Welcome to the Corvus Effect, where we take you behind the scenes to explore integrated self leadership and help ambitious family men build lasting legacies for themselves, their tribe, and their community. I'm Scott Raven, and together we'll discover how successful leaders master the delicate balance of career advancement, personal health, financial growth, and leadership.

And meaningful relationships. Get ready to soar.

And hello everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Corbus effect. I'm Scott. And today I am blessed to have Michael McCree, former college athlete, turn transformational coach and author who's dedicated his life. To developing not just better athletes, but better young men from coaching folks who are currently paying MLB to authoring multiple books on mental strength in sports.

He is a person who. Speaks the truth when it comes to building lasting legacies through athletics, he is currently coach of the team that my son plays on. And I can say firsthand how much my son has grown, not just as a ballplayer, but as a young man under him, and he is a phenomenal person for us to learn from.

So Michael McCree. Welcome to the Corvus Effect, man. Thank you very much. I appreciate that intro. No worries. That was nice. Thank you. But you know what else was nice if we're going to get started? We're going to get started way back in 2009 as you are exiting your four year career at Georgia State with a 285 batting average, three home runs.

And on top of that, you made SportsCenter with a dive and catch against Tech that lives in Georgia State history. So tell us about that a little bit. Yeah. So it was our first time ever making the NCAA regionals for Georgia State baseball. And it was probably one of the most fun times in my life. You have two schools that are downtowns, we're somewhat rivals.

And what's the NCAA tournament and you have packed out stadium with thousands and thousands of people and everybody's there cheering you on. And it wasn't like it was an away game for us, even though it was at Georgia Tech kind of half and half. I mean, both, both are in Atlanta, so anybody get there.

Yeah. So all of our people showed up, all of their people showed up and it was great, man, but yeah, there was a hit down the left field line and I just decided I was going to give it everything I had and I'm just going to stretch out. And lay out every inch that I could. And I ended up coming up with it.

Yeah. The funny part is I still have the scar on my elbows on that. Hey, you know what? Some scars need to live forever. I'll put it that way. And when you start getting all the messages that dude, you just made sports center that had to be something trippy, man, man, it was unbelievable. The thing was back in 2009, whatever game we played was recorded.

As it is now, you know, all the guys who play nowadays, it's a lot easier to record things and upload them, but There were a few plays that I made that never got caught on camera that we just talk about amongst ourselves for the people that were there. That probably wasn't even my favorite one. But it was, I'm glad it was caught on camera.

That was one of my last couple of games that I played in college. Out of curiosity, if you had to say what was your favorite of all time, recorded or not recorded, what would you go with? So I robbed a whole run at Mercer Woods. Mmm. Yeah, so I jumped up ahead. a medium level wall. And so I jumped up in and snagged the ball back at that game.

And that was fun. Nice. So that was probably my favorite one. More enjoyable. Yeah. When you hit a home run or robbed a home run. Oh, that's a good question. There was a home run that I hit in a playoff game for us. It was a conference playoff game. And what that was the game that sent us to the championship and it ended up putting us up, I think two or three runs.

So it was a close game. We're planning is the number one seed and it was close up until I think the 6th of the 7th and then a guy got on base and I ended up hitting a home run to center field and that kind of gave us some insurance going into the last inning. And we ended up putting them out and then going on to win the conference.

So that was probably my favorite. Nice. Nice. Now, obviously very accomplished. I think the recent stat that I saw is of all players who play high school ball, only 2 percent of them play at a division one level. So just to be able to play at division one, let alone have those type of accolades at division one.

Very, very accomplishing in your own right as a player. And then you transitioned into coaching and I know that initial transition had its fair share of challenges that you had lessons that you had to learn from that. I'd love you to explore that a little bit. Yeah, for sure. To be honest with you, coaching wasn't even something that I had in mind while I was playing.

I guess at the time being young, it wasn't glamorous enough for me. And I also didn't necessarily feel like my personality fit that type of leadership role. Not that I couldn't do it, but I didn't necessarily see myself as a leader, even though in high school I was voted team captain by my high school teammates.

But I felt like that was just mainly based on talent. What would cause you to say, that's great guys, thank you for voting me captain, but I'm no leader. I felt like I led by example, but I guess you could say the type of leadership that I did. And it wasn't the type that stereotypical types of leadership that we see on TV, somebody more extroverted type of person.

I was more of a laid back, chill type of person. So just never really was something that I felt like that I could do, not that I thought I couldn't do it, but it just wasn't something that I was really focused in on. Hmm. Interesting. And the reason I say that's interesting because we talk about all types of leaders and all types of styles and all types of strength that they bring to the table.

And I'm curious how, as you found your leadership style, how it translated into one of your true passions and purposes, which is youth development. Mm hmm. Yeah. When I first started. I knew baseball, but then learning how to coach baseball and teach, that was a completely different skill that just required a different set of things to really focus on in the beginning.

I had to borrow a lot of my coaching styles and methods from other people that were close to me. Right. The first time you step on a field and you have to explain certain concepts to a seven or eight year old. Really, it does something to you in a way of. Making you realize that, okay, I know the thing, but I don't know how to teach the thing.

And that's going to require me to access a different part of myself that I haven't really accessed before. And so, guys that I started my coaching journey with, Jojo Batten and Jay Shabalcom, I've watched them go through training sessions and see the types of concepts they'd explain and the cues and words they would use.

And then I would take them, add that to my coaching toolbox and then put my own little personal spin to it. After a while, after I got more comfortable and confident with what I knew and my methods, then I started to create my own style. Yeah. I'm curious in that creating your own style, there's the old learn, practice, apply philosophy that goes in terms of how adults can grow beyond what they're capable of from a skillset perspective.

And obviously you had great mentors to learn from, but I'm more curious on the practice and apply portion in terms of how you manage yourself. As you were taking something and doing the reps and making it your own. It's similar to if somebody were to learn, if you say, Hey, I want to be the best break dancer in the world.

The very first thing you will do is watch. That will not be me, by the way, right? I'm, I'm too bald for that. Sorry. Well, uh, the first thing you would do is you will watch somebody else do it. And then you will go home in the mirror and then you will try it. And then you'll go back and you will look at the other person do it.

And then you'd like to try again until what you're doing matches up with what they're doing, or you get as close as possible as you can, right? And so that's how I saw myself in my transition as a coach was you're not going to understand your teaching style right away. How could you ever know your teaching style?

You've never taught before. So it is going to take some time. It's going to take some trial and error. You want to be dealing with different types of players. All different types of ages, you're going to be dealing with parents and all those things. And so it will take a while for you to evolve as a coach, figure out what you're best at and what avenues you need to take based on your personality.

You don't have to be like every other coach. And that's another thing too, is like when you first start something, you kind of model yourself after someone else. And sometimes people try to take on those characteristics. So, isn't it? It's their personality, but you got to understand what your personality is and how you can implement what you need to implement.

Using your own personality to make an authentic. That's a beautiful segue to where a lot of your written material and focus is, which is in the mental game and how, what you apply in your head has significant impact beyond. Any physical talent or prowess when it comes to athletics. And I'm curious in terms of how you have strengthened that view over time with, it all begins in your head.

If you don't have the right mindset, you're not going to be successful on the athletic field. Oh, absolutely. We've all seen people who are physically talented in a particular sport. Who kind of fizzled out, or you never heard of them after a while, usually something dealing with mentality. There were several players that I remember, but when I was younger, coming up in middle school or high school, and they were better than everybody, including me.

But then they ended up getting passed up and you were hearing stuff with attitude, work ethic and discipline and all those types of things. And that's why it's always number one, it's mental, because if you don't have the right mentality, pressure becomes too much, criticism from a coach becomes too much, you're not able to handle your emotions when things don't go your way, you get frustrated, and when you get frustrated, you can't focus in on the goal.

And so, it's super critical, especially for young athletes. to learn at a young age how to handle adversity because sports is all about adversity. And if you're not mentally tough, you're not going to be able to handle it. And it is going to affect you. Right. Well, particularly in a game like baseball where you go up to the plate, you fail seven out of 10 times and you're in the hall of fame.

Uh, baseball is going to teach you how to deal with failure because failure is a prevalent part of the game. But one of the lessons that I love that you profess and that you explain in your books, particularly your parents guide is this isn't just about athletic success. This is about life success and how to be successful at life and the lessons that you are developing.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I mentioned, in life, you're going to have to deal with handling pressure. And in life, you're going to have to deal with criticism from a coach or from a supervisor. And you're going to have things really not go your way. And so how you handle your emotions is critical. It's huge. And there's a reason why employers are more likely to hire former athletes.

It's because they know they've gone through those types of things. They've been tested in different ways, right? So fortunately with youth sports, it's an environment where we can spoon feed adversity to kids. Nobody's going to get their lights cut off. Nobody's going to be homeless. Everybody's going to go home with a roof over their head and food to eat at the end of the day.

But at the same time, we can provide. An environment, like I said, where we can spoon feed these. A little bit of adversity at a time to get right used to dealing with certain things so that it's not so overwhelming for them when they do get out into the real world, right? And the folks who are listening to this podcast, right?

They will have their own. Types of adversity between career, health and wealth and connection. Everybody's going through something at the end of the day. And that life just tends to get a little bit more complex as we get older. But one of the things that I know that you profess holistically Is the value of preparation.

And I'd love for you to elaborate on that a little more in terms of how preparation as a tool has not only helped you with what you've been able to achieve, but how you instill that in others. I always try to remind players confidence is built through being able to see yourself succeed in a controlled environment, whether that be at home or a practice setting.

When you're able to do that, then you can trust yourself when it counts. And that's really what confidence is, being able to trust yourself. And one of the analogies I use for kids when I'm talking to them about their preparation is, Hey, if you are taking an important test in school, what you know you haven't studied, you go and you sit down in the classroom to take that test, you're probably going to be nervous.

But if you know you've studied all week, You've learned the information from front to back when you sit down, you're going to be confident that you're going to get an A in it. And it's the same thing when you apply it to sports or anything else is being prepared helps with your nervousness. It helps with your anxiety, all those types of things.

So, yeah, it's some kids. Hey, there's no wonder why you're nervous. You haven't picked up a bet all week except we're at practice. So yes, you are going to be nervous. That's kind of how I explain it to our athletes. You know, another thing that I know that you were big on is Modeling the character that you want your young athletes to exhibit themselves.

And the reason I bring that up is that there are people who are listening to this podcast who, if they were looking at themselves in the mirror, they would say, I'm not doing what I'm preaching. I'm asking for certain behaviors, but I am not. Emulating it myself. Why is it so important for you to be the starting source of a topic like character?

Well, when you are a hypocrite, people obviously are going to lose respect for anything that you say. And that goes for your boss or a parent or a coach or whatever. If you're doing the opposite of everything that you're trying to get someone else to do, it's going to come across as phony. It's not going to be.

Authentic, right? And so, like they say, leading from the front and making sure that you do everything that you're trying to get others to do so that you can be an example, not only leading by example, but also echoing that verbally, of course, but when you're able to do both, it makes https: otter. ai

Right. You can tell them things over and over and over, but they're soaking up not only what's being said to them, but they're soaking up what they're seeing more than anything. Right. Right. a greater impact. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there are folks listening to this podcast who are parents who have kids going through their particular baseball system.

I make no allusions to the fact of court, putrid would have been kind in terms of me when I was in little league. So my son is very quick to point out, don't talk baseball skill. You have none for lack of better term, right? But parents obviously want to be supportive of their kids development as it relates to their dreams at the present time.

And. A lot of kids growing up, their dreams are baseball. How would you talk to parents in terms of the best ways to support their child as they are going through this stage? Encourage them to be coachable. That's probably the best thing, right? To take coaching from wherever it may come from, right?

Because kids are going to get conflicting information from different coaches that they're fortunate enough to play long enough, and you just really have to teach them how to go about being receptive to information and being open to feedback and constructive criticism. I think that's a skill in itself.

And sometimes a lot of parents, they have ego themselves. So them being able to teach how to be open to constructive criticism and things like that, I think that becomes difficult too. Encourage them to ask questions. Encourage kids to ask questions if they're unsure about something. Um, get them to speak up and advocate for themselves, right?

In terms of their improvement. Encourage them to go. And they'll report with the coach after practice or before practice or whatever it is, go tell the coach. Hey, I've been working on X, Y and Z. How can I get better at this? Or I don't really understand this concept. Can you break it down for me again?

Those things are important because. They can help a kid's game go a long way. Now, you obviously have run the gamut. You have many, many years across many different players, many, many different parents, right? You, I'm sure, have run into a similar situation that people face in the workplace, which is the challenging person to work with.

In your case, the parent who thinks that their child walks on water, or the young man who won't stop swinging at bad pitches, even though you tell him be a little bit more discerning at the plate. We see this in the workplace in terms of the difficult coworker, right? What are some of the techniques that you use?

In handling these situations that can be applied broader that folks listening to this podcast can employ to handle those type of relationships. Well, for one, yes, I have dealt with certain parents that were a little more difficult to deal with. I guess the main thing is for me to. Figure out what common thread we have or just to make sure that they are being heard right now.

They don't get to dictate what happens in my case when it comes to who's playing where or batting order and stuff like that. They don't have any influence on that, but I can lend them some information as to why certain things are happening. Obviously, it needs to be in a respectful way, which is why most coaches.

They suggest you come and talk to them 24 hours after a game if you have a question about stuff like that. Right. And so, in some cases, it's just gonna result in heads butting and parting of ways when a season's over or something like that. But for the most part. I try my best to do my part as far as making sure that the conversation is cordial.

And then I explain what is what. And then after that, I can't really control what else happened. Right. And so in some cases, everybody's not always going to be happy. Even if you explain in the most reasonable of ways, sometimes it's not gonna happen, but the best you could do is the best you can do. And so, yeah.

I've had some interesting conversations with parents. Yeah. A lot of times. I already know who's probably going to be that type before that ever happens, right? You have an idea and you get a feel for who might have issue with something. And usually I'm always prepared for that anyway. Right. You know, it's a nice little segue to one of the biggest things that I know you preach about sports, which is the ability to start to prepare.

Young men for the challenges that they will face, not just in the moment, but across their entire life and being able to learn from prior events so that they can anticipate and act better going forward. And I'd love for you to delve a little bit deeper into that in terms of you have this. Young kid, right?

He's obviously passionate about the game and you're trying to teach him how to really be not only the student of the game, but a student of life in general and how you start to lay that foundation. One of the things I talked to my teams about is usually when we're doing conditioning or something that's tough that they don't like in between these.

Drills and things that we do while I'm giving them an opportunity to catch their breath. I'm talking to him about different things. Right. One of those things I always say is the pain of discipline is better than the pain of regret. I love that phrase. The pain of discipline is better than the pain of regret.

Love it. And the thing is, I always. Talk to them about where they are now in their age and how quickly time has gone, right? So let's say I'm talking to a group of 13 year olds, right? I tell him I say hey Hey, you didn't seem like that long ago. Does it right? They're always like no Okay. Well 18 you will be here before you know it right and just to get them to understand how quickly time is passing them by And I say, Hey, you can put the work in now and make your high school team, for example, or you can be one of the buddies sitting in the stands watching his friends play.

And so I try to paint the picture to them. And I'm like, Hey, I know this sucks. I know this conditioning sucks. I know these pushups up, but I promise you the pain of this right now is going to be far better than the hurt of not making a team or whatever it is. Right. And so I try to use that example and that analogy to try to get the point across to them so that they understand.

And I say, Hey, while we're doing these things, you're going to be introduced to certain parts of yourself that you've never met before. So it's going to hurt. You're going to want to quit. I say, Hey, you are not weak. Keep pushing. And I'm not going to take it easy on you and you may not like what I'm doing right now, but hopefully one day you'll understand.

And all of this will make sense to you. Yeah. I can attest that one of the things that my son is saying about baseball, a lesson learned, I'm sure that he's learned this from you and from others is don't be soft, particularly when things don't go your way, don't be soft. And that's a beautiful segue as we begin to close out this episode that let's imagine that.

Your current team that you're coaching is listening to this podcast and the parents as well. What are the key things you want them to take away? What are the biggest things you want them to remember? I would say, never assume that you are suited for a certain position if you haven't tried it before. In the beginning, we talked about leadership roles and coaching and if I had never gotten a coaching, I wouldn't know.

experience what I've been able to experience through coaching and leadership and things like that. So just stay open, remain open and stay positive. You never know until you try. And that's one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in this whole thing is sometimes on the other side of the door. that you're afraid to open.

It could be your life purpose. Nice. Speaking of your life purpose, I know that a lot of this incredible wisdom that you've shared with us is baked into your latest book, The Undefeated Athlete. I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, so there's a book that I created for preteens and teens about discipline, working hard, how to get over failures, how to work better with teammates.

How to take instruction from coaches. All the important things that I feel like will help not just young athletes, but it will help them grow as people, too. How can teens or parents find this book or find out more information about you? So it's on Amazon. If you go, if you type my name, Michael McCree into Amazon, you'll find all the books that I've done.

I've written three, but you'll be able to look at the author bio and everything if you want to learn more about me. Yes. Yes. And I can certainly tell the one that I read that you wrote specifically for parents. That is a excellent read. very much. No worries. No worries. We will have all of those links to all of your works in the show notes to this episode.

But any last words before we, uh, part? You've been an incredible fountain of knowledge as you often are, Mr. McGree. I appreciate it. Um, thanks for having me. I don't have anything else, but hopefully the people listening have learned something from this talk. It's been a lot of fun and I appreciate you having me on.

Well, I appreciate you being on and all of the work that you have done to help my son grow across many dimensions of life I am Very honored that we were able to cross paths with you. So thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate it. Thank you listeners for listening to this episode of the podcast. If you like what you heard, please make sure to subscribe and share.

Also, remember that we have our TLDL, Too Long, Didn't Listen, which is a short summary also coming out with this episode. But until then, please have a blessed day and we'll see you next time on The Corvus Effect. Take care. Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. To access today's show notes, resources, and links mentioned in this episode, visit the www dot the Corvus effect dot com.

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