Raising and Coaching Kids (Just Call Me Dad)

The Unparalleled Performance Podcast is hosted by Josh Reband and features guests who are ambitious and passionate about success. The podcast covers topics on discipline, goals, leadership, and faith. The latest episode features guest Jim Minton, author of the book "Just Call Me Dad." Jim shares his experiences as a dad and coach, discussing the challenges of balancing competition and parenting. He talks about his transition from being an overly involved and pressure-filled parent to a supportive and guiding figure. Jim's insights come from his own journey and learning from coaches like John Wooden. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding and communicating with children at their level of development. This is the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. I am your host Josh Reband. Each week we'll feature guests who are ambitious and passionate about being more than the status quo because we all know that being average is the enemy to success. We will cover topics that will help you become more disciplined and committed to your goals in life, leadership, and faith. Now on to this week's episode and remember as iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another. Enjoy the show. Hey everybody welcome back to episode 21 of the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. I've been super grateful for all of our listeners and kind of a shameless plug but we we just surpassed 4,000 downloads this past week so it's definitely been growing and appreciate all of your support and passing the word out to those around you. It's been a really cool journey for myself just being able to connect with people from a lot of different fields. Most of you have probably heard people from baseball backgrounds and whatnot so far but just been really cool to see how this has kind of grown and I kind of started it selfishly as I've mentioned before just as a learning environment for myself to be able to as iron sharpens iron type thing but continuing to have this thing roll. So this week's guest Jim Minton. I coached his son Curtis at Olivet Nazarene University for two years while I was the graduate assistant and pitching coach there for Todd Reed from 2014 the fall of 2014 to the spring of 2016 and Jim I know I met you at least a couple of the times that you were at games and whatnot but it you you have a book it's called Just Call Me Dad and it's an incredible book and I think it needs to get into the hands of more parents because the topics that you have listed are is so true in it there's so much that centered based on scripture and the Bible and then also just real life principles too that we encounter that I think have been really cool for me to read myself now as a parent but also as a coach too to understand maybe what parents are thinking of you know the players that I'm coaching right now and so it's been it was really helpful for me to read it and I'm grateful we're able to connect and have you on for the podcast so if you want to give a quick introduction of yourself and then we can get get rolling into it. Well just a huge honor to be a part of this with all the great guests that you've had before that I'm somebody that's been involved in baseball all my life and and that was really a big thing for for me you know growing up and life kind of changed for me when I was in college that I became a dad when I was in college and now all of a sudden I had to go from being a baseball player to being a dad and it was a little bit of a transition in order to to do that and so as you get a little bit older in life you kind of stop and start looking back at some things and you think about how this worked out and how that worked out and it's like you know God has a plan and and that plan kind of played out for my life and you know my when I was growing up I was going to be a professional baseball player and a broadcaster and you know thought that was going to be where life was going to go I ended up being a part of some really good fast pitch softball teams won a couple national championships did some amazing things playing fast pitch softball and then for 20 years I broadcasted high school sports around here so things kind of played out a little bit the way I dreamed them maybe not quite the way I had them dreamed up but that it was all part of God's plan as he was growing and developing me. Awesome yeah and for our audience too you were inducted into the Decatur Public Schools Athletic Hall Fame back in 2018 so just about five years ago so you obviously have had a ton of success as an athlete like you mentioned I should have mentioned that in your intro for you as well but that with the Decatur pride and winning the fast pitch national championship a couple times and obviously it's had a lot of success raising kids as well so yeah so it welcome I'm super excited to talk about some of the topics in your book but also just some of the experiences that you've had if you're if you if we can I'd like to start out with where you felt like you were as a dad because your book is kind of talks about the principles of what it means to be a dad and what it means to be a parent and how to raise our kids in a godly way but also just in a in a way that's gonna help better the people around us which as you and I know it's gonna be based on scripture that's our that's our owner's manual which you talked about in your book but if you can go back to where you felt like was maybe your lowest point as a as a parent as a dad it could like watching your kids go through sports if you would and then we'll kind of evolve the cotton conversation from there well JJ was born when I was 21 and so when I was 31 he's a 10 year old athlete and so I was still playing fast-pitch softball at those times and you know so I was still you know really involved in competition and so forth and and so when I started out I felt like my ten-year-old should know everything I knew as a 31 year old and you expected them to know how hard they had to compete how hard they had to work and you know it was it created a lot of very uncomfortable situations when I was pushing kids really hard in order to do things and and they were ten-year-old kids and so it you know created some some situations had a at a freshman basketball game we were getting ready to leave and go home and and here's JJ a freshman in high school and he says you know dad you're not helping and it you know really hit you hard at that point it's like you know you're wanting to help your kid grow and develop and here he is bold enough to step up and say you know that you're not helping and you know so I was that dad that you know was sitting in the stands and and was trying to coach every second of every play that was going on and you know came to realize that again that wasn't wasn't hurting sometimes I like to tell the story of when I was a high school football player I was a quarterback and we had some really good teams and there was a game where I got so upset I hyperventilated and I had to bring a sack out and so forth well in a high school football game that's terrific that's a warrior that's a great player that's doing that but when you act that way at your kids ballgame you know it's looked at completely differently and so it took me a while to really you know understand that and and really figure out what was gonna help him him grow and develop yeah love that and so I I met you when I started coaching Curtis at all that and I've never known you to be that dad as I mentioned to you off air before we got rolling what transitioned for you from being that really as you mentioned in your book you self self-acclaimed that you were that loud obnoxious parent that wouldn't wouldn't shut their mouth at a game and like you said coaching the whole game what transition for you because I think that there's probably a lot of parents and I I I coached some players and as we get to know them there our players will open up to us and just say hey my my dad he won't talk to me if I strike out twice in the game like if I strike out once he may make Chad if I you know get a hit as well but if I strike out twice my dad won't talk to me and I'm like what in the world is going on this is very common this is not just one player on a roster this is that this happens very frequently and I I feel bad for players that have parents that put so much pressure on them now we can push our kids to be successful there's no there's there's a fine line between pushing them to realize how great that they can be but there's also the difference between putting pushing them to put pressure on them and I think as parents it's probably hard to realize that difference there especially if we've been competitive our whole lives like you have been where you played at a high level you played college baseball at a high level and so I think a lot of times it's hard for us to kind of figure out how to go from being that pressure-filled parent to being the pushing parent just to help them see how great they can be what changed for you and your mindset over the years to establish that well I was blessed that that Curtis came along 10 years later so I had had you know some time and I had been able to see some things and again just in working through things with JJ that you know that I understood that I had to have a little bit of different approach in order to do that for me one of the big things was finding John Wooden and to go through all the wooden books and just how successful he could be and again you know somebody that won championships but did it by teaching life and by teaching life skills and so that was really you know kind of the the change some of it was just just Curtis that Curtis and I had a very good relationship and Curtis wasn't afraid to you know say stuff to me because I could be that way I could be where Curtis would go 0 for 4 and it would ruin my day and it just you know would be hard for me to to handle I remember the the last weekend that Curtis played in the conference championship for Olivet it was like he gets it you know that it all the things that you wanted him to learn on the baseball field in regard to life you know when he got to his senior year he had learned those things but it you know you just have to understand that 10 year olds 11 year olds aren't gonna aren't going to be at that level and if you're going to be a good coach if you're going to be a good dad you know that you're going to have to you know make sure that you're communicating at their level one thing with JJ that JJ's name was James Walter Minton jr. and so when he would fail I felt like he was failing me you know that was that was my name you know my name and and so forth and and you know realized that that you know was not the right attitude and then there was a game when Curtis was in seventh grade and JJ was sitting in the dugout with me and Curtis did something and and JJ goes you know if I would have done that you would have ripped my head off and and with Curtis I just kind of let him you know go through it and work through it and I talk about it we talked about it after the game and and so forth and so you know I just was really blessed that I had a lot of time frame that was in there in order to to do that that I had great kids to start with to work with but you know again that you you know you you you just you got to drive them you got to push them but you can't expect them to be at a collegiate level when they're when they're younger kids yeah absolutely what what advice obviously experience and time help you out and just kind of seeing things you know played out what advice would you give to a parent right now of a athlete that they are living vicariously through like you said if you know if one of your kids went over four in a day Curtis you know you it would ruin your day how what what advice would you give as a parent who's gone through that and been on the very low side of that but now you've also been able to come through and you've been able to probably sit through games where Curtis did go through over four and be okay with it and that didn't ruin your day well that you know you you first of all got a got a focus on what you're trying to accomplish you know I look back at all the great players that Curtis played with over the years and and that JJ played with over the years and there's only a handful of them that end up making a living in sports that where they're probably going to make a living in you know in life is what they can get out of their education and so how important that education is but just to be able to learn work ethic and in things of that nature but it you know I I think it you've got to have a relationship with your kids where they know that you're on their side that they know that you have their best interest at heart and you know I would tell my kids that you know do as I say not as I do and I know that's not the normal approach but the fact of the matter is I'm a sinner in need of a savior and and so I learn these principles I learn what it's like to be Christlike but then I don't always act that way and so we got to be in a situation where I can call them you know if I'm going to call them out they've got to be able to call me out to one of John Wood and simple ones is don't whine don't complain don't make excuses you know so I could tell Curtis you know that's that's a pretty good excuse and so he would kind of know what that what that was well then he could kind of come back to me and say oh that's pretty good excuse dad you know that he could he could throw it back on me that if if these were our principles one of the things I'm working on here in Decatur with things I'm calling the fridge project in Decatur we've got a lot of programs trying to get food into it's called making cat or feed making County that trying to get food in the refrigerators of the underprivileged and and again that's a great thing you know you're you're not going to learn if you're hungry but I also think it's really important what goes on the outside of the fridge and so the story that I kind of try to put put across in the book is it one of the we just kept good quotes on the refrigerator at our home and that was a real learning spot for us was to keep this to keep this stuff up there and it was funny that I would kind of do this well then my wife started sneaking quotes in you know and all of a sudden you're like where'd this quote come from she's like it's been up there a month you know you haven't noticed it but to start figuring out those you know those little things and and one of the things that John wouldn't really got me with was just these these simple little slogans simple little you know things that when when you wake up in the morning and you're having a bad day you know what if what's well just a slogan like serve rather than deserve you know that I deserve Curtis to be two for four that's kind of how you feel after you've put a lot of work in and it's like no you know my job is to serve Curtis and to work through this and and you know to figure out what he was thinking during the course of the game you know why he took that Oh too fast vote right down the middle and to again to be of service as opposed to deserving that you think your kids are going to do a great job yeah absolutely I like the idea of the what's on the outside of the fridge because in in most homes that's the family bulletin board that's that's the most common place in the home is probably the kitchen where hopefully in a traditional family setting that's where you spend time together as a family's probably in your kitchen maybe your living room maybe a game room that type of thing but it that's going to be your common place where everybody has everybody in the family has to go through the kitchen probably at some point during the day and so where as opposed to somebody's bedroom not everybody in the family is going to go into that bedroom every day but the the bulletin board can be that fridge or something similar like you said just having simple reminders whether it's a quote a Bible verse something to help us out as parents but also to instill the the proper way that we want our children to grow up and so I yeah I think that's a great idea and you also mentioned John Wooden and he was actually early on in my coaching career I didn't have a lot of confidence as a coach I I wanted to be a really good coach and I felt like you almost you kind of said like I felt like I deserved to be a good coach because I had been in the game so long as a player but I didn't know how to be the coach that I was aspiring to be and I got turned on to some John Wooden books about year two or year three in of coaching I think I read two or three of his books or books about him and I learned so much about the process and the details of coaching and that if we can become the best version of ourselves and have our team become the best version that the team can be everything else can take care of itself and you don't have to worry about all the external pressures that come about you if you if you know that you're putting in the proper effort to make yourself and your team better and that just goes right back to serving rather than deserve you know and how many people you also mentioned your book with which if you want to touch on but how many people oftentimes in life we think success is how many people are serving us whereas in return it's how many people are we serving and that's the true you know part of success like I could look at coaching or as a dad like oh my wife she's here to serve me no I'm here to serve my wife and my daughter I have two people have served or in coaching I don't have you know 30 players serving me it's one serving 30 or also the rest of our coaching staff obviously but taking ownership on myself like if you want to touch on that topic of serving rather than deserving I think that's a really key key area there's some stuff out there from Dan Cathy for the president of Chick-fil-a and he talks about where do you wear your napkin that if you have your napkin around your neck that you're looking to eat and to have somebody serve you but if you have your your napkin on your arm then that you're a server and that you're looking in order to in order to be serving and again that's a very you know prominent thing and hard for most of us to to comprehend I like to tell the story of John Wooden's dad Josh he was a farmer in Indiana during the Great Depression his animals died and so he lost the family farm and and had to do odd jobs and so here's a guy that by most standards would not be considered successful but he was able to raise a child that became you know the greatest basketball coach ever and how did he do that he did that you know back in those days you know they didn't have TV they didn't have the Internet they had one book they had the Bible and then they also had a book of poetry so John Wooden was always a big fan of poetry but that's how he would would teach his kids and so that was really a big thing for me and that I grew up in a Christian family I grew up going to the church but it really didn't sink into me how important that was until I started going through that process and really working with with John Wooden and again you know when I started off putting this stuff together and being a dad and so forth I really didn't intend for it to be a Christian book but as you get into it and you realize the reality of what Christianity is that's where the answers are that the answers go back to the Bible and that and that all wisdom kind of starts there and so you know when we talk about that transition as a dad you know that's really one of the things that I was trying to raise division one athletes you know that's what I what I wanted I was focused on the flesh and in to me what really changed is is when I started focusing on the spirit and how am I going to make these guys be good people my daughter Emily that my daughter Emily is an art teacher her mom and I are not artistic at all I have no I have no art ability at all and and somehow my daughter ends up a really good artist and and goes through school and and now she's having an influence on high school kids through you know through art and so again you don't have to know it all but you can help your kids you know through some some basic things of learning how to be nice people and and again focusing on those biblical principles that really lead you to what a good life is and you you mentioned I think it was a quote from Andy Stanley that our greatest accomplishment may not be something that we accomplish as an individual but it might be somebody that we've raised and you were tying that in with Josh Wooden and John Wooden and how a lot of people could look at Josh Wooden and say hey he was a failure as a as a you know as a dad as a husband you know lost the farm whatever but then you look at John John Wooden and how many people that he influenced and he's in he has influenced my coaching career and I've never even met the guy you know and just how much that he's done for not just sports but for coaches and then from a spiritual side of it which is the most important side like he taught me how to through reading his books and books about him just how to become a more how to be a Christian coach in a secular environment he coached at UCLA it's a secular school but he had his principles and it showed me that it's so it we can have our principles on scripture and our values based on that and be coaching in a secular environment and it's not that we're shoving in people's faces but that's our that that's how I coach my philosophy my the book that I go to to figure out how to coach is through scripture because it teaches you how to love it teaches you how to discipline it teaches you how to motivate it teaches you what's really important at the end of the day whereas you know you're sitting in the stands and you watch your kid go 0 for 4 with four four punch outs or you go to the basketball game and your kid shoots 0 for 10 from from the field or misses a couple key free throws at the end and we feel like no that's not a failure it's just it's the nature of it so it's really puts what matters just by keeping scripture at the forefront of our minds so I'm glad that you touched on on all those things in your in your book related to that another topic I wanted to talk to you about was that you mentioned a couple times in your book that kids they're they they're the things that they're taught they're caught they aren't actually taught and it's like you say like our actions are really important even though we don't always live up to the things that we say but our actions are really important because kids are going to learn by things that they catch not by things that they're taught they see us do things and then they're like oh that's probably how I should do it and I think it's the same thing like you know we go to church you know if you go to any church if a pastor is not if you see your pastor doing something and you're you don't have your foundation based on scripture maybe like oh it's okay to do that my pastor is doing it but it doesn't mean that so like obviously what we are taught is really important but our actions based on scripture is really important so if you can touch on that and how important it is for us to show them how to live in a in the right way and that you know I I made the comment of that telling my kids to do as I say not as I do but I knew what they were really going to learn from was what I did but part of what I was trying to teach them was that I'm not perfect you know Christ is the example you know I'm not the example I'm trying to live up to Christ but as we try to do that I'm gonna fail and and when I fail I've got to come back and ask for forgiveness and and I got to do those things and and so again it it you know it does come down so much to that that you'll see a you know a lot of people that will you know they'll maybe bad mouth their kids behind their back and it's like well you know do that to them tell them tell them how you're you know how you're feeling what you're you know what you're thinking what you're seeing and and again it's it's you know that respect that that has to be there that your kid has to know that you're you're trying to help them accomplish and grow that it's it's not about you know who you are it's it's about who they are and and helping them grow and develop and and again you know like you said that it is so much of it as it is that you as you try to teach it it's more just how you go about your your daily business and how you go about things and about having a work ethic and and being able to get those things done yeah some of the principles that you kind of laid out were like respecting authority and showing them how to do that showing them how to forgive showing them how to not necessarily have expectations like how often we go into a marriage with expectations of what it's at what we want it to look like and from either side of it as a husband or as a wife like we can go into things with expectations or we join a new sports team maybe it's a different team in the city and it it always looked like the most appealing team and we put all these expectations it's going to be so great and then we get there and we get in that environment and the parents are maybe they're all bad-mouthing the coaches or they're you know like it may not look as good as what it appears to be until you actually get into that circle it's teaching them about how to have wise for like teaching them to find good friends and that you mentioned your book you know show me your friends and I'll show you your future like that's it's so true and how can we model that as parents and how can I model that as a coach as well you know like our players and helping them figure out how to be a great teammate and then also showing them how not to be a victim you know and taking ownership of our responsibilities showing that's okay to have pain you you I we could go on and on you you listed out so many key things in your book that really resonated of things that we all go through as human beings can you can you touch on a couple of those I you know personally I think there is very little accomplished by complaining about umpiring and referee you know that there is so much life that we can learn from bad calls and how we deal with those bad calls and you know it just it always amazes me when I'll ask somebody about you know how'd your kids game go the referee and was horrible you know and it's like is that what you went to the game for did you go to the game to watch the referees you know no you you went to watch your kid and you need to learn from you know your kid and watch how your kid reacts to things and you know you there's a lot of things going on with our government right now where they're trying to make life fair and if you approach life with that sort of an attitude you know you're not going to be an overcomer you're not going to you're not going to be a victor you're going to end up being a victim in a lot of situations so you know I talked a little bit you know being a catcher I was a catcher for a lot of years and and dealing with umpires and you know you're back there with the umpire and and you need to develop a relationship with that umpire you know and and if you start off early on you know saying you're a blind bat and you know you may not be the worst umpire in the world but when that guy dies you can you know when you when you do those sorts of things it just you're not going to develop the the relationship and so again there just are so many things in life there are there are a few people that are going to be the Tom Brady's of the world where you know everything seems to go right for him and even him he ended up you know having to go through a divorce that you know so much of life is learning to be a good winner and learning to be a good loser I mean that was one of the things when I played fast pitch softball we would play a hundred to a hundred and twenty games a year my brother was a part of over 1,500 wins with the Decatur softball team and and I was a part of over 500 wins and and when you're involved that much you know you can learn a lot of those things but I can also go back and look at some losses we had where the loss was because of something I did in regard to things and so now that that falls back on you know falls back on you and so you know one of the things we'll see a lot in in parenting today is that they try to solve all their kids problems and so if you can imagine a parent who is in the weight room all the time lifting for their kids you know that doesn't help their kid out at all their kid has to get in the weight room and has to do that work and it's the same thing with understanding how life does and then learning how to overcome the the obstacles that happen that you got to have you know these these sort of things occur to you and you got to learn how to deal with them got to learn how to be you know calm with them you know something that you know have respected about you and in what I've known about you from from following the Pit Spitters and and so forth just to have a you know an attitude a calm attitude in regard to things and staying focused on what the mission is and and again that when we look at baseball you know baseball you know it's funny for me I that it used to be like I'll go to meetings now we have a unity Christian school here and and they'll be talking about sports and and for like the first 40 years of my life I would have been really focused on how good our sports are you know but I've come to learn that no what's much more important is what are we going to learn from those sports and how are we going to going to grow and develop because there's probably going to be a time that that sports going to end and we're going to have to keep living life and as we keep living life we're going to have some blessings we're going to have some some things that go well but most of us are going to have a lot of obstacles that we have to overcome while we're here on this earth and and we have to we have to learn how to do that yeah and in regards to overcoming obstacles I think that that's one thing that maybe is a lacking principle in parenting nowadays is the idea of being committed and being loyal I think a lot of times when things get hard we just either erase ourselves from that area whatever it might be would you say that that that's a pretty big lacking principle and in homes nowadays is loyalty and commitment yep it it really is I mean I mean you can just look at the divorce rate is kind of the you know the first thing wouldn't used to quote Abraham Lincoln and and used to say the number one thing you can do for your kids is to love their mother and you look at you know how many situations where it's really hard for dad to love the the mom at this point and and so again the the transfer portal and everything that's going along that you know life is is so different today because we have the internet we have we can see so many other people's lives in in regard to things and and the grass is you know we can always see that green grass on the other side of the street that we think if we can just get our kid over there that that's going to you know whereas back when I grew up you were you know part of the the local team and and to do that and and so you know it is it is important to teach kids commitment because if they don't learn that commitment as they get older then they're going to have a hard time committing to things. I think that's one thing that has been so great about sports is that it's obviously gotten way more competitive but I feel like a lot of the values have become decreased like we've we've increased the talent level because the better players are now competing against better players on a daily or game-by-game basis but the values have kind of slipped because a lot of times especially now in high school baseball like it's all about showcases it's all about what I can do and fortunately I don't have to go out and watch a lot of high school games for recruiting I don't I don't have to do that at all but if you know you can just kind of see from afar that or even just a few years removed from college recruiting how much it is about themselves and how much you know you see players just posting constantly about them and their abilities and what they can do and what they can offer to this school and the idea of being loyal and committed can really help elevate your own playing career and I don't think that people realize that enough that the more committed the more loyal you are the better teammate you are you're going to be in better situations which are going to help you develop as a player and I think that that's one thing it's not it's not that's inherently bad to maybe find a new team maybe you do need to find a new team maybe what you're the situation you are in is truly not good for your kid and you know that type of thing so that does happen but I think that there is definitely a missing piece of commitment and loyalty and I think like you said we need to show our kids how to do those things and a lot of it starts by being committed to our spouse being committed to our family being committed to our job and doing a great job not again not that you can't change your job but while you're at the job that you're at you need to be committed to it and be where your feet are and not be constantly think putting your mind in other areas while you're in a certain area that you should be focusing on that's probably one of my favorite topics of your book was being that kids are going to catch not they're going to catch what we do not always exactly what we what we teach them yeah something I heard the other day was talking about you know assets versus liabilities that you've got to have more assets and and you know we've had such a mindset that has become where people feel like they're owed something and that ends up creating a a lot of liabilities if you don't have you know if everybody thinks they deserve something and you don't have those people that are out there to serve you know I look back at my high school football teams we were six and three and seven and two and we didn't make the the playoffs but you know we had a lot of success and and that we had a lot of guys that you know we didn't have any division one athletes as such really that were a part of it but you just had a lot of people that were part of the team and here we are you know 40 years later and it's like you remember that team you know you remember that feeling that we had that you know we were all working together and we were accomplishing things and and so it's it's so amazing when you can become a part of a good team and that feeling that you get from that and that again if if we're if we're you know we got to find the right spot for our kid to fit but we we got to find the right team as such that it at some point that it does have to become about the team and they have to become an asset for that team as opposed to a liability. Love that and on that note one other topic that I definitely wanted to touch on was the idea of teaching our kids to be confident and not cocky and I think that that's a really important part about like we want our kids and our athletes if we're coaches to be confident in their abilities cocky crosses the line where you think you are owed something where you think you deserve that win and it puts you in the wrong mindset to be able to compete at a high level in my opinion but confidence Tony Dungy he wrote a book called Quiet Confidence I think that's I think that was the title I read it probably a decade ago incredible book and just having that confidence about your abilities and who's in control God and that if we prepare ourselves that you know things are going to work out Rick Warren has a quote which is mentioned in your book but when I read it I started because it's one of my favorite quotes of all time and my dad and I used to talk about it a lot when I was a kid and it's humility is not thinking less of yourself it's thinking of yourself less and I I don't remember what age I was it was probably sixth or seventh grade and my dad and I I don't even know if my dad remembers this time I haven't talked about this quote in a while but I remember specifically in those years of trying to learn how to be confident in skill set but not be cocky because I I was probably an early riser athletically and I kind of panned out as I was aging am I I was probably more talented as a 10 to 15 year old kid than I was from an 18 to 22 year old kid and so I could have crossed the line into potential cockiness in that 10 to 15 range I was a little bit of a not the biggest kid in my class but I was one of the bigger ones I was a better athlete one of the better athletes and I played baseball at a pretty high level at that age but I always remembered stay humble and that quote resonated with me when I read it because it was something that you know and that goes to show that's parenting and how those things stick with us even we may not remember things that we teach our kids but they're going to remember a lot of that stuff especially if we show them so if you can touch on the idea of cocky verse confidence I'll just you know I think we could do a whole podcast there's no doubt no doubt yeah and again if you if you look at sports that if you're going to be successful in baseball you're going to fail 70% of the time but if you're not convinced every time you go to the plate that you're going to get a hit you're never going to fail 70% of the time that that that confidence is is so important and I was working with a kid that was playing golf this year and I said you know your problem is you're too smart you know you gotta you know if you're going to be good in sports sometimes you got to be a little dumb because you got to be able to you got to be able to forget the the things that you that you do wrong and so you know that confidence is is so important but if you can take that confidence to the point that that you don't have to show it in regard to things you know they it's been said that if you have to tell somebody how good you were you really weren't that good in regard to things but again that to be able to to be able to show it as you you go about things you know I go back to kind of this story so bad it didn't make the book that how I was in high school there was a guy around here that signed Kirby Puckett and he came up to me and he said you know if the twins draft you would you sign and I said I don't want to play for the twins you know and and you know to be that arrogant I mean that's how arrogant I was at that particular time if I take that story full circle I got to St. Xavier and our hitting coach was Don Reed and his son Jeff was a catcher in the Minnesota Twins organization and it was like God had to point that out to me you know and God had to finish the story and again it you know as I look back on all these things in life it's like those are things in my life that I would like to be able to to tell people that I did or that happened but that wasn't wasn't God's plan you know God's plan was for me to be JJ's dad and to play softball and to be Curtis and Emily's dad and and for my life to work out in in the nature that it that it did but again if you can if you can be at the point where your actions do all of the the explaining I mean if you know like you said Curtis went to a variety of Division One tryout camps and so forth and and we never got any reaction really out of those and it's like okay is he you know is are these camps worth it was it worth the money was it right well then one of his friends went to one and they signed him right away and it's like okay you know he was able to show really where his ability was and and that turned out to be a huge blessing for Curtis because he ended up at Olivet which was you know the perfect place for for him but you know you you do go back to always you know what is life all about and you know we want to have a good life we want to be able to accomplish things we want our kids to to turn out well but if you don't have that Christian faith if you don't have that understanding of purpose that you know it you you know if you buy a Tesla and you take it to the gas station you know you're going to think this thing's a hunk of junk and so we've got to go back to understanding what's the owner's manual for our kids what's the ultimate purpose and and the ultimate purpose is is living a life that is pleasing towards God and so is as we go through life and we you know we hit some successes and we hit some positives but you know how do you explain the death of a three-year-old you know how do you you know any you know any sort of death that occurs how do you I have a friend his wife was in a bad car accident you know how do you explain when life really isn't fair and so to me you mentioned the purpose-driven life Rick Warren to me that was a game-changer book because up until that time I had my Christian faith and I had my life and those two things really weren't operating together in in the nature of things and so Rick Warren you know that book you know really helped me work through the first line of the book it's not about you and again if you look just just the first line of the of that book the there's 40 different chapters over the 40 days that really you know help you help you go through that so you know again that one of the things I always like to say is that we've got to get the L out of our kids that our kids are stuck in the world you know how many likes can they get on Facebook and we got to get them stuck in the word and so that they have that you know that biblical foundation you know you look at somebody like Ben Zobrist who to me just you know he was absolutely on type of a world just you know World Series MVP you know life is just perfect and then he goes through a divorce you know and that life ends up you know even a guy like that ends up getting getting slapped by things and so you know we take that all the way back to you may be Matt Holliday has from the Cardinals has a there's a great article about him where he has tattooed on his arm is Job 36 where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth and so he talks about you know there's there's some days I show up to the stadium and there's 40,000 people in the stadium with my jersey on and you got to deal with that but then there's other days you show up and they don't like you you know you've just gone oh for 21 and now all of a sudden you know you're not in the in the good favors and so you've got to be able to deal with both of those situations and so when you turn to God and you say you know why am I so good or you turn to God and say why am I so bad you know that the answer to this is this is all all part of purpose some of some of some of the times bad things happen because we we made poor decisions but you know other things at times it's part of what God's trying to teach us and that he's trying to teach us through through lifting weights so as we kind of take that all back to this you know this cocky and this confidence I mean number one is the fact that you know if you look at Garcia right now is doing incredibly well in the World Series and and when he was with the Cardinals he he couldn't get it done it at that particular point I mean baseball is just such a a game of where things can can come and go and it is very important that you you know that you you realize that and and as you look at you know God's blessings you wonder sometimes if he if you are a little bit more humble in nature that maybe God feels like he can give you a little bit more success I mean it's it's hard to figure why some people are successful and some people aren't but it does make life a whole lot more understandable if you understand that his his purpose and his goals and what the Bible teaches you absolutely you you summed it up perfectly there and like I mentioned your book really resonated with me it's probably partially because I'm I'm a dad now and I don't know what her interests are gonna be I don't know I what I love for her to play sports absolutely I would enjoy watching her do some things athletically and see what she can do but if she doesn't get into sports I'm okay with that like I I don't want to put those things or those expectations on her that that has to be her life just because it's something that I've enjoyed myself and so I think just by reading your book it it really helped kind of continue to frame my mindset into how to be a godly parent and how to be a parent that's going to push our children to be as successful in whatever endeavor that they choose with with some key principles so for our audience if you haven't read Jim's book I'm gonna I'm gonna link it at the bottom of the podcast for you to be able to find it it's called just call me dad and I think it's definitely worth a read if you are a parent of kids and we'd love to get that out there and so you can also go to better dads better kids calm is a website as well that has a lot of information on the book awesome Jim thanks again for hopping on today it's been a pleasure talking with you and catching up with you and hearing some of your experiences and the values and how you've centered your your mindset around scripture and we need we need more of that so really appreciate it god bless thanks for joining us on this week's episode of the unparalleled performance podcast and if you enjoyed it please share with those around you we'll see you next week and go dominate your day you