Just Keep Going: Interview with Baseball Coach Nate Fish
I recently went one on one with Nate Fish. Nate coached in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ minor league system and coaches baseball for Team Israel. Nate coached for Team Israel in the 2013, 2017, and 2023 World Baseball Classics and in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He is also the founder and CEO of Footprint.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Nate: Hey Adam. Thanks for having me! My background is not in tech or business. I am a baseball coach and artist. I have been a baseball player and coach my whole life and have been writing and making visual art for twenty years. I am a failed baseball player and failed artist trying to be a successful founder. But all of the so-called failures have informed this venture. Failure is something I am thinking about a lot in general. We are filming a documentary about creating Footprint. The working title is, “How To Fail”. It explores the idea of failure, how we deal with it, and blurring the lines of failure and success. Ultimately, trying is succeeding. It is the attempt that counts but it is hard to remember that when you’re running a business. There is real money and real people involved and it’s unfortunately not enough to say, “We tried”. In this case, failure isn’t really an option.
Adam: What are the best lessons you have learned from your years playing and coaching baseball?
Nate: Basically everything. When you commit your life to a single discipline, it becomes your teacher. I guess that is the most important lesson in itself, what long-term development looks and feels like, what it means to do one thing for a very long time and develop a personal relationship with it, and to accept all of the surprising twists and turns and challenges and lessons along the way. There is only one way to learn that stuff and it is to do it.
Adam: What coaches have you learned the most from? What did you learn from them?
Nate: Oh, man. I learn from every coach. But I have been lucky to be around some legends. Pick in the Cape. Weinstein and Ausmus and Kapler and Kinsler and Youk and Narron at the WBC. Baseball is immersive. It is an environment you can step in and out of. It’s like a different reality with different rules when you put the uniform on and these guys have basically been living in that world their whole lives, way more than in the world everyone else lives in, and when you’re around people immersed in something for that long, they just ooze information, how they prepare, what they see and say, what they see and don’t say. Baseball is really a no-bullshit zone, and you learn from the older guys the guardrails and boundaries of the world of baseball but largely through osmosis. No one sits you down and says, do this, do that. You either just figure it out or you don’t.
Adam: What players have you enjoyed coaching the most and why?
Nate: I wish I could say I have liked all the players equally, but it’s not true. I think by default, baseball coaches like the better players. Truth is, the point of the game is to win, and they contribute the most, so sometimes your feelings about the players and straight up based on their performance. But that’s not always true. Some guys have characters that just stand out, positive and negative. I have had players who are big league all-stars who are assholes and guys who are role players who I love. In the end, the high-character guys win because even if a guy is really good, once he steps off the field if he is an asshole, he will be all alone, and the good guys will always have a community of teammates and friends.
Adam: In your experience, what are the keys to building winning teams and winning cultures?
Nate: There is no one equation. Development and winning are so complex that they are somewhat beyond our comprehension but that doesn’t mean you don’t try to give yourself the best chance of winning by doing the right things. We jokingly say, get the best guys, and put them on the field. Talent goes a long way in sports. But, on Team Israel for example, we have not always been the most talented team but we have won a lot of games. Preparation matters. Belief matters. And leadership matters. If leadership is good, it’s kind of invisible. But if it’s bad, everything falls apart. Things are inevitably going to get hard, and good leadership will mitigate chaos and disbelief and keep things basically on track. Keeping the vibe good, communicating with honesty and care, and carrying the spirit in yourself you expect from others are all baseline expectations for leaders.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Nate: I think leaders are basically people with good internal compasses. They are people you can trust to make thoughtful decisions not based on fear or self-interest when no one else knows what the fuck to do. Basically, they’re willing to be morally and sometimes physically courageous.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Nate: That’s a tough one. I want to be of a growth mindset and think anyone can be a leader, but if I am being totally honest, I don’t believe that. I wrote a poem once that goes, “You are either the same nice little kid you once were. Or you are the same mean little kid you once were.” All I mean by that is changing is hard. We all grow, but we all grow from a single, immovable place, like a tree. So, my first answer is, having leadership skills baked into you through early experiences and imagination, and striving is probably the best option. Barring that, being around good leaders is the best. You ain’t gonna learn it in a book. You may learn it on an intellectual level, but leadership is not always about knowing, it’s about feeling and doing so you have to know things on an almost instinctual level to effectively lead.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to leaders and aspiring leaders?
Nate: In some ways, aspiring to lead is not a great starting point. It’s like, if you want to be president, you probably shouldn’t be. It’s one of the fundamental problems with politics. Anyone who wants that power should not have it. I think reluctant leadership is somewhat better because you are forced into leadership roles by those around you based on the obvious quality of your character. For people in that position who are reluctant, the key is…
Believe in yourself. People around you believe in you and there isn’t some imaginary person out there better than you.
Trust the unknown. If you’re in a leadership role, it’s largely about driving blind with confidence. Just keep going forward into the nothing.
Remember your core principles. Leaders have to make decisions and it helps to have a core set of simple principles to return to when things get complicated and you have hard decisions to make.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Nate: O wow. Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is 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. 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. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, 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. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
Follow Adam on Instagram and Twitter at @adammendler and on LinkedIn and listen and subscribe to Thirty Minute Mentors on your favorite podcasting app.