N – Never
E – Enough
W – Wisdom

It’s a New Year, which means there will be new challenges and opportunities for 2023 for you.

• What do you hope for in the new year?
• What do you pray about?
• What do you dream about?

If it’s God’s will, you will accomplish everything on your list. It may also be His will for you to grow mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually by way of adversity.

Let me give you something new that you can add to your list. It is something you can never get enough of. It will guide you on and off the field. It will be your saving grace when your on field baseball career is over.

Wisdom. You can never have enough wisdom.

Knowledge is the result of gaining information plus experience. And experience plus good judgement is wisdom.

You can find a good coach to give you information. Taking what you learn and applying it on the field in games is experience. But one of the things that separates elite players from the rest is their ability to make good judgments.

Elite players and elite people make commitments and discipline themselves to get things to die because they have to and not because they always want to.

• Intentional practice reps
• Intentional practice time
• Rest and recovery
• Diet
• Studying pitchers (pitch types, speeds, locations, delivery, etc.)
• Strength training (mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual)

These are six things that wise hitters make a habit of.

Are you wise?

Remember, skills pay the bills.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

When working with my Diamond Directors clients and L.E.A.D. Ambassadors, there is one thing I always like to emphasize: Don’t let good results be an accident.

The only way things can be intentional is through purpose and practice, working November through January.

Purpose is the reason for doing something and practice is getting habit-building reps.

Bear with me as I teach a bit more. Talent is what you do well and habits are things you do well repeatedly without thought. Skills are things you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress.

There are seven parts to the swing that include:

1. Stance/Load
2. Timing
3. Tempo
4. Tracking
5. Approach
6. Contact
7. Extension/Finish

Seven parts of the swing times 3,000 reps is 21,000 reps.

Timing is a habit that is under-coached and one of the easiest to develop.

Here’s a simple timing drill for you to execute through the end of January. I challenge you to get 3,000 reps.

If you do it, it will be on purpose and one of the most meaningful periods of practice that you’ve ever had.

Remember, skills pay the bills.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit. For proof, let’s take the seven parts to the swing:

1. Stance/Load
2. Timing
3. Tempo
4. Tracking
5. Approach
6. Contact
7. Extension/Finish

Seven parts of the swing times 3,000 reps is 21,000 reps.

The number—21,000—is indeed a lot of reps but the key to building a good habit is making sure that you get quality reps. As Amit Ray once said, “Excellence comes when we balance quality with quantity.”

Excellence means you must meet expectations. That’s why having a plan for your practice time is so key to developing a quality habit. Don’t show up to practice with a mindset of hit until you are tired. If you do this, you may get better by accident, but you may also get worse.

The load is a very important part of the swing. You can get 100 reps in per day for the next 30 days to build a habit.

Over the Christmas break, you also can spend 10 days of work on your load and get 300 reps per day.

Just build a plan and stick to it with quality reps.

Get started with this load drill HERE.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Criticism and blame are addictions. There is a lot of intentional work that must be done during Winter Workouts (November-January) for my hitters.

Criticism and blame are addictions. There is a lot of intentional work that must be done during Winter Workouts (November-January) for my hitters.

You should start by practicing and training better to win games during your spring season, instead of trying to win the criticism and blame game.

Practice is the time to build habits (November-January). Remember, as we always say, talent is what you do well and habits are things you do well repeatedly without thought.

Skills are things you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress and the best time to build skills is in the spring (February-April).

Skills pay the bills. So, if you haven’t started to pay the cost during your winter workouts, criticism and blame may be two of your best strategies.

These are the “losing twins.”

Coaches usually are the top recipients of these “losing twins” when hitters are performing. On deck is the “bat.” In the dugout are the parents, the team, the batters box, etc.

You want to build habit? Do you remember what it takes? It takes 3,000 reps. There are seven parts to the swing, which include:

1. Stance/Load
2. Timing
3. Tempo
4. Tracking
5. Approach
6. Contact
7. Extension/Finish

Seven parts of the swing times 3,000 reps is 21,000 reps.

Here’s a GREAT LOAD DRILL to get you started.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

“Drop by drop is the water pot filled.” — Buddha

Did you know that it takes 3,000 reps to build a habit? As we have outlined as one of the foundations for the Diamond Directors’ model, there are seven parts to the swing, which include:

1. Stance/Load
2. Timing
3. Tempo
4. Tracking
5. Approach
6. Contact
7. Extension/Finish

Seven parts of the swing times 3,000 reps is 21,000 reps.

To build a good habit is a day by day commitment to excellence, which requires you to give yourself mercy and grace.

A bad habit I am trying to break is my use of profanity. Breaking bad habits can be hard. So I decided to create a new habit of being patient and pausing before I speak in my moments of stress, which make me want to curse.

What bad habit do you have in baseball (and life) that you need to break?

Day by day I get better with my tongue. And then there are days of stress I feel that I’m starting all over again.

I am indeed a work I progress and so are you. In the end, we owe it to ourselves to become the best versions of ourselves.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.