Building a Ballplayer’s Mindset

Billy Lanford on the traits worth building first.

This final part of the series brings everything together. Billy Lanford (Chicago Dogs) breaks down the traits, habits, and mental qualities that help shape a stronger ballplayer, moving beyond talent alone and into the mindset that holds up over time. It’s a conversation about self-awareness, discipline, leadership, heart, and the kind of inner makeup that helps a player handle pressure, adversity, and growth. If you’ve followed the series so far, this last installment is the piece that ties it all together. Let’s build a player!

9inningnomad: Before we start building this monster, I put together a rough pool of criteria for these guys — mindset, habits, emotional traits, awareness, discipline, coachability, competitiveness, response to failure, response to success, response to adversity, leadership, consistency, and the ability to self-correct. Is there one thing you think every player should have in place first?

Billy Lanford: The one thing I’ll say with the list, I actually think there’s one thing I think everyone, every player for sure should do before that, it’s really have set out your vision. Get crystal clear on it, your mission, and your values. You have to clearly see what you’re chasing and hold on to it loosely, because I think a lot of guys hold on to it so tight that it ends up being you trying to control the situation.

Having a mission — what are you looking to give to the world? What are you looking to impact? Because it can’t just be a selfish endeavor. I’m not a fan of that. Maybe other people are. It’s not my deal. And then what are your values? Who are you? Is it integrity, work hard, effort, whatever those characteristics are. I think it all depends on who you see yourself as, because that’s the glue. That’s how you show up every day. So even before we get into the list, everyone should have that. But if you’re truly chasing it, you have to take the time to write those things out so you can go back to them.

Just like a company would or should. I think a lot of companies have them, put them on the wall, and never think about them. But if you have them, you give life to it, and that’s who you continue to become every day. That’s how you measure yourself.

9inningnomad: Once those fundamentals are there, what’s the first mental trait off the board for you?

Billy Lanford: You can’t get anywhere without mindset. You have to have a bulletproof mindset. I think what people don’t realize is you create that over time. That’s where response to adversity comes in — you create that mindset through adversity. So to me those are kind of 1A and 1B, because there’s always going to be adversity. There’s always going to be things you don’t like. It could be little, it could be big, there could be circumstances externally that happen, or internal adversity.

So I definitely think those two go hand in hand. And habits — with habits, I would put routine, because you have to have dialed-in habits and routine. That’s how you execute.

9: What are the underlying traits that make up that kind of mindset?

Billy: Discipline. Delusion, like we were talking about before we started recording.

To chase any big goal, whether it’s a high school kid who wants to play in college, a college kid who wants to play pro ball, or you want to be real delusional and say big leagues, I love that trait. I have that trait. I am absolutely delusional. Leaving fashion, this is the fourth time I’ve started something different in my life, and I’m 100% delusional. I have massive goals, I have a massive vision. And I actually believe it’ll happen.

So if you’re just working and not believing, you’re working against yourself. If you’re sizing yourself up to somebody else, you’re losing. That’s not delusion. Delusion is: I actually believe if I put in the work, if I put effort in, if I have discipline, if I do the things, something beautiful is going to happen.

And you have to have some of that. You have to have confidence, but I also think you have to have humility. Humility is a huge thing. In our culture, we look at humility like playing small. I don’t see humility that way. I think humility is realizing you’re serving a greater purpose.

You can still have confidence with that. You can still promote who you are and the things you’re doing and serve other people, and that doesn’t make you not humble. I think we look at humility as playing small. I do not see humility that way. I just think humility is you not putting yourself above other people. But that has nothing to do with you chasing things.

A guy like Reggie Pruitt Jr. — I think he’s a very humble dude. He’s also a very confident dude. He’s got that swagger. Chance Sisco is another one. There was no ego involved. They played at high levels, Triple-A and the big leagues, and they constantly were giving to younger players. That’s humility. They didn’t set themselves above anyone.

9: What takes a player from mentally solid to somebody you really trust?

Billy: I think those are one and the same. I don’t think you can be mentally solid and not be trusted.

What creates trust is everything we’re talking about. You know who you are. Your habits, your routines, you do what you say, say what you do — which shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it’s a massive thing in our culture because it’s not there. And that’s what lends itself to leadership.

To me, leadership is the hardest thing to achieve because you have to be all these things for people to follow it, at least for long-term success.

You can trust somebody if they’re a good hitter. If they’re hitting .333, I trust they’re going to go one for three. But beyond that — as a man, as a leader, as a clubhouse guy — no. Because you can be a flake and be a good hitter. There are people who can roll out of bed and swing it.

9: What’s an overrated trait when people talk about the mental side?

Billy: That’s a hard one. You stumped me. That’s hard to do because I feel like I always have something for everything.

I don’t know if there’s a trait I would say is overrated, but there’s the try-hard guy. I love Charlie Hustle, but there’s the guy where the foul ball’s obviously in the stands and he’s sprinting over to the bleachers. That kind of trait to me is just weird. It makes no sense to me. Preserve your energy.

You hit a tapper back to the pitcher, you should go full bore to first. I love Charlie Hustle because there could be an overthrow, underthrow, a bobble — things can happen and you get on first base. But the guy who just goes a hundred miles an hour for every little thing, like a foul ball that’s obviously in the stands and he’s sprinting over — makes no sense.

And then there are guys who are constantly trying to control the outcome or are so worried about results. The results happen from all the work. They happen from your approach, and you can’t control the results, so there’s really no reason to fixate on them. Zero.

It’s wild to me. A guy says, “I went two for three today.” But how were your habits? How were your routines? Were the balls hit hard? Because if you hit two bleeders, those aren’t good at-bats. They’re not quality. Over the span of a season, that’s not going to have you hitting over .300, because at some point you’re going to run out of luck. That doesn’t make you a good hitter.

9: What’s something you’d leave off the board completely, or what’s a red flag for you?

Billy: Coachability is up there. I don’t know anyone — aside from somebody who can roll out of bed and throw 95-plus or a guy who can get out of bed and hit — who can be successful in anything without being coachable.

And you don’t even have to be that arrogant guy to exude some of the things. You can tell when a guy’s locked in when you’re having a conversation, when you’re coaching, when you have a group together. You can tell who’s really locked in. It’s body language, eye contact, things of that nature.

So when a guy’s disengaged — let’s say the team’s not playing well, you get the hitters together, start talking about mental approach or how we’re going to do things or the lineup shift or whatever it is — and a guy’s just not there, you can see it in a heartbeat. You can tell somebody who’s really focused and listening and somebody who isn’t.

To me, even that little skill probably got me farther than anything else because I was always locked in. There’s always something to learn. I learn from you. Nick Saban had Kobe Bryant up giving a talk to Alabama, and he’s front row taking notes.

If I’m speaking to a team and there’s fifteen guys there, I’d say half of them are locked in and the other half are in their own universe. For me, as a speaker or teacher or presenter, I just cut them out. I don’t even focus on them because it’s not my problem. I’m going to focus on the 20%, because that’s where the value is going to come from me. It’s going to come from those guys, not trying to beg these guys to pay attention.

9: What’s a value pick — a mental trait that doesn’t get talked about enough?

Billy: You have it on there. Self-awareness.

There are things I’m learning about myself every day. And I think so many people are not self-aware, whether it’s the talents they have, skills, whatever it is. They underplay them instead of growing them. Or they play small. Most people do play small. That’s a reality. So yeah, I think self-awareness is huge — and realizing what you’re not good at. I wasn’t a hit-for-power guy, so I’m not going to try to be a hit-for-power guy. I’m going to be very honest with that reality. I may get one, may get two, but instead, can I turn those into doubles in the gap? Can I increase my speed because I needed to maximize another tool?

And being honest with what you’re not, but also not just leaving it there. You have to be honest with it and say, “Okay, this is the type of player I am, so I need to maximize that.” Not try to fit into a mold.

I was listening to an interview before we got on, and it was a college coach, a D1 college coach, and they were like, “What would be your prototypical center fielder?” And he was like 6’3”, 205. He went through the list and it was all max stuff. And it’s like, if you’re not that, this coach isn’t going to look for you.

I’m not saying you can’t — once again, you’ve got to be delusional and you can’t worry about it — but you have to maximize who you are. I’m never going to be 6’3”. I’m 5’10”. It is what it is. I don’t care if I put lift shoes on. I’m still not going to be 6’3”. So on his board, I’m not there. But you’ve got to understand he’s in a top-five program pulling from the best players. He’s got his pick. That was the question — what’s your prototypical? He even said, “I’m not saying there’s not a phenomenal 5’9” center fielder or something. It’s not what I want.”

And that’s the thing. For me it all goes together. We can’t pick and choose. We can’t compartmentalize like, “Oh, I’ll be this and not that,” or “I’ll do this.” If you’re stuck on “I want to play at Texas and Texas is the only place I want to play,” and he’s looking for a 6’3” center fielder and you’re a center fielder, that’s not delusion. That’s just stupid.

I’m not saying it can’t happen, but we focus so much on the dream out here as opposed to what we actually can control and do with our mindset and our physical skills, and then allow the opportunities to take care of themselves.

9: What’s the hardest trait to teach if it isn’t already there?

Billy: This is probably a weird one, especially for baseball players, but empathy. And I think that would go with leadership. You don’t have to be a great leader to be a great player. You can be one of those silent leaders. But if you want to maximize leadership, you have to have the ability to empathize with players.

There’s a Kobe Bryant story — he was pretty far into his career and had a player come up to him and say, “Dude, I get you to a degree. You’re driven, you’re this, that, and the other, but you leave us all down here because you’re in your own universe.” Even Kobe talks about that — when he feels like he started to become a leader, it was when he started to think about the guys more as humans.

So I think the ability to really connect and see other people matters, because that allows you to see yourself. It helps with self-awareness. I can empathize with me. I can coach myself better. I’ll be in situations where I’m like, I just talked to this person about that, and now I’m doing the exact same thing that I told them not to do or that I’m coaching them out of. So then it allows me to coach me. But I wouldn’t have that without empathy.

9: It’s a possible reason guys who are hall of famers or legends don’t coach well.

Billy: MJ talks about it. Michael Jordan says, “I’d never be a good coach. Never.” Because he is who he is and he doesn’t have that ability. But then you have a guy like Steve Kerr. I think Steve Kerr is a phenomenal coach. Gets a lot out of his players. Very empathetic, but also he’s got his standard and you have to reach that. I’ll tell you in my own journey, I’m too empathetic — probably bordering on sympathy at times — which is the worst thing I can do because then I feel sorry for you.

I’ve had to toughen my stance on certain things because I feel for people when they’re in bad places because I know how bad it feels. I’ve been at those places. It’s like, man, I wish I had X, so I want to try to be X. But being X doesn’t always get somebody to where they need to go.

So for me over the last 20 years, I’ve definitely had to toughen up. Like even what I was saying — when I’m doing a group talk, if I see this side or these five guys are disconnected, done. I won’t even look at it. Whereas before, it’d be like, “You guys, this, that…” I would try to coach them into caring, and that you can’t do.

You’re always walking a fine line, because you do want the best for everyone. Or at least I do. I want people to live their dreams, and if I get to plant one small little seed, that’s phenomenal. That’s all. I’m not looking at changing anybody’s life per se, because I know that happens with a multitude of things. But if I get to plant one little seed and help that person evolve and grow, I won — even if I never hear about it or know about it.

9: What’s a trait that can grow the most over time if the player really wants to improve it?

Billy: I think the mental approach is a lot easier than people realize. If you have that vision and you can visualize, you can get to a point where you’re really crystal clear visualizing the result that you want.

Like an at-bat, for example. If you can really visualize yourself going from your dugout approach to your on-deck approach to the batter’s box, and you can see yourself taking pitches you don’t want and then hitting the ball hard — and I’m not talking about a hit, just hitting the ball hard right at contact — that, to me, if you can do that consistently over time, it will impact your game more than anything else.

Pitcher, same thing. You can impact sitting on the mound, taking a breath, going into your windup, and making the pitch you want where you want it. If you can see yourself, because the mind doesn’t know if you’re physically doing it or not. That science and those mental reps, they stack.

So if you do that 20 minutes a day for a month, and then you’re still going and you’re doing the physical work on top of that, you just added how many more reps because your mind doesn’t know whether your body’s actually doing it or not. And I think people miss that opportunity because it’s a discipline, and we live in a very undisciplined society.

9: When you look at the finished mental Frankenstein, what separates that player from just a talented guy?

Billy: There are some dogs out there. I think that desire, desire, heart — we grew up with Rocky. It’s something you can’t measure. It’s something you can’t predict, but you know it when you see it.

And that guy who just puts it all out there every time — that dog, that Charlie Hustle, the gamer — that person is it. Henry Kusiak is that to me. He was on our team last year. He’s playing with Long Island this year in the Atlantic League. Wasn’t drafted. Hasn’t played affiliate. Played in the Frontier League. Had a really solid year. He was Rookie of the Year in the American Association last year as a shortstop, which is a demanding position. Hit over .300. I think he had like 15 home runs, and he was out a couple of weeks with injuries. Phenomenal player, but gamer. Gamer. The trust wasn’t about whether he was going to have a great game or go one for three. The trust was: he’s going to go in and give you everything he has because he’s a gamer. He had heart. He’s phenomenal.

And it’s like I said — it’s Rocky. That’s why we love him. That’s why there’s a statue in Philadelphia and he’s not even real.