BaseballDOJO MINDSET: BOX OF HAMMERS

If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Have you ever stepped outside the echo chamber of the baseball world?  When was the last time you looked outside our little bubble of know-it-alls?  What was the last thing you saw or read or heard or did that was seemingly unrelated to baseball, yet gave you insight into our game?  Where did that knowledge come from?  How did it help you understand what our incessant over-coaching couldn’t?

I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with master coaches from many different disciplines, and each one has shown me an aspect of our own game that I hadn’t seen before, even after roughly thirty years of professional experience!  Whether it was martial arts, data analytics, tennis, dancing, archery, rugby, or acrobatics, they’ve helped me past some of the plateaus of understanding that commonly occur when you’re part of a relatively small but loud congregation of “experts.”

Open minds pose the greatest threat to orthodoxy.  They open doors of understanding that are impossible to access by blindly following accepted beliefs.  A lot of coaches charge their customers a little bit extra based on their claim as the sole proprietor of the “right” way.  They know if they can convince their students that their brand of knowledge is “conclusive,” and keep them from considering other techniques, they will have a faithful group of repeat customers.  But they’re really just selling a bag of hammers and claiming it’s a complete toolbox.

As the student, don’t you want to fill your toolbox with more than just hammers?

Take a look around.  You may just find the tool you need to unlock your own potential.