What Was Your Childhood Dream [PlanSource Eclipse Conference - July 2019]

Well, my childhood dream, guys, was to become a professional baseball player.

I grew up in a baseball family. My dad was a college baseball player, also an extremely successful high school baseball coach. He was the longtime coach in my hometown. I played for him. And he's actually one of the winningest coaches in Wisconsin State history. So I grew up in a family surrounded by baseball. I grew up in a family and an environment surrounded by the skills, the knowledge and the mentorship I needed to become a great baseball player. So by the time my senior season of my high school career rolled around, I had my first taste of what it meant to play bigger. You see, going into my senior year, I had committed to playing baseball at Winona State University, a Division 2 college baseball program in Minnesota. But I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to play bigger. I wanted to play Division 1 big baseball. But I had a slight challenge. You see, in high school, I was a shortstop and a pitcher. And I knew that playing at the next level would be on the mound as a pitcher. But.

I'm 5 foot 9 and I weighed 145 pounds my senior year. Not what I would call an intimidating presence on the mound.

But by the time my senior season came to an end, I had one last shot to play bigger. You see, it was the first, first round of the playoffs, and I was pitching that night. And I knew that recruiters from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee were coming, a Division I baseball program. They were coming to watch me pitch. And I knew that up until that point, I had the competence and the confidence to be successful. And I knew that I had created the course of action that I could be the successful that night. And that night I had my first taste of what it meant to play bigger because I threw a one hitter that night. I gave up a hit on the first pitch of the game. That was it.

And later that night, I got a call from the head coach of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and was offered a scholarship. So here I was playing Division 1 baseball. Now, my first two years at UWM, I thought playing bigger literally meant getting bigger. So I hit the weight room, I pounded the weights. I took this magic powder we had back then called creatine. Where are my college athletes? In the room who took creatine? It was the legal way to get bigger back then, right? God knows what the long term ramifications are. So I gained 30 pounds. Here I was 5 foot 9, 175 pounds. But I quickly realized I took the wrong course of action. Because when you're a pitcher, there's a little known secret that says you don't want a muscle bound bicep.

So my first two years on the mound at UWM were terrible. My stats were terrible. And by the time my sophomore season came to an end, I wanted to quit. I wanted to give it all up. Who's been there before in business with their job, maybe for the advisors in the room. When the Affordable Care act came around, I know I was there. But something happened between my sophomore and junior year. I was named captain. And going into my junior year, being named captain gave me that confidence back that I needed to be successful. I knew I had the confidence or the competence would be good. And over the next two years, I developed a different course of action, a more effective course of action in the weight room. I honed my craft of pitching. I worked on my mechanics. And by the time my senior season came to an end, I had given myself a chance to play bigger yet again by signing up a contract to pitch in the Milwaukee brewers organization.

Now, I wish I could keep telling you stories of massive success and how I overcame the odds and catapulted to the major leagues. But this is where the success story ends, guys. Because when I got to Pro Bowl, I lost my confidence. You see, I was playing on the same field with guys from bigger schools, Arizona State, lsu, Texas. And I got to my head and I got away from the course of action that made me successful in high school and later on in college. And that's why I only spent a couple years in pro ball. In fact, there's one game that sticks in my head forever that signifies what my pro career was like. I was pitching with the Helena brewers in Helena, Montana, and it was our first trip over to Missoula, Montana to take on the Missoula Osprey. And I can remember the bus ride From Helena over McDonald Pass into Missoula. And on the bus, the coaching staff had warned us, watch out for the crowd in Missoula. You got the college kids there at the University of Montana. It's summer, school's out. They, they love to come to the games and they love to make the opposing.

Night a nightmare for every opposing player because they drink a bit too much.

So here we are, it's the first game of the series, and our starting pitcher. I remember this game like it was last night. It was an odd night in Missoula because first of all, it was hot and humid, which we're in this part of the country. This is not the norm. When it's hot and humid. There were 5,000 people in the stands. It was filled. And there was the most gorgeous red orange sunset over the mountains because there were wildfires burning around Missoula. And if any of you live in an area where there's wildfires, I live in Colorado. We get them a lot. One of the unintended beauties is the sunsets are gorgeous. I mean, ash was literally falling from the sky.

And that night, our starting pitcher was terrible.

So bad that by the third inning, the call comes down to the bullpen. Get Neary up, get him loose right away. So I jump up, stretch out my arms, stretch out my legs, grab my glove, grab a ball, and I start warming up. And 10 throws later, I'm coming into the game. I'm jogging into this loud, obnoxious, drunk crowd.

So I get to the mound and I grab the ball from Dan Norman, the Helena brewers manager, and I look to the Osprey dugout to see who I'll be facing right away. And it's Andres Torres, the top prospect in the Diamondbacks organization, one of the top prospects in all of minor league baseball. So here's my chance to play bigger, right? Like, here's my chance to go up against the biggest, the best and prove myself. So I start warming up. And as I start warming up, the crowd starts chanting.

And little by little, the chanting gets louder. And after my third warm up pitch, I now can hear what they're chanting.

So can you guys help me relive a memory? On the count of three, can we all chant this together? 1, 2, 3. How can you pitch when you're 5 foot 6?

Thank you for that.

But in that moment, my mind went somewhere it shouldn't have. Instead of getting jacked up, instead of playing bigger, my mind listened to the crowd. It said, yeah, who am I? I'm 5 foot 9, not 5 foot 6.

I don't have an overpowering arm. I wasn't a high draft pick. What right do I to have to stand on this mound and face on risk tours? Because average.

Who'S been there before.

Sucks, doesn't it? So I finished out that summer in Helena. I actually got transferred over to Ogden, Utah, right down the canyon, and played with the Ogden Raptors. And the next spring training, I went back. And on the last day of spring training, I got released. I got cut. Now get this. The day I was cut, I was one day removed from breaking camp and going to spend the summer pitching in Bloit, Wisconsin with the Bloit State Snappers Fifty miles from where I grew up, I was three promotions away from pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers 30 miles from my hometown. You talk about a childhood dream.

Gone. It's over.

And when I look back at that day that I was released, I learned a lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life, and that is this.

If you want to play bigger, you have got to have a major league mindset. And having a major league mindset requires having the right mix of competence and confidence mixed with one hell of a course of action.