MLB’s Eric Byrnes - How to Keep Going When Your Body Wants to Quit

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan speaks with Eric Byrnes, a former professional baseball player, analyst, and endurance athlete. They talk about willpower, what it takes to succeed when times get tough, and more. Eric Byrnes played in Major League Baseball for over 10 years, in a career that took him from the Oakland A’s and Arizona Diamondbacks to the Seattle Mariners. In 2019, Eric ran, swam, and biked across the United States in support of his Let Them Play Foundation. Eric also hosts a podcast and has written a book, The F*It List: Life Lessons from a Human Crash Test Dummy. This episode is brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa is the perfect system to use to set up your house with Smart Home functionality—and with the new Amazon Smart Lighting Bundle, it’s easy to get started. Just connect your Amazon Echo Dot with your first Sengled color changing light bulb and you’re on your way. Visit Amazon.com/dailystoic to get 20% off the bundle.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Eric Byrnes: Homepage: https://www.ericbyrnes.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/byrnes22Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ebyrnes22Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byrnes22/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

• 0:28Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I guess it was two, maybe almost three years ago now, I was flying back from Istanbul in Koç. It was a brutal, incredibly long flight. And who knows what happened, but almost the evening I got home, I wasn't feeling well. And a couple of days later, I really wasn't feeling well. I had super bad food poisoning. And then it just like, it never went away. And like, the feeling not good went away. And I went to a doctor and they said, oh, this is nothing. And so they probably just had the flu. So then I came home and still feeling sick. I went to another doctor. Finally, I was feeling so terrible, I ended

• 1:12Speaker 00

  up going to an urgent care. And they said, look, there's nothing wrong with you. And I don't know why, my wife had tossed it out. She was like, ask them if you have mono. So I did. And they were like, fine, I guess we can give you a mono test. As it happens, that is what I had. It was brutal. I was, I was out for like, almost three months. It took forever to recover from. Anyways, the two morals of this story. One, is why I am taking the COVID-19 very seriously. You know, for most people, viruses are nothing. But you never know where you're going to end up falling on the spectrum. And it was brutal recovering from mono. I know, it sounds like this cheesy thing. It's like, isn't that what you get making out with the football team or whatever. But no, it really knocked

• 1:57Speaker 00

  me on my ass. And the consequences of getting knocked on my ass was that I had been planning on doing the Leadville Marathon with Lance Armstrong and my guest today on the podcast, Eric Burns. The Leadville Marathon is like a

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Apparently notoriously brutal marathon. You hit a high like 13,000 feet. But anyways, it was it was for a sort of like a war for a vets charity. And it was supposed to be really cool. I was really looking forward to it. And I just like, I hadn't been able to run in months. I could, I was just not able to do it. And so that was supposed to be my chance to meet today's guest in person. We've never actually met, but we talk quite a bit. He's a fan of the Stoics and just an all around incredible athlete. Eric played in professional baseball for 10 years. He was a star for the A's, the Rockies, the Diamondbacks. He ended his career with the Mariners. If that was not enough, is an incredible endurance athlete. In support of his, his foundation, let them play.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  He did a, he did a triathlon across the United States a couple of years ago, which is insane. I follow him on Instagram and it's like this unreal spectacle. The other day he did like a 60 mile run on a treadmill in his house. Clearly, as you'll tell from the interview, just an absolute intense guy, tons of energy. I wanted to talk to him in part because of that. I mean, I think we have this idea of the Stoics being sort of boring and low energy or just sort of stoically enduring adversity. But Eric is much more passionate than that. And, and I think, I think that's a, that's an important side of the philosophy to illustrate. Great dude. Think you'll really like this interview. Eric is not just energetic when it comes to athletics.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  He hosts the Daily Hustle, which is a daily podcast. Eric wrote a book called The Fuck It List: Life Lessons From A Human Crash Test Dummy, which you can check out. And of course, he's also an analyst for the MLB Network. You can follow him on Twitter at Burns22. You can go to ericbyrnes.com to sign up for the Daily Hustle there. I think you'll really like this interview and I hope to one day run the Lead Bill Marathon and see Eric in person next time. All right, enjoy. The weirdest thing I found about it is the things that people apparently deem as essential. Do you know what I mean? Like, why do you need to be? It's like, people are like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm social distancing. I'm being smart.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  But you know, I am going to Costco a couple of times a week. And it's like, a couple of times a week? Why? I wouldn't even go to Costco two times a week in a regular week because that's just like a bad use of your time. Like, it's weird, the situations with things that people don't seem to be able to prioritize. Like, school. It's like, why are schools considered? Like, schooling is important, but why did we open up bars and restaurants before we opened schools? If you close bars and restaurants, transmission would be lower and then you could send kids to school safely. It's crazy.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so check this one out. So, we were signed up for a baseball tournament, this 10U team, in Sparks, Nevada. And the tournament was postponed from June to July to August. And eventually, the last one, which we thought was gonna happen, was shut down in August. Now, gorgeous complex, Golden Eagle Park. It is incredible. I mean, probably 10 to 15 fields, at least, that couldn't really be more spread out, right? It's just this, it's amazing place. And so if you think of what would have gone down there had they run this baseball tournament,

• 5:46Speaker 01

  you have, yeah, you have kids out there, they're outside, social distancing, pretty much as much as you can in sports. And then, I went down the street, five miles from where that baseball complex was, and the tournament got shut down for the third time and basically just, just canceled. And there's a water park with no less than 1,000 people stacked on top of each other. And it's just like, man, I mean, a water park's a cesspool anyway. And then you're running this thing in the middle of COVID, yet five miles down the road, you're telling me you can't get these kids outside and play?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  That bothers me. Like, there's something very skewed right there in, in, in why that would be allowed, yet the other thing isn't.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think that's a, I was thinking about this from the Stoic perspective. Like, you would think that as adults, we're pretty good at going like, here's what I think, here's what's right, here's what I'm comfortable with. So like, that's my line. But I think what's really been interesting about the, the virus is revealing just how difficult it is for people to make sort of independent decisions. So I don't even think we need to get into the mask thing because that starts to open up, you know, little pockets for crazy people to rationalize things. I'm, I'm more talking about, you know, how, how have people been unable to go, just because my neighbor is being an idiot, does not mean I should lessen my standard.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  So yeah, like people see the, the, they'll go, oh, well, you know, I'm already sending my kid to school, so I might as well do X. And it's like, no, you can take calculated deliberate risks without saying, fuck it, let's just do everything. I think that, that, that's been really hard for people to manage and, and to stay in their lane despite what other people are doing.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right, man. I mean, it's really just a matter of figuring out, we're all in this together and we need to figure out how, how to get rid of it and what's the most efficient and effective way. Now, I do believe the residual effects of the shutdown potentially could be worse than the actual virus itself. And that's where we gotta look at it and figure out, look, what do we need to do? Now, now first and foremost, to get, to get rid of it, but, but secondly is to make sure that all of these other factors that are happening because of the shutdown don't end up being worse than the actual virus itself. And, you know, what that, where that threshold is, I, I don't know.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  That's another good example, I think, of where people struggle, right? It's like, people are like, oh, the shutdowns are so costly, it's gone on so long. And it's like, yeah, it's gone. And to me, this is a very stoic concept. They've gone on longer in the United States and been more costly because we, we only kind of did it halfway. Like, the lowest we ever got cases at the peak was like, you know, like 20,000 cases nationwide. Like, we never, you were saying this before we started recording, but like, if you shut down and you really shut down, the thing can go away very quickly. It's this weird kind of like half shutdown. You can go, you shouldn't leave your house, but of course you can leave your house and, and don't do anything that's not essential.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  But of course, you know, your mental health is really important too, blah, blah, blah. So the United States has done this like sort of worst of both worlds approach. And it's like avoiding the hard thing. And I think you know this in your life. It's like, if you avoid the hard thing or you only go halfway, it's often worse than doing nothing at all. But that's not an excuse. You just have to do the hard fucking thing and get over it.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we didn't do it. And that was the problem. It's like from the get go, it literally should have been martial law declared. Nobody leaves the house for fucking 14 days, done. But that didn't happen. If you look at the countries who have been successful in getting rid of the virus and at least making great leaps towards doing so, that's exactly what they did. But then we half-ass this thing and it's perfectly, just like you said, man, like, you can't half-ass this. You can't go halfway in on anything that you do in life because you're not going to be successful. Now, we're at a point where we have to decide, quote unquote, you know, what's essential and what's not.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And, you know, to leave that up to political figures to, to, to tell you that, that this is essential and this isn't essential. It just gets, uh, it gets pretty shady, man.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Well, let's talk about hard things, because I mean, that, that's sort of your life. If playing professional baseball wasn't hard enough, you decided, hey, I also need the challenge of like extreme endurance sports. I'm just blown away at what, I mean, you ran, swam and biked across the United States. Uh, how, how do you do something like that?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Well, you know what, Ryan, when I got done playing, um, baseball, you know, I think like a lot of professional athletes, I went through a pretty difficult transition period. And you're sort of searching for, you know, your, your meaning. And, you know, so often, you know, I, I associated myself with who I was as a baseball player. And then all of a sudden that's ripped from you. And you think about this though, so everyone wants to look at it and be like, okay, dude played major league baseball for 10, 11 years, whatever. That wasn't the case. I'd been playing baseball since I was nine years old. I knew when I was playing for Maury's, Pennsyl Building Materials and Alpine Little League

• 11:22Speaker 01

  at nine, that I wanted to play in the big leagues. And so this whole lifelong dream that you have and the process and, and everything that it takes to get there and becoming completely immersed within it. And then the college and then the minor leagues and, and having to work your way up. And even when you get to the minor leagues, it's still like the, the long odds that you're facing and one in every 10 minor league players, you know, I think it's even less than that, actually even get to the big leagues. And you get to the big leagues, it's like, it's not just about getting there, it's about staying there and it's just this constant battle and fight. And I wrote something on this daily hustle blog that I do, uh, the other day. And I was talking about what the big leagues was like because now coaching a 10 U team,

• 12:05Speaker 01

  got kids all the time going, you know, Coach Burns, Coach Burns, what was, what was the big leagues like? And, you know, I'll tell them and I'll break into that Bull Durham speech, right? The, the ballparks are like cathedrals, uh, uh, women all have long legs and brains that nobody carries your, you know, you never have to carry your luggage. You hit white balls for batting practice. And the reality though, is that, yeah, sure, some of those things are, uh, are what the big leagues was like, but.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  The truth, it was a fucking grind and I loved every single minute of it. So when that was done, the question then became, how am I going to fill that void in my life? And I got dared by a couple of junior high school friends to go do a triathlon. It was a sprint triathlon. I owned a beach cruiser as a bike. That was it. I had a surfing wet suit. That was it. And I never run more than four miles in my life. And I went down there and I absolutely got my ass kicked, dude. I almost drowned in the water. I was getting passed by 16 year old girls on the bike. I know that because they write the age on their calf. And then I ran a couple of miles and, and crossed the finish line and told my friends, I said, hey,

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I said, that was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. All three kicked my ass. And I said, that's the last time you'll ever beat me. And was able to take that competitive spirit and drive that I had playing baseball and just redirect it into, into the world of ultra endurance sports.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I wondered if, I mean, obviously you're, you're physically gifted and, and very good at, at that, or you, you know, you wouldn't be able to do what you do. But I, I, I had to wonder if, if your sort of sheer tenacity and persistence was, was, and the mental discipline was what, what made you successful. Cause I was watching, you know, this, I think a month or two ago, but you, you ran, you did an ultra marathon or a half ultra marathon, like on the treadmill in your house. Like I love running, I run every day, but I can only do like, like if I have to do five miles on a treadmill, I want to kill myself. Not because it's physically hard, but I'm just bored. I need the stimulation of being outside.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  So I don't, I don't, I'd almost rather not do it than subject myself to the monotony of that. You seem to have a remarkable amount of willpower that you, you combine with your physical gifts.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's one of those things where I'm just as uncomfortable as you are when you get on the treadmill, but you know, at some point, we're all going to hit that roadblock. And what's amazing is that when we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, anything is possible. And so the treadmill run you're talking about, it was actually a day in which I was supposed to be doing a double marathon on the back end of a Ultraman triathlon in Arizona, which was a 6.2 mile swim, 270 mile bike, and a 52 mile run. And instead of just going, all right, screw it, you know, I'm not going

• 15:18Speaker 01

  to do it because obviously the race got canceled, I used it as an opportunity to go ahead and challenge myself and do the run on the treadmill. Now, all of these things, Ryan, it's amazing because when I got into it, dude, the triathlon I described to you, that was a sprint, bro. And so within 11 months, and again, when I said almost drowned in the water, I'm not fucking kidding, dude. I'd like dead. And when I came up on the beach, it was, it was like I couldn't move. It took five minutes for me to pull my body off of the sand to go and make the transition to the bike. And so I went and hired a swim coach, a guy by the name of Frank Sol in Scottsdale, Arizona. And Frank asked me, he goes, man, he goes, what do you want to do with this? And I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, with the

• 16:03Speaker 01

  whole swimming thing, like what are you, what are you looking to accomplish? I'm like, you know what, man? I said, right now, I said, I, you know, I have a vision of doing an Ironman one day, but it just seems so far, far fetched to, you know, even put that into my mind right now. I said, let's just try getting from one side of the pool to the other. And he goes, you know what? He goes, I can get you ready for Ironman Arizona in 11 months from now. I'm like, dude, no way. He goes, bro, he's like, not only will I get you ready, I was like, I'll get you out of the water in under 118. And it's like, even swimming 2.4 miles at that point, it was not, I could not envision that. It wasn't even a possibility. And sure enough, 11 months later,

• 16:46Speaker 01

  2.4 mile swim, got out of the water in like 1:15 and then within like a, I don't know, eight-year period, ended up doing 12 different Ironmans, which led to doing the Western States 100 and then, you know, this triathlon across the country, which was, you know, basically dreamed up because of a foundation that my wife and I started called Let Them Play, all about kids and youth activity. And then this 24-hour world record golf challenge that we did last year, which was just an amazing experience and then allowed us obviously to raise some more funds for the foundation and hand them out to different youth organizations in the Half Moon Bay community. So it's been a, it's been a wild ride, but all of this stuff

• 17:31Speaker 01

  starts, it's like, it's so cliche-ish, but dude, it starts with like, you know, one foot in front of the other, one mile at a time. And all of it sounds corny, but it's true.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  What do you say to yourself when you're at like, you know, mile 42 in a 60-mile race or when you're on that beach and you can barely get up? Like, what is the self-talk that allows you to, to sort of push past the physical limitation?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  So a couple of weeks ago, my boy Kowalski and I, we decided that we're going to run 72 miles around Lake Tahoe and took off, 5:00 in the morning, really, really nice out at that time. And then, obviously, so we started in Kings Beach as we're going around, you get to Tahoe City, into Tahoe City. By the time we got over there, we found this path, like gorgeous path all along the West Shore, took us into Emerald Bay, got into Emerald Bay, met my wife there, she had the van. I mean, we had all the accoutrements, like everything you could possibly think of, right? The chocolate milk, cokes, more

• 18:42Speaker 01

  water, it was still cool. Came down in Emerald Bay, down from Emerald Bay into South Shore. And for whatever reason, we got into South Shore, it wasn't even a hard section of the run, but it was getting hot. And we pull up and I remember, we met my wife at Freeburg, my wife and kids, and ironically, you said, what, you know, what about at mile 40, 42? We were at like mile 42 at that point. And I'm like, dude?

• 19:12Speaker 01

  I don't know if I can fucking go on. I was, I was just depleted. It, it, you know, every, everything hurt. I, I was, I was nauseous. And what's amazing is that there's a line that my dad told me. Now, he, he passed away right after I got done playing baseball. But he used to say, don't take your feelings too personal. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, my feelings are everything I have. My feelings are, are who I am. I'm an emotional person. I'm an emotional baseball player. Like, I, I love my feelings and, and, and why would I not take them personal? And so that same sort of thing translates into the endurance world.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Because here I am, I feel like shit. And instead of letting that defeat my mind, I try to almost step out of my body and take this, you know, third-party perspective where I'm looking down on it and going, dude, you're fine, right? Rehydrate, get some, get some sugar in you. You know, that, figure, just figure it out and go. And I did. And, and the other thing is that, you know, you want, you've heard the old African proverb, you want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go together. And I've noticed that when I've done these things, um, dude, to have someone by your side, to have my boy Kowalski there every step of the way.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  He was there for, you know, the, the 24-hour world record golf event. That was 106 miles, 420 holes. He, he was running by my side for damn near 90 miles of it. And, and, and helping me find the balls and do everything else. The Tri-Cross America, he was by my side for three quarters of the entire thing. So, you know, it's, it's those people that are actually the ones that allow you to, to push on and, and then having the support of the family and everything else. So, I know it seems like a very individual sport. Very selfish sport too, but you know, it doesn't have to be.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was thinking about, you know, endurance, I think it's a Mirakami who was saying sort of running as a writer is both exercise and a metaphor. I think the value of these endurance sports or these challenges in life is that you then find yourself, as we find, you know, both individually and globally right now with the pandemic, you find yourself in these situations where you don't know where they're going to end, where they take way more than you think you have. And you either have the heart to be able to keep going or you don't. Like, you know, I hear people say stuff like, how much longer can this go on? Or, you know, we can't keep living like this. And it's like, reality is completely indifferent to your personal feelings, you know, to your capabilities.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  You're like, you either, you either put up with it or you don't, right? There's not like, you don't get to tap out from life, you know? And I think people who have not trained themselves to be able to go, oh, you know, whether it's lifting weights or swimming or running or, you know, any sort of physical activity, unless you've trained yourself to realize that that voice in your head that's telling you you have to quit is bullshit, you're really, you know, screwed because you don't understand that the resistance you're feeling is just an illusion and you actually have, you know, quite a bit left in the tank.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's actually a book that I read when I first got into all of this. It was written by Matt Fitzgerald, it's called How Bad You Want It. And essentially, you know, he laid out the fact that our minds will quit every single time before our bodies. And it's like, even the science behind it is fascinating. And so the question becomes, who wants it the most, right? And in baseball, it was real easy to see all of these people. And it's a little obviously different than the endurance world, but you would see these people who would have the most unbelievable talent. I mean, I'm talking, they run like the wind, they have a cannon for an arm,

• 23:17Speaker 01

  they could hit a ball 500 feet and god damn it, they can't make it out of the A-ball. And it's like, what? And every one of those guys, each and every single one of them, dude, they just didn't want it. They didn't have that, that killer, whatever it is inside that... And look, I'm not gonna... The idea in fact, and we like to use this all the time as as an excuse. It's just like, oh, he was born with it. Oh, he was born that way. Oh, you can't teach it. I hear it, especially with the kids, you know, now it's like you can't teach fast twitch. Like bullshit, you can't teach fast twitch, bro. I grew up in a household that nobody in my family ever played major league baseball.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Nobody, no, never, no one ever played baseball for that matter, right? Not little league, nothing, knew nothing about it. And here I was where when I, for my 13th birthday, my parents got me an iron mic machine. I cranked that thing up to 90 miles per hour, went in the backyard and obsessed every single day. Hitting off this machine, hitting off this machine, hitting off this machine. Right at first, a lot of swings and miss, swing and miss, swing and miss. Pretty soon foul ball, foul ball, foul ball. Pretty soon line drive back up the middle, line drive back up the middle. Two, three years later, I'm sophomore in high school, I get called to the bar, so I'm facing Dan Seraphini, number one left handed pitching prospect in the country, throws 94 miles per hour. I get in there, I hit three balls against Dan Seraphini that almost take his head off,

• 24:47Speaker 01

  one after another. No one else could touch him. It stands packed with scouts. And so here I was, dude, I didn't even think I had hair in my balls yet. And I just was ripping 94 like it was my job. After the game, Chris Bradford comes up to me, head legendary St. Francis head coach, he's like, "Franz, you can make three balls, Dan Seraphini, how'd you do it?" I'm like, "Coach?" So I've been hitting off Dan Seraphini in my backyard for three years, doing the exact same thing. That's training fast twitch. And so it's the same sort of thing where we use that as the excuse. Oh, that's just not me. Oh, I wasn't born with it. Oh, I can't do that. I can't do this. It's fucking bullshit. Just go do it. And the problem is it's a stop that starts us, right?

• 25:30Speaker 01

  No one wants to get, it's a, it's a start that stops us. No one, no one wants to get going. But once we get going, it's, it's incredible what's possible. I wasn't made for this endurance stuff. I could have taken the easy way out and went and golfed every single day and. Gotten into whatever it is after baseball. But you know, the idea and thought of challenging myself and becoming a rookie at things is just, we don't like that. Like as human beings, we don't like being rookies. We don't like being uncomfortable. We don't like not being good at something. And especially when you talk about big league players, right? So you're going from the top of the top, you know, in the world of what you're doing. And then all of a sudden, I found myself in the bottom of the barrel and back of the pack in triathlons.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  So it's an interesting process.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Hey, when did you realize, the other sort of mental element of sports I'm curious about? When did you, when did it really sort of hit you that, that sports was a business? I imagine the game broke your heart a couple of times and you're a fan favorite in Oakland and then you get traded, you got dropped a couple of times. I think the other thing is people, I see this as a writer. It's like you envision or you imagine, once you get there, once you get over the hump, then everyone's your friend, then it's easy, then it works. And it's like, no, this too is an industry that doesn't care about you, that will use you up and spit you out two seconds after, you know, you, you waiver,

• 27:00Speaker 00

  you mess up, or you know, it looks like there's something else slightly better out there. How did you, how did that conclusion hit you? And then how did you keep going through it?

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Well, you know, the reality was that probably it wasn't until I got traded. So drafted by the A's, 1998 and signed, went to, went to Medford, Oregon. Medford, Oregon to Visalia, Visalia to instructional league. Instructional league, spring training, then it was Modesto to start the next year. Midland, Texas, Sacramento, short stint in Mexico.

• 27:42Speaker 00

  Oh, the River Cats?

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, baby.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  I love the River Cats. I grew up in Sacramento.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  I love it. Yeah, man. So we were, I was there that, that inaugural team in 2000. And they got called up to the big leagues. So it was. In a relatively short period of time, it was right about two years from when I'd gotten drafted. Get to the big leagues, first game facing Chuck Finley. Base hit up the middle, first at bat, had another base hit. Got hit by a pitch, almost incited a bench clearing brawl. Just incredible experience, right? I mean, I'll never forget standing out at Jacobs Field. And then like looking around, because I'd never been to a big league spring training. I'd never been around any of these guys. I'd obviously, you know, had that dream of playing major league baseball.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Since I was nine and, and I, you know, I get off the plane and end up. End up like I was late for the, for the game. So it's like, I don't know, it was probably about 6:45. And I'm standing out in the dugout and I'm looking around. I'm like, holy shit, dude. And so I tried to just, you know, get my composure, sprinting out to center field. Sprinted back and, you know, got, got into the game. And it was the most incredible experience. And then two days later, I got sent down. And then after that, over the course of the next, I'd say year?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably next year, I went up and down nine times. And what sucks was that not a lot of it was in, within my control. So there was, I was the 25th, 26th guy that was just, you know, shuttle in, shuttle out. And the most difficult thing was that, you know, I'd never really got my shot. And it's one thing when you get your shot and you don't perform, that's on you. You know, it's another thing, you get your shot and, you know, you go ahead and run with it and that's obviously on you too. But when you don't get your shot, that becomes difficult. And so that's was sort of the first business element of things

• 29:58Speaker 01

  that I had to deal with and experience. You know, from there, it was finally, Jermaine Die got hurt and I went into a game. And I wasn't supposed to go into the game. They actually, Adam Pyatt was the guy that was sort of ahead of me on the depth chart. He would have been the fourth outfielder, I would have been the fifth. And it was a, I think maybe a Saturday day game or Sunday day game and just really sort of lackluster day. We were losing and the bench coach was Terry Francona, the manager of the Red Sox and now the Indians. Francona's like, "Piotte, grab your glove." And like, Piotte's getting ready to run out the field. And instead, Ken Maka, who, I just, it's tough to say, I like, I never thought he was my biggest fan, but he was a manager and

• 30:42Speaker 01

  he, he overrided Francona. And he goes, "Berrys, grab your glove. Piotte, sit down." So I'm like, "All right." Grab my glove, sprinted out to right field. And the whole reason for him doing that was that he was looking to add a spark. And he knew that some, you know, they were going to get a spark on a lackluster sort of day. I guess I was the guy to do it. So ended up getting a couple of hits, got to start the next day, got a couple of hits. And I ended up going on to hit in 22 straight games. And I, the way I looked at it was like, I finally have a chance to hold, hold them hostage with this hit streak that went on. And that's when I'd say, you know, my career really took

• 31:22Speaker 01

  off and, and whatnot. But we ended up, um, all the way to 2005, uh, really kind of established myself as, as a big leaguer. Uh, and then as soon as you think that everything's just peaches and cream, uh, I got traded to the Colorado Rockies and just got blindsided out of, out of, out of nowhere. And then I was there for two weeks, uh, and then they traded me to Baltimore. I was there for two months, uh, ended up not playing well, obviously was dealing with a, a lot of different things and ended up getting released. And then I ended up signing with Arizona and resurrecting my career, uh, out there. But dude, it's, yeah, that, that first, that first getting traded sort of thing. Um, I'll never, I mean,

• 32:06Speaker 01

  I was in tears, like crying, just bawling on my way home, calling, calling my mom.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Well, that was something I wanted to ask you about because I think what, and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is obviously I know your affinity for Stoicism, but you are also this sort of, and you can just, I can hear it, you're a deeply sort of passionate, like, committed, like, high-tempo, high-energy guy. How do you see those two things balancing out? When people think Stoicism, they often think sort of like indifference, or lack of emotion, or apathetic, but you have like, an intensity to you.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's funny, because when I tell people how into Stoicism I am, you know, I think there's this common misperception of what it is. You know, at the same time, you know, I think you and I could probably both make the argument that, you know, Stoics were incredibly passionate. They loved life because they appreciated life because, you know, they understood that, you know, each day is a gift. So, you know, a lot of this, I think, Ryan, was implemented in me at a really young age. I won't necessarily say that, you know, it was my parents running around talking about Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca, and Epictetus, and

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Going back into the history books, but my dad was a 4.3 black belt in martial arts, in Kempo Karate. And so, you know, growing up as a kid with full-blown ADHD, really difficult time sitting still, got kicked out of all my classes, I also knew that I had the ability to focus. And in that, I also knew that, you know, as emotional as I was, my best performances were always when I was able to slow it down, as opposed to speed it up. And I think that is a lot of

• 34:13Speaker 01

  What Stoicism is, it's being able to recognize where we are. And then slowing it down to appreciate all the little things in life that make up the big things. And then ultimately, it's just being able to totally be in the here and now in the moment of life, because it's the only thing that we have. So yeah, it's kind of a little weird, I think, just because people would not perceive me as being this Stoic lover. But it's really, I'd say reshape my life. And I don't say reshape, but it's

• 34:58Speaker 01

  helped guide my life. And again, it started at a real young age.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  And people miss that, like, look, Seneca writes all these plays, in addition to being a lawyer, in addition to being a politician, in addition to being an advisor. He's not, like, the idea that this was a low-energy person is sort of belied by the facts of his life, right? Marcus Aurelius is the Emperor of Rome. We know what apathetic, indifferent emperors did, right? They retreated to their pleasure palaces, or they did a crappy job. Marcus Aurelius clearly cared a great deal. So I think when you actually look at the lives of the Stoics, which is actually what my new book is about, which I need to send you, when you actually look at the lives of the Stoics, these were people that did

• 35:46Speaker 00

  stuff in the real world. So the idea that, I think, intensity and passion and ambition is sort of antithetical to Stoicism doesn't make sense. And I would actually argue they're probably intuitively all those things, or instinctually all those things. But I bet if I could crack open your head and look at your inner voice, your inner voice is probably not, Eric, you gotta pump up the energy. Like, Eric, you gotta care more. You're probably naturally that way. And so the voice in your head, which is what we see, whether it's in Marcus Aurelius or Seneca, that voice in your head is probably like, all right, take a deep breath, calm down, don't get too worked up about this. Do you

• 36:26Speaker 00

  know what I mean? So I think the Stoicism is about curbing those influences. And that's why the Stoics aren't explicitly having to amp people up, because that's not the kind of coaching that they needed.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's a line in in baseball that we used to toss around and it it's it's basically uh be humble or get humbled. And, you know, I think that, you know, baseball was a great, it's incredible metaphor for for life uh in so many different, you know, aspects, but I think that, you know, playing a game that's predicated on so much failure really helped me personally put all of all of life's happenings uh in perspective. And, you know, really, that's what, you know, I I think that's the key to whether, you know, we're talking about

• 37:25Speaker 01

  stoicism or or or or just, you know, living your life. I it, look, the whole idea of being able to realize first and foremost, you're not that fucking important, uh is really uh is really big. And then that also too, Ryan, allows you to not give a fuck what anybody says or thinks about you. And when you're able to get to that place, that's living, that's liberation, that's uh it's a special spot because

• 38:06Speaker 01

  my entire childhood, my entire career, uh even now in the post-career in in broadcasting and getting into, you know, I I wrote a book, uh the effortless life lessons from a human trash chest dummy, obviously doing, you know, the endurance stuff, writing the daily hustle, doing a a podcast five days a week. I I feel like I've obviously put myself out there in everything that I've done with my life. But dealing with all of the ridicule and criticism along the way, when I was, you know, nine years old and playing in the majors against 12 years old, 12 year old kids and,

• 38:50Speaker 01

  you know, just constantly having to, to, to fight my way through it. You develop this, this thick skin and, and ultimately, you know, when you're able to do that, you're able to be yourself. So I'm able to just let the emotion go into everything that I do without giving two fucks about what anyone else is gonna say or think about it. Because ultimately, I, you know, the whole concept of, of, look, leave, leave, leave it better than you found it, right? And that could go to be talking about our carbon footprint, you know, on, on the world and in the environment. But it's also, it's also about people and leave people better than you found them.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Every single day in the smallest interactions, dude, we have an opportunity to leave people better than we found them. And it could be as simple as smiling and waving when you're out on a run in the morning or saying good morning or whatever it is. Uh, but so often we, we, we have these reservations because we care so much about what other people think. And you know, ultimately, so long as we're authentic in, in what we do and in our actions, uh, in our words, that's what resonates, man. That's, that's what matters. But, you know, for me, it's always been being emotional. Um, and, and I, I'll never,

• 40:11Speaker 01

  I'll never compromise that, uh, for anything, but being in control of those emotions is also a large part of who I continue to strive to be every single day.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Well, this idea of relationships and people, that's sort of where I wanted to close. I, obviously, we haven't talked about it, but I sense some similarity. One of the weird things about the pandemic, you know, deciding like, hey, like, look, I'm in a social distance. I have the luxury of, you know, not having to sort of go to work in the sense that most people do. My occupation is not essential, you know, also wanting to leave the world better than I found it, you know, wanted to get through this and not feel like I'm hurt anyone else. I've spent a lot of time at home, a lot of time with family. I've sort of rebuilt my life and schedule to be less work focused and more family focused. It seems like you and your kids, I watched the videos you posted, you guys, you know,

• 41:10Speaker 00

  batting practice in the driveway almost every day. It seems like you guys are having a hell of a lot of fun together.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, we're, look, we, everyone, I haven't vented a whole lot on this, and I think letting it out every now and again is okay. But the 2020 memes, if I never see another fucking one of those for the rest of my life, I'm good. Like, the the the constant.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Oh, that this is the worst year ever. It's a dumpster fire, that kind of stuff.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  It's what you're fucking making of it. And you want to keep reiterating it and reiterating it, reiterating. It's it's manifesting itself. And all of these people who continue to feed it and feed it and feed it, it's one big goddamn excuse, dude. Like, we're all, we're all dealt the same shit. We're all dealing with it. Yeah, man. Dude, you know, in my individual case, look, I work for MLB Network. I haven't worked a fucking day back there this entire summer during the special league baseball season because it was like this 15 day quarantine process that has to happen before I step back there. And it's just, it's just not worth it for me when you start looking at all these things.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Like, in a lot of ways, dude, my life has been turned upside down, just like everybody else's, right? The, as a, we just start this 10 new travel team, and we're looking forward to playing all these tournaments all summer. And obviously, those get, you know, those all get canceled and everything else. You know, you have your kids who normally would be going to school and back to school. And now they're, you know, I got a nine, 10 and 11 year old that are running around the house like crazy animals and, and school's supposed to be in their side of the, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, just deal with it, right? Like it's, all this stuff is happening, but it's how we deal with it. That ultimately decides, you know, if we are able to live this life

• 43:07Speaker 01

  of enjoyment, I guess, in, in, and it's, life is what we make of it, right? And, and that's, I mean, the ultimate stoic philosophy principle is, is basically, you know, control what is within your control. It's as simple as that. So if the pandemic is not in our control, period, right? And then after that, it's like, okay, well, what are you going to do with your life? How are you going to make the most of this situation? And I, dude, Ryan, I think you traveled a lot and I go, I tra, I was traveling at least two weeks out of every single month, going back to San, San Francisco, New York, Lake Tahoe. It was like this triangle that just, it just didn't stop.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  And immediately when this happened, when this pandemic happened, I'm, I'm at home with my wife. And it's like, well, I guess we're about to find out what this relationship's made of.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Right? And it's, and it's just, but it's, it's, it's been a godsend, man. I like to be able to develop these relationships and, and get to know my wife a little differently than I did. My kids, it was always easy for me to come in and be the fun dad. It's like, oh, hey, I'm back from New York, presents, toys, let's go out to this, let's go out to that. But what are you like when you got to face this on a daily basis where nothing's, you know, right? It's, it's, it's Brown Hogs Day all over again, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. How are you going to react then? That's. Man, that's, that's, that's, that's the beauty of life and that's a challenge of life and take it as a challenge. Or you could sit there and bitch and moan and watch your world go to shit. Cause that's what's gonna happen. So, I don't know.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  No, look, I mean, I mean, obviously, you know, neither of us have to, you know, wait tables at a restaurant being coughed and sneezed on by, you know, like entitled, you know, jerks who don't think they should have to wear masks and, you know, don't understand that you're there because you don't have a choice to be there, you know? Like, I think about what it'd be like to work in one of these Amazon factories or, you know, at a meat packing plant. Like, there's certainly, obviously, people have been hit by this, you know, in a level that I can't comprehend. And I think we have to sort of keep that in mind. But, but yeah, I mean, I got hit, you know, sideways by this thing too. I, you know, all this, all this travel that was planned for business, you know, I was in the middle of,

• 45:31Speaker 00

  of starting something new that got knocked sideways. And, and so you can sort of sit there and wallow in that and you can look at what was taken from you. Or I think you can say, hey, and this is what that idea of the obstacle being the way is, you say, hey, okay, I thought what the world needed from me was all this action, you know, all the stuff that you do. Um, but actually know what the world needs from me is to sort of look inward and to focus on my family. And yeah, it's been, it's been, it's been wonderful and I totally agree. It's been very eye-opening to sort of see the world through my wife's perspective on a, on a day-to-day basis too. I think, you know, it could be one of those things that ruin your relationship,

• 46:14Speaker 00

  or it could be one of those things that make, makes your relationship something that it could have never been otherwise. And I think ultimately that, that choice is ours.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, the one thing about all this is that I think it's forced us to find our purpose. And, you know, so often it was like, we're out there just, we're, we're, we're living our lives and we're doing it. And it's, it's, it's like we're. You know, we're just constant motion, constant motion, constant motion. And again, like when we're able to step back and look inward, then all of a sudden it's like, okay, you know, what, what really matters to me in my life? And, you know, what I thought mattered, let's just say it matters a lot less than it did. Now, you know, when you talk about the workers and I don't care, you know, if Amazon factory worker

• 47:03Speaker 01

  or waiting tables or whatever it is, like, and I was watching these road workers yesterday, right? And it's one of the guys, he's holding a, holding one of those stop signs. It's like stop, slow, stop, slow. It was Las Vegas, Nevada. It was 10 in the morning. It's already a hundred degrees. I thought about him and, you know, I wonder, I was wondering if, whether or not he, he liked the shop. And that was something that he wanted to do. And then I tried to put myself in his position and think about maybe what my life would be like if, if I were him. And then as I'm like, kind of just sitting here staring, I'm waiting a red light.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  And I watch him and he's kind of twirling around. And next thing you know, he's chucking it up with, but his buddy over in the tractor. And he kind of breaks off this little laughter thing. And I'm like, yeah, man, that's how you do it. And it doesn't matter what you do. Like I pumped gas at Chevron when I was a kid. I worked as a stock boy at Malina's Deli. These were things that I took great pride in. And in that, that was my purpose back then. Like that was, now, look, it's constantly shifting and, and we're evolving. But another thing my dad used to always say, show me how you do anything and I'll show you how you do everything.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  And so if you're holding a freaking sign that says stop and slow and twirling around this and that, how, how you're going to do that is going to be a reflection on how you, everything else in your life. And so whenever I've gone through any sort of difficult times or I want to start feeling sorry for myself or I don't feel like doing this or do like that, it's just, I, I go back to that. And it's something I always tell my kids, right? It's just, you know, trying to explain to my son why, you know, he has a Jeremy Roanoke jersey over there and he was wearing it and he took it off because he was playing air hockey and he threw it on the ground. And it's like, no, dude, no, no, we pick it up, we take care of it. And it's all of these little things that we do that become actually major reflections of who we are.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  No, and I, I think like, look, obviously I've, I've got a nice house, I make a good living, I got a nice car. But when I think about the things that I actually, that make me the happiest, that I like the most, they're not at all dependent on what I do or what's in my bank account. The walk that I went on with my kids and my wife this morning, you know, that was free, you know, not, I'm not a, you know, we're, we're gonna have dinner together, you know, that costs whatever dinner costs, you know, like, like the, those little things, I, I could be, the, the writing I did this morning, it was pleasurable, not because of the, the building that I did it in, or the quality of the computer that I did it on, I could, you know, I could have done that in my, you know, uh, in, in a fucking closet somewhere.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  And so it's, I think it's also just, hopefully what this pandemic does for people is just sort of give you a real sense of what is important and what your life is actually dependent on.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, that's the, that's the truth, dude.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  Dude, you're awesome. I love it. Thanks so much and we'll talk soon.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ryan, thanks, dude. Really appreciate you having me, man.

• 50:18Speaker 00

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