Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Mark Teixeira

I recently interviewed Mark Teixeira on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is a three time All Star, five time Gold Glove winner, and one of the best switch hitters in Major League Baseball history. Mark Teixeira spent 14 years in the majors, and four as an analyst for ESPN, where you can find him on the show that I watched most as a kid, Baseball Tonight. Mark, thank you for joining us.

Mark: It's great being here. And thanks for having me.

Adam: It's crazy how time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I remember you as a campus prospect. You were the national Player of the Year at Georgia Tech. Top five picked by the Texas Rangers, cruising through the minors in one season. You hit 38 homers and won a Silver Slugger in your second year at age 24. How do you explain your early success and how much of it was due to natural ability compared to everything else?

Mark: That's a great question. And I mean, number one, God gave me the ability to take a baseball. And that's as simple as I can put it. I believe I was given certain gifts. And if some people can play the piano and some can paint, and some can hit a fastball, and that's the gift that I was given. And I always loved playing baseball. I played it as much as I could growing up in Severna Park, Maryland and grew up an Orioles fan and looked at Eddie Murray as a switch hitter and said, man, I would love to be like Eddie someday. So I just played all the time, as long as it wasn't raining or snowing outside. I was outside playing baseball and other sports as well. But obviously baseball was my passion. And so you know, I do give a ton of credit to my coaches at Georgia Tech. They kind of gave me the freedom to just develop into the player that I became. So you know, I started Georgia Tech as a kind of a wide eyed 18 year old and left as a young man ready for professional baseball. And luckily it only took one year in the minors, as you said, but you know, then when I got to the big leagues, my hitting coach for the first five years of my career was huge in my development. So sometimes I pinched myself at the success I had at such a young age. But you know, you're young, you're healthy, you have great coaches around you, you have great teammates around you. And, you know, I think just being able to go out there and play and stay healthy was huge for me as a young player.

Adam: Can you talk about your relationship with some of your coaches? You mentioned your coach at Georgia Tech, you mentioned, Rudy, you've played for a lot of great managers, what makes a great coach, what makes a great leader? And in your experience what can anyone listening to this podcast do to become a great coach or become a great leader?

Mark: I think number one is communication. You have to be able to have a great line of communication between you and your coach or you and your player depending on what side of that line you're on and understand what makes them tick. So if I was telling a coach right now that you want to- say you're a high school coach, and one of your players at 15, or 16 years old, shows incredible talent, and is out there, whether it's on the mound, throwing 95 miles an hour striking everybody out or at the plate hitting home runs left and right. I think coaches need to understand that there's something special about that player, try to understand what makes them special. And then just get them back to where that is and try to get the most out of that talent. The worst thing that you can do as a coach with a young player is try to put your fingerprints on them, or try to mold them in in the way that you think they should be molded because everybody has success for different reasons. There are certain players that are really, really smart and can outfit you at the plate. There's other players that just have incredible ability, and you don't want to think- it's see the ball hit the ball. And until you understand what makes that player tick it's gonna be hard to coach them.

Adam: Along those lines. Obviously, analytics have become a huge part of baseball and an increasingly significant part of baseball since you've retired. And certainly since you broke into the game. What are your thoughts on the balance between old school and new school and the extent to which analytics can help players, and the extent to which players just need to go up there and react based on instinct.

Mark: Yeah, well, this is the big debate right now, the big debate is, you know, sports, by definition are natural, they are instinctual, they are athletic. And while you want to have a plan, while you want to have, you know, your mind and your thoughts, kind of putting things together to try to figure out what to do, at the end of the day, you need to react, you need to rely on your natural ability to make a play. And so I think there is a very fine line between giving information to a player that will help them on the field, and overloading that player with too much information. So it kind of goes back to what I just said about what makes a player tick. There are certain guys that I played with, Chipper Jones is a great example, one of the greatest players of all time, switch hitter, I play with him with The Braves. He really was a guest hitter and wanted to study that element of certain pitches in certain counts. And he said, you know what? I know I'm going to get a curveball at some point in this at bat. And if he hangs it, I'm going to crush or I know this guy is going to throw me an outside fastball at some point in his at bat. And I'm going to hit it the other way into the gap. That's the type of player that he was, I was different. I was a “see the ball, hit the ball,” type player. I knew what made myself tick. I was a fastball hitter that reacted to offspeed pitches. And that's the way I was ever since I was a little kid. And for me, you know, towards the end of my career, there was information that was given to me that I would try to use, but I got up to the plate with too much information. And let that fastball right down the middle go. And I think that most players today can understand what type of player they are, what gives them that success. So they need to talk with their analytics department and say, all right, this is who I am, this is what I need. Give me everything that I need from an analytics perspective to be better.

Adam: Mark, the perspective you shared is something that I've heard a lot from current and former players. And a lot of it really boils down to effective communication. Having people in your organization, whether they're coaches, or whether they're other members of the staff, that are able to relay the information to you. And this doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you're a major league baseball player, or whether you're in any other organization, it ultimately comes down to effectively communicating across all layers of your organization. And right now, you're a professional communicator, you are an analyst for ESPN. What advice do you have for listeners on the topic of effective communication?

Mark: I think you hit the nail on the head, by the way, I mean, whether it's in the business world, which I'm a part of right now, you know, now that I'm not playing baseball every day, you know, running some businesses and being a part of the investment community, whether it's at ESPN, going through a clip that we might want to make a point on, and how to tell the fans exactly the goals of a player and a, hey, look what he's doing here and what this team's doing here. Or on the baseball field with a coach. If you can't communicate, it breaks down what makes your organization great. If I can't explain to somebody what I need to be better, then how am I going to get better if I'm a team of 25 guys that get together and say, you know what? We can really use iPads in our locker room to immediately get feedback on at bats or pitches or training or whatever it might be, but you can't explain to the coaching staff why you need it. And the coaching staff after that 20 minute conversation says that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You're not getting iPads. That's the biggest thing. Right? And I would say that when you can be honest with your manager or with your coaching staff or with your executive team, you know, on the business side, honest on what I need to become successful, knowing that they might not want to hear it, by the way, that works. From the other perspective as well; you need to be able to tell a player and you need to be able to tell an employee, hey, you're not getting the job done. This is what I need from you. Most people, if they know what is expected of them and can communicate what they need to be successful, you're going to have a well oiled machine as an organization and I think that when there's a disconnect there, that's when you see organizations fall apart.

Adam: Mark that's great advice. I want to go back to 2008. And I was giving you a little bit of a hard time about this off the air. You would establish yourself as one of the best players in baseball and you're in the last year of your contract, you're traded to my favorite team, The Angels at the trade deadline. You put up MVP, really Hall of Fame caliber numbers, and leave The Angels to the first hundred win season in franchise history. And people like me, we're hoping that you're going to resign with the team, Angel ownership is hoping you're going to resign with a team. You wind up signing with the Yankees and it obviously pays off for you. You won a World Series right away. Can you talk about what goes on behind the scenes during free agency? How does the free agency experience compare to how it's reported and how fans perceive it?

Mark: Well, first of all, it's the most stressful offseason of any player's career. And I was lucky, I was only a free agent one time, thank God. But, you know, I think what most players will tell you, and I completely agree with, is that on an island, as an individual I could play, you know, you put me anywhere in Major League Baseball, all 30 teams, and I would enjoy it because I was a baseball player. And by the way, I'll put The Angels at the top of that list. When you talk about the weather, when you talk about the passionate fans, being able to live close to the beach, having some of the best food in the world. I mean, The Angels organization is a top free agent destination. And I love every single minute of playing for The Angels. And I kind of have to be very careful with Yankee fans because I tell people the best eight years of my career were with the Yankees, but the best three months of my career were with The Angels because it was so much fun playing for that team. But you know, going back to kind of being on an island, you're not online, I had a wife and two kids at the time. And, you know, my entire family was from the east coast. And so I'm trying to weigh this, this organization and this team that I really loved. I really enjoyed playing for Mike Sosa. All the teammates there got along with all the guys, but my father who watched every single game of my professional career, my major league career, lives on the east coast. And those games start at 10 o'clock. And that's a long flight from Maryland to Southern California. My wife's family is all from Georgia, same issues there. So when you talk about your entire world is kind of based on an East Coast living, and then thinking about the next eight years of your career being on the West Coast- that was kind of a deal breaker for me. And I really did enjoy playing for The Angels, but when you look at all of the different things that go into the approach of where you're going to be on the East Coast was important for me.

Adam: You mentioned your time with The Yankees as being the best years of your career. You won a World Series right away. What made that team so special and what are the key ingredients to a winning culture in baseball and winning culture across organizations?

Mark: Well, talent number one. I would say that any team that goes into spring training can look around the room like we did in that Yankees clubhouse and say, we can win a World Series and actually, we probably should win a World Series. That's number one. There's probably only eight to 10 teams that truly every single year go into spring training with a chance to win a World Series. We saw this year, after all of the hoopla over a short shortened season and expanded playoffs, the two teams that made the World Series had the best record in the regular season. And it usually happens that way; that the best teams, you know, make it to the playoffs and win a World Series. So number one was the talent; we had it everywhere. Number two, we had a really good mix of Yankee standard bearers; the Derek Jeter’s, Mario Rivera's, guys that had a bunch of talent that hadn't won a championship yet, like myself, A.J. Burnett, C.C. Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez, and then a couple young guys that a lot of people don't really talk about, but Phil Hughes and Phil Koch, David Robertson, those guys were really, really important to our pitching staff and kind of the young spark that we needed. Brett Gardner, I'll throw him in there as a guy who was great for us during that season. You need that combination of the Old Guard, the guys that are kind of in the prime of their career, still have the talent. I was 29 years old in my prime, and then the young guys that could be honest and give you that spark. And we had that with the Yankees and starting probably at the beginning of June, we felt like we couldn't be beat.

Adam: Mark, that's really good advice. And something we talked about earlier in the conversation was the importance of great coaching, great leadership from the person who has “leader” on their business card, whether it's the CEO of the organization, or whether it's the manager of a baseball team. But so much of leadership is pure leadership. It's the person who is sitting right next to you who might not be your superior, he might actually be someone who reports to you, but leading by example, leading through all these other ways. And baseball is as good an example as any where you can watch leadership in action. And that Yankee team and your description of it is a perfect illustration of how leadership, in addition to great talent, can manifest itself in winning and obviously, great results.

Mark: There's no doubt and I would add that I believe that all leadership starts by example, Derek Jeter, who was the Yankee captain for a reason and one of the greatest Yankees of all time, five World Championships and all of the other accolades in his career. He didn't walk in his rookie year and say, I'm the leader of this team. He went out and did his job, led by example, did everything right on and off the field. And then he became the leader and the captain. And I think that's the same everywhere. And leading by example- sometimes it's tough. Sometimes it's doing the hard things. It's taking the hard stance, and especially in a sport that has issues- as professional sports all have their issues- whether it's off the field, problems with teammates, or on the field, steroids use, things like that. You want to look at a leader who, number one, is a guy who does the right thing, leads by example. But then when he needs to, stands up and says something. Derek Jeter wasn't a guy who every single day had something to say. But when he had something to say, everybody listened.

Adam: Mark, how did you approach the mental side of baseball and what tips do you have for listeners on how to develop a winning mindset?

Mark: Well, actually I read a few books. Harvey Dorfman, who any baseball player, any athlete really, for that matter, I would recommend, wrote a few different books called The Mental Game of Baseball, and then, you know, subsequent books, The Mental Game of Hitting and The Mental ABC’s of Pitching. But you know, you read those books, and basically what it comes down to is, if you make it to the major leagues, you have an elite talent, you then need to have the confidence and the work ethic to continue that talent. So for me, it was always about your kind of flushing the failures. And understanding that as a baseball player, I'm going to fail at least seven out of 10 times. But what I don't want to do is I don't want to forget what it feels like to succeed or forget how to succeed. If you focus all of your time, on your failures, your confidence starts diminishing. And then when you get that confidence down to a low enough point, you're unable to succeed. So it's not that, you know, Hall of Famers, you know, you take the greatest players of all time, and I got to play with a lot of them. It's not that they didn't fail, they fail just as much as everybody. But they knew how to succeed and they knew how to not to not dwell on the failures. And so for me, my entire career is always about positive reinforcement. I never looked at video of my failures, I always looked at my hit tape, I looked at my home run tape, I would go- I say tape because when I started in the big leagues, we actually had a VHS that you would plug in and you know, fast forward. It's a little bit more sophisticated now with computers and everything being digital. But every time I have a little bit of a two or three game law, they're ready to get any hits, right, if you'll get the plate. I talked to my hitting coach, hey, what do you see mechanically, and then I went to my hit tape. And I watch myself, you know, hitting home runs and banging line drives all over the field. And I say, okay, that's how you succeed. I remember how to.

Adam: Mark, I love that. And the topic of failure is something that is explored very often on this podcast with all kinds of leaders, whether you're leading a Fortune 500 company, whether you're leading a billion dollar tech startup, whether you're leading a sports organization or leading in the military, you're gonna fail. Every day I tell audiences I speak to that every single day I fail in ways big and small. And to your point, the most important thing is acknowledging that failure is inevitable. Once you accept that you're going to fail in matters of learning from it, and having a positive mindset so that you can take those lessons and turn them into success. Failure is a gateway to success. That’s, in my view, one of the most important lessons that anyone can apply to becoming more successful in their lives and in their career. So we're definitely on the same page on that topic.

Mark: Yeah, and let me add to that I think you learn way more from your failures and failure also creates a grit, it creates a toughness. I don't want to join an organization where everybody has always succeeded, because eventually you're going to fail. You know, the way that I used it in baseball is, you know, in Major League Baseball, you've either been humbled, or are about to be humble. And it kind of goes along with exactly what you're saying. And, you know, if you're starting a company, or you're trying to create something and you continue to fail, you can either say, well, I'm terrible at this, that's never gonna happen. Or, hey, I found 10 ways that don't work. I found 10 things that I shouldn't do again. And I think you completely can learn from all those failures in a much better way than you learn from your successes.

Adam: Mark, we talked about failure versus success. You mentioned Derek Jeter as an exemplary teammate. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera were two of the most clutch players in the history of baseball, and you played alongside them for five postseasons, which is awesome. You also had some teammates who are known for falling apart in October, you had some huge hits in the postseason, a couple of home runs, a walk-off home run that anyone who follows baseball remembers. What advice do you have for listeners on how they can step up to the plate and deliver in high-stakes, high-pressure situations? What does it take to be clutch in baseball and be clutch in life?

Mark: Yeah, well, I wish I had all the answers there. And I wish I had more success in the playoffs. I wish I had Mariano Rivera's success, because he actually got better in the playoffs. And the reason that a guy like Mariano got better in the playoffs is that he was surprisingly confident, because he did at a young age. And I'll say the same with Derek Jeter; they were rookies in the playoffs, they won the World Series very early in their career. And they said, oh, this is just what we do. What we do is, you know, win the division, go to the playoffs, win a bunch of games and win the World Series. And that builds confidence in you. And so Mariano Rivera had that confidence built in at a young age, where other people got to the playoffs, I was 28 with The Angels, my very first playoff game. I was super nervous. And other players because you're nervous, you get outside of your process. And so what I would say is if your process is alright, this is how I'm going to prepare for the game, this dominant stretch, these are the swings, I'm going to take these the ground balls, I'm going to take during the game, I'm going to focus on this and if I stick with that process, I'm going to be successful. If you are in a high leverage situation, whether it's the playoffs or you have a big meeting where you need to, to wow up, you know, a sales meeting or do something that's going to be big for your company. If you get outside what you do well, if you try to be someone you're not, if you try to take the weight of the world on your shoulders, that's when you fail. And so it's really blocking out all of the noise, blocking out the fact that this, you know, this game, or this presentation is going to make or break my career because the fact of the matter is it doesn't, you know? Winning or losing a playoff game or getting a hit in a playoff game or striking out doesn't define your career. And it's the players that understand it's just one at-bat. It's just one game. It's just one presentation. It's just one sale, whatever it might be. I think those are the people that handle pressure the best.

Adam: Mark I love that and I had Terrell Davis on the podcast earlier and we discussed this topic and I asked him a similar question around his first Super Bowl- and it was a huge game. I'm sure you remember it. It was Terrell trying to win a Super Bowl for the first time in his career. They're playing against The Packers and I asked Terrell Davis, how do you prepare mentally for the game? How did you handle the pressure of the moment? The Super Bowl is one game. Plus, baseball playoffs are obviously very high pressure, but it's a series. And he gave the exact same answer that you gave, which was, he went back to the fact that he was playing the exact same game that he had played his entire life. It was the same game you played in high school and college. And professionally, same rules, same field, same ball, just a different day. And if you can adopt that mindset to whatever situation you're in- and I love the fact that, Mark, you brought it back to giving a presentation or talking to your team about something that might be uncomfortable, whatever it is, that gives you butterflies, makes you jittery. If it's a high-pressure moment for you, take a step back and remember that you've been there, you've done it. And it doesn't matter whether you're playing Major League Baseball or playing professional football or sitting in a boardroom, the rules are the same.

Mark: Absolutely. Don Cox teen who is a mental strength coach, mental conditioning coach, worked with the Texas Rangers when I was a young player and also works with The Dallas Mavericks. He was great for me young in my career. And he put it another way, he said, think about a foot wide wooden plank. And I put that wooden plank on the ground right here. And I tell you to walk up and back 100 times. You're doing it 100 out of 100 times, and you're not going to think about it. I put that foot wide wooden plank on the 50th floor of a skyscraper and tell you to walk across to the next skyscraper, your mind is going to start going crazy, you're going to put your arms out, you're going to start wobbling, you're going to look down at your feet. And the point he was trying to make is, it's the same action, just different consequences. You rarely see people just fall down on the street because they can't walk straight. But you put that plank above a 50 story building, where falling off means you're dead… that's a different set of circumstances and consequences. And the better that you can do to block out the consequences of or, by the way, the positive, you know, factors, I'm gonna be a Super Bowl champion, or I'm going to be a Super Bowl GOAT, you can block those out and it allows you to do your job much easier.

Adam: Mark, I love it. Great advice. I wanted to ask you one last question and it ties into a lot of the different topics we've talked about. You covered the importance of facing failure head on managing challenges. I know that your grandfather was someone who you looked up to who battled adversity in his life and was a mentor to you. 30 Minute Mentors, is really all about applying the best lessons from America's top leaders and learning from the greatest mentors out there. And how have you been able to take the inspiration from your grandfather, and transform it into a way that all of us can live better and healthier lives? What advice do you have for listeners on that topic? And, just more broadly, what can we do to live better, healthier, more successful lives?

Mark: Well, my grandfather was one of those guys that, you know, I can't talk about enough. So my mom's dad grew up in the greatest generation, you know, to serve his country during World War Two, and play baseball. So I remember a lot of wiffle ball games in the backyard with my grandfather. And he lived with us, my grandfather lived with us for the better part of eight years at the end of his life. And the reason he did that was he had Parkinson's disease. And so here's a guy who was athletic, strong, you know? I looked up to him as a kid and thought that my papa could, you know, could take on the world if he needed to. But as he got older, he started slowing down. He started needing a lot of help. And that's why I'm joined up with the Prostate Cancer Foundation for the Depends Stand Strong for Men's Health campaign. And when you look at some of the issues that men have with their health, including prostate cancer, one out of five men are gonna be diagnosed with prostate cancer. And when you need help, when you need support, when you want to make sure that your family and your heroes are staying healthy, it's having those open conversations about issues and you know, kind of fighting some different stigmas. So I think that Depends is doing a great job along with the Depends Prostate Cancer Foundation, and I'm just super excited to be a part of the Stand Strong for Men's Health campaign and understand that we're all in this together. And you know, when I think about my grandfather going to my baseball games, you know, when he was getting older towards the end of his life, that's what brought him the most joy was being able to go to my games. He wouldn't have been able to do that without Depends products. And so it's just a really proud moment for me. And it's a great way to remember all of the heroes out there- that you may be getting older now, maybe having issues with their health, and know that we're all in it together.

Adam: Mark, I love it. I think it's really important to, in whatever ways we can, recognize those who have made an impact in our lives and appreciate any form of mentorship we've had and clearly, in your case family has been so important to your journey. Your grandfather has been such a big influence to you and I appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate you joining us on this podcast. Thanks again for being part of the show.

Mark: Thanks for having me, Adam. This was fun.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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