#43 - Teamwork w/ Jonny Gomes (MLB Coach & Fmr MLB Player)

Jonny brings his high energy, no nonsense, directness to a discussion around what it takes to win as a team and how to address the challenges that the generational gap poses.  

Jonny played in the Major Leagues for 13 years and played for 7 different teams, winning the World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2013 and then again in 2015 with the Kansas City Royals. Jonny is now a minor league coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks and recently launched the breakthrough recruiting app for amateur athletes called Signing Day Sports. 

Transcript

Erol Senel:

Hello everyone and welcome to Success Shorts. I'm Erol Senel. Today, we're joined by Johnny Gomes. Johnny played in the Major Leagues for 13 years, winning the World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2013, and then again in 2015 with the Kansas City Royals. Johnny is now a Minor League coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks and is in the process of launching a breakthrough recruiting app for amateur athletes called Signing Day Sports. So if you're an athlete or a parent of an athlete, check that out.

Erol Senel:

Now, the thing that I appreciate most about Johnny is that he's a high energy, no nonsense and direct guy, who knows what it takes to win as a team. Plus, he's a hell of a lot of fun. More importantly, he's extremely thoughtful and able to connect with a new generation of ball players that are a product of a very different time than his own, which is definitely no small feat. So I hope you enjoy our time with Johnny Gomes. Let's go. Johnny, this is awesome. Thank you so much for coming on.

Jonny Gomes:

My pleasure, man. My pleasure. It's pretty awesome.

Erol Senel:

First off, I'd like to give a big shout out to our mutual friend, wine genius, great person, the extraordinary Dave Finney for linking us up. To get right to it, I always like to ask and get to understand what people have learned about themselves during this crazy time. In your case, you have really interesting purview into your own personal life, obviously, but then the way that this has impacted baseball. So I'm curious, what have you learned about yourself, and how have you adapted to this new world? What are maybe one or two things that you plan on carrying forward?

Jonny Gomes:

Yeah, man, super interesting. How could you prepare for this? How could you have thought this was real? On the baseball side, you go back to 9/11. They took out the Twin Towers, and I mean, they were playing baseball a week later. Back in the Bay Area, the 89 World Series, I mean it shook, rattled and rolled all of San Francisco and the whole area, and they're back playing in a week. Played in St. Louis where tornadoes have rolled through the night before and knocked it all down, and back to baseball. I truly did not see what happened happen. So yeah, I mean, it was mixed emotions, a lot of this. I mean, you found yourself just stuck at home, but as far as that goes, man, I totally cherished my time at home, when spend, like you said, 13 years on the road my home was the home I was playing in, a rental.

Jonny Gomes:

So I just had an absolute ball with my kids. We're mashing on our mountain bikes. I got a little deal in the backyard. We're building fires and going in the pool and it was awesome. But I'd say like, what I learned is I, the time is now, man, I mean, sure we got to save and you want to be proactive. This and that. The time is now. Like, you can only control today, like this minute. The planning and stuff that's all great. We still got to do it. But I mean, what if a big branch gets thrown in it? Yeah, we were faced with some craziness and also learned, man, there was some noise coming from a lot of different angles that I didn't know. And then all of a sudden, all these different opinions, these different angles and all sudden everyone's a doctor, all of a sudden everyone's a financial advisor. All of a sudden everyone has the ideas and I'm just like, relax man, the time is now. Be healthy, have your family be your best friend and just be positive.

Erol Senel:

I love that, the whole time is now concept. I think that a lot of us who get into like the day-to-day, we're focused on what we do professionally. With you it's baseball, with me it's doing my regular day job. I mean, teachers are worried about creating lesson plans and all this stuff, yet, the thing that's really sad and all that is sometimes we forget to take a step back and realize that we have this whole other life that we neglect a lot of that time.

Jonny Gomes:

Yeah, absolutely.

Erol Senel:

The time with our kids, the time with our spouses or loved ones, whoever it may be. I think this is a great reset. And I've said this many times before is to really kind of take a step back and start to prioritize what is actually important in life. Yes, work is important because it provides for everything, but what is it actually providing for? And if you aren't engaging with what it's providing for, then why are you even working?

Jonny Gomes:

Exactly.

Erol Senel:

And then your point on the inputs, man, Jesus, what a crazy year. I feel like everything was just so heightened and you just got to really determine what you allow in.

Jonny Gomes:

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. You don't want to turn this to politics by any means, but like the news. I don't even watch the news anymore. And I used to be like locked in. I've tried myself on knowing what was going on, everywhere. To be prepared, just as knowledge with your adulthood, it's good to know what's going on. And then you think you got it nailed down and someone's watching another network and they're totally disagreeing with you. And I'm like, well, I thought this was news. Like whatever. So I was like, screw it, man. The time is now, like if I'm healthy, if my house is up and running, my lights are on. I could give a rat's ass about like what's going on some of these channels.

Erol Senel:

Hey man, so thanks for sharing that. So I always think it's really interesting when I get the chance to speak with someone who is so visible. I mean, you're very much a public figure and you've been for, because of the fact that you play a professional sport and because of all this, we kind of create preconceived notions based on just observing people. We all of a sudden feel like we know this person, even though we don't know Jack shit about them.

Erol Senel:

Living in new England all my friends are a Red Sox fans. So I got to observe you through that. The thing I observed about you, which was super visible is the fact that you were hard nose, you're a teammate, you're no nonsense, you're there to win. And that's really what you're all about. And then we got to chat a couple of weeks ago and you completely reinforce that. Which to me was great because it's like, okay, the public Jonny is the same as the private Jonny. I'd like to know, where does this whole sense of being a good teammate and focusing on winning, where does that come from? And how have you been able to cut through the noise that accompanies that through the years so that you can maintain that focus?

Jonny Gomes:

So probably the most thought after skill or talent in this day that we're trying to teach and we're trying to groom, we got clinics, we got mental skills departments. We're driving it home to the youth to be able to lead and to be able to be a good teammate. It's interesting where the times have changed. Ironically, with all these like travel ball which is everywhere, which is good. These kids kind of turn about their own results are more important than the win and loss. And that's not really how I came up and it wasn't really what I believed in. I always wanted to finish the season with a win. And how do you finish the season with a win? Well, you got to get to the championship game and you got to win that. And in 2008, so this is about five years in, we're at the Tampa Bay Rays.

Jonny Gomes:

We went to the world series and lost, but we went to the world series with about a $42 million payroll. So that's 25 dudes on the team. Now guys are making 35 to 40 single handedly. So if I go to the world series in 2008, it took that impossible away. It taught me that anything in this game can happen if you guys are all on the same page, pulling the rope in the same direction, all 25 dudes rowing in the same direction, stay in your lane, get your job done, create an environment, create a culture and have goals. All those things I really mentioned now we get into talent.

Jonny Gomes:

Of course, this is a results driven industry that I'm in. You got to be good, but if you make it through six levels in the minor leagues to get to the big leagues you are good. So now it's a matter of following the captain of the ship who's the GM and the manager, your leaders on the team, the leaders with how they play. And then you've got the leaders on the team that are there because of seniority and have a lot of the answers that you might have questions when, but at the end of the day, to me, it's all about the environment, the culture and the goals that are set.

Erol Senel:

So obviously culture is a big deal and you've played on obviously with the Rays and then with some other teams you've been surrounded by just tremendous cultures. So I'm just curious if you can pick out like one memory outside of the one you just kind of shared with Tampa, what would be like your most impactful and fun memory of when you were playing that it kind of exemplifies what a good culture looks like and like the joy that comes out of that?

Jonny Gomes:

I reported to spring training in Fort Myers, Florida in 2013 to the Red Sox and the Red Sox just got done finishing the last and AL East and just had a huge trade the previous season with Carl Crawford back at. Aegon at first base, all pretty much the best players minus [Lester Petrolia 00:09:26] and David Ortiz all went to LA. So it was kind of like a reset button and no one really knew what was going to happen. Brought in a bunch of just grinders like myself, like Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, Ryan Dempster, David Ross, just grinder guys play the game right. And all about winning. So we show up in the spring training, kind of gather all the guys around during the stretch and stuff. And I go, Hey guys, which is super cool about hockey is I love that they'll have these like playoff beards and just the whole team has got a big beard.

Jonny Gomes:

So here we are in February, I go, "I'm going to start growing my beard right now. Because we're going to the playoffs." And it wasn't even like a question, everyone's like, "Yep, we are too." Everyone, boom, on the same page, I mentioned the word playoffs, no one bats an eye at it. Everyone's on board with growing a beard. A lot of the dudes who've never grew beards and sure enough, by the time it was October, we all have these huge beards and find ourselves in the playoffs and then boom, rode it all the way out and finished the season with a win.

Erol Senel:

That's awesome. So you think about like that team mentality, I mean you had a lot of teammates on that team. The reason why I'm saying it that way is that those are, all those guys you named off were known, not necessarily the most flashy names as you said, but they all knew how to work hard. They all were good at what they did. And they knew that they had to come together to get to the playoffs, that it wasn't going to be like a high profile Yankees lineup or something like that. You had to pull together and do all the little things.

Erol Senel:

So if you think about that environment, and then now you think about the way society is kind of structured since then, maybe even more so I know it started before this, but everything seems to be very individualized. You know, everything is very opposite of a team environment. Everything that we take in is very bespoke. It's all customized because of algorithms and everything like that. I'm wondering, how have you seen this culture change towards coddling the individual impact that team environment and impact the importance that winning may have on a group, even though you've seen society and possibly some of the players move towards that individual poll?

Jonny Gomes:

It's interesting. I remember going back to 2010 when I was with the Cincinnati Reds and my locker mate right next to me, a guy called me, Kevin Mitchell. I mean the Giants guy, Daimler show, Kevin Mitchell, 89, 1989, MVP, great ball player. He called me on the phone and I know him pretty well. We're just talking, talking and I'd tell my locker mate, I go, "Hey man, that was Kevin Mitchell right there." And he's like, "Who's that?" I go, "Stop it. You don't know who Kevin Mitchell is. And you're a pro ball player." And he's like, "Yeah man, I've never heard of him." So instead of getting angry, I just thought to myself, I got to figure this out. Like, why does the youth have no idea of the history of the game or the guys who played this game before us? And it's basically back to why travel ball is on weekends we would watch games. On Wednesday you'd watch the Braves on TNT.

Jonny Gomes:

You would watch the Cubs, you'd watch all this. What was so much travel ball these days, these kids don't have time to watch the game because they have a game. That was kind of the answer right there. So whatever you can't get mad at them but you just have to address the problem. And I was trying to just push baseball history in these guys, but where the kids are now, which I've been studying and trying to figure out. The lifestyle now, to me, there's been something created to where everyone's a follower, because you follow someone on Instagram, you follow someone on Twitter, you follow someone on Facebook.

Jonny Gomes:

So there's those of lifestyle of following, which takes away the skills and the alpha male type in baseball to be a leader, because there's nothing in their life that they have to lead. They're all following. So the skills that we had to have when I was coming up, you don't have to have them now, but at the end of the day, we have to get them in line and taught and how to lead and how to be accountable and all these other characteristics that come with team sport and championship baseball. So it's definitely a challenge, but with the challenge, there's got to be an answer. And you got to be patient and understand. It's not just that kid, it's the whole group.

Erol Senel:

That's really interesting. And I think we can equate this to just a lot of different sports that are our kids play. And as parents you're looking at it through the lens of this is my kid. I need them to do well because if they do well, then somehow I do well, or they can go to the best college or they can get recruited or whatever it is, but in doing so you start to get away from the smaller things that are so necessary. And you made mention that those were like the prerequisites for you. You needed to be able to know, probably know how to sack fly or something like that.

Erol Senel:

And nowadays with travel ball, I mean that counts, that is not what they want. They want the hit, want them driving the extra run or extra RBI or whatever it might be. So how do you connect with these kids? Because I know that you, you actually float with what you do right now between the different levels of the minors. So how do you help to connect with the younger kids that might be playing single A ball or rookie league or whatever it is and help them start to get to the point where, okay, they're starting to do the small things so they can eventually hopefully get to AAA or to maybe even to the majors.

Jonny Gomes:

So with the travel ball going on right now, these kids have so many games logged and I've always said, you spend a lot of time doing something and you commit yourself to doing it. You're going to be good. You spend that much time in learning a language. Well you, 100% are going to in that language. So these kids are coming up like really, really advanced, good ball players. I mean, these guys are way ahead of the curve, talent wise, then when I was coming up. But I think what is different now is when I was coming up super common to have a grandpa figure as your coach and that's not so much to do anymore. There's a lot of youth and a lot of younger guys and a lot of very educated guys that are in powerful positions. But what I feel is most important is like, these kids will listen to you if you have stuff in common.

Jonny Gomes:

If you don't have stuff in common, you'll lose these kids. You have to mention video games and you have to mention social media and you have to mention just all these trending things, because that's how you break the ice. And you got to break the ice and then you got to figure out each kid's language. They all have a different language. You can be hard on one kid on the other kid you got to really coddle them. This guy's a mechanical guy, this guy's a see and hit it guy. So you got to break the ice and have something in common with them. You got to get their interest. Then you got to find out the language that they speak, meaning about how the best way to coach him the best way to get the best out of him. So yeah, there's definitely a lot more on the coach's plate this day and age, then I can remember.

Erol Senel:

A lot more soft skills. Obviously.

Jonny Gomes:

Yes.

Erol Senel:

As opposed to just technical baseball acumen that doesn't ride anymore. Just taking a step back for a minute. So when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you made mention of something and I didn't follow up on it, but I want to do it here. Hopefully you're okay with that. You were sharing that when you first transitioned from being a player to being a coach, you had this feeling of frustration. We were almost like, fuck it. I'm done. This isn't for me, but since then, you've gotten to the point where it's no longer frustrating for you, it's that you love it. So I'm curious, how have you persevered and what did you need to do personally to adapt to make it work better for you?

Jonny Gomes:

Being in the big leagues for 13 straight years. The big league talent, the big league skills, the baseball IQ was just a flow of traffic. Like I was just stuck in the big leagues, which was extremely fortunate. And you don't realize how difficult this game is and how much other stuff you have to bring to the plate than just talent. So we're like a week in and I'm just seeing some stuff on the field. I look to the dugout and I go, "No one knows a slider's coming right here. Like no one." Thinking I know like magic or something. "How do you know a slider is coming?" I'm like, "Well, don't you know all the past four innings on a two, two count, he threw a slider to all the lefties." And they're like, "Whoa, that's advanced."

Jonny Gomes:

I was like, "No, that's not advanced. That's just normal. And you guys need to get there right now, otherwise you're going to lose." It's not. So I kind of got lost in the shuffle of how difficult major league baseball was. And I probably didn't have that when I was coming up and there's a lot of skills that you learn just along the way. That's why baseball is so great. And so, when you grow up with a farm system to where there's six levels underneath the big leagues. So you go to football. I mean, these kids are in college and four months later, they're starting their NFL game at quarterback. Definitely not the case in baseball. So taking a step back, getting down to the amateur level and understanding this is a copycat league and there's nothing that is really your info. Everything I did on the field was taught to me.

Jonny Gomes:

And it was either taught by me making the mistake over and over or someone sharing their knowledge with me. And I was always a firm believer. And if you're fortunate enough to play this game for a long time, you owe it to the game to give that information back. And there is not many answers if all for major league baseball success that you'll find in a book. You know, there's a lot of the good mental skills books out there and stuff, but talent wise, this is a game that you have to just have reps and over and over and over, and then you'll get it, quick. But you'll never stop learning as long as you're playing. But what I always thought was I'm the one getting questions asked to me, therefore I owe it to the game and the new kids to give it back.

Erol Senel:

That's a lot of awareness that had to take place there. You take for granted the fact that you are so much older than these kids and you have such different experience and they just need that time. But having you there to give some guidance is definitely huge. I would like to kind of put a little bit of a bow on this. So there's a lot of parallels between sports and everyday life. I think that's why we attach to sports so much, besides just the tribalism of appreciating the team that represents your hometown, you can watch the progress, you can watch the development and you can feel the work that goes into all this.

Erol Senel:

But for those listening who are all in vastly different phases of their work, their life, whatever it is, how can they begin to embrace the role that the team plays? Because as individuals, we all know what we have to do with work, but a lot of times I feel it's very hard to set aside the individual aspirations because we all want the promotion. We all want to go this way and how do we become better teammates yet still maintain and get that sense of individual that we all still need?

Jonny Gomes:

Yeah, man, I think if that book could get written, it'd probably be pretty successful. So with that, I mean, there's so many different avenues to approach some of these scenarios, which we just need to believe that there's not the right answer, but for one, there has to be the want. I'm like, you got to want to climb the ladder and your job. I mentioned the time is now. So, if you're accountable, pay attention and you have core awareness, like I talk about of know what's going on in your surroundings, keep your life clean. Like it has to work out. It just has to, and I always thought there has to be something in your life that you really don't have the answers for in succeeding outside of you asked for advice. And so like for me, like I hit left-handers really well.

Jonny Gomes:

And that was my role. And when a lefty was pitching, I was in the game. Someone would ask, "Man, how'd you have so much success against left-handers?" And I'd say, "Because I had to. Just because I had to." So there's got to be something in your life and in the mission and climbing that ladder that you just have to do. And you have to lock that in. You don't want to cover everything, but there's got to be something that your team can rely on you to get done when that task was in front of them. So in doing that, the surrounding teammates will understand that like, "Wow, I got to get good at something. Just one thing." So accountable, paying attention to your surroundings, stay in your lane and get great at something.

Erol Senel:

You know what man, that sounds pretty good. I'd say let's get started on that book. Let's do it.

Jonny Gomes:

Lets do it.

Erol Senel:

That's really good advice. And I like to stay in your lane part, but again, it kind of comes back to the whole time is now theme that you kind of kicked things off with is just be present with where you are, so that ... And if you're present, you'll understand and you'll see things differently and you'll see what you have to do. And you'll maybe see opportunities to, okay, I'm not able to do this. This might be somewhere where I could bring someone in and help to lift them up because they can help me with this and then vice versa along the way.

Erol Senel:

And that's part of being a team. So Jonny, this was so much fun. Thank you so much. And best of luck with the season and also best of luck with Sunny Day Sports, you're really filling a hole that's been brought to light by this COVID period with that. And thanks so much for going down the road of trying to develop out a recruiting app for kids, because I mean, they've had this past year stolen from them.

Jonny Gomes:

Stolen from them. Absolutely. And I can just try and sit back and put myself in these kids' shoes to where baseball was my only opportunity to go to college. With that being said, I had to have a college scholarship. To get a college scholarship, you have to get seen. I can just only imagine being a senior in high school in Hawaii right now. And I mean, you're not going there on a honeymoon, let alone going there to see a senior in high school play a sport. And I'm a firm believer. And I don't know if you would say donate or give back, but donate or give back of what you have the most of. Sometimes it's time. Sometimes it's knowledge. Sometimes it's money. Sometimes it's something you've collected along the way, but you got to give back what you had the most of and it's different for everybody.

Jonny Gomes:

But I think I have a problem solved in the recruiting world and I'm getting great feedback for it, we've launched in football. We are nine weeks in and it's 16,000 paid subscribers on our platform. And then boom, getting ready to go global and launching baseball in May. So I'm nailing it and I'm excited about it.

Erol Senel:

I'm very happy that you're finding the joy in it. But thanks for giving back to that space, because like we both said, these kids need it. If there's something like this happens again and they get their sports shut down, especially the underserved communities like this is all they got. So thank you so much for doing that. And just thanks for coming on again, this was a lot of fun getting to know you.

Jonny Gomes:

Success shorts. I got them, I got them on.

Erol Senel:

I'm sure you do. They probably got the American flag on them.

Jonny Gomes:

Always, always.

Erol Senel:

And that's all we have for this episode of success shorts. Hopefully you found today's topic useful and remember have fun, stay curious and keep it short.