Sophia Whitesell: It doesn't matter what you win, it doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter even who's with you when you do it, as much as you want to feel like you're enough. Welcome to the Giving Game, the only show where professional athletes are banned from talking about their sport. That's right. No stats, no game recaps, no media trained answers. I'm your host, Sophie Weitzel, and every episode we find out who these athletes actually are when the cameras stop rolling and the jerseys come off. We're talking untold stories, questionable life decisions, dating disasters, money, family, fame, philanthropy, and all the stuff their PR teams would probably prefer skate off the internet. But here's the twist. Every episode is tied to a charity or cause chosen by the athlete. So while we're exposing personalities, we're also raising real money and driving measurable impact for the organizations that matter. There are only three rules on this show. No sports talk, no filters, raise as much money as possible. So if you've ever wondered what athletes are really like off the field, welcome to the giving game. Let the game begin. Welcome to the show, Ben. I'm so excited to have you. Just a little introduction. This may be the only show ever where the host doesn't actually know anything about your baseball career. But I do every I do know about what you're doing with Champion Forward, and I think it's really, really cool. There's three rules on the show. We don't talk about your sports career at all. Please, no PR answers. Like keep it real because you've done that enough in your life. ⁓ and then we're gonna try to raise as much money as possible for champion forward. So fantastic. Hope you're ready. I'm ready. Let's go. I want to talk about Champion Forward and tell me about what inspired you to start this and you know kind of where you're at now with it. Yeah, that's great. I mean, Champion Forward is really kind of when I retired from baseball, I spent two or three years kind of getting away from sports. I was kind of tired of everything, you know, that was just so saturated with the sports world. And so I went home to the farm in Tennessee and just spent a lot of alone time and and really ⁓ just got through transition period between sports and and real life. Right. And I've got three kids, so they were keeping me busy and but then ⁓ the times that I was away from them I just started thinking and praying about what I wanted to do to use the career and the platform and the the opportunities that I had in order to try to make an impact ⁓ on the next generation. And and when you've had that level of athletic experience, you really, ⁓ I feel obligated to use it in some way to benefit the next generation because it is it is a thing in our culture that is is very popular, right? And anytime you know kids are gonna gravitate to something and you have an opportunity to influence them in a in a positive direction, you wanna try to do that. But then you also try to figure out well well what's my vehicle of doing that outside of being a a baseball player because I'm not a baseball player anymore. Right. When I played ball, you could play and then you could talk to kids and and now I'm not playing. So what is what is the thing that they need to hear? And and I found that going through a couple of periods of mental and emotional challenges during my career, ⁓ and and how I overcame those ⁓ was something that I saw grow ⁓ a growing problem in the sports world, not just in the sports world, but in in the youth world in general. So n You know, toward the end of my career, I had started doing some therapy. I'd started doing some just internal work, right? You know, as an athlete, you do a lot of external work. You're trying to work on your body and your ⁓ schedule and trying to be prepared and and to play clutch and in big moments. But we don't spend a lot of time just on internal growth. I mean, I always being a Christian, ⁓ I always spent time thinking and praying about that and all that, but I didn't I wasn't prepared for some of the challenges that were gonna come through my career. And in some ways I was I was extremely prepared for the the baseball side of things, the the courage and the consistency that it took to kind of achieve a level of success at that level. ⁓ I was very competitive and and I you know, I wanted to employ all the things that I had learned on the mental side of the game. So I I I had a mental strength ⁓ around the game, but when it came to more life oriented things, mental and emotional wellness in general. ⁓ I there was two times during my career I experienced depression and came out of those, but was still kind of confused as to what had happened and during those periods of time. And you know, they both lasted anywhere from three to six months and were kind of dark, but I kind of made it through, you know, it was one of those things. And the more I started doing therapy after the second time, it was really after we won the World Series in 2016 with the Chicago Cups. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and and and it was such a crazy time because I mean I did get a chance to experience some really unique things that even most professional athletes don't get to experience. I mean, I did get to, you know, win the World Series MVP for that series and that kind of catapulted me from just being like a guy that was just part of the team to a guy that all of a sudden I got thrust into the limelight more, you know, got asked to go on talk shows and it's just the popularity went up, ⁓ compared to the rest of my career. And I was about thirty five years old at the time and You would think that when you experience the highs of your success, that that would be the time that you'd be the happiest. But ⁓ that was actually the time that I was the lowest right after that. I mean, during the time while it was all happening, it was exciting. But as soon as it was over, there was an intense kind of crash and an internal crash. It wasn't external necessarily as much as it was like, why do I feel this way? Yeah. You know, this is this is very difficult. So I started doing some therapy. I eventually came out of that, but I realized, you know, a lot of my world was I had shoved down a lot of emotion for a long time. I learned to perform and be the hero when I needed to be the hero and in whatever the role was, but I didn't really have any spaces in my life where I could just be broken and just be Ben. Yeah. And ⁓ and be okay with that and and everybody around me be okay with that. So so that You know, I think it was available, but I don't I didn't know how to access that. ⁓ now I think there's a lot more access points for athletes, but at the time there was very few, if any. So I didn't tell my teammates about it at all. I wasn't working through that. But now I eventually retired a few years after that and and was actually enjoying the game at at more than I ever had ⁓ at the time. However, ⁓ when I retired, it was it was time to put it away, did that, and I started getting involved in the mental health world. And that was that was kind of my introduction to like, wow, there this is a problem across our nation in a lot of different ways. A lot of young people are really struggling with mental and emotional wellness. And it's not just just the regular academic student, it's the athletes as well. It used to be that the sports world actually helped young people kind of take pressure away. And now it's like worse. It it makes it even harder because there's so much more expectation and pressure. on these kids, right? So so I just we realized man, I've got to find a way to get them some tools. Like with new challenges, I mean what these kids are dealing with with the comparison and stuff that happens online compared to what I was experiencing when I was a young person, their brains are not fully developed and ready and capable and they don't have the tools to be able to handle all this. So so that's where champion forward me and a buddy John Harrison came up with this concept of how about we develop some mental and emotional intelligent skills. Not we're not a mental health organization. Yeah. But we know that these skills, if they are practiced on a regular basis, can provide a level of protection against some of the challenges of the mental ⁓ challenges for athletes. So so that's that's where Champion Forward was born. And ⁓ we've been pushing it for the last three years, trying to get get things going. I'm giving away my World Series MVP car that they gave me on the field back in 2016 this year. ⁓ what kind of c wait, what kind of car is it? Like a Pugatti or Camaro. ⁓ okay. It's pretty nice. I mean it's a it's a ⁓ it's a convertible, you know, it's got it's very low mileage. I kept it really pristine, about eight thousand miles on that bad boy and Does it have like your face on the side of it? No, we we no. I didn't really want to drive around with my face on the side, but that, you know. I mean, you know, just some suggestions, but you know, Okay, I mean I could think about that if If it's if it's worth it to somebody. No, no. I mean, I think what you're doing's awesome. I have so many like questions for you, honestly. But what because I think that so many people have this idea in their head that if they accomplish their goal, that everything is great. And I did it on a much, much, much smaller scale than you. But it's like, okay, now I'm, you know, ⁓ the the head chief nurse, you know, and it's like this is what I have worked. So hard to do. And then I'm here and I'm like, now what? You know, and you get to that point where you're like, is ambition like my curse or my blessing? And you think about those things of like, okay, so what's gonna make me happy? Cause it's clearly not external things. And I don't know if you had that experience where you're like, is ambition like the worst thing that you can have sometimes? Like, you know, and and how do you tackle that? No, yeah, I I don't think ambition is bad in and of itself. The question is, what is your ambition for? Right. And so I think if I look at myself and my career, my ambition was not only to make it to the highest level, but I wanted to win at the highest level. And ⁓ I also wanted to feel like I had a great career. And I wanted to feel like there was there was always something that was stretching me, that the next challenge. And it was really based more in reaching a, I call it like a Like a it's like a rabbit going for the next carrot, right? Like if as long as there's one more carrot out in front of me, I'll keep chasing it. I'll keep chasing it. But after you get all the carrots and there's no more like carrots to go for, like what is the true motivation? And that's when I learned about fixed mindset versus growth mindset. And I realized that just because you're growing as an athlete and you're you're growing in your career does not mean that you're growing as a person. It doesn't mean you're growing internally, right? And and and so It's really it doesn't matter what the role is either. Like your role, you could be the president of the company or the the manager of the team or the best player on the team. None of that is really gonna fulfill you at the end of the day. ⁓ the position doesn't fulfill you. Even the success or the wins and the losses, none of those things fulfill you. ⁓ I I think the fulfilling part of it is knowing, you know, at the end of the day. Do I enjoy the process of this? Right. And I I think I enjoyed the process of the game, but I didn't like the process wasn't my goal necessarily. Right. The enjoyment of the whole experience was not my goal. The like I was willing to sacrifice any sort of enjoyment just to get the the championship. You know, what do I need to sacrifice? What, what's the grind I need to go through in order to win it all? But then when you do all that and then you go win it all. There has to be a purpose that goes beyond that. And it's not just like, okay, now I did it and I'm inspiring everybody all across the world. For me, that even that's not enough. Because here's the thing, a lot of athletes won't tell you. A lot of high achievers won't tell you. Hit me with it. Hit me with it, Ben. It doesn't matter what you win. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter even who's with you when you do it. As much as you want to feel like you're enough. You want to feel like you're enough. You want to feel like I am at peace with myself. I know a lot of people that have achieved a lot of great things that are not at peace. Totally. And they are coping in unhealthy ways just like the rest of us. Just because they show something on Instagram or they say something on TV does not make them at peace or happy. Right. And I think I think the achievement of peace is really what we would all like to find. You want to be ambitious. You want to you want to accomplish great goals. You want to serve the world and and help other people around you. But if you do all of that And you yourself are not at peace, you will be frustrated. I can I can tell you that because I I was trying to do all those things and I still wasn't at peace, right? So this is where I think we need new tools. We need new conversations. We need to realize that the game itself is not a means to an end. Yeah. It really isn't. It can't be a means to an end. It's gotta be something that we enjoy it, whether we get the championship or not. We enjoy every part of it. We enjoy the grind. We enjoy the success. We enjoy the teammates. We enjoy the, you know, even the people that irk us a little bit. Like we need to find a way to enjoy that whole experience. And and if we don't, we're not going to be in a mentally healthy place. Totally. Right. So that's kind of that that to me is where is where I start getting into ⁓ you know, you're kind of philosophizing like what is the important thing for me? And my like at the end of the day, why am I doing what I'm doing? Because if I can't if I can't have a purpose that not only benefits it the world around me but also benefits me, then I'm probably not doing the right thing. You know? I'm probably not doing the thing that I was created to do. Because if you're doing the thing that you're really, really created to do, you are enjoying the process while you're also benefiting other people. Totally. Yeah, I love that. And ⁓ I have A question about you talked about your you're like, are you pretty hard? You're a hardcore Christian, love that. And ⁓ you know, I am too, but I think that I've had some mental health struggles to where ⁓ it's really tested my faith, or it's like made me feel like people would say, or you'd go to your pastor, right? Even though they're totally not qualified to deal with mental health issues, sorry, but they're not, and they would say, Well, you just need to have more faith. You just need to have more faith. You you know, if you're struggling or you have depression or whatever it is, you need to have more faith. And it's like then I ⁓ it made me feel worse because it was like, okay, well, I guess I'm just not a I'm not a good enough Christian. I guess I'm not good enough. And I just wonder how you deal with balancing your faith versus mental health and saying, Okay, it really doesn't have anything to do with you not being a good enough Christian. It's just that's just part of life and the struggles and how you deal and cope. Yeah, I well I mean, I had the same thing at times where I would ask people what to do and everybody wants to help fix you. And I just don't think it's that simple as just someone else coming in and fixing you. I also think it's it's far simpler than than someone else and their solution is probably just a connection to God that you've not really had before. Like for me, I didn't really have I didn't really have that tight connection with God that I feel like I have now. ⁓ and and the reason was I was always trying to prove myself with him. I was always trying to please him in a way that felt like if I didn't, he was going to be disappointed with me. And and to realize that like actually I didn't have to earn his love ⁓ by by doing it perfectly. I actually had to learn to accept it without being perfect. That was that was the toughest thing for for me a strong young athlete to try to figure out how to do, right? To know that I was enough even though I'd never even even if I chose to do nothing. Yeah. You know, and and it it makes you feel kind of unmotivated at first because you're like, well then what do I do? Like what's the point of it all? Right, right. You know, well well the point of it is to actually enjoy that he loves you that much. God loves you, whether you succeed or fail. And so can It's like a little kid. You watch little kids, they don't know whether they're successful or not. They just want to look over the sidelines and are mom and dad happy for me? Do they like do ⁓ do they love me? Like what's honestly the thing that they're asking is is am I loved? You know, and and we some of us learn to to perform for love. And and that is ⁓ that's really a dead end. It it doesn't really lead anywhere. And I think that's where that was where. The birth for me of like new life and new new motivation after winning was all about like, hey, I don't have to do any of this. None of this is a have to. This is a get to if I want to. Yeah. Right. I get to do this if I want to do this. And the only way you can really get to that place, I think, is if you're more aware of what's going on inside of you. See, see, the thing I I learned as an athlete is you cannot be ashamed. You can't feel fear. You you you even have to control your anger, like to be a good player. You you you got basically take all your emotions, especially the negative ones, and shove them down. Mm-hmm. Like that's what I learned. Shove ⁓ down. And look, I learned to do the same thing as a Christian. Shove it down. Because, you know, a good Christian doesn't feel that way, doesn't get that, you know, feeling or whatever. The reality is, and nobody said that to me. That was my own interpretation. But the reality is we have emotions and what we believe at Champion Forward is those emotions are neutral. God gave them to us all so that we could experience it. It's not that we we just experience a lot of shame as negative, but there is a healthy level of recognizing that you're not that good at something. I might feel ashamed at something I'm not that good at, but that doesn't mean I should feel like I'm shaming myself as a person. I might just be like, yeah, I don't want to embarrass myself with the way that I do that because Very good at it, right? So that's just a recognition of healthy humility. Like I'm not perfect at everything, and that's okay. Like learning to be okay with not being perfect is one of the healthiest things you can do, right? Fear is another one that people are like, Well, I don't ever want to be afraid. Fear is always negative. Fear is actually there's a healthy level of fear that leads us to wisdom. Some there are some things that we should be afraid of. Yeah, you shouldn't jump off that bridge, buddy. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Right. I mean, I mean, and so if we really think about it, the emotions aren't there to basically run away from or fix. The emotions are there to just make us more aware. Awareness is the the main thing that we work on with champion forward. But after awareness, we talk about balance. We talk about what does healthy balance look like? Look, if you ask me, so Sophie, I I think that the majority of sports is way out of balance in our culture. Way out of balance. I mean, when you look at what athletes get paid versus what civil servants get paid, I mean, or just you been. I mean, it's it really is like like nurses. It's it's really crazy, like when you look at our culture that we're willing to pay for that, that level of being entertained, you know. And look, I was a person that benefited from it. So who am I to come back and and and hit at this? But the reality is like I just don't think That is the healthiest view is to be that out of balance where sports get that much attention and other things don't, right? At at times. And so there's a level of balance that needs to be achieved here for athletes and their families and and coaches as well and cultures, you know, sports cultures. But then the last thing, the silver bullet for any of this mental and emotional wellness stuff, if you're struggling with it, the silver bullet is always, always healthy connection. Healthy connection fixes so much of this. And and when someone starts feeling super depressed or anxious or panic attacks and all this stuff, the first thing that I all always think is, okay, what is their connection like to themselves? Like, do can they look at themselves in the mirror and actually be kind? Or are they self shaming constantly? Right? Like that's the first thing I ask. And then it's like, well, what's their what's their connection to their family? What's their connection to the people that are closest to them? What's their connection to their sport, the thing that they're playing? Most of the time, if you look at a lot of those relationships, they are shame or fear based. That's why those people start to feel these things because they're just pushing through all the shame and the fear, but they're not actually connecting in a healthy way with that shame and with that fear. Cause if we were, what we would do is we'd be able to sit down with our kids and say, Hey, I feel like you're afraid of what I'm gonna say to you right now after the game. Are you okay? Like And the the kids like, yeah, well, are you gonna tell me I did bad or no, I don't feel like I wanna say I loved watching you, I enjoyed the whole experience. Like kids are naturally wired to think they did something wrong, right? They're especially around their parents. I think they're wired to think that the way that we parent them often call causes that, right? And and I'm guilty of that as well. But I think we what we need to try to do is. Say, hey, yeah, I was feeling a little bit frustrated about this or a little bit scared about that. And I'm sorry, you know, like, like that's actually a healthy connection because you're actually starting to bring out some of those things in a conversation in a way that makes them feel like it's actually okay to feel things, right? So that they can actually tell you how they feel. ⁓ and and there's there's a lot of evidence that if you just let those things come out of your mouth that are true deep down. Just the emotions. Doesn't even have to be all the context around it. Just the emotion. There's evidence that that takes the edge off of the feeling that could be smothering you. Yeah. Do you feel like since you've been on this journey that you've had more athletes come to you and be like, thank you so much, dude? Like I, you know, I feel the same way. I mean, and we don't have a space to really talk about it. ⁓ yeah, there's been a few. The the older, more mature athletes will say that. The younger athletes, no. The younger athletes are more interested in how did you get there. I wanna I wanna I wanna achieve what you achieved. I'll tell you who who has been impacted the most by it parents and coaches. Sure. Parents and coaches that see the problem and they say, Wow, thank you. I never knew that there were some things that I could be doing to help the the stress that we feel around the game all the time. Right. And and that's the thing that I think if we as parents, coaches, the adults in the room, don't start to model it and do it ourselves. If we think this is for something for the kids to do, then we're missing it because we're the ones that cause a lot of the feelings, you know, for the kids out on the field. And so if we don't realize like when we sit and watch our sports game, let's say we're just a fan of of our football team or something in the winter, and you sit and you get so emotionally wrapped up in just watching the game, who do you think is watching you? Yeah. Your child, good point. Yeah, for sure. They're watching that they're watching what you care about. So what do you think they're gonna care about? Like if they if they know you want them to win and then you lose or you have a bad a bad game, do you think they're able to just like, ⁓ it's no big deal? Mom and dad, it's not that big of a deal. No, they know that you're having big feelings too. So if we aren't the adults in the room that are able to calm ourselves and realize this is a game and this game is not here for them to win. This game is here to be a crucible to for them to filter their character as they grow into a human being, into an adult. Right? Like that's what we should be trying to use sports for is to train these kids up to be the best quality people that God has created them to be. Be be a good human. That's what you care about, right? Like, and I'm just curious. Do you coach your kids? Or ⁓ I did I I did a little bit, but I know I'm out, I'm out of that. I try no, I try not to. I do coach some high school kids. I am a coach. I am doing some one on one coaching for some specific athletes. But the first the first thing I do with my athletes is we talk about what you're feeling. Let's let's start with emotions and then let's work to toward the context of where those are coming from. Because if we can't clear the deck with the emotions, we took we say we say this at Champion Four, we'd say we say if you feel well, then you're gonna fail well and then you're gonna play free. Because a free player is a fast player. The best players are free players and fast players. Right. So if you want to be free, fast and and get into flow on the field, you have to learn to feel well. Otherwise, you're just shoving your feelings down and eventually those are going to catch up to you. And it will slow you down on the field. Slow down your thought pattern, slow down your ability to just play with reckless abandon and do and take the risks that you need to on the field to be able to be great, right? Because it takes a lot of courage to be great. And you gotta take risks. But people that are playing with a lot of fear and shame deep down, anger, if they're playing with a lot of that underneath, it will slow them down. It will it will catch up to them. Well, and think about all the new pressures that like I mean, I didn't have this growing up, ⁓ but it was like now youth sports is a 40 billion dollar a year industry, which I didn't know until my conversation with Tyson Ross. And he's like trying to do something about making that better and you know, bring bring sports back into communities. But it's like, you know, if your parent is paying ten thousand dollars a season for you to play, there's a new level of pressure. It's not just you get to show up and and play. It's like you better perform because I'm I'm banking on your college being paid for and I paid five hundred dollars for this bat. And you know, imagine that kind of pressure on top of it. I mean, I can't imagine. Yeah, ⁓ I can't imagine either because that's not how it was for me. Yeah. I mean, I can I can only imagine it because I can see it. We we all see it nowadays, but I think we gotta be really, really careful with thinking or talking about money with our kids at all in regard to their sports. Like, wow, well, this is costing a lot of money. As if, as if you know, that is something that you're you need, you you as a parent, by saying that, are saying, I'm gonna need something from you if I'm gonna put this money in. Right. And and look, it i if if we're there, think about think about that from a little league parent. Think of think of a T ball kid going up to the plate and the parent saying, Well listen, I'm gonna need you to get a hit tonight. Yeah. Yeah. If you don't if you don't, we're not going to get that ice cream after the game. Yeah, totally. You know? Like that's the type of thing that I think is pretty ridiculous when you look at it. And and now just because the kid's eighteen and you've spent a lot of money on his travel season or all the the lessons that it took to get him to where he where he is, he still needs to know that that your love is And your gifts to him are not dependent upon how well he plays. You know, because that is, listen, that is the real world. That is the monetary NIL world. If you don't play, you don't get paid. If you don't play well, you don't get paid. And and when we start doing that to kids, their brains are not fully developed. Now they've got to make adult decisions and deal with adult stresses before they're adults. And that's just not healthy for them. So no wonder they're feeling depressed. Like, let's be honest, adults, we're the ones that are the problem. It's not the kids, we're the ones that are the problems. Preach. Preach, Ben. I love it. I love it. Yeah, no, I and you know, and it's hard too when you have a naturally I have kids that are two different sides of the spectrum. My daughter could care less, and my son is really competitive. And you know, we had a game the other day and he lost and he was in a terrible mood. And I was like, Hey, it was really fun. It was like I really enjoyed watching you steal home. That was awesome, you know? And he was like, Mom, please just stop talking, you know? So it's just like he was like, I did I did terrible, please stop talking. I'm like, what am I supposed to say in those moments? Cause I want you to know I like love watching you no matter what, but he's so competitive. And it's like, okay, well, maybe that's on me. Like, and I didn't even realize it. So that's a really different perspective that you've given me on, okay, well, maybe I you know, put that in his head a little bit unknowingly and I need to maybe adjust how I do things. Well, I I don't know if I'd go that far. I w I would say some people are just kind of born with that ambition, that mindset of I will succeed. I'm not gonna do anything half half. I mean I'm not gonna do anything at ⁓ where at that I can't succeed in. Right. Yeah. And they get really frustrated and angry when they don't. And I think ⁓ one of the life lessons that we all need to learn and I'm still trying to learn it at the age that I'm at. ⁓ is can I be content with losing? Can I be content with not performing at my best? Can I be at peace knowing that I didn't perform the way that I'm capable of performing? That is a difficult like here's what here's what coaches will here's what coaches will tell you. Here's what your employer will tell you. You should never be content with less than your best. Well, let's be honest. If that's the truth, then I'm not gonna be at peace very often in my life at all. Fair. Because there's very few days that I play perfectly, that I do it all perfectly, and I have a very high standard for myself. So if we can't come to grips with putting our best foot forward, knowing I probably won't end up playing at my best today. Like, but still, our job is not to always be perfect. Our job is to do the best we can to be perfect. And then when it doesn't happen, to be at peace and to connect to the people around me, no matter what. Because there's gonna be days that you have great days and there's gonna be days you have bad days. But but when are we going to be able to actually be at peace with each other and with the scenario when it isn't perfect? Because it's often not perfect, right? So so so if we truly wanna be at peace with each other. Then we've got to find a way to let go of needing to achieve perfection on a daily basis. And and look, I want kids to achieve. I'm not saying like you lower the standards. Actually, the the the results are in, and the science says that they need high standards, but they also need a high level of grace. Yeah. A high level of of patience. Right? That's what we all need. We all need a lot of patience and a lot of grace, but still keep the standards where they need to be. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, and how many times does a person actually say, ⁓ man, I learned the most when I won the World Series? I learned the most when I won the Super Bowl or whatever. It's like, no, you learned the most about yourself and you grew when you failed, when you screwed up, when you fell down, when you were like at your lowest rock bottom point. It was like that's when I grew. And, you know, when you get to that point where you're at your highest, you're like, What did I I didn't learn anything about myself. I just learned that I'm really good at showing up every day and doing what I'm supposed to do. but as a person, that's not when you grow. You I mean, it's like I listened to this speech where this guy was like, I love failing. And he starts off, he's like, I love it. And it's like, what? You know, and he's like, that is the only time I've ever grown as a person, is like whenever I screw up and I fail. And ⁓ you know, it kind of made me look at things differently, of like, ⁓ you know, yeah, I failed. And I also became a way better person because I did. Thank God I failed. You know, thank God like people look at marriages that fail and they're like, you know, feel I mean, I felt like the biggest screw up, right? It was like, ⁓ I'm, you know, I can't do this, I can't even be a good wife, I can't be this. And it's like, no, I learned the most about myself. That's whenever I grew as a human being and I became more empathetic towards other people and became more understanding. And I think if you can look at it from that perspective, like you get you gain so much from it. Me personally. One hundred percent. Yeah. You you you have to look at it as an opportunity. It's very difficult for kids to do that because all they see is that somebody else is achieving and I'm not. Like I'm just falling behind. I shouldn't be doing this. I just feel bad about myself. Why would I keep doing this? I just feel bad about myself. It's learning to feel okay in the failure. Right. Learning to learning to keep coming back, getting up, trying again, even when I am failing. That's where you grow the most. That's where you learn the most about yourself. And you actually build a level of strength and capacity that you didn't have prior to that. I can say honestly, I'm a stronger person now and I've achieved more now when nobody's watching than when everybody was watching. Because I know the work that I'm doing is more difficult and it's more internal. It's more of a recognition of what I need w where I need to grow in here and up here and less about like what I do. And do you feel like do you feel like now you have more like authentic connections? Or or do you feel like it's I mean, I don't know what you were like in the hype of your career, but when you were in the hype of your career when everybody was like probably fawning after you or whatever it may be, and now it's like kind of died down a little bit to where it's like, maybe these people actually do care about me as a person and care about who Ben is and don't just care about World Series Ben. Yeah, I I mean, you you always want to assume the best of people. And when I was going through it, I think I did, but I I didn't realize how much I felt used. And I didn't realize it. Like I did I didn't I didn't recognize that I was feeling used, right? and I don't think people were trying to necessarily use me, but I Just when everybody's kind of grabbing at you during those periods of your life, you start to feel like they want something from you. Everybody wants something from you and and it's never gonna be enough because there's always gonna be somebody you're gonna say no to and they're gonna be mad at you because you said no. Right. And and you have to be okay in your own skin, knowing that like I can't please everybody and I'm gonna have to walk away and and just take care of myself and my family ⁓ at the end of the day. Right. So now Authenticity is one one thing that I do really, really care about. it's it's the thing that I I really don't have a lot of friendships that aren't authentic. Like they're, you know, I mean I have acquaintance friendships, but I have more I have far more friendships that are deep and I believe lasting because they're built on mutual transparency. Right. And that that's the difficult thing to do in the sports or celebrity world is like To be transparent because transparency also means like you have to admit you don't have it all figured out. And that's hard for people to do. They they just to try to keep confidence at a high level, they have to like fake themselves and they feel like they can't ever drop down their frequency a little bit down into the realm of fear or shame. It's like I don't, I don't I'm not gonna trust you unless you show me some of your fear and shame. Like that's just me now. Like I if somebody just shows me their confidence constantly, I'm like, what are you hiding? I know you're hiding. Stuff, you know, so like show me what's real and then I'll trust you. And listen, that's how these kids are too. These kids are that way. If if you don't ever show them anything but strength, they won't trust you. They won't follow you because they're willing to show you that they're weak if you are willing to show you they're you're weak. They're willing to. This generation will do it. Now, what they will also do, and you gotta be careful of this as you're an adult or a or a coach, they will also use their weakness as a way to get out of things. Right. They'll they'll say, I I'm I'm feeling this way. And that's actually another way to avoid. Because they're trying to avoid something they don't want to face up to. So it takes this courage to say, no, we're not going to avoid what's uncomfortable. Because you're used to feeling comfortable, we're actually going to step into the discomfort right now. Sometimes that means sharing and being transparent. And sometimes it means zipping it up and getting tough. In the moment. And when you're between the lines, guess what? That's not the place to sit down and do your emotions feeling. Like that's we're not gonna do emotions right now. Okay. Get the job done. Like the coach isn't gonna be like, how do you feel right now in the fifth inning? Get the job done. But when it's over, you gotta rewind. Yeah. I talked about what I go when I go and do speaking stuff, it's like hero versus human. You're you're you you're doing the hero thing, but then when do you step back to being human afterwards? Totally. I think what's hilarious about that is I have a funny story. I I just came back from a like a celebrity golf tournament, which I actually had no business at at all. And ⁓ these people were coming up to me, again, no clue who they were, because I don't know anything about athletes. And ⁓ I said, I'm like you know, I'm just talking about this and I'm talking about your guys' like celebrity world and I go, I don't know. I just feel like I don't really fit in here. And I feel like, you know, eighty percent of these people in this world are like their whole clout or their whole like ⁓ you know, claim to fame is that they know this person, right? And then there's this 20% of people that are actually doing like the work and are really doing incredible things. But then you have all these 80% of gatekeepers that are like, ⁓ if you do this for me, I'm gonna leverage this so you could talk to this and I'm like, this is just wild. And this guy is like, hey, come here. And I'm like, okay. So I'm talking to him and he's like, I really like you. And I and he's like, so tell me about your, you know, and just like was talking to me because I was like, ⁓ I have no business here. Like, I'm a nobody. Like, trust me. And he's like, no, I love that. Like, you know, and just saying like that authenticity doesn't ever exist. And people are like, How do you make all these friends with these billionaires, like all these people? And I'm like, Because I'm just sitting there, I'm like, hey, I have no business here. Like, no, like, trust me, don't ask me because I don't know. I'm just here to like try to do some good things. And ⁓ if I don't, I don't, but I'm here to try. And like these people are like that never exists in this world. So maybe just me saying that might help somebody, just being like, hey, it's okay to just go in and be like, hey, I don't know, man. Like I'm just here. ⁓ and people kind of seem to respect that more. They do. And you know, leaders are lonely. People at the top are very lonely, right? And so and and I think it's it's very ⁓ you know, it's it's not normal that you're gonna have somebody just show up and say, Hey, I don't have it all figured out because they feel like they are supposed to or something. But the reality is nobody does. Nobody, nobody does. If we're all honest, nobody's got it all figured out. And so we need to be able to open ourselves up. Obviously, you're not gonna do that with everybody, but you open yourself up to people that you feel like you can trust, right? That can also share. And that that is the antidote. To mental and emotional ⁓ stressors. Yeah. And and there's always gonna be a table that you sit at where you feel like you don't belong. You know, and you feel like, ⁓ my gosh, these people have all these fancy titles and these people and then you kind of sit down next to them and you're like, ⁓ he's really not that you know, like not all that. Like he's really not like and you kind of sit and then you go to the next table and you're like, That person's really not all that and and so then you start feeling like, ⁓ maybe I can sit at these tables too. And realizing that just because somebody has a title or has done something or knows somebody, it doesn't really mean that they're any better than you. They were just in the right place at the right time and maybe did things a little bit differently. But I'm learning that just in this world of, you know, barely being in it is just, you know, some of these people really don't have anything more figured out than I do. Yeah. And really when you leave a conversation, it you're leaving someone with an impression, with an experience with you. Right. So What kind of experience do you want to leave people with? Do you want to leave people with an experience that they felt less than you? Or do you want to leave people with an experience that they felt like seen by you? Yeah. You know, they they and they felt like they know you as a human being. You they know they know the person behind the persona. Right. And I think that's that's what we're all looking for. ⁓ we would all we would love to feel that way about all the people that we admire and that are that inspire us. Like like we could sit down and have a meal with them and they would they would just open up to us and share life with us and and share a meal, you know, like like you wanna feel like you can't be friends with everybody, but you wanna feel like the people that you admire would want to be a friend to you. Sure. Right? Yeah. So at the end of the day, how do we how do you try to ask someone to be a friend to you? They may be closed off, but is being open ourselves. We have to be open first. We have to be the person that's willing to show up and And just be just be normal. Just be a human, you know, like be goofy, be be uncomfortable, be embarrassing. Like whatever it is that makes you feel like a human being, you know, I think I think genuine people appreciate that. They are not turned off by that. They appreciate it. And they're like, that's probably why ⁓ you found ⁓ a lot of friends in those places. Well, it gives nothing gives me the ick personally more than somebody being like, I have this much money, I do this, I have these accolades. I'm like, Ugh, you know, I mean, really, like in the dating world or in any kind of world, I'm just like, ugh. ⁓ just like who are you as a I don't care about that. And so I don't want to be that person to go up and be like, ⁓ I have, you know, this many followers, right? Like nobody cares. And I hate to say it, but it's like nobody really does care. ⁓ and they just care about who you are. And if they want to have a beer with you after they close a a deal, and I'm realizing that more and more. Like, do I wanna continue a relationship with this person? based on me liking them. And I've kind of found that in a lot of like the wealthier people that have made more and more money. It's like they work with like the same people throughout their entire career. And it's because they genuinely like hanging out with them or like being around them or trust them or whatever. And they don't feel like they have to put on this front for people. And I'm like, that's the community I want to create. It's like you don't have to show up any other way other than yourself and just show up as who you are. You don't have to fit into a box. Hey guys. So unfortunately, one of the harsh truths about living in Missouri is that we get storms in and out of here constantly. So, ⁓ I just wanted to say thank you to Ben Zobrist. ⁓ we got cut off because we had a storm roll through and had a huge power outage, but he is honestly just an amazing person and ⁓ coming from me who like didn't know him at all and didn't know him from Adam was really cool to see somebody using their platform and using it to do something that they're really passionate about in something that I really think is a problem in our world as well. And ⁓ he's created the system that it's it's all about teaching the adults to be healthier adults to train children or coach children and I think that's really neat. And just like he was talking about, like it's not the kids that automatically just ⁓ have these complexes or have this anxiety or have this depression. It's, you know, what we're doing as parents and kind of push that on to children, whether we know we're doing it or not, just ways to raise and create these really mentally healthy humans. And I think it's so important. ⁓ I love what he's doing. And I think that He's just so genuine and kind about it. And ⁓ I I love supporting ⁓ what he's doing. ⁓ kind of a funny side note before we even started recording. I'm like, hey, I'm Sophie, you know, nice to meet you. And ⁓ he's like, Hey, I'm so glad to be here. And he goes, So what what charity are we championing today? And just was like, and I was like, Ben, yours, your charity. And he was like, ⁓ okay, that's so great, you know. And but it was like so cute to me that like regardless he was still showing up for other people just to be a nice person and had no real idea if we were going to be championing his charity or not. And he still showed up, so I thought that was really, really cute and sweet actually. ⁓ but again Thank you to Ben. I just think that you're an amazing person. And I am now a fan of you based on what you're doing off the field. And so much of what you said, I think will help so many people. ⁓ I think there's a lot of men out there that probably don't feel like they can get the mental health help that they need because it's just there's a stigma associated with it. And for someone who is so accomplished to come out and say, you know, hey, it's actually so much stronger of you to come out and say, I need help because I don't want to continue to damage people or I don't want to continue to put my or make my problems into somebody else's problem because that's essentially what we do as parents or people or partners. It's what we do when we don't get the corrective help that we need. Like we make our problems other people's problems. And If we don't realize that now, you know, we will in 10, 15, 20 years, you know, that somebody else has been hurting or hasn't gotten the love that they need from us because we didn't get the help that we needed to be a more fulfilled and whole human being. And just learning about what makes you whole and what makes you feel fulfilled in life is huge. And ⁓ I think everybody needs that. I think everybody should go to therapy. I think everybody. Could use just a little dose of that reality that, you know, these kids aren't feeling this pressure on their own, you know, and we are we're putting this pressure on children for what and why? And why are we, you know, making youth sports about something way bigger than what it is? And why are we not more focused on raising just healthy humans and mentally? healthy humans that don't grow up and damage people or damage their partners or damage their friends or whatever it may be or just become really sad people because they don't feel fulfilled in life. And ⁓ yeah, I just that just hit home with me. And I think that anybody, any mill millennial anyway, would totally get it. Because when we were growing up, that wasn't really a thing. Like, ⁓ you know, this youth sports industry wasn't really a thing. I mean, I played club ball, ⁓ but it was, you know, it wasn't the same. It was like if you really love to play and you were good, you got to play on this, you know, elite team. And that was kind of the beginning of it, but it was like not the same mentality as it is now. And these kids feel this pressure and they are definitely it's it shows. It shows in ⁓ how they're performing in school and you know, how they're acting and how they're acting out outside of school, and how do we get out of this culture of raising kids to perform? And that is what my biggest takeaway from the Ben podcast was is how do we stop treating love like it's performance-based? And you can just simply exist. And someone love you and you're enough. You're more than enough, just being yourself. And I think feeling like love is performance based is probably hits home more with people than they care to admit. And feeling like if you if you can't measure up in these aspects of life, whether it's providing, ⁓ whether it's, you know, making enough money, keeping a great enough house, doing whatever, you know, being a great enough mom on And if you can't perform to the highest of your ability at all times, that that person's not gonna love you or your your marriage is gonna suffer or your kids are gonna suffer. And I think what he's trying to say is ⁓ it's that's a such an impossible standard to be held and nobody could ever live up to that. Nobody could ever live up to feeling like they have to be perfect at all times and they shouldn't have to. You should be able to say this has been a really hard season for me. I'm doing my best. I'm showing up. And ⁓ you should have family or friends or whoever it is that say you're enough and that's enough for us. And you don't have to perform. You don't have to always be on. You know. And ⁓ you don't have to always be in a good mood. You don't always have to, you know, ⁓ like you everybody's like probably been to that person's house where They're these incredible hosts and they can't ever just sit down and enjoy like time with everybody. They're always like up and doing things and worried about the the dishes or the kitchen or like cooking, getting everybody what they need. And it's like you don't just, hey, sit down, enjoy it. Enjoy just being, being still and enjoy just the company of people and the companionship in that you don't always have to be just on all the time. It's it's actually exhausting and nobody expects that of you. And we need to make that a true statement that nobody does expect that of another person, that they have to consistently perform in order to gain your favor. And I r I just, yeah, I think I gained so much from this interview, me personally, and I wanted to share these insights with you that I feel really good about. the conversation about how more and more men are coming out about mental health awareness and raising good good men, right? Like raising men that don't expect that of their wives, or, you know, raising men that are able to talk about their feelings or, you know, you can cry. You can, you can experience those things. And actually I encourage you to because I don't want to deal with the wrath of what happens if you don't later. And and I think that that's where a lot of things happen is when we ⁓ or maybe negative things happen when men are expected to quote unquote be men and not have these feelings that are ⁓ everybody does. Everybody has them and you know, if you're you're not a man if you don't act this way or you're not a man if you ⁓ if you cry or if you say I'm not okay, because I'm the provider and I have to be the leader of the family. And I think there's something really powerful ⁓ to be said about I'm the leader of the family and I'm gonna tell you, ⁓ I'm not okay right now. Right now I'm having a really, really hard time, really bad day. And ⁓ you know, I need I need support just like you guys do. And there's strength in showing that to your family and your kids or your spouse. And not enough people talk about talk about that and talk about yeah, again, just not feeling like you have to always perform. And you are absolutely enough. You are absolutely enough for ⁓ your family. You're absolutely enough just for yourself and what it takes to get you there to feel like you are enough is what we want to accomplish. And I think what Ben is trying to accomplish in this and ⁓ I know he's working on this system and kind of perfecting his his charity. And ⁓ I love what he's doing in saying we're we're gonna create this system for adults. And how do we coach these kids or how do we, you know, ⁓ help these kids turn into to better, ⁓ more productive, healthy, mentally healthy, well being ⁓ or mentally healthy people. And ⁓ we just need to come together and support what he's trying to do because it at the end of the day, it's our future. It's our children, it's our legacies, it's how we want to see the world evolve in, you know, in the upcoming years of we're not raising people who can't be accountable. We're not raising people who give up and quit. And like he talked about, like we don't, you know. Saying, ⁓ I'm gonna walk away and I'm gonna quit and I'm because I can't do it. No, that's that's also not being mentally healthy. What are you avoiding here? We're not raiding raising like a bunch of avoidant children, but how do you actually raise mentally healthy children so that we have a better society one day? And whatever I can do to champion that for Ben is ⁓ what I'm gonna do because I think it's so, so, so, so important. ⁓ and you know, we'll continue to bring this up and talk about it because we can't just continue to allow what's happening happen. So anyway, I thank you guys all for tuning in. I loved today's conversation and I'm officially now a Ben Zobrist fan and I really, really appreciate him more than he probably knows. So all right, guys, till next time. And that's the giving game. If today's episode hits close to home for you, the donation link for this athlete charity will be in the description below. And if you can't donate right now, hey, that's okay too. Just do something kind for somebody today. The world needs more of that. See you next time!