batting stances – Page 28

Putting focus at the center of your focus

April 20, 2022 by C.J. Stewart

Focus is the center of interest or activity. It is very difficult for me at times to focus due to me having ADHD. The benefits of me being focused outweigh me being unfocused. So, I have to train myself to focus.

There is a big difference between being talented, having good habits and being skilled.

I train myself to focus by:

Understanding why I need to do what I am doing
Realizing the things that can distract me
Knowing how long I need to give my attention to what I am doing
Having a good reward for my focus

I pray that for the remaining days of April, focus is showered down on you.

I truly believe there are a lot of talented people in the world who never develop the skills to pay the bills because of a lack of focus.

Talent is things that you do well. Habits are things that you do well repeatedly without thought. Skills are things that you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress. And skills pay the bills. Skills also require training which is very different from practicing to build good habits.

Focus makes it easy for me to say no to people because I don’t have time to waste. Nobody has time to waste but we are most vulnerable to waste time when we are not focused.

How do you define focus?
What do you do to get focused?
What is something that you are currently doing that is preventing you from becoming your best you?

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.

Building the grit you need to push on

April 13, 2022 by C.J. Stewart

It is April. The flowers are blooming. The rain showers will fall. And it’s spring. But there is something else special about this month. April is the final month my hitters focus on converting their habits to skills.

There are four things I pray rains down on baseball players of all ages and skill levels throughout the world this month:

Discernment
Grit
Focus
Self-efficacy

Grit is the relentless pursuit of purpose. It is a mental skill that can only be developed by doing things that are tough. It is necessary because, as we know, “skills pay the bills.”

So many hitters seemingly had productive winter workouts and came into the spring with high expectations. Some are meeting these goals, while others are struggling to the point of wanting to quit playing baseball altogether.

It is that struggle that helps you develop grit. Since grit is the relentless pursuit of purpose, it is important we have a specific purpose for life in general and baseball specifically.

What is your life purpose?
What is your reason for playing baseball?

My reason for coaching is to help diamond sport athletes become the best version of themselves.

Before the word coach was used in sports, it was only used as a means of transportation. There was a horse, a coachman to stir the horse, and the coach was the place where passengers rested until they arrived at their destination.

Life is a bumpy ride and grit is the fuel. The let-downs and disappointments in my life are the things that have caused me to develop the grit required for me to move from being an ordinary person to an extraordinary person on a mission for God.

Grit is the thing that moves athletes from just possessing talent, to having strong habits, to being skilled.

Get grit so you don’t quit.

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

Why respect is better than being popular — and why that should matter to you

March 30, 2022 by C.J. Stewart

According to Wikipedia, respect—also called esteem—is a positive feeling or action shown toward someone or something considered important, or held in high esteem or regard. It conveys a sense of admiration for good or valuable qualities.

Is respect earned or should it be automatically given to people when you first meet them? Should being disrespected cause you in turn to be disrespectful toward others?

As a young baseball coach, I oftentimes was very disrespectful toward my players and their parents. My coaching strategy was to use fear to get my players and parents to do what I wanted them to do so that we could win games.

In most cases, it worked and we won a lot of games. But in all cases, I was not respected.

There are millions of boys who aspire to play Major League Baseball for the fame, fortune, and or fulfillment of purpose. Trying to accomplish that goal can expose the bad sides of people because it is a competitive process to be among the best in baseball.

As Babe Didrikson Zaharia once said, “If you win through bad sportsmanship that’s no real victory.”

Respect is such an important part of achieving personal goals, winning baseball games and winning at the game of life because respect leads to trust. And when people can trust you, they will advocate for you.

Coaching is one thing and advocacy is another I would argue supersedes coaching. Because what good is good coaching if you don’t have the right person saying the right things about you to the right person at the right time.

And what good can be said about or do for a person that is disrespectful.

Listen to the good doctor, aka, Julius “Dr. J.” Erving: “I firmly believe that respect is a lot more important, and a lot greater, than popularity.”

Remember: Intelligence tops being smart.

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

Why making loyalty part of who you are is important

March 23, 2022 by C.J. Stewart

We continue to march on in the month of March. That said, here are your marching orders for the previous weeks. We will end the month discussing the power of being respectful.

I define loyalty as doing the right thing even when it is not popular. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of loyalty when it comes to baseball—starting at the rec league level all the way to the Majors.

Loyal people are trustworthy. When someone is trustworthy, it is much easier to partner with them in an effort to accomplish goals. In my moments of not being loyal, it often is as a result of me not being confident in my ability combined with laziness.

Lack of confidence can deplete work ethic causing you to want to take the easy route.

There are some baseball teams that have a losing record, but are led by a quality coach. A “winning-is-everything” mentality can cause some people to leave a good thing to experience what seems to be a better thing, only to miss an opportunity to improve their character.

Your character is how you act.

How do you act when the going gets tough?
Do you stay and get going on the field?
Do you get into another situation?

I am all for making sure I am in the right place to be successful, but I have to also remind myself that everywhere that I go, there I am. So, if I am a toxic person, I will be toxic everywhere I go.

Loyalty starts with me being loyal to myself. That’s why I continue to work with a therapist to keep me from being toxic.

How about you? Are you toxic? Are you loyal to you?

As Charles F. Glassman once said, “The most effective pill we can swallow for overall health and vitality is self-honesty.”

Remember: Loyal people are trustworthy and when someone is trustworthy, it is much easier to partner with them in an effort to accomplish goals.

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

Why being agile is the key to staying the course

March 16, 2022 by C.J. Stewart

Dreaming of the Big Leagues. That’s C.J. Stewart in the back, second from the left.

One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou, who said, “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”

There are five weeks in March, so here are your weekly marching orders if you want to be successful on and off the baseball field.

Be honest
Be courageous
Be agile
Be loyal
Be respectful

This week’s focus is being agile. Being agile is being able to move quickly and easily. Consider your most recent night and/or daydream. As a child, I dreamed of playing professional baseball with the Chicago Cubs.

In 1984, I was eight years old. The Cubs won the National League East Division. I watched a lot of their games that summer while living in Atlanta. I would watch the game and then go outside to practice in the Hotlanta weather by hitting rocks with a stick and working on my pitching accuracy by throwing rocks at trees.

I had my first workout with the Cubs when I was 14 thanks to my mentor, the late T.J. Wilson. I was drafted by the Cubs at age 18 while I was a senior at Westlake High School. Instead of signing, I attended Georgia State University as a student-athlete (baseball).

Due to a lack of commitment and discipline, I was academically ineligible at the end of the season and transferred to Dekalb College where I experienced the same fate.

Everyone you go, there you are.

I was drafted again by the Cubs in 1996 and this time I signed only to play two years because of a lack of discipline and commitment. I define commitment as making and keeping a promise starting first with yourself. Discipline is doing things you need to do even when you don’t want to do them.

Because I lacked the strong character traits I needed in order to be agile early on in life, I experienced a lot of heartache and disappointments.

For the 20-plus years since my professional baseball playing days ended, I have been regarded among the top professional hitting coaches in America. That is largely due to my commitment and discipline.

Commit and discipline yourself to being agile so that you can win at the game of life.

As Redd Foxx once said, “Life is hard. It’s harder when you’re stupid.”

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

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