https://www.listennotes.com/e/3ee0f04692894d18b5de05f60076fed9

What's up guys?

Welcome to the Lead Fast Podcast. This is Going Pro. My name is Daniel, joined with Tommy Offord. Hey guys, what's going on? We have a special guest on Zack Godley. He is the pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. And I have to say this because I think this is outstanding. Zack is the first pitcher in the modern era since 19 freaking hundred to throw six scoreless innings with at least seven strikeouts. That's right. No walks in his major league debut and that's freaking phenomenal.

What's up, Zach? Hey, how we doing? We're good, man. We're good. Thank you for being here. Now let's go back to that stat because the best part of that stat is like in his major league debut.

Like, brush showed up ready.

Yeah.

For hit the ground. And it was so much in that sentence, like I literally had to read because I don't want to leave anything.

I don't want to butcher that anyway. That's phenomenal, man. That's, that's an incredible start. Like, so But also hit the ground running. Like, I've seen you take the mound a couple of times and, bro, I love the like sprint out, the sprint off. Like, I'm here to play the bull. Yeah, that's right. Max told us all your old nicknames, man. But welcome to the program. We're excited that you're here, dude. I appreciate it.

Yeah, don't believe everything you hear from her. I saw that look in your eye, man.

It's just how I said it. We don't, just for the record, we don't.

I don't believe, I think the rule for McKenzie is believe half of what you see and none of what you hear. Exactly.

And that's what we, I think that's the safest way to live here at Lee Fast with McKenzie. Well, hey, man, I've got a couple of questions right off the bat. Just some fast balls. Whoa, look at that punt.

I didn't even mean that.

Just some quick ones I want to throw at you. He definitely meant that. He's been planning that all morning. I was gonna use the whole warm up baseball, whatever. These are just, I say fast balls 'cause you don't have to stay on it. Like quick answers will do.

I just want to get the, you know, the creative juices flowing. What is your drink of choice? it depends on what you're talking about. Are you talking about, like, alcohol? Or you talking about.

Let's talk about alcohol first.

This is.

I heard you're a Scotch Drinker.

I am not a Scotch drinker.

He's not a Scotch drinker.

That's why we don't believe.

Well, whiskey Scotch is with.

I like bourbon. Bourbon.

Bourbon guy.

What's your.

What.

What's your favorite non-alcoholic drink?

Probably coffee.

Coffee, okay. I mean, yeah, that hits for sure. Yeah, he drinks coffee right now. Maybe a mix of bourbon and coffee. Who knows?

He's like, no, no, no, not today. Not today.

Okay, second question. If you had a superpower, what would it be? Anyone?

The ability to control things with my mind.

I said the same thing.

You said go back in time. Yes, yours was mesmerizing because you put some like layers of thought into yours. All right, that's a I'm on the fence between that and flying. I can't figure out which one I want to do. Okay, and then what is your favorite like topping of pizza? If you ordered a pizza right now, what's your favorite?

What's your favorite? Um, supreme.

And from where?

Oh.

I don't know. Honestly, I go a lot of different places. Um.

I guess that's true. And probably you have different chains where you're at than what we have here where we're at.

But honestly, like, there's places where I go where, like, Domino's and stuff's not available. So I have to kind of, like, figure out what's the local thing. And if you say you want Domino's or Pizza Hut around certain areas, they shun you because they believe their pizza is the greatest thing on Earth. And it's like, you have to try this place, and it's just like, why don't we eat pizza that much?

I just want a slice, man. I just want to eat a pizza.

And go to bed. Honestly, I was in, I was in DC in January, late January, and I was trying to order pizza before I went to sleep because I knew I had to eat all day. And it was so hard because DC has all these, like, really fancy pizza places, and I just couldn't, like, it was so complicated. I'm like, you know what, guys? And I just hung up and went to Domino's.

I called, like, three different places, and I just want a pepperoni pizza. So I judge pizza places. I do. I judge them. If they ask me if I want cauliflower crust, I'm out.

Out.

I don't. You shouldn't be making pizza crust out of cauliflower. Like, that's the, like, you're too fancy for me at that point. I'm going to be. Yeah. So, hey, so you're from Bamberg, South Carolina. So I'm from Gilbert. So I grew up, you know, right there, Gilbert, South Carolina. And we're based in South Carolina now, so it's always good when you get, you know, Hometown guys on here. We had Danny Ford on here last week, and so big Clemson fan. Now, you didn't go to Clemson. You and it's also cool. I love, like, your story because you got drafted out of high school, right? Then you get drafted. You got drafted by the Cubs, the Mets.

You got.

See?

So McKenzie makes show notes for us so that we're, we look smart. And this is the second thing that I've said out loud. The second thing. McKenzie, she's, she's back pedaling on things.

You can't hear it, probably, but she's back.

Good thing I'm gonna edit this. So, yeah, it's all good. We can edit everything out, so. But what was that like getting drafted, man? Like, that's a big deal, I think.

Especially right out of high school.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Honestly, a little bit of a little bit of a backstory there. Honestly, being drafted right there is kind of what pushed me to kind of play baseball, because I played football. That was my favorite thing. I loved playing football. I loved hitting people. That's just what I did.

What position?

Linebacker.

Linebacker.

Yeah.

Yes, sir.

I can see that. And so, like, that's what I wanted to do in college, as I wanted to play D1 football. And when I got drafted, that was kind of one of those things where it's like, all right, maybe baseball, there might be something to this. It might be something, a route to try instead of football, because I didn't start pitching until my junior year of high school. So I was two years into pitching.

Whenever I was drafted the first time. I just want all the parents that paid thousands of dollars to send their 11 year old to pitching camp to hear that story, like, he's like, yeah, my junior year of high school, I started pitching. I just wanted to hit people as a linebacker.

Now I play for the red.

That's ludicrous, man. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of the way it was. But. So when I was drafted by the Mets, it was, I I think then it was, like, 50 rounds. So I was 1510 out of, like, 1521 people. I was almost dead last, but it was just one of those things where it was like, all right, maybe there's something to this. I was like, all right, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go try it and went to a few schools as far as that's concerned, but ended up going to a junior college and kind of just went from there.

So the Juco route took you to Tennessee, right? Yes, sir.

And did you, so how many years.

Did you play there? So I went to Juco for a.

Year and then went and played summer ball up in New York on the Hampstead Collegiate League. And then that summer, Coach Crowley and them came down and watched me throw, and then they offered me a scholarship for that next year. and I went there and played for three years and then was drafted by the Cubs as a senior sign in 2013. So.

So what did you. So at the. When you were a vol, when you were. You're a starting pitcher, closer, mid-relief what did you do?

Yes, sir.

Yep. Yes. I did all that. I did all of that.

So. So when I was. When I was first. When I first went to Tennessee, I My sophomore year, I was a reliever and kind of did a few different things there. And then when Coach Raleigh left and Coach Rono came in, my junior and senior year, I started from then on. That's awesome. And then when I was drafted by the Cubs, I did not start. I went straight to relieving.

I was a closure with the Cubs. So that's awesome. So did you spend, how much time did you spend doing, like, did you go straight to AAA or, like, tell me the story into the majors? Like, no.

He's like, hell no.

Well, my story is actually kind of a quick one. There's a lot of guys that have spent a lot of time in the minor leagues. I mean, there's guys that have spent, I mean, almost a decade just in the minors just trying to make that debut. I got lucky. So 2013 I was drafted. I went in the short season, which was in Boise, Idaho. Then that year I went to instructional league after the year, the season was over with. went home, came back, went to spring training. My first spring training was 2014. I went and started off in Low-A, which was Kane County, Illinois. Finished the year in Daytona for high. When that year was over, they had, they wanted me to go back to the instructs, but I told them I didn't want to because I was already enrolled in classes. I was going to graduate. So I finished up my schooling. I graduated that December. Well, like two days before my graduation, I got a phone call from the Cubs and they told me I was I was being traded to the Diamondbacks. So I was traded from the Cubs to the Diamondbacks and then two days later I graduated, I got engaged and then I went home.

That's crazy. Wow, what a week.

And so, yeah, exactly. And then, so it started 2015, the spring training, I went to Hialeah with the Diamondbacks and it was Visalia, California. I made the all-star team there and then went to, right after the all-star game, we literally got on a plane and I flew from Celia to Mobile, Alabama. That was a double A team. And then I pitched there for a month or two, and then they were trying to do some stuff at the big league level. They didn't know what they were going to do as far as giving guys some opportunities. And one of their, one of their starters, actually, the guy I started against the other day, he's with Toronto now, Chase Anderson, he got hurt and they needed the starter for, like, three or four starts. so they called me up and gave me an opportunity, and that's how I got those three stars in 2015. Man, talk about taking the, like, taking.

Advantage of the opportunity, because if you get, you get called up and your first start, you go, you know, seven strikeouts and six scoreless innings, like, that's incredible, man. So, God, and I want, I had, like, this, I mean, honestly, I had this narrative in my head. It was like, he must have played ball, like, all through.

Right.

Yeah. As a, as a, he came out of the womb with a, you know, a bat in his hand and a glove on the other and that kind of thing, but that's not well, I.

Mean, honestly, no, that is. I mean, that's true. Like, we played. I mean, we played backyard football growing up. Like, when church was over on Sundays, we'd literally go back to the house and we'd play football. Yeah. And then, I mean, we played baseball all the time, too. I played baseball from the time I could touch one until, I mean, till now. I mean, I've always been playing. I just never pitched. I was an outfielder and a catcher. I just played. I played baseball because I enjoyed it and just kind of stay in shape for football and because I knew that if I didn't play spring sport, they were gonna make me run track. And I was not about that.

I'm not running track at all.

Wow. Well, Zach, let me ask you this. When did it start being like a reality that this is a profession, like this could be a professional thing? I mean, you did start out and you had the mindset, you know, after church. And it was just kind of something that I guess all the boys did. When did you start seeing yourself set yourself apart from everybody else? or did you, was it kind of gradual even?

I never did.

Wow.

Not as far as baseball is concerned. I mean, really and truly, when I mean, when I first started pitching, so when my coach came up to me my junior year and told me he wanted me to pitch, it was, we had a guy on the team, Don Sanford. Like he was from the time, like all the way up from little kids all the way up to high school, he was the guy. like, I mean, he made the varsity team as a, as an eighth grader. I mean, he was throwing 90 miles an hour as an eighth grader.

That's insane.

Like, gosh, he just, he was the guy. And so when, when they asked me to pitch, it was just kind of like, just so that he could have some rest, just to have somebody else to be able to work off the mound. And because I, I, I mean, I had a strong arm. I really did. and I just had no idea where the ball was going.

That's me, just minus the strong arm.

So I really like, I mean, as soon as I got on the mountain, like, it pretty much put me close. Like, the only thing that put me close to Don at that time was velocity. Like, I could throw close to as hard as he could. Other than that, he was still set. way above me because he could throw the ball wherever he wanted with whatever pitch he wanted. And so I really wasn't, I was never set apart from everybody. I mean, him and I were set apart from most of the guys in that league in Bamberg because there was no one else that threw anywhere close to as hard as us. And so from there, like going to college and stuff, it, for me, it was just a, it was always a grind trying to figure out how to, continue to learn and get better and essentially do what everybody else had been doing since they were kids.

Yeah.

As far as, like, throwing strikes and the mechanics of it and all of that. So I spent on pretty much the first, I mean, those last two years of high school and in all of college, just trying to learn my body and how I'm supposed to throw a business.

So I love that story. Like, that's, I think for, like, a leader, that's important. Like, because so many people have, like, sort of natural leadership abilities, but don't have, like, the refinement of all the tech, and that's his story.

Yeah.

Like, hey, I could throw the ball hard, and that's what I knew. But I was probably, you know, I wonder if batters were just scared, like this guy's being, how many people did you hit in high school?

Like throwing it really hard and hit people?

Hey, all right. So, yeah. All right.

This is gonna be a fun story. I can tell you. That's one of the only things I remember about, like, high school, like, the pitching side of high school. So when my high school coach asked me to pitch, I laughed at him first off because the year before playing catch with the guy on the line in the Outfield, I had overthrown him, like, three different times and hit my coach in the Dugout. Oh, man. So I laughed at him. I was like, coach, I hit you three times from the Outfield last year. Like, you seriously think I can hit a catcher? Yeah. And he's like, no, no. He's like, we're gonna. He's like, I'm gonna work with you and see what we can do. Said, okay. So first ball I threw off the mound. like, I don't even think the catch removed, but it was, I think it was like 88 and 89. It was fairly hard. And so he's like, all right, we're gonna have to try to work with you and try to figure out how to get you to pitch. Okay, perfect. Well, then once I threw a few bulk bins and got kind of where I needed to be as far as throwing the ball over the plate, we started putting hitters in there, and it was our own, own team. Well, the first three guys instead of the box right in the back, just boom, boom, boom. All three of them.

It got to the point where they're like, I'm not, I'm just not doing it.

I'm not.

They'Re not getting hit.

They're tracking themselves out so they don't have to do it. That's funny. But I think that's like, I don't know, so my brain always works in metaphor. So whenever I hear a story, I'm like, oh, that's where that relates in the business world or in the leadership world. You know, there are a lot of leaders that have a lot of natural talent to just go be a leader, but they don't have the refinement. They don't know how to talk to people. They don't know how to get people to do what they want them to do, and they end up hitting people essentially. Like, you just do what you know to do really hard. but you don't have the refined skills, the soft skills of being a leader. And I love that, but like he spent years trying to refine those skills to make him at a professional level as a ball player. And I think that's huge.

Yeah.

If a lot of leaders would say, you know, okay, I've got a natural talent, people will follow me, but I need to refine those skills where I can get people to actually do that.

And that's like a testament to the fact that it's not an overnight success type deal. what'd you just pick up?

You're talking about leadership. Yeah. It's kind of funny that you say that because I. I don't know if y'all know. I don't know. I mean, I. You ever heard of Jocko Willink?

Yes. I love Jocko. Is that the leadership? Yes, man. Jocko.

That and extreme ownership.

Yes. I read extreme ownership. That was the first real book I read that changed my life. Every, like, you can open the book and just land on a sentence. everything he says is like, boom. Like, it hits you. And then if you listen to his podcast or if you ever hear him say it, it just has a double effect because he's like, okay, it's just.

Yeah.

So you lost your job?

I started reading this book, the extreme ownership, and then I found out that, like, he does the podcast, and then I found out that, like, they actually, on audible, they actually him and the other guys read the book.

Yeah.

So I just opened the book and pretty much let them read it to me. Dude. And like, read it right there with them. And it does have that different effect. But yeah, now it's kind of funny that you say that about the refinement of leadership and trying to figure all that out where, like, I mean, he pretty much preaches about that and then there's books.

Yeah, and it's like, another thing too, on the Audible thing, you can actually go on Audible and get like the Cliff Notes, where somebody will read you the Cliff Notes of the book, which I had to, after I read it, It did.

We had to go back and get the cliff notes.

Everything was such mirror. Not that I didn't understand it, but I didn't want to miss anything. So I've read that book probably three times and listened to it a couple times. And I, every time I listen to it, I get something out of it. It's insane, you know, just this refined.

Leadership process that the Navy SEALs have and, you know, military stuff.

Daniel's former military, too. So the any, when you, when you pulled out the tactics book, I was like, oh, he got him.

He got Daniel.

I love, man.

I love Jack O. Willing.

He's a Personal hero of mine for sure. Yeah.

I enjoyed both of the books.

Yeah.

So where's life now?

So we caught up with you through college and you went to the Diamondbacks and now you're with the Sox, which, you know, it's the Red Sox and they're the team everybody loves to hate, you know, them and the Yankees. You got to hate the two winners. I'm, you know, I grew up, I didn't grow up a professional baseball fan because I grew up in the South and everybody loves college sports here, right? But I lived in Connecticut for a bunch of years and everybody was the Yankees fan, especially because we were right outside of Manhattan and Connecticut. And man, just to be southern, I picked the Mets and I was like, I'm going to be a Mets fan. And so for two years, I was really hardcore into the Mets. So what's it like playing in Boston? I mean, that's a baseball crazy, well, sports crazy city, but it's a baseball crazy city.

Honestly, right now, it's kind of hard to give you that.

Oh yeah, I mean with COVID and everything, that's crazy.

It's not there like it usually is. So I played here in 2016. I think it was 2016 was the year we played here. Might have been 2017, I can't remember exactly, but we played here with the Diamondbacks. and it was surreal, like, because they, I mean, them and the Yankees, they sell out every single ball game. Like, there are, it is packed all the time. And so going from that game and then signing with them a few weeks ago and coming here and then the game to get started, you're like, wow, it's not even close.

That's awesome.

What it usually is, man.

So.

Yeah, I was gonna ask what life was like in a pandemic from a professional standpoint, because that's just.

Does that throw you off? I mean, I know they're pumping in the sound, right? Like, you guys got the sound of the crowd in the stadium.

Yeah, they pump in the crowd noise and stuff like that. So that helps a little bit. That way it's not eerily quiet the whole time, but it's still, it's not the same. Not even close.

Man, it freaked me out. I mean, honestly, it freaked me out.

The entire world is different now. So, I've got this video we saw today. of you striking out Bryce Harper. Like, was that, that was, like, one of your first ups, right? Like, that was early on where you, like, torched Bryce Harper.

I don't know which.

He's like, I've done it a lot. I don't know which time, you know, Bryce isn't as good as everybody says he is.

When you, when you.

No, it's not that.

When you say that, when you say that statement, when you say striking out Bryce Harper, to me, the thing that comes to mind is we played them on Mother's Day. I remember it because I was wearing pink. And then first time I faced him, I went 3-0 and I threw a cutter, and he hit it. And I. I swear, I don't think it's landed yet. It went. I mean, I mean, and that was an orbit bomb. And then the next time I faced him, like, the very next, like, the next time through the lineup, he came up, and that was when I struck him out, and it was just. It was a strikeout on a pitch that I don't throw very often. And it was kind of a highlight for me just to come back and do that after giving up a home run that I swear went 500 feet.

So that's all. So for me, that's one of those things that I think as a leader in business, you don't get those experiences where you have to really go head to head with someone very often. Businesses don't operate like that. all right, I've got a chance to, like, win a one-on-one interaction with someone else. And so, like, I look at that, and I'm like, man, here's. Here's a guy that's, like, prolific. Like, Bryce Harper. Like, he's on Wheaties boxes and stuff. He's that guy, you know? And he hits the ball a billion miles, but then having him, like, take. Like, take one out on me and then, like, have to show up the next inning. I would want to go put myself in a, like, hole somewhere. How do you deal with that? How do you get up? for that next, that bat. We're like, all right, the orders come around and it's time for Bryce to come back up, and he just cranked one.

So I guess it's just competitiveness. I mean, honestly, or the thing is.

Is I like that.

It's kind of being comfortable being uncomfortable. It's kind of one of those things where you, you just have to understand that hitters fail 70 of the time. The best hitters ever failed 70 of the time. hitting 300 means you've failed the other.

Seven out of ten.

Yeah, exactly. So that, like, once you get that in your head and stop trying to give guys credit and just try to work through certain things, and it starts to be a little bit easier as far as being able to attack guys. And for the most part, for me, like, I think a benefit for me, like, growing up, like, you did in the South, like, we had. I had no team. I I couldn't have told you. Before 2015, I couldn't have told you anything about baseball, nothing at the professional level. My college coach, there was a coach, Bill Mosiello, he, oh, it drove him nuts that I did not know anything about baseball. So every day that I wasn't starting, when he was there, I had to sit next to him and he would just ask riddle off questions constantly because he was a baseball nerd. He loved it. He lived and breathed baseball. So he was constantly asking me questions about guys from that played and I never, I could never give him an answer. Like he was asking basic questions that anybody who followed baseball growing up would know and I had no clue. So I think one of the things that helped me a lot was I was kind of naive to what was going on. Like my first strikeout in the big leagues was Ryan Braun.

Oh, wow.

And that was, I mean, he was the guy who destroyed the Diamondbacks in the playoffs. and to me, I had no idea.

I had no clue.

He got booed every time he came up the bat. And I was, I was like, I wonder why they're booing this guy. I had no idea.

So that's all. I think so. I think there's a, there's also a lesson there where it's like, not having a backstory on things really helps you, like, handle things as they are.

Yeah.

You know, like, not having to, like, you don't make superheroes out of people.

Yeah.

Because of their backstory.

Well, also, I think being able to shut out the noise, man, that speaks to your confidence, too, when, you know, like, he, he hit the ball. It went into orbit, never came down, essentially. And then you see him come back up to the plate, and you have to just, like, work through that. And you talked about the facts that you stuck to. A lot of people can't do that. A lot of people, once they're met with any kind of, you know, anything goes differently than what they plan, their plans now shaken, and then, you know, their confidence is shaken. They can't recover from that. And I think that's key thing that that professionals probably do very well that other people don't is being able to say, okay, no, you know what? I spent years working through this. I've trained for this. I'm, you know, I can do this. He may have got me here, but this is what I'm gonna do. And just refine, redirect, like, and re-engage. And ultimately, you know, you struck him out.

That's, that's insane. I think the, the other part of that is to, like, the math was now in your favor, because if he's only gonna succeed three out of 10.

Times and he just burned one, Yeah, and then that worked in his favor.

The odds are even better now. He's got a much larger chance of striking.

I can see him up on the plate and the little math equations, the meme is like floating through.

Yeah.

I got it this time. This is one.

He's out there from Bamberg, like a beautiful mind. Figure out the math.

Oh man, that's tough.

If y'all have more than one conversation with me, you'll know that that does not work.

I got a question for you. I think a lot of people may want to know know, what is your, what is your pregame ritual?

Like, what do you do to get ready? He does interviews with us.

Okay. Yeah. First.

Well, I mean, honestly, this is, I.

Mean, I'm pitching today. Oh, yeah, that's right. When I, when, when I told Mac that I would do this, I thought, I mean, I was originally scheduled to throw tomorrow, so. And when I got, they kind of came up to me and told me that I was throwing on short rest.

I was gonna throw today.

I was like, well, I'm not gonna back out on the interview. There's no point. I mean, oh, man, I'm literally not gonna do anything.

So.

My, like, so my life right now with the pandemic, this is what my life revolves around. This thing here. That's pretty much it. Like, we can't really go anywhere, do anything. So I just play a whole lot of video games.

Okay, what's your game? Because we're gonna get into that right now.

Yes.

All right, dude, before this interview is over, we're gonna need your gamertag. We play every night.

We play every night. And we're like, we always play the plunder, the three-man four-man teams, but it's just me and Tommy, so we get rolled every once in a while. But we, as the two-man team, Speaker.

0: If coming first a couple times. Yeah, but, but with, I feel like.

With a professional baseball baseball player on our team, we would have to win more.

We have to, especially with the mindset this guy's got.

That's for sure. No, you're not gonna win more. I promise. But listen, I, I think you are.

Shortening yourself because, so wait, so I want to make sure I heard this right. So you're starting tonight. You're gonna be starting against, you're playing Tampa Bay tonight, right? Yes, sir. I think, I think the only way the Rays win is if they put Tom Brady in. like, they have to go borrow him from the bucks. Yeah. And bring him over. Like, that's got to feel good, though, because, I mean, like, Tampa Bay sort of sucks, right? I mean, they're. They're not.

Not really. I mean, they're. I mean, they're a good team. I mean, that's the other thing about what we were talking about earlier, as far as, like, me being set apart from other guys is, like, at every level, me coming up and me learning, like, I've been right at the pace of. everybody else. So everybody else has been just as good or better than I have been. And, I mean, it's the same thing here. Like, those guys over there are professional hitters, just like the guys over here. I mean, it's just the same thing. Like, you're at that same, you're at that level where the talent just is the same thing.

So, yes, it's, it's, everybody is talented at that, at that level. Yeah.

So, but if everybody is, so help me with this. If everyone at that level, and I agree, I mean, I think there's, like, there's a level that you have to be at to be considered a professional. But if all things are equal, how does some teams just dominate? How's that? What sets that team? What sets the Red Sox apart? Is it culture? Is it, you know, talent?

Team.

Team. Team.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, I would guess. I say, yeah, I've never been a professional player.

It's kind of hard to explain because of, like, the 2017 team that we had with the Diamondbacks. That was almost the exact same team we had in 2016 where we lost over 100 games. but in 2017, just when we brought in the new staff and everything, that Dynamic just changed, and everybody just kind of collectively was like, all right, well, I mean, we can. All the pieces just kind of fell in place, and it was just one of those things that just worked out.

It was like a culture shift.

Sometimes it just doesn't work out. All about, like, pretty much. I mean, yeah, it was for sure in Arizona. There was a huge culture shift whenever that new regime came in and. I think it's kind of the same thing when you have teams, when they have so much, a lot of like outside noise going on, a lot of times it's hard to get that dynamic going. So that's why a lot of teams do really well when guys know what's going on, what their role is, how they're going to be approached no matter what day in and day out, there's that comfort level. And when that comfort level comes in, guys play loose. And when you don't have that comfort level that you don't play loose because you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know where you're going to go. You don't know where you're going to be. You don't know what's going to happen in certain situations. But when you're with a team that has it established, like, hey, you're this guy, you're that guy, you're going to do this, you're going to do that, like, there comes a comfort level with that. So everybody's like, all right, like, all right, we're getting to this situation. All right, it's my time to go. Or get to this situation. It's his time to go. Like, you know exactly where that is. And when that comes into play that it just, everybody just plays so much looser and so much more free and easy. And then you win ball games because of it. It just, it helps. I love that.

Like, I I mean, that, for me, like, we can end on that. Like, that was great. Like, if a leader can just understand that, like, at that level, every, everybody's equally talented. Culture makes all the difference. And, you know, and that's not, it's not something you just say or reading a book or something like, this is a professional athlete saying, who can attest to it?

Yeah.

Like, the same team. Different results and all that changed was culture.

Yeah.

Giving people a clear sense of their role, where they need to be, when they need to be there, and that frees them up to be themselves and do what's best for the team and gives them that freedom to play free and easy. Like he said, God, so good.

Yeah.

Well, man, I appreciate you coming and on today. This morning, I know you're pitching today. We're gonna watch the game. I'm gonna watch the game. I'm excited. So we'll be, like, yelling for you. We'll have a watch party. yeah, we'll grab some pizza and some bourbon. Some Supreme Pizza. Yeah, we'll grab some Supreme Pizza and some bourbon. We'll watch the Red Sox play tonight.

We already got the bourbon.

We already got.

Yeah, we've got plenty. Art.

That's the one thing our office is not short on. We're not short on it at all. That's good.

Yeah.

Speaking of culture. No, man, we're. We're seriously. We're so grateful for you.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

What's up? Where can people reach you? Like, do you.

You're on Instagram. yeah, I have Instagram and Twitter.

Give yourself a Shameless plug. What's your, what's your IG handle?

I think it's at Godly's ET.

We'll put the, I'll figure it out. Put it on there, make sure people know it. No, but for real, man, thanks for being on the podcast. Guys, if you want more content like this, hit us up on our Instagram, our Facebook at leadfastco and visit our website, leadfastco.com. we got lots of resources, and we'll see you guys next time. See you guys.