Brody bre fired up to have you on the mental performance Mastery podcast brother let's get it baby thanks for having me absolutely fired up couldn't be more excited to have you here take us back man talk to us about your journey into the mental game where did it all begin for you yeah I would say it began for me like really began for me halfway through my draft year this past year um when I reached out to you and first started working with you like I'd been I'd been met with meeting with our like team psychologist um like just some basic visualization and stuff like that but it was more so like I don't know like mental health I would say like just you know how's your how's you know the year going how's your week going how's the day going whatever but like with you like it's mental performance right so it's it's so much more detailed about like excelling on the field like not you know just off the field like you know how's the week going how's school going that type of stuff like it was really just dialing in how we can be our best self and and perform to the best of our ability and I mean you know it changed you know course of my year last year so it was aw so 2024 right the Colorado Rockies take you in the collective bargaining agreement over 38th pick overall essentially first round pick of the Colorado Rockies right and you're at the University of Iowa and you go into the season you had played for Team USA you're going into the season as a projected top 10 pick a lot of pressure a lot of expectation going in and then I think it was I don't know maybe with seven weeks or so left in the season so let's say about halfway through the Big 10 conference season at the University of Iowa we get connected how did that all happen if you go back like how did it how did we get connected and what made you say Okay I want to do this now yeah so I mean going into that first or going into that season like December January like I was I mean I was dialed in like I was throwing the best pens I've thrown you know going into the season I felt like I was you know ready to going like all right here we go this is the year we're going we're going crazy like you said top 10 pick whatever um but I think I got I got carried up in you know the expectations of others outside noise um and so I felt a lot of pressure you know I was trying to control things that I can't control you know we talk about you know the fans expectations of others like I can't control that the only thing I can control is you know the execution of a pitch and I didn't realize it at that point so for me it was it was you know I started you know the year I started pretty good but then you know I kind of I really got into like a you know slump for you know about five weeks where I was just you know mentally all over the place I was like dude I'm not like my mind was on draft stock my mind was on you know what's everybody saying about me on social media like my mind was just on all the wrong things and like you said I think it was was you know halfway through May you know we started work or halfway through April we started working together and my mind was pretty much just like all right the season obviously hasn't gone the way we've wanted it to like how can we take things in our own hands how can we um you know put oursel in the best position just to finish out the season just have fun like I was not having fun at that point so how can we just have fun the rest of the year and so I've been listening to your podcast for um probably about a year now you know one of the teammates got me on it and I was like and literally like that the first week the week before I started texting you at the end of the podcast it was like if you want to start working together like you know like here's my email like here's all this stuff and I was like you know what like let's do it man let's send it let's just see what happens worst worst thing that happens I don't like it we stop right but at least at least we try it and I mean it was just crazy like I think that first week we met for you know four days in a row and we got everything dialed in that first week like I I'd gone seven Innings twice um my the first three years you know I was at Iowa and ever since we met together I think I went seven Innings four four straight times in a row like it was just I was just so much more dialed in on my process things I can control like like deleted you know Twitter so I wasn't you know going on it and looking at what people were saying about me like I was totally focused on my process the execution of a pitch and it just changed my whole season so I mean let's go further into some of the things that you feel like you do that are your mental game right so that that's April we're now recording this is you're heading into your first SP spring training it's February it's what we call around here Waste Management Sunday AKA Super Bowl Sunday you know being a guy that played football and baseball at Iowa which we'll get into um but you're getting ready to go into your first season of spring training so it's only been it's it's been 10 months since you've been in the mental game and your understanding and your application of the mental game in anyone I've ever worked with and this includes a George St Pierre and a Bobby Wood Jr and a Corin Burns is As on point as anyone I've ever worked with and what are the things that you feel like you do that are the mental game like what is the mental game now to Brody BR yeah I mean for me for me the biggest thing that has helped me is just My Success Checklist you know habit sh we we talk about that right and it really it does three things for me it really one it keeps me accountable right I have all my habits shared with you so you can go in and see you know is Brody staying up late is he not doing his mental imageries he not doing his concentration grids all this stuff so it keeps me accountable to it's it's all things I can control like it gives me motivation so like I go in after my a routine and I see all this green and it carries me throughout the day it's like dude I want keep going I want to keep stacking you know the days keep you know I just want to keep checking the you know the green box right that's all I want to do so it gives me accountability my motivation and then another big thing is you know especially once we get into the season confidence when I go through when I'm going through my mental performance routine my shadow pens all that stuff I see like dude I did all this throughout the week I've you know I've done Shadow pens for you know four straight Innings of this team that we're going against right like I'm like I'm dialed in like I feel like I've already handled you know all the adversity I can handle right just you know on a shadow pen like it's just so it gives me confidence going into the game like hey I'm I've like I've already faced you five times in my head right like I'm like there's no way you're winning like I'm going out there and I'm dominating and so I think the Success Checklist has been really big and then you know just a mental imagery like just you know that ball meditation you know breathe affirmations looking back and looking forward like that's just it's just been something really big for me like you know we go through and you talk about you know just your affirmations that you repeat yourself you know you know I tell myself my you know three keys to keep it simple out there has been has been really big for me me looking back at your you know past success and just bringing that to where you're going what you know the next time you're throwing and you know I just the my movie has been very good too like just seeing yourself you know just like I like every single time I watch My Mind movie like I'm faking throwing that pitch too so it's like a you know slider outside corner like I'm like when I see it out of my hand I'm like like I do it physically with my hand just you know correlate mind and body and so I mean there's just been so much that has that has helped me um I mean those are the few that I think are you know the really big ones but yeah and we didn't even mention Aura dexa macros Chef Whitney calendar right there's so many so much stuff that we can get into but I want to you talked about Shadow Bullpen is a lot there for the people that don't know Brody give us like like what is a shadow Bullpen how does it help you how often are you doing it are you doing just like Immaculate Innings or you actually seen yourself handle adversity like really give us a give us a master class of Shadow B so I really started get like I'd always done like a little bit of like visualization like just all right um you know I'm gonna get on the mount and I'm G you know all right I'm gonna throw you know three pitches here like the first guy that didn't strike him out whatever um but then I listen to you know execution podcast or just that chapter of that book and he talks about it and then your podcast with Corbin Burns you did and just like the detail he goes into it so that's when I really started to apply Shadow bullpens and like you said you don't always want to just do the good out there so you don't you don't go up there you face three batters you throw nine pitches and you're out of there right like that's that's almost never going to happen um so for me it's like all right I'm I'm going to practice my pre- pitch routine first like I'm going to do everything uh Harvey Dorfman talks about it in you know heads up baseball or kenri VI talks about it heads up baseball he always says you know uh make it practice just like a game so in a game you can make it just like practice and so like when I'm doing my shadow pens you know I'm doing everything I'm getting catching the ball back from third base doing my pre- pitch routine pre- batter routine getting on it and then you know yeah for the first one you know I might do a four pitch strikeout get the confidence rolling all right but then all right I'm I'm behind 20 on a guy I got to reset got to wipe the rubber off do a deep breath like you got to practice adversity because if you don't practice the adversity you know if you're only practicing the good stuff in a game what happens when adversity it's what happens when you walk a guy you give up a home run or is it going to Tumble or you're going to be able to lock it back in so I think you got to practice the good and the bad so with the shadow bullpens you're you're actually are you doing this a sit down visualization or are you actually doing it on a mound going through the routin no I'm doing it on a mound like I'm practicing everything that I would do like I'm picking out my focal points I'm wiping away the rubber when I need to reset and I get behind you know I'm going through my pitching motion and it's it's just really good because your your body can only your arm can only physically throw so many baseballs right like you can't you can't throw 100 baseballs every day your arm is going to give out right so like you can your mind it doesn't diff differentiate between you know what's real and what's in your mind so you can throw as many fake pitches as you as you want to on a on a shadow pen so you know I every day I'm not throwing an actual pen or in a game like I'm you know trying to do 20 25 pitches just you know go through an inning go through two innings you know just see what's what's happening what's working how I'm attac this guy and so yeah it's it's it's really good you know for the mental performance coaches that are listening to this if they're thinking okay well how do I structure Shadow bullpens into a pitcher's routine so let's say you're a major league pitcher you're on a five-day routine yeah right day day one is the day after you throw so day one you would do a shadow of the game the game from the day before and you'd reinforce what you did well and recorrect like if you hung a slider and got hit for a double you'd throw the hunk slider and then go back and bang the slider to get the swing and miss that you're looking for exactly day two you're throwing a bullpen and you may not shadow that day day three would probably be a shadow related to um the team that you're going to be facing on day five so day three you've kind of done your Scouting Report let's say you're pitching against the Yankees and you're going to go today I'm going to go Shadow either one through nine if I see them all couple pitches what they look like or I'm going to go one through five and the next day I'm going to do six through nine um but that that there's a specific purpose to what we're doing with the shadows and you're working on the different pitching routines the pre- batter the pre- pitch the red yellow releas walk us through those three things so if we're watching you pitch this year what's your pre- batter routine yeah so my pre- batter routine um you know so I'm getting the ball or so I get the ball from like this is my like my pre- inning like first first batter of the inning like I'm getting the ball from third basem I do my sign you know to God and I make across on the back of the rubber take a deep breath to focus myself and I'm ready to go batter walks in I take a deep breath on the line like the wire above home plate and you know I mean that's kind of like my you know pre-b routine and then my pre- pitch routine well before you go there what does that breath do for you on the wire why do you take that breath it just gets me focused right like on a focal point right so like intent in action so like what I'm getting to next is like my my three keys are see it say it breathe and let it rip so you want to have you know a breath you know on a focal point and in Words with Association like in a physical action right so you know for me that just that breath it just keeps me centered and focused like it's like all right let me be present I'm here my mind's not on the fans my mind's not on you know you know that the last warmup pitch I threw was a ball like my mind's not focused on that like my mind is right here right now we're attacking this guy and we're we're going to execute this pitch so it just keeps me focused so so you hit that breath in The Wire pre- batter routine now you step on the rubber take us through the pre- pitch routin pre- pitch routine so my three keys are see it say it breathe and let it rip so you know when I when I'm on the mound like I'm not getting on the mound until I'm ready like I have the pitch that I know I'm throwing I get on the mound I'm staring at the catcher's glove like I'm seeing myself hit that pitch visualizing like sometimes like I'll even Envision like it in reverse order so like the gloves there and then it comes up comes back up into my arm so I just visualize that you know I you know I say it so I'm like all right all right fast ball one spot slide her down and like like I I'll just like like just say it in my mind and then let it rip is just my like sign to just like just trust it like fully fully commit to it have total conviction uh C via he always says the wrong pitch thrown with total conviction is better than the right pitch thrown with doubt and so just just dialing in you know whether I'm you know I'm throwing just you know a fast ball slide or whatever it is even if it's like the wrong pitch per se like I'm totally I'm committing to it right and I have total belief I'm going to execute the pitch and the rest is going to happen I'm going control what I can control so um that's my my pre pitch and then you know my reset routine I kind of have two so one is like you know if I get behind 10 2 whatever um yeah just I'll just wipe the rubber get back on the get back I'll wipe the rubber get back on see it say breed let it rip if I need a big one I just walk a guy I gave up a home run might get off the mount a little bit take that deep breath on the focal point again sa my keys and I'm right back on it so I kind of got two one cuz one I mean we only got so much time right with the with the pitch clock and stuff so you know one is if I need a bigger reset like I said like I'm you know I'm stepping off I'm gathering myself a little bit more um but if I'm you know just fell behind a pitch or two you know just wipe the rubber get back on attack so if you break that down right for our our our pitchers our baseball coaches our mental performance coaches that are listening to this the Yellow Light release is I catch the ball I swipe the Rubber and I'm back on and that swipe the rubber is a physical action that I make within a Association that I'm letting go of that last pitch and my Red Light release would basically be doing my pre- batter routine again within the middle of the appat right so I go I go 20 uh I give up a hit 20 whatever it is I'm in a red light step off behind the rubber maybe I swipe I rub up the ball I look at the wire take a breath I get back on it's too ow and I'm treating it like it's exactly exactly uh man so we talked about Shadow bullpens practicing the pre- batter pre pitch in the in the red yellow light release you talked about the ball meditation of mental imagery breathe affirm look back look forward now we've created audios for you to be able to rip through that right so do you always do it with the audio do you ever do it on your own like without the Audio I mean yeah like I mean just before like a g like just before games like you know when I'm stretching like and I just listen to music like I don't know like for me like whatever like if I'm rolling out on a spe like I'm like envisioning like all right this muscle's activating during this like where I'm at in my pitch like I I don't know like just throughout the day like I'll just Envision like all right like you know I'm I'm going just do a batter today like I'm going to just go through it in my mind like how attack but I mean most of the time I do do it with the you know with the audio but there's there's times throughout the day for sure where I'll just you know like all right let's let's feel this fast ball let's um you know I want to think about getting on top of the slider real quick so where does that audio fit in the routine now is it like when you were back at Iowa did it fit in something you do like in the morning would you do it at the field before you'd start getting ready to go would you do it like Last Thing Before You' go out to start throwing before a game how did that fit into your like routine over the course of a week let's say yeah so I so in in season I would do it you know at the field so if it was it was it was part of like my activation routine like it was the it was the first thing like that was kind of my you know Clark Kent of Superman thing mental activation exactly that's kind of like when I turned into a ball player right so like that was like the first thing I did get me present and locked in um and then like before the game I would do it closer to when I would you know throw like if I was pitching that day I'd do closer to like I would you know warm up a little bit you know get the heart rate up and then that would kind of be be like my Center like let's get focused again calm the breath down so I would do it kind of right before I went outside and started playing catch um and then out of season you know I would switch to the MVP process and I would do that as my PM routine kind of just you know looking back on how did I do this throughout the day um you know did I live my you know core principles throughout the day you know if not you know visualizing doing it tomorrow so um but yeah I definitely say you know I mean I'm ripping it every day like it's it's just super important to me so you mentioned MVP process unpack that for people what is the MVP process so your MVP process is you know Mission Vision and core principles right so your mission you know for me is I live my life and or you know I live my life in alignment with Christ so my mission is to show love through faith hard work how I live my life and what I do right and so that's my mission my vision is you know pretty much like what you want like what does this look like like how do you want to accomp like all these things you want to accomplish right like your vision board almost and then your principles you know for me is Christ you know confidence honesty resilient intentional selfless and trust and then you have meanings for each of those that you know for me confidence is belief in myself my process honesty is doing what I say will do resiliency is not dead can't quit um intentional intentional is closing the gap of where I am want to be selfless the best version of me so I can be my best version for others and trust is doing my part of the process and Trust in God's play the outcome so for me it's just am I living my life in alignment with those like that's my definition of success am I living am I living my life in alignment with those core principles and so when I do my MV process before I go to bed like when I'm listening to that it's just like all right today did I do these I live by these core principles and it's you know an accountability check but it's also it's like all right yeah I did so I mean we won today right yeah man so I mean bro so much in there man this is phenomenal talking about winning the day did I win the day in alignment with my definition of success you have your core principles you have your definition of your core principles you know your mission I mean you're just saying these things like it's no big deal right how are you so top of Mind aware of what these are like your mission your vision your principles your definitions your definition of success right you talk about your three keys to keep it simple how are you so aware of those things like you would be your birthday yeah I mean I think the biggest thing is you know you always say like do a little lot not a lot of little right like it's just repeated reputation or space repetition right and so like for me like we're doing you know the 30-day we're doing the 10 pillars or we're doing you know um mental ABCs the pitching right like I'm I'm hitting just simple things every single day and I'm just saying like like you said like we got 86,400 seconds in a day right so time is the only thing we're all the same the difference is just how we use it and so I mean just like we all got free like I'm spending like so my sleep block is usually you know 10 hours right and then I'm working out for you know four hours treatment for probably you know hour two hours you know so how else am I you know spending the other eight hours right and it's like you know I'm diving into my mental game right like I'm I'm doing you know all my visualization I'm reading you know heroic book of the week like I'm doing this stuff like just hitting on it to just keep it you know just just fresh in my mind like so you know on your 30- day right like you know some people would just you know go through it once but then they forget everything right but then it's 30 days right there's you know 30 days in about every month so just one day hit day one again day two hit day two like just keep continue to go through it and do a little lot The Compound Effect and now it's like just engraved into my memory almost now so so good I mean that's the system right you're talking about hey the 30-day program you go through it once you watch the videos you read the you read the training manual you take your notes you put them on your calendar so today I don't even know what today is today is February 9th so at the time we're recording this so you look today at day nine of the 30-day program and go do I know what this is am I doing that exactly we also do the same thing with the 10 pillars program and put your 10 pillars notes on your calendar that repeats every 10 days so you look today at Pillar nine leadership am I doing this do I know what this is exactly and then the ABCs of pitching by Harvey Dorfman there's 80 chapters so you have put on an 80-day rotation so you're just looking at the cliff notes every day on your calendar right and you also mentioned the 86,400 seconds in a day your sleep block your Am Pm routine and you just rip through your day like like again it's intenal to me about when you started using Google Calendar in blocking and the difference that's made for you yeah so when we first started using Google Calendar was I mean right when we started working together like it was it was just planning out my day like being you know where I needed to be when I needed to be there and it wasn't as detailed as it was now like it was just like all right I'm you know I'm going to bed at this time I got practice at the time class at this time right like that was pretty much it which still made night and day difference of where I was at like I was just kind of winging it through the day like was not intentional with my time at all at all but like now you go through my Google Calendar like the whole day has a block on it and even if it's just a chill block right like it's like all right this is my time to be chill this is this is where I'm supposed to be present right and I think that's the biggest thing is like all right this time this block whether it's my workout routine all right so I'm going to be present during this workout I'm not going to be thinking about you know the game tonight or I'm not going to be thinking about um you know watching a movie tonight or you know playing video games lat like I'm totally focused during this workout and then when I get home all right my treatment block all right so I need to go to you know go do my red light go do my cryotherapy whatever it is like I'm present doing this recovery and then if it's just a chill all right let's let's just chill you know you know watch a movie play video games whatever it is like at least my I'm intentional with my time and I know like this is my designated time to rest and then as soon as the PM routine hits all right let's let's start winding down getting ready sleep then am routine in the morning and you're ready to go like it's just and stacking days it's just stacking days exactly The Compound Effect like you just dominate the day baby you talk about stacking days what does that mean to you right like we've talked a lot about how do I put together great offseason right and having a great offseason is literally just a compound effect of stacking days on top of days what does it mean to you to stack days um for me it's just um you know it's breaking the rock you know so I'm Iowa like we always have The Rock in our um in the weight room whenever we would lift right and it's like the rockhammer pledge so it's like you know when I'm pounding away at the Rock and I break it on the 100 first try I don't think that was the time that did it it was the 100 that came before it right and so we think when we think about growth we think about success it's it's very rarely it's it's overnight right everything's a Compound Effect it's it's exponential growth right like so it's very little very little and then it's and then you hit it right and everybody thinks it's overnight success but it's like they didn't see the continued bricks being stacked before it and so I think stacking days is just like like you're not like every like uh one of the books in the heroic it talks about like having good bad days right like you're going to have you know a bad day where you know you weren't on it you know you you know you slacked off you stayed up late like we're all human right but then like being able to recognize that and dominate the next day like don't make one turn into two turn into four right so just continue to like just just win that day be present in that time block win that time block move to the next one and just you know like you said like it's like we're not uh I'm trying to think of the book um it talks about like the next light pole right like when you if you're running a marathon yeah Spartan up yes yes like if you're running a marathon like it's very hard like you're very hard for your mind to comprehend running you know 24 miles or whatever right but it's like your mind can handle lot when you break it up into short pieces over time so it's like you know when you're running like all right let me get to the the next light pole let me get to the next stop sign and then you just continue to keep stacking it and stacking it and so it's like all right let me let me let me let me dominate this workout right let me go dominate The Recovery let me you know get through this day we'll get like just take it you know one block at a time and so yeah that's what I say for that hey man shout out Brian Johnson the team at heroic Joe Des the team at Spartan you know Brody you're talking about some of those heroic books not something that we've gotten into you know where where there's a book of the week you're you're reading it you're listening to it and then when we get on our weekly coaching call that's part of what we break down and you mentioned before we went on the air that you've read more in the last 10 months than you had since you were probably in fifth grade yeah talk first talk about why have you started to read more yeah I mean it's just like it's just continued to take more more and more information in and like learning from all these Elite people right and so like like you said like I don't think I checked out a book once after fifth grade like unless I had to for a book class that I just look up on spark notes right so like I mean it's just for me like I just love taking information from Elite people that have done Elite things like right now I'm taking wisdom of a bullfrog by Admiral mcraven who's you know a four-star Admiral you know former Navy Steeler so like I'm just learning like you know just his views and I'm taking all these things like you know like I'm not going to memorize everything he says but when I'm going through it I'm underlining you know just things that hit me things that resonate with me and um so when I read through it again sometime I don't have to read the whole book right I just read the the underlining sections I got and so I think reading like it's just it's something I never thought I would ever like get into almost as like a hobby but it's just like it's just something that like just eases me like at night like I read it and it just it calms me gets my heart rate low like I'm not looking at you know screens screens like screens before bed so just it's just cool to like just hear you know what people have to say like all these experiences they've been through and just you know hear in Elite minds and just you know how what are they doing that I can apply to my life yeah me I think that's the key with all this right if you're an athlete listen it's going hey well that might work for Brody I'm not a guy that likes to read well neither did he and neither did I until I came across heads up baseball and the book changed my life and I have the author's face tattoo to my chest you've mentioned them a bunch in Ken Riza so I think with reading it's like when you're in academics and you're high school and you're in college and you're reading books because you have to for class exactly there's a there's a big difference between I'm reading because I have to and I'm reading because I want to want and I'm reading I want to and I'm not even reading necessarily full books I'm reading often six-page book summaries that heroic and Brian Johnson does such an amazing job as a and them to me about heroic and how you use that and the difference that that's made for you yeah heroic has been awesome like you said shout out you know Brian Johnson like he's been I mean awesome like it's just like just the fact that he's taken I mean how many it's thousand thousands I mean just I mean amazing books from the most elite human beings that have ever walked on this earth right and he's just breaking that you know 200 300 Page book into six pages with important stuff and so just being able to like pretty much fly read an elite book like that in you know 10 minutes you know and just underline and what's your key takeaways from that and just hitting one of those every day like I've probably read you know all the books in heroic you know probably you know five times by now by how many times I've gone through it you know and you know for me if like a specific BS or book hits me like a certain way like I'm like I'm like dude I I actually want to read that one like front to back and that's what I do like I got a list of my phone right now of books in heroic that I I actually want to read you know front to back and so you know it's just it's just super cool like it I don't know it like make like I said like it gives me like motivation like I'm like all right let me live this out because that's part of my a routine so it's like all right let me let me live this out today you know sparting up right like you know all right let me make it to the next you know make it the next light stacking together another great day exactly and then you know and Dr um Dr Rob gilver says you know I may not be able to do you know 10 or 10 reps but I can do one rep 10 times right so like just you know taking it one thing at a time for sure talked about Dr Rob Gilbert man baby um just like you said I mean it's it's just so easy like it's you know 3 4 minutes like you like on my way to the workout like I just like I'll just listen to it see what he's got to say like I mean he's been doing this for I think today was 12,484 May I don't know something like I mean he's been doing this for January 22nd 1992 exactly what year were you born 10 years after that how about that he's been ripping three minute messages for 10 years before you were born like and it's just it's just really good like it's like it's just three and a half minutes of just pure wisdom like just being dropped on you from a legend and so I mean it's just really cool like just to hear that and just hear his experience like he's done it a lot he's a fantastic you know professor and just I mean just his creat I mean he's the fact that he's come up with different these many different messages for over 30 years is just it's just crazy and it's so no it's awesome and if you look behind Brody here you can see like there's some blue images up on the wall you know and what that is is that's my wall of mentors and on that wall of mentors is my mother Dean Connelly my professor at the University of Vermont Harvey Dorfman Ken Riza Rob Gilbert my wife Aaron is up there other people up there as well and when I look at those it provides me that inspiration you know and when Brody's talking about Ken Risa and Dr Rob Gilbert like this this it fires me up man so I I it that that's really really exciting for me that you're just referencing those guys and what success hotline is is I first heard Dr Gilbert March 2006 and he's on stage in Vermont and I'm sitting there and my hand is cramping because I'm taking so note so fast and just absolutely blown away at this Rockstar on stage and at the end he says you know hey if you took notes today and you were inspired raise your hand if you thought today was was impactful maybe lifechanging raise a hand he says well I got news for you most people won't do anything with what they learned in a day but if you do a little a lot which you said earlier you can change and you can grow and he goes so I put together a hotline called success hotline where if you call and listen for 3 minutes a day and I've done that since March of 2006 it's now 2025 so for almost 20 years I've listened to success hotline most days of my life exactly and and the majority of what I teach in mental performance has come from a Ken Risa a Rob Gilbert you know I'm like a like a historian on those guys and a researcher that's putting all that stuff together yeah so when you you talk about you know success hotline mental performance daily you mentioned earlier in the podcast that you listen to my three-minute podcast which is a direct you know attempt at me to try a success hotline and try to continue to carry the torch you know like Dr gilber does in mental performance trying to synthesize and simplify and when I asked him about doing that it he said one of the things it does is it helps you speak succinctly and in and in like chunks so you can get a lot of information across quickly yeah what um talk about mental performance da for the person that's maybe listening to this podcast that doesn't listen to that how do you use that podcast the one that I do every day yeah I mean it's part of my M routine too you know and it's I think it's cool cuz like when you do it like it's it's pretty much like what you're talking about with guys right it's like their experiences and you know just kind of what you're coaching you always say always be coaching right like so for me just like hitting that in the morning just like you know just like that's it's almost like that's my key for the day like all right let me do this right and so I think it's it's a I mean I've been listening to almost every day for the last 550 days now like it's and I got take notes on it every day like I'm like all right let me listen to it you know what's the title of it and then the big takeaways like it's just I don't know like you said like just you know hearing you talk about heing Dr Rob Gilbert reading hero like it's just all these Elite Minds in the mental game coming to work and it's just like me applying it to my life because you know you know become the average of the five people you hang out with the most or you know The Five People You You Know listen to the most right so you know I think when you're just taking in all this information from Elite guys like just you know writing down just the most like not just you know listening to it right but like writing down what's the most important things that you're taken away from this and just trying to apply it for that day so I think a lot of coaches too right I mean you played High School football obviously played at the University of Iowa which I want to come back and talk about that and a lot of coaches will hang up quotes and it's like well quotes are great but action is what changes changes results right so how do I put it into action I think that's what you get with you know you talk about the average of the five people you associate with most well you can associate with those people who you don't necessarily spend face Toof face time with or maybe never meet or they may not even be alive but if you're listening to success hotline mental performance daily and doing a heroic you know book of the week you're getting Brian Johnson Brian Kane Dr Rob Gilbert like those are three pretty good mental game voices really good to be able to put with you right and then you know another one if you're into Faith which I know you are spending time with the Lord like there's four year five you know yeah pretty hard pretty hard to beat with that um let's go back and talk about Iowa football right you mentioned break the Rock and I I remember I used to work with Jack Dom shout out in the in the University of Iowa baseball program and I would go in the football weight room and you see this huge rock that would say break the rock with the hawkey logo on there so being a a guy that was a a receiver at University of Iowa talk about just like the mentality and the structure and how being a college football player helped you with what you're doing now as a professional athlete in terms of like that structure and the discipline that it takes yeah I mean I think the biggest I mean like the discipline is is the biggest thing like Iowa football isn't for everybody like we're not really getting a whole lot of festar and fourstar guys like we're getting a lot of you know homeg grown creds from Iowa and it's a developmental program and how you get you know development is you know we're cracking pads every day the workouts suck right like like you're you're learning what hard work takes and what it takes to be great and so just you know when you're doing that much of a physically demanding sport you know every day like you're just learning what it takes to be great and hard work and just you know when you're applying that to baseball where it's it isn't it's physically demanding but it's so much more mental like just the mental strength that you get from all those workouts from all like memorizing The Playbook like scouting film like you can apply that to baseball like biggest thing for me is like I've I love watching you know film and football but baseball it was It was kind of hard like I never really thought about watching film and breaking down guy swings but like you know when I've been training at this offseason like is doing a lot of like scouting reports right so like what I know about football like you know we're uh scouting coverages you know how do DBS play certain coverage they disguise it what's their press man technique what's their bail technique all this stuff you know so I can apply that to baseball it's like all right when this guy's front foot's hit is he you know over the top like and and what does that mean for what pitch you know to pitch him and stuff like that so um I mean it's very translatable you know espe in you know in high school is even more cuz I played center field so catching the the the balls and everything was was really cool but I mean yeah just discipline hard work like like I said Iowa football isn't for everybody like it's it's a lot of grinding like we practice very hard like it's it's no walkthroughs like it's hitting every day and so just you know taking that hard work over to the over to the diamond was was really cool so when did the point come for you where you said okay I I'm going to go all in on baseball like when when did that decision come yeah you know so I started thinking about it uh my sophomore year right after the right after we played Nebraska um over Thanksgiving that was that's probably when I first started like like really thinking about it um because it was tough for me because football's always been my first love like it's probably always will be my favorite sport um but that's when I like I'd been dealing with you know a couple injuries like soft tissue stuff that wasn't really going away and so I started thinking about I was like man like do I like I know baseball's probably my future but like my heart's in football so much so I was you know I was like you know I'm just going to keep riding it out like we'll get to Bull prep and that type of stuff but I mean it was it was just tough like it's like I'm s putting my body on the line every day and you know it's like and you're a first round pick in baseball exactly so it's like you know something could happen where you know that all goes away so it was just it was just tough to think about and then you know as that spring came along those first you know few weeks I was I was pitching pretty good and you know I was just like you know I think this is what I need to do like you know if I can just get a healthy fall you know if I can just because at that point like I'd only been starting to play catch like end of December right so like my my arm was you know kind of falling off towards the end of baseball season cuz I didn't really have like a a buildup or ramp and so I was just like you know what let's just fully dive into this baseball thing let's see what can happen like yes I love football but you know I can watch it on TV right I can live through my brothers that are you know playing right so it's just it was tough but you know I think it I think it was right like I'd make it you know 10 times over like I know baseball is you know what God you know God has best you know plan for me and so you know I'm excited with where I'm met like it was tough but you know I'd make it 10 times over so that's awesome I think when you're were looking at too like playing football obviously the way that you lift can be different than what you do in baseball that your body and your size the weight that you carry even though you're a receiver right I mean you you still have to be big because you're playing physical in the Big 10 right and um when you look at like this this off season that you had which essentially you get done your sophomore year of of College Iowa you're playing football you're the leading receiver I believe right or third lead receiver third lead receiver so so one of the leading receivers there and then you go and you go all right I'm going to play my sophomore year baseball and then you have summer Team USA yeah and then you have fall at Iowa and then you have your spring season your junior year dra season haven't had an off you haven't had an offseason ever so like this is your first real full offseason into baseball you get married I got married yeah in Iowa in Iowa and then you but you choose to live in Arizona yeah yeah I mean you get married and you choose to live in Arizona and your wife is back in Iowa like that's a massive commitment to your development you know that's a very mature decision like in putting your your professional career talk about making that decision yeah I mean it's it's tough right like um you know we were engaged throughout this whole off like we got married in January but you know like I said I've been down here since you know I was after the draft I was here July August September was back in October for three weeks and then I've been down here first week in November since and so like you said like it was tough you know you're you know you're you know my wife now she was planning everything like just all the wedding stuff like I'm missing out on you know meeting with the you know cater and all this stuff and it's just it's tough because you want to be there you want to experience those things but you know I think you know I wanted to you know put myself in the best position for Success this this upcoming season and you know I couldn't have done that without you know my wife cuz she she knew that was best for me to be down here and and you know be training on site and you know be down here with you working and so um you know I couldn't have done it without her like you know just having her support you know really helped but like you said like it's you got to have like to be elite you got to you got to make decisions and you know it's it's I mean I would do it again like it like I've had the best I mean even though this is my only off like I feel like I've had an amazing offseason like physically I've you know I'm up you know8 pounds of muscle down six pounds of fat like I've had a really good you know offseason so yeah it's tough you know being away you know especially now like I mean we we're on a honeymoon and then the day we get back from a honeymoon flew down here for you know camp and been down here since so it's it's been tough but um you know if you want to be great you got to make you gotta you know it's I think Nick sain says it's not sacrifices it's a decision when you want to be great right so yeah decision not sacrifices and then also the delayed gratification right it's like put off what you want in the moment for what you want most and what you want most is to be a major league baseball player and have a 10 plus year career you know but what you want in the moment is is is maybe to be home you know and I think a lot of a lot of athletes will actually get that backwards and they'll put off what they want most for what they want in the moment you know and then and then they they wonder why they're not getting the results that they want when the margin for error is so small and the competition is so Fierce so you casually drop that you put on 8 pounds of lean tissue and drop six pounds of fat as as measured by a dexa scan talk about what a dexa scan does for you because I think a lot of people listen to this maybe don't know the importance of where that fits into their training plan yeah so I think I mean dexa I mean really what it is you're laying on a machine and it measures all your stuff but for me what it is it's really like is what we're doing working yeah right so it's like it's accountability exactly it's accountability check like you're you're training you know for these you know five months in the offseason like all right let's let's see if you really have you know put in the work like let's see if this program is really working for you so like you said it's just an accountability check of like all right let's see where we're at so I mean I I think I was you know I think the first time I did it I was you know 231 with uh you know 178 you know pounds of muscle whatever it was and then the next time I did it I was you know 232 with 185 pounds of muscle like it's like so it's like all right what we're doing is working so let's just continue to work it like uh on your podcast a days ago was like when to double down when to double down when what you're doing is working I got it go all in exactly yeah go all in and that and the dexa is the accountability not only to your nutrition but also to the conditioning program that you're doing so if you're an athlete and you're not getting a dexa scan a deas Canan tells you your your body weight your lean tissue and your body fat and body fat percent exactly so if part of your training program which it probably is and should be is to increase lean tissue and decrease body fat it's not the only it's not the only thing we're tring to do we're trying to increase power with Force plate jumps we're trying to do all those you know those things but body composition adding lean tissue decreasing body fat well how are we accountable to that right and you can do an inbody and you can do a bod pod and you can do all these different tests my Garmin scale you know but gold standard being a DEA and having what that looks like and then every three months you go and get it again to see okay have I sustained or continued to improve what I want you know um so that's huge talk about the the importance of like a decision that you made this offseason to all in on your nutrition and with a chef service and with macron nutrition what difference has that made for you yeah I mean it's been shout out chef Whitney Jacobs shout out chef Whitney man she is awesome I mean it just been like for me like I've always tried to eat healthy right but it's like you know I mean I don't consider it lazy but like you know going to the store like picking out what you got to eat like work trying to exactly it's work like you know tracking your own macros is a lot but like when you just put it into your sheet that we got from I think a Newman right Newman yeah you know we put it I'm like all right I'm 230 and I want to recom I put these in I give them to Chef Whitney I get five star meals three meals a week or three meals a day for seven days a week and just you know it's good food like she puts what's in it how many grams of fat protein carbs like all this stuff and it's just I mean I've been eating fantastic meals for the last six months now and it's just been I mean like like like weight room like is great like but like nutrition is such a big part of that like you know you have to blend them exactly you have to like you can't like if you're Li you can be the hardest working lifter but if you're eating you know fried foods and all this stuff like you're not going to be you're not going to gain as much as you want but when you put it together man it's I mean it's crazy it's interesting about body composition right and the importance of of in your when your offseason you're a professional athlete you have really big goals when your nutrition is on point and your and your training is on point you're going to see gains massive gains quick right like my situation I got current dealing with a with a with a back issue so I can't really the training that I want to do close to for the last 6 months I've been just maintenance but my nutrition has been on point so my body composition hasn't changed I haven't gained lean tissue but I haven't lost I haven't really gone backwards right and when you go on a vacation you go on a cruise you go over to Italy for a couple weeks and your training slacks cuz you're on vacation and your nutrition slacks you go backwards just like you work so hard to go forward with training and nutrition being alignment when both of those fall off you go backwards so the thing that we've learned is like look if you're going to go on vacation if you're dealing with an injury like you cannot let your training and your nutrition slip at the same time like that's the death sentence and I think like just like yes there's going to be things you can't control right but it's like can you still make an elite like when I got down when I flew back down here um in October uh like I got in late the only thing that was open was McDonald's and I'm like dude I haven't had fast food in forever like I was like I was like but I like I need something so it's like all I Googled what's the healthiest thing on McDonald's menu it was just a cheeseburger so I just got the regular like it's like still like obviously it's not very healthy but it's like it's the healthiest option like it's like and for me it was like my that bad meal or that bad day was better than like my bad days now are better than my best days 6 months ago right and so I think that's that's really good too like you're going to have you know a Bad Day right but it's like my bad days now are 10 times better than my best days six months ago and and what Brian Johnson calls out right and make your best your new Baseline exactly so like the way that train right now when you were your absolute best version of Brody Breck 10 months ago like your absolute best 10 months ago is like your bare minimum right now and probably way higher than that right and it's like if you just continue to stack days move forward I mean people always ask like hey you worked with George St Pierre for like a decade what made that guy so great and I would say he just continued to make his best his new Baseline guys would go through an 8we fight camp and they would go disappear and they would go and they'd vacation and they put on 25 lbs to cut to get back into the weight class and you know he was just like winning fights and then taking two days and he's back in the gym and it's like he just his level of Fitness on his worst day of a year was probably better than more than half of the UFC roster level of Fitness on their best day and a guy like that now is Shawn Brady you know and I think that's why you're going to see sha Brady win a UFC title in 2025 absolutely here first right so I think like the idea of make your base make your best your new Baseline just continuing to move forward you know is huge um man so much so much to unpack here so good let me just take a quick look here and see what else um ordering talk about the importance of sleep right so sleep and tracking sleep with an aura ring and what that does or a whoop and what that does for you I think just you know sleep is like it's the best recovery right like I mean that's how your body like you know that's how your muscles heal and all that stuff so like just being able to track your sleep and just you know it's not like all right I'm getting like I think for me it's been consistent sleep has been the best thing right like I'm not you know yes I'm not perfect like yes you know you know on Friday I might go to bed a little bit later than you know I did on Tuesday throughout the week but it's like for the most part like I'm within an hour bedtime you know for pretty much the last six months like it's it's been going to bed at the same time waking up at the same time getting that circadian rhythm in line so just your body can maximize the healing aspect and just um like for me like I said earlier the 10 hours of sleep that's like my block so like my like when that 10 hours hit so usually like my right now I'm I'm 10 to eight like 10 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. and so once 10 p.m. hits like that's when I'm I'm in bed like I'm done with my PM routine I'm trying to fall asleep right now and then 8: a.m. I wake up and that's like my idea like my body is fully recovered I'm ready to go and just being able to track that on the whoop like it tracks or you know Ora whatever you got like at least just tracking it it's accountability I have my login shared with you like I'm tracking it and and so just being able to see where you're at all right am I did I get you know a good restorative sleep last night was I is my HRV down you know and you know working with Tom Newman like you know if it's if it's my HRV is down three days in a row it's like all right you know maybe I need to go float maybe I need to go do something to like you know get you know my rhythm back the cycle and get back up exactly so I think it's just really good you know just accountability like all these things is really just like accountability like just tracking it because you know it's so like I talked about writing things down like writing things down is way better than just keeping in your head your head you're going to forget but you go on the notes it's there you track all your stuff like in my you know Google doc in My Success Checklist like I got everything I'm like all right what was my like my sleep percentage was it over my 90% goal that I get four hours of restorative sleep like all this stuff just tracking everything yeah man so good and I and what's what absolutely is mind-blowing to me is that you've only been in this for 10 months you know like you came over here and we're going to watch the Super Bowl and as you're over here I'm sitting there I'm going Brody like I feel like this is your fourth season of pro baseball and you haven't even thrown a pitch in like Affiliated ball yet you know what I'm saying I mean you're just getting ready to go here into training which is mind-blowing to me and I think for the people listening to this for the mental performance coaches listening to this like this is what's possible this is what's possible when you have an athlete who's Uber motivated and hasn't had mental Performance training wants it and then you have a system that allows him to step into into growth you know um in terms of the system like we've pretty much talked weekly since like April April you know and I think sometimes coaches say well man when you talk to somebody weekly like what do you talk to them about you you know it's like you're talking to him every week so I know how I would answer that like I know my game plan going in but like how has the weekly Rhythm been for you working with the mental performance code I mean like you like you know it well first I want to back up first it's like you know like you said it's only been 10 months since I've been in this but what's crazy about it is it's all things I can control y right like all this stuff like it's not like I'm doing super human things like right like I'm this is all controllable stuff like I can go get a dexa scan I can listen to my mental like imagery stuff like it's all stuff you can control so like you said like you just do little things a lot then it adds up and it's exponential growth so so yeah and then um what sorry talking about just the the 30 minutes every week calls and then like how that like does that frequency feel overwhelming or is that what is that like for you yeah like it it may seem like it's like people may seeing like oh you're like what are you supposed to talk about every week for you know 30 minutes 40 minutes whatever it is but it's like like I think you said it with cor burns like and I agree with it now like you almost know my process better than I know it now because I have everything shared with you like we always talk about it like we're always you know diving into heroic book of the week how can I apply this all this stuff and it's just like you know my Pro like when someone's not going good like you know my process right better than almost I do so you can get me back on track you're my accountability partner and like you just be surpris like every week like we got something new to talk about like you just be surprised by how much comes up within a week and so it's just it's just good to talk to somebody that understands your process understands how to get you back on track and that type of stuff so it's been I mean it's been awesome ever since we've been working together it's been just like not even on the field but just off the field as well like just you know being present with my wife with my family like you know all that stuff has just been 100% better than what it was it's awesome man and I think you're looking at right for coaches and we talked about this but the performance and the development so you're looking at performance which is on the field preat routine pre- pitch routine mental imagery having a release routine the five-day pitching program which which we're going to dive into as a 7day when you were the Friday guy at Iowa and then you have development MVP process heroic books dexa scans macron nutrition Ora Rings uh MVP process meditation um and just you know that idea the ideas around like you become the the average of the five people you associate with most what are we doing there success hotline I mean there's so much that you reviewed here Brody and three keys to keep it simple can happen on the field and off so it can be performance and development so so much to unpack here man and what you like you said it all comes back to controlling what you can control exactly 100% anything that we're doing here right so like if you were going back and you could go back to Brody bre of let's say that the moment you made that decision let's say your your your sophomore year you decide to to to go okay I'm going all in on baseball you play that sophomore summer you go do Team USA and you come back it's now let's say start of the semester in September if you could go back and talk to Brody bre in September of your junior year so that would be 20 so like 15 months ago basically right a year ago was January starting your senior your senior your Junior season so a couple months before that just getting done with team USA if you could go back and talk to that guy like preparing for your draft year what would you say to him I mean I think the biggest thing for me in the mental game is controlling what you can control right so it's like for me it would be like be like hey Brody like just control what you can control this year execute the pitch that's the only thing you can control you can't control what people are saying about you on TW you know what they're going to say you're pitching good oh he's the best you're pitching bad this dude sucks right like you know you already know that don't like the expectations of other people don't put that on you you can't control that you can't control you know if the dude hits a home run on a great pitch right like you executed the pitch that's your only goal so just control what you can control and execute the pitch I think that is the biggest thing and that's the biggest thing for me I think when a b as a baseball pitcher like you know uh K Vis said you know keep it uh Stupid simple right and or simple stupid and just execute the pitch is the only thing you can control man it's the only thing you should be worrying about you shouldn't be worrying about you know the fans the coaches the batter almost like the only thing you can do is just execute the pitch and if you execute the pitch at the micro level in the field on the field but if you back it up hopefully what people took out of this is that you're executing a a massive plan 100% on a day-to-day basis and your plan if you look at your calendar is there's 168 hours in a week and is you quoted 86,4 seconds in a day and you know where those are going that's the plan right that's execution almost execute the process is just what it is right and so like that was that was my offseason right it was plet those are my keys in the off off season like you know we talked about my three keys to keep it simple on the mound but my three keys in the offseason were plan attack execute right so plan my Google Calendar My Success Checklist that's my plan right attack that be present where you're at execute it man that's all you got to do that's it and if you keep it that simple it is simple 100 and then you do it for 10 months for for 10 years 10 years and you like where you end up exactly you know and I think that we look at the 10 years and we go oh my God that's so far it's like running the marathon right which which marathon is 26.2 miles not just so you know when you when you ran one those last 2.2 miles are legit man those are real you know so that's when the race starts but if you think about taking like the your approach to the last 10 months you stretch that out over the next 10 years but you're not trying to do it for the next 10 years you're trying to do it one day at a time exactly it's like you're not trying to have a good outing you're trying to execute a good pitch and a good pitch leads to a good outing leads to a good week leads to a good month a good season see what happens and we keep rolling next 200 feet that's it stacking days bro thanks for being here man thanks for having me loved it enjoyed it yeah it's awesome for people follow you if they want to engage with you on Instagram or social media anywhere and follow your career and see what you're up to what's the best way for people to follow what you got going follow what I got going um are you active on any social I mean in yeah I'd say Instagram probably like I deleted Twitter like I talked about I'm not trying to trying to listen to all the fans see what they're saying so um Instagram is yeah that's probably the best way good we'll we'll put that in the show notes Brody it's been great man thank you appreciate you brother my pleasure