In September 2003, I took my official recruiting trip to Vanderbilt University. I was sold on moving 2,000+ miles across the country by blue skies, country music, and a roster full of jacked and tan bros.
Although the team was far from nationally ranked at the time, everybody seemed highly motivated to WIN. And as I came to learn, it was because the Head Coach, Tim Corbin, was one of the smartest, most effective leaders I had ever and will ever see in my lifetime.
Prior to playing under Coach Corbin, I never understood primal psychology. I never understood the power of persuasion. And I never understood the benefit of speaking well and being good looking.
After playing under Coach Corbin, I began to see the world for what it was. Competitive people will always catch breaks that elude the lazy and non-competitive. They’ll get up to train before work so they can get job offers they’re unqualified to receive. Make no mistake, that is exactly how I got my job offer from Google.
No class at Vanderbilt taught me how to get a job in Silicon Valley better than Baseball Practice. No class at Vanderbilt taught me how to regulate my emotions and overcome the frustration of entrepreneurship like Baseball Practice.
The frameworks I use to this day would never had been created had I not spent 4 years of my life in the middle of a Cambrian explosion of athletic success. When I think about the members of our 2007 SEC Championship team, the success rate was insane. The Head Coach won 2 National Championships. 12 years later, the Assistant Coach went onto become the NCAA Head Coach of the Year. The Pitching Coach became the MLB Coach of the Year. The Director of Baseball Operations became a MLB Bench Coach. 7 players went on to play in the MLB and 1 became an MLB GM.
The key frameworks I use to this day are as follows:
You can ALWAYS be more competitive. There is never an excuse for failure if you refuse to accept one.
Nobody wins by accident. If someone is doing better than you without putting the work in, you’re working on the wrong things.
Success is never linear. Momentum is real.
Logic has limits. Winners lie to themselves.
These 4 lessons are simple, yet people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend university classes that teach them that these lessons are not true.
They say baseball is 90% mental. And because life is also 90% mental, Baseball Practice under a nationally renowned head coach turned out to be my most valuable class at Vanderbilt.