Hitting is easy

Hitting Is Easy (When You Learn to Run Your Own Company)

If you hang around baseball long enough, you hear the same line over and over: “Hitting is the hardest thing to do in sports.”

I understand why people say it. But I don’t agree with it.

After working with more than 25,000 hitters over 30 years, from kids deciding whether they even like baseball to Major League All-Stars and award winners, I’ve noticed a consistent pattern.

When hitters talk about their best stretches, when everything is clicking, they almost always use the same word: easy.

Not easy because the game got soft. Easy because it finally made sense.

This is about how hitters get there.

When I meet a hitter for the first time, I don’t introduce myself as a hitting coach. I introduce myself as a hitting voice.

There’s a difference.

Over the course of a career, you’re going to hear a lot of voices. Parents. High school coaches. Travel coaches. Private instructors. Teammates. Social media. YouTube. MLB Network. Twitter. TikTok. Instagram.

Being territorial over players, in my opinion, is just insecurity.

This isn’t about what I know. It’s about what you can do.

My role isn’t to own you or to be the only voice you listen to. My role is to be a trusted voice that helps you think, filter information, and become the CEO of your career.

You are the CEO of your own company. You are the gatekeeper of what gets in. You are the one who stands in the box and lives with the decisions.

You decide which concepts come in and which ones don’t. You decide which voices matter.

That isn’t disrespect. That’s responsibility.

We live in a time with more information than ever. Slow motion video. Swing breakdowns. Metrics and data. Opinions from every angle.

Some ideas are mostly true. Some are partly true. Some might be wrong for you.

The job isn’t to run from information. The job is to learn how to listen well.

What are they really saying? Does it line up with what I know works for me? Does it help me understand what I’m trying to do?

I tell my players all the time, “We want to make the grass greener where we water it.”

That means building positive relationships with coaches and voices. Most people trying to help are doing the best they can with what they know.

But at the end of the day, your name is in the lineup. Your career is the one tied to the game.

That’s why mindset matters so much.

Let’s come back to that word: easy.

I’ve asked thousands of hitters the same question. When it was going really well, how did it feel?

The answer I hear more than any other isn’t complicated or technical. It’s easy.

Here’s the reality. Your swing will break down. That part isn’t optional.

The real question isn’t if you’ll struggle. It’s how long.

Hitting feels hard when you stumble into a good swing, when you get hot but don’t know why, and when things go bad and you don’t know how to fix it.

Hitting feels easy when you know what you’re trying to do, when you know how to repeat it, and when you have a way to fix yourself when you drift.

That’s the mindset we build. The belief that hitting is understandable, trainable, and repeatable, not a mystery you either have or don’t.

Alongside mindset is intent.

Intent is just intentions. What are we actually trying to do?

For me, intent sounds like this. Win every rep. Win every movement. Win every emotional response. Win everything that’s within your control.

We’re not just trying to win the at bat. We’re trying to win the process that leads to the at bat.

You might not go four for four. You can go four for four in your intent.

Responsibility is the hardest step.

Looking back on my own career, as both a player and a coach, I know I made mistakes because I wasn’t mature enough to take responsibility.

Blaming is easy. The umpire squeezed me. The coach doesn’t like me. The field was bad. The hitting coach changed my swing.

Some of those things might even be true. But none of them help you with your next at bat.

Being the CEO of your company means you own the bad days. You own the decisions. You own the work or the lack of it. And then you do something about it.

There’s a phrase you hear a lot. Talent is overrated.

I always smile and think I’d still like to have some.

Same with bat speed. It might be overrated, but I’d like that too.

It’s not evil. It’s not useless. It’s just not the whole story.

I’ve worked with Rookies of the Year, batting title winners, World Series MVPs, Home Run Derby champions, and WBC MVPs.

At every level, it’s the combination that matters. Talent. Work. Mindset. Responsibility. Support systems.

It’s never just one thing, and it’s certainly not just me. But the player has to run the company.

In 2017, I interviewed with the Dodgers to be a hitting consultant and ended up working alongside some very smart baseball people.

One was Craig Wallenbrock, a unique thinker and teacher. Another was my brother, who I still believe is the best run prevention guy on the planet.

At instructional league, I gave a presentation to over 100 hitters. Half spoke English as a first language and half didn’t.

People came up afterward and said, that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.

It felt good.

Then my brother came over and said, you’ve got to learn how to simplify.

At first, I was offended. Then I realized he was right.

That moment started an eight year process of simplifying everything I teach. Understanding it. Training it. Prioritizing it. Explaining it in a way hitters can actually use.

That’s a big part of CEO Hitting. Taking decades of clutter and making it usable.

One of my favorite examples of mindset and responsibility is Michael Saunders.

Early in his career, he had about 500 big league plate appearances, hit .208, and struck out 44 percent of the time. He could run, defend, throw, and had power. But he wasn’t running his company.

When we started working together, he was frustrated. He was sacrificing but not getting paid for it. In his words, he was tired of doing volunteer work.

That’s where the idea of burning the ships came in.

The phrase comes from explorers who burned their ships so they couldn’t go back when things got hard.

Michael didn’t burn his education or experience. He burned his excuses and old habits.

He went on to have a ten year Major League career and an All Star season, not because I fixed him, but because he decided to run his company.

Hitting will get messy. Your swing will break down. You will feel lost at times.

The difference between players who stay stuck and players who climb isn’t luck.

It’s mindset. It’s intent. It’s responsibility.

It’s the decision to burn the ships and run your company.

That’s what CEO Hitting is built on.