeback and he made our club at a spring training. And it was a pretty truly incredible story, because you see a guy that could easily walk away and be okay. He's got his family, he's got his kids, and it's got a nice life. But they're still part of them that was, I think, curious as to if he could still do it.

I think his situation definitely a little bit different than mine where it might be, it may not even be up to me. It may be the medical people telling me that hey look, this is time, any further you go, you might be doing significant long-term damage. And we're still trying to find some of those answers out. But... So Liberty feuds are high stakes. and we're still trying to find some of those answers out. But...

Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us?

The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Disenthal wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondering app.

That's sort of the story of Tommy John too, right? Like, you know, experimental surgery brings him back, but then, you know, he should be at the end of his career then he somehow makes the Yankees again. It's kind of a paradox, right? Because you don't get to where you get in any of these elite professions, if you're always listening to the safe thing or the odds or conventional wisdom, and yet

inevitably, you do have to yield to reality at some point. And then it's hard to know what that is because then you have the story you you're just talking about you also have you know Carmelo Anthony or you have these these players who manage to have this sort of second or third fourth act to their career And then you don't know is that ego to identify with it or is that actually you know an inspiring Mark's realist is like if it's humanly possible, know that you can do it, it's hard to know whether it's humanly possible or you're just fooling yourself. Sure, sure.

And I think, I think almost anybody at a high level, whatever profession they're in, you know, along the way, they've taken fairly significant risks in some regard and some aspect that kind of propelled them to get to the level that they're at. And I think some people that get to this level have been successful in those risks and other people, maybe they haven't been successful or maybe they get a little timid by the risk, or they don't maybe necessarily understand or, you know, trying to think what was my dream, I thought a little bit, but.

No, I think I get it. What I was gonna say too, you mentioned Cal Ripken's streak, what I think's fascinating about that. To the original streak, you go to Lou Gehrig. You know, Lou Gehrig tore the last sort of two years of his career. He wasn't Lou Gehrig, and we don't, but he couldn't tell if that was something wrong with him, or if he was just going through a slump, because slumps are such a weird part of baseball, unlike, like, basically other sports. So it's like, you know, how do you do you know, like as a writer, like let's say I put out a bad book or

two bad books or three bad books, how do I know that that's not just the law of averages working like working its way out. You know, you flip a coin enough times, you're going to get some weird patterns. It's, I mean, I guess it's the, it's not even the million dollar question. It's like the question is like, how do you know? Are you struggling? Are you falling short? Is this finally your time coming up or is this just, you know, adversity to get over?

Right, right. And everybody's level at which, you know, they're either struggling or whatever, it's gonna be different for everybody. And I think that's what makes it so amazing and so unique and so special when you see guys that do overcome that and they do persevere and they kinda get over that hump. And you know, other guys, you know, maybe it's,

maybe it is the right, right decision to step away because they're the only people that really know how their body's feeling or what the doctors are telling them or you know, just, you know, the amount of suffering almost that they're willing to endure to get over that hump, to get to, you know, kind of see that light at the end of the tunnel a little bit. And yeah, baseball is very unique in that sense where, you know, some guys are very streaky

and, you know, even just that baseline, you know, if you're successful 30% of the time, you're going to be a great player. You know, they're in the street in the world that's gonna have that kind of an outcome. Yeah, well, and that was interesting about Lugera, which I didn't understand. So when he finally walks into the manager and says, like, look, you know, put somebody else in,

I'm out, streaks over, the manager goes, why, what are you talking about? And he goes, well, I was talking, you know, he's like, I hit me when I was talking to So-and-so yesterday. And the manager's like, what did he say? You know, he's gonna go like ring this guy's neck, thinking that, you know, someone was trying to bully one of the greats of all time into retirement.

And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Basically, Lou Garrick had caught a ground ball, right? Like just a simple ground ball.

And the guy was so nice and he was like, oh my God, great job. Like, congratulations. And that was when he said, that's when I knew I wasn't me anymore when I was getting sympathy from the second basement or whatever it was, right? And I liked that as sort of a metric. It wasn't that it wasn't that he didn't think,

it wasn't, it wasn't that he'd given into the criticism, it was the opposite. He sort of had the self-awareness to like zoom out and see himself in the perspective of the game and go, what I'm doing isn't fair. Yeah, I'm holding the team back. And that's why he walks away. But what I think so interesting about your story,

I was just reading about this, you really have, and this is how we connected over the obstacles away. But it seems like you've really taken on a different role with the team while you haven't been able to play, that's not only probably challenged you in a variety of ways, but created an opportunity for you that maybe you would have been too busy or too competitive or not had the confidence to do at another part in your career. I'm talking about sort of becoming like

I'm gonna say a mentor, but becoming like a resource inside the clubhouse for the players who can step out on the field Yeah, yeah, no, and that's and that's kind of something where you know if you know certainly done a lot of reflection upon the situation that I'm internally and You know it basically kind of came down to me being like, okay, this year is probably out of the question. But it's more about, I can sit here and wallow and stuff, pity, and feel bad for myself and whatever else.

Or I can, let's see what else is out there. Let's see what kind of opportunities this leads to. What kind of doors is this open? You know, how can I still be productive and help this team as much as I can? At least from the outside, I know that I can't physically help them on the field and the scoreboard on the stat sheet. But, you know, can I take a guy aside, put my arm around him, and be like, hey, look, I understand where you're coming from.

And show him a video of the exact same situation that he was just in. Or I'm also our team's players association representative. So I have that that's going on right now. So I'm trying to lead on that on that side of things and kind of take the burden away from from another player that you know would have to be fully ingrained into the into the longevity of the season and you know you can get lost in your world during during the major league season just because it's in your own world during the major league season, just because it's in totality, you're looking at a seven-month season where the guys in the clubhouse and the coaching staff and the people around just naturally become your second family

and you spend more time with them than you do your real family and your immediate family. So it's easy to kind of get lost into what you're doing on the field and some of the other things, they kind of go by the wayside, you know they're there, but it's not the primary focus. So to me, it was more of a, hey, where can I take a step back? Where can I take a look from a 10,000 foot view of things and where can I help out? What areas are needed where I can lend a voice or pick up the torch somewhere else, and that's what I've been doing

is just kind of getting my feet wet and all kinds of different things, but also just trying to help some of the guys and give them some of the knowledge that I have, because I've been around for a little bit of time where I feel like I can help maybe speed up the learning curve a little bit that took me a little bit longer to figure out because I had to go through a lot of failure on and off the field. And I think that's what people don't quite understand about that expression, the obstacle is the way. It's not that you can magically make

some crappy situation wonderful or that merely by pushing through and throwing your full weight at something, you can get through it, right? No amount of hard work is going to address your blood clot issue, right? No amount of hard work is going to address, you know, your blood clot issue, right? That's like a thing that's up to the medical gods, right? Right. Right.

But what you can do, and I think this is what I think is inspiring about your story, is that door is closed or temporarily closed, but that doesn't mean the window over here isn't open. So when Marx really is really saying is that nothing can stop you from practicing one of the virtues, right? You're the virtue of endurance, for instance, might be closed off to you, but the virtue of being a good teammate, which I guess we put under the bucket of justice, is now open to you in a way that wasn't open when you had to be 100% focused on how you were going to pitch in today's

game. Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree with all of that. And, you know, it's funny too, you know, It's not like, it's not as if we're out searching for obstacles to overcome, to strengthen and callous our mind or whatever else. It's just, you know, life's got nothing to say. They bring them, they bring them. Exactly, right.

Right, exactly. And even for me, I think not that it's easy in any regard or any sense, but I think this, you know, I think maybe part of the reason why it, you know, your book and a lot of what the Stokes have to say about adversity becomes very natural to me and very easy and understandable. And it just kind of clicks with me is, you know, I'm not foreign to

Medical hardship or just adversity in general You know, I'd gone through a few things in college that I you know Not too many 20-year-olds are going through, but What was that? It was I had been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis And it affected it was it was actually right after Phil Mickelson, that got diagnosed with the exact same, with the same autoimmune disease. And it was to the point where it was, it was affecting my feet and my toes specifically. So I had the hardest time just walking around campus, even, you know, getting out of my bed in the morning. You know,

I remember I had a cane right next to my bed in the 20 year old in college. In college. In college, I'm using this, I'm using this, this darn cane to get around my apartment just to, you know, just, just to kind of get moving a little bit to loosen up the joints a little bit. You know, and it took, it took a full semester

to get the medicine right and to get everything squared away. And then as soon as that happened, I started training and started getting ready for the season. And I ended up blowing my elbow out and having to have Tommy John's surgery. So it was like my entire junior year of college was just like even going back to the summer going into that year. It was just kind of one long, you know, beat down where, you know, it was just seemed to be one thing after another, and it just really started to kind of make me understand, you know, how fragile things are, and, you know, maybe try to see the best of the circumstances that I'm in, and, you know, what directions can I go in, and, you in and how can we overcome these things. To me, that was

the foundation that built me and almost got me ready for these types of situations because outside of Krishbosh, I don't know how many other athletes have gone through multiple blood clots before. Although it's not a given though, right? Like, plenty of people go through medical adversity or, you know, have some sort of bit of difficulty in their personal lives and their professional life or whatever, it doesn't invariably make them a better teammate, right? You, I guess, walk me through your thinking like, is it that focusing on helping some other guy showing him some clips? Is that a way of taking your mind off what you're going through? Is it about wanting to be valuable to the team? Is it about, like, I guess what I'm saying is I understand it,

but I also understand that it's not the direction that everyone goes for. Often when we're going through stuff, all we can think about is our own crap. Right. Yeah, no. I think it's a combination of a few things where I hold this game in such a high regard. When I first got called up, I had some really, really great veteran leadership in the bullpen. I was around the Troy Hawkins who had spent, oh, I know him. Damn, damn near 20 years in the big leagues. Yeah, he, he, he, uh, he and I have talked a handful of times.

He's a, he's a big hunter. Yeah, yes, yes, he is. Um, and I mean, he was great to me in my rookie year. And he was awesome. I mean, between him, I had another guy named John Axford, another guy named Adam Otabino. And those guys really took care of me and really helped me along the way.

And to me, it's more about like, you know, how can I pay it forward? How can I respect the game, you know, you know, within the baseball circles, and I'm sure it's in every other sport too, you know, it's all about respect for the game itself. And, you know, if you treat the game well, the game will treat you well. You know, so that's kind of part of, you know, why I think I want to help guys. I want to do the same for the younger guys that older guys did for me when I was first coming up. And it also goes to, how can I treat value for the club while I can't physically do

it on the field. But if I can help a younger pitcher out or whatever it may be, get them thinking a little bit different about a situation, maybe that'll speed up his career a little bit. Maybe in a month or two or a year from now, that little seed that I just gave him, it'll click and it'll make sense and now he's going to have be successful in his own right. And maybe 10 years. A little bit.

Well, and maybe 10 years down the line, he'll be going through, or she will be going through something in their career and see someone else, and they'll, it creates that sort of chain of not quite multi-generational impact, but it's about creating a chain of doing the right thing. Sure, sure, yeah, exactly.

And to me, that even goes back to, you know, just some of those values that were instilled upon me when I was a kid, through my parents, and through my family. And, you know, I don't think that that's necessarily, that's necessarily lost on me as an adult now, where even if I'm going through a hard time, that's fine, but how can I still help the people around me get better? Especially in a team type of atmosphere where, you know, it's very competitive and, you know, I just want to see the best for the guys because I know how hard it is to get to this level, to stay at this level and then to be successful at this level.

You know, it's almost kind of three variations to climb the pillar, to get to where you want to get to, you know, it's, you know, just physically getting to the big league level is one thing and then sticking around for a few more years is another thing and then to be really successful and playing all certain games and things like that, that's a complete, you know, elite level of the game which, you know, ideally we're all trying to aspire to. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like.

It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight.

Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early, and add free on the Amazon, or Wondery app. But don't you find it is also a way to help yourself? Like I find when I'm going through crap or I'm really sort of difficult,

I'm consumed with my own thoughts or anxiety or frustrations or troubles when you focus on somebody else, not only do you forget about your problems for a while, but you may end up opening up a new door or opportunity or way of thinking about your own problems that does in fact help you. Yeah, I think so.

I think in a roundabout way, I think it does, kind of ease of suffering a little bit. And I've heard this before too, the best way to make sure that you understand certain material or certain principles or foundations or whatever it may be is to be able to articulate it to somebody else so that they can understand what it is that you're talking about. And I've finally... Yes. what it is that you're talking about. And I've, you know, found myself, you know, I've been, in the past, I've always been intentional about trying to teach even younger kids, you know, get pitching lessons or whatnot. And hearing myself say the things that I believe in kind of

reinforces why I believe them or why I think that they're important. Yes, that's right. Well, Senka says, you know, we learn as we teach, which I think is true. But I also find, you know, when I was writing the obstacles away, I looked at this set of studies about lead athletes. I think they're in Canada. They were talking about post-traumatic growth versus post-traumatic injury or disorder, right? And they were saying that oftentimes the athlete may come back from the injury weaker in some way because they blew out their knee or they don't have quite the same mobility or whatever it is they put on weight. But they're better

because they've spent that time studying the game, they understand their role in the game, they appreciate their teammates, more maybe they're more connected to it. Like, I gotta imagine, let's say you come back at 100% in a year, next season, not only did you help your teammates through, you know, you contributed to your teammates, but the team will be, you will be coming back

to a stronger team where the team will be, you will be coming back to a stronger team where the players are more connected with each other because of this period. And so again, that's the idea of the obstacle being the way. Sure, yeah, no, without a doubt. And I think, you know, you just said like in a very, to me like, you know, when you mentioned appreciation, you know, I think that that's one of the things that

when the game or you know, when life kind of puts you on the sidelines for a little bit, you know, the things that you were really involved in, the things that you really enjoyed doing, you know, when you can't do them anymore, you kind of have that that that greater appreciation because now you can see it, you know, from a bird's eye view or from the sidelines or whatever metaphor you want to apply to it, but you really get that deep appreciation for how much you enjoy it, how much you see other people being successful at it.

And I think that there's like an inner drive too to be especially at times where I've had to go through some sort of a rehab process, whether it was with surgeries or whatever it else is. You have to gain taken away from you for a small period of time and I'm watching it on TV, I'm watching the dugout, or what have you. It motivates me to want to get back out there. So the things that I'm going to do with the training staff or physical therapist or whatever may be, you know, like you said, there might be some physical atrophy in the muscles, but, you know, mentally, I might be stronger, I might be better because I know I've gone

through the process and I've gone through all the steps to get back to ultimately where I want to get to. And I think that's That's where that appreciation comes in and that's where it becomes maybe a little bit more digestible to Overcome those obstacles on a on a daily basis when you know like we were saying earlier You know, you just don't sometimes you just don't feel like doing it Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned earlier the idea of pictures or throwers.

I was thinking about this when I was writing stillness. My book stillness is the key, which is probably the book I talk about baseball the most. I was talking about this idea that, and I didn't come up with it, but it's a pretty well-established fact, as you all know. As you know,, hitting a baseball is the single hardest act in professional sports, right? But part of the reason it's so hard is because people like you are on the other side, right?

You're trying to make it as hard as possible. So I'm interested in this idea. You were saying that perhaps as you're physically declining in one sense, you're also getting more strategic, more clever, better able to disguise your pitches, better able to get in the head of the batter. Is that sort of how you've seen your career arc, not just as a human being who spent time in the league,

but also as you've been battling these sort of physical obstacles that they forced you to get better mentally. Damon. You dropped off for a sec, but did you hear me? I heard up until a couple of seconds ago if you were just starting to get into All go get in the mound and okay. Yeah, yeah, so so in stillness is the key I was I probably my book I talked the most about baseball But I was referencing this idea, which I'm sure you've heard a million times, hitting a pitch in baseball is the hardest act in professional sports. But the reason it's hard is because guys like you are on the other side, right?

You're trying to make it hard. And I was curious, you're talking about pitchers or throwers. Have you seen your arc as you've gone on, as you've gotten older dealt with these physical things that you've had to get more strategic, more clever, play the psychological game as a picture? Is that sort of how you've seen yourself developing? Yeah, without a doubt. It's even just on the baseball side, outside of the medical. You know, it's even just on the baseball side outside of the medical.

You know, it's been a it's own transition, it's own transformation where no younger in my career, you know, I kind of I sped through the minor leagues a little bit quicker than what is the norm? I guess I think I was up there within three years of being drafted, especially for somebody that wasn't a very particularly high draft pick. It kind of breaks the norm a little bit. And so I got up there, and I was throwing very hard, but my command wasn't great.

My off speed pitches, they had great movement to it, but they weren't very effective because they weren't landing in the spots that it needed to get to. And the first four years of my career, I was bouncing back and forth between AAA and the big lead level because I wasn't throwing enough strikes. I was walking too many batters. You know, the Scouting Report was, hey, you know, this guy's probably going to throw four balls before he throws three strikes, so wait a minute a little bit. And then the times where I would fall behind an account, now I have to be back in the zone and that's where the damage would get done.

I'd give up a lot of doubles, a lot of home runs. And you go through those growing pains as an athlete on the field. And that was really like the first major time, extended period of time where I really failed athletically. So that's kind of almost like a tone unique shock to the system, because I think as athletes, especially guys that get to the levels they get to,

more times or not, they're kind of, they're not really as challenged as much as they probably could be until they get to the top level. And at that point, sometimes you have to take a look at the mirror and maybe change some things around. So I ended up dropping some pitches that had made me successful over the years. You know, I had been a two seam fastball and a curveball type of picture when I got up to the big leagues. And then what ended up making me successful was aseam fastball and a curveball type of picture when I got up to the big leagues and then what ended up making me successful was a four-seam fastball and I slide her. So it was almost as if you know I'm two different pictures. I mean even the times where I would watch video for myself on myself

I would almost disregard my first couple of years because you know it's like watching completely different person a completely different person, a completely different picture. I'm not going to be able to learn anything from that picture, at least within the game itself, from a standpoint like that, where if I'm trying to pick something up or how should I attack certain hitters, the person that I was, the picture that I was in 2018, 2019, was vastly different from the picture I was in 2015, 2016,

where I was throwing hard, but I had no clue where I was going. I was a thrower, so to speak. And I had to learn how to be a picture in AAA. And the last time that I got sent back down I had to learn how to be a pitcher in AAA. And the last time that I got sent back down was in 2018. I had come off a playoff experience in 2017. I thought I had kind of writing the ship a little bit and I opened up the season in April

and it was not very good. So I had to go back down to Albuquerque and readjust some things. But when I came back up, I had made all of the right adjustments. I had really put all my focus into what it was that I was trying to do. Because I knew I had the stuff.

I had the movement of the pictures. I had, you know, similarly, velocity on my fastball. And at that point, it was just a matter of really tightening everything up, narrowing the focus, getting to a point where I can be consistent with the locations of my pitches. And I think you see, I think the difference between the pitchers and the throwers or that the pitchers can really command the fastball on both sides of the play pretty much whenever they want to.

And, you know, we were talking about literally Hawkins earlier. And, I mean, one of the first things I ever asked them was I said, Hawke, what was, you know, what's made you successful? Why, you know, what is it about you that has been able to play 18, 19, 20 years at the major league level, not just professional baseball.

Right. And he's like, one, he's like, you got to, he's like, your body's a race car and you got to feel it like one. And number two, he's like, he took a home plate and he took both of his hands and he just kind of went back and forth on the corners. And he's like, you got to live on the corners in the league. What does that mean? He's like, basically, you got to put the fastball on both sides of the plate.

You got to be able to throw on the corners. There's like, you can't catch too much of the plate. Interesting. So he was really able to just go in and out, on both sides of the plate, lefties and righties, put his fastball really where he wanted to. And it took a little bit of time to figure that out and to get that, but once it did, it clicked.

And I went from a guy that was probably one of the worst relievers in the league to now I'm right up there with some of the best relievers in the league. And to me, it was just really establishing the fastball command and learning how to pitch. Right. Man, I got to follow up with Petrouille. I'm going to interview him. Right. Man, I gotta follow up with Petroën. I'm gonna interview him.

Yeah. One of the things I think must be both terrifying and clarifying about baseball is like, all of us are comparing ourselves to other people all the time, right? Do I belong? Am I good enough? Where do I measure up against people?

Baseball, and I think it's unique even among the major sports, is the way it sort of promotes and demotes people. And there's not that much stigma attached to. It's just like sort of constantly, you're going down for a few months, you're coming back up. You know, there's guys who spent years in the minors, then they come out, they have an awesome major league career. There's guys who have had awesome major lead careers

who get sort of forced down to the minors for a while. You've been talking about you going back up and back and forth. But I imagine what all those successful people have in common is their ability to be both really competitive, but also tune all of that comparison out, right? Because like, if you're like, I suck, I'm down in the minor leagues, that's going to crush your spirit and your confidence.

Also, if you're in the major leagues and you're like, I'm out of the minors forever, I'm amazing, I'm the best. That's when you get complacent. So you kind of got to focus on like your own individual journey. Right, right. Exactly. And you know, you can have that false sense of security that, hey, I'm in the big leagues, everything's great.

You know, everything's way better than the minor leagues. And you can kind of fall into that trap of, you know, what the major league level is all about. Or, you know, you can feel sorry for yourself or you can even get angry. You see, I've seen a lot of guys over the years where the bitterness kind of comes out of them once they get sent down and they're in trouble today.

And I shouldn't be here. Why is this guy getting called up over me, over me? You know, I'm gonna call it my agent. Judging that the judging the guys you're around I'm gonna call it my agent, you know, the judging, the judging the guys you're around that they're not important or cool as you. Exactly. And I think that that's, you know, I think interestingly enough, I think being intripley is actually sometimes it can be significantly harder at least mentally, especially when

you've gotten some more than just maybe a cup of coffee in the big leagues. We were going from a private plane to a bus, right? Right. Well, most, yeah, I mean, the league that we were in, there was only one bus trip, and that was to El Paso, the other were, you know, you're waking up at four in the morning to get to 430 bus, to get to connector flight, Southwest connector flight at five or six in the morning, and then, you know, you get into whatever city you're playing, sometimes you get there too early and you can't check in right away and you're playing that night. So you're just like hanging out

in the hotel lobby until it's like three o'clock and then you check in and try to take a map. Oh, and you can't tell the clock game that night. This is the life of an author on the road as well. It burns, yeah. Yeah, I can only imagine. But yeah, it's an interesting lifestyle at that AAA level. And I think if you almost have to thread the needle of, you know, you can be upset and that can be a motivator, but you can't be so upset where it distracts you from what it is that you're ultimately trying to do. And I think kind of having some humility and even encouraging and trying to help other people,

like we were talking about a little bit earlier, it kind of helps you in that situation where it's like, hey, I'm going to be happy for the guy that's going up, you know, to the big leagues instead of me. Like, you know, I have to take the approach that, you know, I'm not going to be upset if it's not me because that just tells me that I'm not ready yet. We still have more work to do. At least I was the approach that I took. Well, and think about your situation, right? So I'm sure there were moments in the minor leagues

where you're like, the socks, I hate this, I don't wanna do this anymore. But now that you're facing not being able to play again, you would kill for one inning in the minor leagues. I'm sure, right? Sure, absolutely. I would take an inning anywhere at this point. Right, a company softball game.

Sure, right, exactly. And I mean, sometimes it, you know, sometimes it drives me nuts. You know, when I see guys, it's kind of like, you know, like, hey, man, you're pissing away an opportunity here. You know, when I see guys, it's kind of like, you know, like, hey, man, you're pissing away an opportunity here. You know, just because it's like, I'm looking at it from a different perspective. Well, you know, you have the power of the stoic idea of momentum, or when you get a whiff

or a taste of what it's like for something to be gone, you see it in a fundamentally different way. I think about this with my kids all the time, you know, like they're having trouble going to sleep. I've asked them, you know, we've done the bedtime thing seven times now, like he popping out of the room. And I go, I go first off, like just in the absolute, most positive scenario, I'm gonna miss this when they're 15, right? Like, but in the absolute most positive scenario, I'm going to miss this when they're 15. Right. Right. But then the unthinkably worst case scenario, right, that all people are fragile.

I mean, we're in the middle of a pandemic. Sure. Um, I would, can I, I was like, I would never forgive myself if I wasted tonight because I assumed I have an infinite amount of these, where I got angry at them because they were interfering with me watching Netflix on the couch after they were in bed. Because what you're really doing when you're being arrogant or you're being resentful or bitter or angry or, you know, any of those things, what you are in fact doing is being not present and most likely ungrateful, right? And I think when you experience how fleeting all of it is, whether it's playing or in my case, like I just think think about when a book is kicking my ass,

I go, first off, how many people would kill to be writing a book, to have a book on their contract and be able to write it, and then too, how much did I want to kill for this opportunity that I now have, and I'm gonna put that to the side because it's not perfectly to my liking. That's awful. Right.

Yeah, and it's that constant balancing act. You know, I think when I did eventually get recalled from AAA 2018, it was like, you know, it was the perfect timing. It was like, you know, I almost instinctively knew that when I got called up, I remember exactly, you know, where I was, you know, we were in Sacramento, I was playing catch and at the river cats, at the river cat stadium. I've been to many, many river cats games. And please get smoking hot in the summer. Yeah, people asked me like, how do you put up with the heat in Texas and I go, I don't

think you actually know what Sacramento was like, man, it's not, it's not Santa Monica. Let me tell you. Oh, no, it's not. It's not San Jose. It's not San Francisco. And in the bullpen's down in Sacramento, they get little umbrellas down there. There's no coverage. You're just out there baking.

But yeah, I just remember it was like an instinctive moment. It was almost as if like, all the hard work and everything that I had just done, it finally paid off. And it was like, internally, I kind of knew that, all right, this is going to be the last time. This is it. This is going to be the last opportunity that you get at this level. And just I think just in the situation that I was in with the Rockies, and I think that

it kind of comes down to, at least in general with baseball, sometimes just the luck of the draw, right? If you were a kid that got drafted by the Yankees, well, as a shortstop and you got Derek Jeter up there, well, you're probably not going to be playing a shortstop in New York any time soon. You know, I kind of got fortunate in the sense that I got drafted by a club that, you know, is a smaller market team.

They're not really spending a whole lot of money on free agents and just the nature of pitching in altitude and Denver You know nobody's really ever been able to crack the code. I don't think anybody ever really will So to be successful consistently is very difficult to do so we're constantly having roster roster changes throughout the season and You know when I got called back up. It was just, okay, look, here it is. Here's the last opportunity. You probably wouldn't have gotten this many opportunities

with any other team. So let's take full advantage of it. You're prepared. You've done all the work. And here we go. Let's hit the ground running as soon as we get up there. Yeah. And I think sports are a room like there's such a narrow window, right?

You only get, even, yeah, someone like Detroit, 20 years, right? And I think Tommy John was like 26 seasons, right? I just had this guy Oliver Burkeman on, who wrote this book called 4,000 Weeks, which is like, that's how long the average person is alive for a thousand weeks. And we were talking about, like even really, really old people, like if you live to be 110, that's like 5,000 or 6,000 weeks. It's not like transformatively different, right? Like five years in the league, 20 years in the league,

at the end of the day, like, it's not your whole life. It's a brief window. Right. And how do you take advantage of it while you have it? Even this sort of injury period that you're in or this kind of medical limbo period you're in, it's like, that's going to be a certain percentage of your career, right? Even if you come back, that will be a chunk of your career. And I think what's impressive about what you've done is, is the decision,

which is not unlike the decision a lot of people have had to make during the pandemic. Like, it's been, it was going to be two weeks and there was two months and now it's like, knock them on the door of two years. It's like, how do you get real fucking comfortable with this uncomfortable situation and make it something? Because it is something and to not let it be something is to reject the gift, it's to reject the present moment. Yeah, yeah, no, without a doubt. And, you know, to me, you know, understanding that and diving into into your books, you know, leading me to the primary sources of where you're getting your material is really helpful. And when I was coming up through the minor leagues, you know, just because at the

time I didn't really, I hadn't gotten an iPhone until maybe 2014 or so. Oh wow. Yeah, I was kind of late to the party. I kind of pushed it off as late as I could. And I finally got one, but, you know, there was a lot of times where, you know, you're taking nothing but bus trips. So, you know, my little dumb phones I'm not gonna be able to entertain me, so I gotta read. I got nothing else to do. So diving into the sports psychology,

which kind of led me into your book, which led me into the Stoics, and it's just kind of all encompassing, and you can kind of see the ancient wisdom and kind of pairing it with the modern day academic side of things. And it's like, wow, these ideas really mesh together pretty well.

It kind of makes sense as to where they're getting their information from. And then you read the way of baseball? By Sean Green. Yes. Yeah, I remember that. It's not your good book. Unbelievable book. Another, I remember. It's not a good one. Unbelievable. Unbelievable book.

Another book I loved on baseball that Josh Boyd at The Rangers, who's actually who I met uh, Lutroy Hawkins through. Okay. Um, the biography of Sadaharu O, that book is like, is that that's not the one that he wrote. Yes, yes. It is the one he, yeah, it's like a bunch of money on Amazon, because it was like not popular. It's older, whatever. But it was like, yeah, and it's like the greatest baseball player who ever lived and nobody's ever heard of him.

Yeah, nobody has ever heard. I always try to tell people as many people as I can. You know who the real home run champion is? Yeah. I'm like, watch these highlights. This is the guy who's the first guy that did the leg kick back in the 70s. Yeah, it's an incredible story.

And then he was partly who sort of reinspired me to look at like Musashi. I don't know if you've read the book of five rings, which is like he's basically contract, because he's Japanese, he's contrasting baseball and like the sort of samurai tradition. Obviously in the West, we look at the Stoics or the Western canon, but it was so interesting to think of baseball because it's

baseball as a Western game, but to see it influenced by the Eastern tradition, and that's why I like Sean Green's book. It's so fascinating. Yeah, yeah, it really was. I mean, I haven't read it in a few years, but I just remember, you know, him bringing kind of like an eastern type of thinking, an eastern type of philosophy into the game. And I just remember, I think it was a passage where he ended up hitting like four home runs in one game in Milwaukee after he'd been like a terrible lump. Something like that.

I don't remember all the particulars, but I remember him being like, you know, he's like everything just made sense. It was just I stayed with my process and, you know, it's just emptying the mind and like sort of clear clear. I'm gonna let go. Right. Yeah, which as a picture is the exact opposite of what you want the batters to have because you're trying to, you're trying to get them to overthink it. And that's, I was thinking about that, is like, it's like, we have self-discipline,

but we, part of what we're trying to do is, or we have stillness, we have self-discipline, and we want to exploit the lack thereof in our opponents. That's like the essence of the competitive battle. Yeah, and I think to what makes the elite hitters really interesting is because they don't have any control over the timing of the situation. You know, they're constantly on the pitcher's watch.

They're constantly, it's like, hey, you gotta be ready when I'm ready. You know, that's the way it works. I got the baseball. I'm the one making the pitch. I'm the one dictating the pace. I dictate how this thing goes. And my job is to disrupt your timing.

Right. Yeah, so the skill there is flexibility, right? We think of them as these big, strong, controlled, powerful guys, which is true, and women in any sport, but really the ultimate strength, the last law and the 48 laws of power, is about formlessness.

The ability to adapt and change and hit anything. And actually, I was again, not as familiar with baseball as you obviously, but I was fascinated with the contrast between Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth basically hit all his homers in the same place and what made Lou Gehrig so dominant was like, he could hit across, you could hit it anywhere, right? And so the ability, yeah. Sorry to cut you off, but I've always like, he said fluidity and I've always thought, when I've read something from an Eastern type of philosophy,

they love using the water analogy. You know, with the fluidity and it just, that just makes so much sense to me, I think within sports with a baseball particularly. Yeah, yeah, no, it totally does because you're not it's not like running or something where it's just like do you have the skills right? It's like can you it's more like boxing or something where you're going up against uh Boxing or something where you're going up against

Somebody else who is trying their hardest to prevent you from doing whatever it is that you're doing sure Yeah, definitely Man, I'm so glad we we connected. I appreciated the kind words about the book and I'm glad I reached out and I should mention The what we got connected by. Steve Gilbert's Win Your Day email. Steve was who connected us, but I also love his, do you get his daily email? I don't, he's the beat writer with the Diamondbacks correct? He is, but he does, he does this email every day called Win Your Day. And wait, is it down? I think the website's down. So maybe I'll cut this. But anyways, I'll just say, Steve Gilbert Okay. Called Win Your Day. And, wait, is it down?

I think the website's down. So maybe I'll cut this. But anyways, I'll just say Steve Gilbert was nice enough to connect us and I'm so glad that he did. And... Yeah, me too. I've been a fan of yours for a long time. And, you know, when I think, when our beatwriter,

somebody mentioned that like, hey Ryan Holiday wants to get in touch with you. I'm like, are you serious? Well, no, it was amazing. And I'm going to tell the story about how we connected at the beginning of the episode. So people know, but I'm so glad and I'm rooting for you and.

Yeah, for sure. You know, the other thing that I didn't mention, but, you know, I've also gearing into grad school too. That was kind of part of like, oh yeah, right, I read about this. Wanna, yeah, what I've also gearing into grad school too. That was kind of part of like, Oh yeah, right, I read about this. What, yeah, what I've done. So I ended up getting into Georgetown for a sport management program.

Oh wow. Yeah, so it's, it was just one of the things where I was like, hey, look, like, you know, I can't just live and die by my athletic career. Like nobody's gonna give a shit about that. Like, oh, hey, you played in the big leagues. Great, good for you.

Like, you know, what can you do for me? Right. Well, I really thought, hey, the academic side, I gotta have, I gotta have a little bit of that to it. I read a great book a few months ago called, I came in as a shadow about Georgetown's great basketball coach. Let me just get his name.

Oh, John Thompson's incredible book. You would love it. Yeah, that would be awesome. Well, awesome, man, this is so fortunate. Let's go ahead. Yeah. I was just gonna say, like, you know, I've been trying to connect with Chris.

Um, unfortunately, just hasn't worked out yet, but. I'll, uh, you want me to follow up? Where is it in the works? Uh, he, he sent me one email. I sent one back and I just haven't heard back from him. I'm sure he's busy, but, um, you know, he would just kind of be interesting to just hear it from the horse's mouth. So it's, you know, just like, you know, all those just kind of be interesting to just hear it from the horses, my house, so to speak, you know, just like, you know, all those things that he went through.

No, you hit him up and then when this is posted, all follow up with him and bump him that you guys should connect. Okay. Dude, awesome. Seriously, hit me up anytime. And I hope we can stay in touch. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'd really enjoy that. Just had a curiosity, how far have you been from Houston? I mean, we're on our own. I am like two hours from Houston.

Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah. We're in Houston right now. Oh, yeah. That's funny. So you're traveling with the team? Yeah, I'm traveling with team. We had a two game short two game series in Houston. We're flying out tonight to go to San Francisco. You know, the other silver lining in all of this has been the amount of time I've gotten to spend with my family. I bet, man. You know, I bet I probably easily could have mentioned something like that. Just, you know, but I that's

even the whole conversation in and of itself, just how much time the game takes away from your immediate family. It's the same thing for me. I just think about where would I have been? I would have been on the road so much. And instead, I've spent half my youngest son's life at home, like every single day. Like, it's a credible gift. Yeah, I mean, you know, and it sucks for me, it's like, this is kind of like very much like par for the course. Like, my daughter's, my daughter's turning three on Friday and she'll be in New Jersey. And I'll be in San Francisco.

It's just kind of the way it is, you know? Yeah, yeah. But because of the nature of my injury, they were in Denver for the entire first half of the season up until the All Star game. And I didn't travel with the team. So just one, just physically spending the time with my daughter who's like, you know, going through all sorts of like crazy developments at two years old and, you know, being able to help my wife on a daily basis where she doesn't feel like

she's drowning and just being by herself with the two year old. And we were starting to potty trainer. And that was the whole thing. And, you know, to me, that was just like, you know, such a blessing that it's like, okay, this really sucks. I really don't want to be in the situation. But look at all the good that's coming out at the same time. It's like, I would never be able to spend this much time with my kid and my life. It's obviously something I would never, ever, you know, great for it. No, right.

And even just like going through this first half and getting to spend, you know, even between the pandemic, between the last two years of, let's spend three years, three in a row now, of getting blood clots, I've been able to chance to get home and spend a little bit more time with them. And it's just like, you know, this time I never would have gotten otherwise.

If I'd still been playing and still been successful, you know, all my attention and focus would have been on, would have been on baseball. And even the times where, you know, maybe I'm home with them, it's like, hey, maybe I'm not mentally there, you know, maybe that present moment is kind of escaping me because my thoughts are on the game that night, or you know, whatever may be.

Yeah, it's like you want it to be over and at the same time, it's also, and you know, it's been horrible for so many people at the same time, it's given you something that or me something that I could have never even thought to have asked for. You know what I mean? Like a year and a half of not traveling. Like I would have said that's career suicide. Sure. And as valuable as it was,

I would have thought it would have been irresponsible to take that for myself, you know? But to be given it, it's a shame to waste it. Right, right, for sure. I'm actually very curious as to how, you know, about your process. For writing? Yeah, because it's just, you know,

you have so many backgrounds, so many stories, so many references, and I'm just like, where does it come from? How does this guy do it? I have no idea, like, it's just like, it's so fascinating to me. While I got you on the phone, I got ahead of it. Yeah, I had, I got ahead of it. No? I have no idea. Like it's just like, it's so fascinating to me. While I got you on the phone, I got a head. I had a head.

I got an ass. No, I could tell you all about it. Basically, I sort of, as I'm researching and reading, I'm always collecting note cards. And so, like, for the, my book about courage is just coming out in the fall. That was, you know, several years where I loosely understood, I might write a book about that someday, just also generally collecting stuff I liked. And then now I'm doing this, the sequel, which is going to be about self-discipline,

which you and I were talking about. So I'm just always collecting this material. And then as I start to get serious about the book, then I start, I just kind of look at my cards, right? Like, literally, like, as if, you know, they were dealt to me. I look at what I have, and then I start to organize them around patterns or topics that I think would make up the outline of a book, and then I have to complete where the pattern is falling apart. But this morning, I'm writing a little chapter about this sort of one of George Washington's favorite concepts he talks about, seeing everything through the calm light of mild philosophy.

So I'm on the mental side of self-discipline, you know, sort of how do you calmly look at anything and everything that happens to you. So I have about 10 note cards about this idea. Some of the note cards are like page 17, the Ron Churnow biography of Washington. And so I go get that book off the shelf and I'm like, oh, okay, there's, it's sort of, I've earmarked the raw materials.

And then today it's sort of like, can I shape this into something? Do I have enough here? So I kind of show up every day and I just try to chug away, make a little bit of progress on one small component part of the larger project, which is the book. And then at some point, I get to what feels like the end. And then I start the review process. Like, you know, then it's like, then I'm printing it out and I'm reviewing it

and refining it. And so it's, but it's really all rooted on these cards, which are kind of the building blocks of the book. Yeah. Yeah, and it's amazing to me, you know, the more people I connect with and the more books I read, it's just, you know, those patterns of just, you know, completing little processes or completing little steps

along the way, I don't know if you ever came across the, I think it was the art of learning. No. Is this the Josh Wateskin book? Yes. Yes. Yeah, okay, I know. Yeah.

And that just like, to me, it just like blew my mind that the guy can go from like elite level competitive chess to push hands competition, which he's just a complete novice and becomes a champion in that. And you know, from what I'm hearing from you too, it's like, it's just, to me writing a book sounds like such a daunting task. But it's like a series of small puzzles, right?

Just like you go, okay, like, like I'm gonna be up again, 16 batters tonight, right? And each one is its kind of its own self-contained pattern and yet, or puzzle, but yet all the puzzles are also connected with each other because how you handle batter number one, you know, relates to how batter number six is gonna face you, right? And so you're kind of just one, you know, relates to how batter number six is going to face you, right?

And so you're kind of just like, all right, here's roughly what I think I need to do to knock this guy out. And then here's what I have to do here. And then, you know, sometimes you're sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's like, you know, so some of the chat, one chapter might take an hour and a half and another chapter might take 10 days. And so it's kind of this process of just like, let's say that I kind of go in, go, look, the book's gonna be three parts,

30 chapters, so it's gonna take me six months. And so that's kind of like the timeline that I'm operating on, and I just chip away. Sir, that makes sense. And I mean, you know, when you're going about reading other books, you know, do you particularly have like a, you know, the next book, Topic in Mind, or is it just kind of something where, you know, the pattern just kind of reveals itself or the overarching theme just kind of reveals itself in what you're reading?

Well, it's both. So I'm kind of, I've always been reading. So I'm always like, I like this. I like this. I don't know if it's for anything, but I just like it. But then generally, like, I, like, this is a unique instance where I know what my next, I knew, I knew four books in a row that I was doing.

So I could, I'm, I have a lot more clarity about what I'm looking for than I ever have it previously in my career. But even, even so, like a lot, like just the other day, I was researching, I was writing something and I came across a note card that I'd written and I realized that I'd taken the notes on this 15 years ago. Wow. And obviously I had zero idea that in 2021 I'd be writing a book about self-discipline and that it would work perfectly in this chapter about keeping your workstation clean, but something struck me when I was 20 years old that I liked it and it popped into my head

and I was able to put it to use. Sure. No, I mean, that's incredible. I mean, to me, what's so inspiring about, you know, somebody like you that just seems it's just like, hey, boom, you know, here's another book that I need to buy because there's going to be all kinds of just great nuggets in this thing and I can't not have this book, you know, here's another book that I need to buy because there's going to be all kinds of just great nuggets in this thing. And I can't not have this book, you know. It's a little easier for me because they're not my nuggets, right?

Like, I think if, if I was having to create the stuff from scratch, it would be a whole different kind of process, right? Like, sure. I'm some, some really smart guy did the nugget, you know, 50 years ago, and then I discovered it 15 years ago, and now it's appearing on my book. It's not quite the same as like coming up with a new theory of physics or something, but... Right, right. But I mean, at least, you know, you're kind enough to at least bring it all together for the people like me, that's just like, hey, look, you know, it's going to be way easier

if I can read it in one book rather than read it across 50 books. But that's what I love. I love, I love you. That's, to me, that's the puzzle is putting all the pieces together in a coherent hole that makes a, you know, a straightforward argument that's applicable. That's like, that's my puzzle,'s my puzzle, which I just love. Yeah, no, I mean, it's great.

And you're writing style. So it's so easy to digest, too. And it's just so easy to just like, hey, boom, I can get through the book fairly quickly and have a pretty solid understanding and a grasp as to what it is that I'm looking for and reading and that's easy to go back to. You know, I just, you know,

I just really appreciate a lot of, you know, everything that you've done. Well, that's very, that's very kind. That's very kind. That's, I appreciate that. And I'm doing it for me, right? Like first, like, that's what I, that's, you're always trying to write the book that you wish existed because if it did exist, then you wouldn't have to write it.

Right. Right. And that, and I kind of almost feel, you know, a similar sense, me know, maybe it's at a smaller scale, but, you know, when I'm going out and I'm pitching, you know, I'm doing it for myself, but I know how much joy it's bringing other people. And if I can inspire and basically it got to the point where I'm almost challenging myself and the later in my career, the batters didn't seem to matter as much anymore. Yeah. It was more just like, hey, how to what level can I push myself to be as good as I possibly can be? And, you know, how can I make an execute pitch after pitch that's just very high quality?

And, you know, start to separate myself from everybody else. And, you know, I know that that ends up bringing a lot of fulfillment to other people. Obviously, it's on a smaller scale just because the reach that the Rockies have as a club is much smaller than other teams. But... No, no. And I think that ultimately, I think the closer you get to mastery of a thing, the less you care about external results and more you care about the process of doing it. And so you're point about the batter's matter in less, I think is perfectly correct.

Right. And that's I think where it really, really comes in because that's, you know, you get to really narrow and really get to lock in on the process. And I think the longer you do it and the more skillfully you get at it, you know, it's easier to see where you need to trim fat off or whatever else where maybe 10 years ago I would have, you know have put my head down. Well, if I'm not sweating and working hard, then it's like a blow in the

China shop sort of thing. I don't really know exactly what kind of benefits I'm getting out of this. I just know that I'm working hard because I'm sweating a lot. No, I took, I like that's one of the challenges I'm thinking about on this book. I'm like, can I write this book and not be an insane person? Can I write it in it? It be easy? Not easy, but can it be not so disruptive?

Can I just do it? And is that actually a harder needle to thread than the, I'm going to give every, you know, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, nothing matters more than this kind of a thing. Right, right. Yeah, and I'm sure, you know, I know that I'd probably drove my wife not some a million times and I'm probably, I'm sure it's probably very similar to your house too.

Completely. I remember when I sold my third or fourth book, my editor called, or emailed my wife and said, congratulations. Also, I'm sorry. Oh, man, that's really funny. But, you know, to me, the next hurdle is like, can I make this not a regrettable experience for everyone involved? Like, sure. That would actually be more impressive. Right. That's what I think so impressive about Tom Brady this year. It seemed like he had the most fun winning this ring than the other ring.

Yeah, and it just seemed like that external pressure really wasn't as tangible as it was when he was in New England. Yeah, yeah. And that's not to say that what happened in New England was an incredibly impressive it is. It's just, it's a different way of doing it and perhaps in its own way a rarer and more elite way to do it. Sure. And I'm actually going to be very cute into that with how Leon on Messi does with his new transfer to PSG. I'm very curious as to, you know, is he going to be just freed up to just enjoy the game again and he's with his buddies and he's with Neymar and he's with Mimbapay and you know, how does this guy go? Is he going to be, is he going to go to another elite level

that we didn't even think he could possibly go to? Right. Right. Yeah. Or was it a cop out? Right. That's always, that's the tension. Right?

Is it, is it the, I want to go to a team where I don't have to try a sword or is it that actually, is it a pure way to play the game? Right. Right. And, you know, I think maybe this past year, just because you know, the way things kind of kicked off at the beginning of the year before when you try to get out of his contract at Barcelona. And then it probably felt like he was just carrying the entire weight of the city on his back when he didn't really have as many elite players with him as he had in the past, you know, maybe, maybe having some other players up front with him might free him up a little bit. Who knows, it would be interesting

to watch them. It sure will, man. Well, look, I got to run. Let's do this again and seriously reach out any time and I'm going to email the Troy and tell him that you said hello. Yeah, yeah, well, I really appreciate you having me on right. Thank you. Dude, this is amazing and we'll talk soon. Sounds good. My newest book, Courage Is Calling, Fortune Favors the Brave,

is available for pre-order. It goes on sale September 28th, but you can pre-order it now. We have a bunch of cool pre-order bonuses, as I was saying, among them is something I've never done. I've never given away. These are signed numbered pages from the original manuscripts of the book. I have one on my wall from Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire, it's a prized possession of mine.

If you'd like to check out the book and pre-order it, I've got a bunch of things to make it worth your while. We even have signed copies as well. You can learn more about that at dailystilluck.com slash pre-order. You can pre-order the book in any form, audio, digital, physical, sign, unsigned. Buy from your local independent bookstore. You can buy from my bookstore. You can buy an audible.

You can buy anywhere books are sold. But if you go to dailystilluck.com slash pre-order and order courage is calling Fortune favors the bold. I've got a bunch of pre-order and order courage is calling fortune favors the bold. I've got a bunch of pre-order bonuses there for you. I really hope you support the book. It comes out next month, but if you could support it, that would be awesome. Courage is calling. I hope you answer. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music App today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.