Noob School - From MLB to Life Mastery: Jay Jackson’s 9 Innings Philosophy

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

In this episode of Noob School, I sit down with Jay Jackson—a former Major League pitcher who spent nearly two decades grinding it out across the MLB, minor leagues, and international baseball circuits. Jay’s story isn’t just about baseball—it’s about resilience. From getting drafted later than expected to navigating the ups and downs of a global career that took him from the U.S. to Japan, Mexico, and beyond, he learned how to stay grounded, positive, and focused when most people would’ve quit. Over a 17+ year professional career, he played for multiple MLB organizations and built a reputation not just for performance—but for mindset. We talk about what it really takes to last that long in a high-pressure environment—and why success has less to do with talent and more to do with discipline, intentionality, and the people you surround yourself with. Jay also shares the philosophy behind his book, 9 Innings to Living Your Best Life—a framework for living with purpose, maintaining a positive mindset, and leading both on and off the field. The book breaks life into “innings,” each focused on habits like gratitude, accountability, and mental toughness. We get into: Why adversity is your biggest advantage (if you let it be) The power of starting your day with intention How elite performers stay mentally locked in Why “being where your feet are” might be the most important skill you can build The role of mentorship in long-term success Jay is now transitioning into his next chapter—focusing on coaching, mentorship, and helping the next generation develop both as athletes and as people. If you’re trying to build something, lead a team, or just get better every day, this conversation will hit home.

All right, just finished podcast 161 with the great Jay Jackson. Jay is an 18-year professional baseball player from Greenville, South Carolina, and I knew his dad in high school. So it's a pretty cool story of his 18 years in professional baseball, and now he's written a book about it and about leadership and kind of having a great life. He's a speaker, and he's also a baseball coach. So you don't have to like baseball to like this one. It's a great story and I hope you enjoy it. All right, welcome back to the podcast. I've got a special guest today.

I mean, they're all special, but Jay and I go back to when he was in high school, which was just a couple years ago. You were classmates with my son Jack. Yes, sir. Right? Yes, sir. And you were obviously, just. Jackson here, professional baseball player, major league baseball player. He was a great baseball

player in high school, but he was also just so gifted. He was also the best basketball player and probably would have been the best football player if you'd have played football. I just couldn't play football. That was just one of the tough ones. My dad made me choose two to three sports, actually. That was the reason why I didn't play football. Yeah. The choices between when I got to high school, he was, hey, you can only choose two out of the three between baseball, basketball, and football. And I chose baseball and basketball instead of adding football in there. Well, I'm glad you did. I mean, injury chances, you know.

A lot higher. A lot higher. He'd be limping. You know, he could be limping or something. Well, yeah, speaking of your dad, he was supposed to be with us today. He's not feeling well. But, you know, your dad and I go back to when he was 15. we were like 15 years old

when we met each other at the Y. That's the first time you guys went. I didn't realize it was that one ago. Playing basketball. Yeah. I knew. I thought he said high. It was in Christchurch and we became buddies

and, you know, and that friendship never went away. So it's amazing. One reason why you need to come back and live in Greenville because you're old friends, Jay? I know. I'm thinking about it. We're talking about it right now.

We're waiting to hopefully. here that Furman baseball comes back and I can possibly be available for that job right there but also I've had a lot of interest from people asking me to come home and do some lessons and maybe open a facility here too so nice and help the kids and help the community around here a little bit more so that's the plan that would be right to bring the sun back over here as well so that would be great so so you've had a 17 year since since college 17 year baseball career

from the major leagues, minor leagues, Japan, where else have you been? Let's see. I've been Japan, the majors, minors. I've been to Mexico. I've been to Venezuela. And I've also played in the Caribbean series. And I just got back from doing a camp in Taiwan. So I guess I can check that one off the list too.

Wow. So who hired you to do a camp in Taiwan? I have an old friend that actually went to Eastside High School. He actually has a performance camp that's going on over there and does some tourism stuff. And he linked me up with a guy that's in Taiwan that was trying to do some baseball camps and have some pros come over. And I just got lucky and blessed that I was able to. And I came to find out I was actually the first former major league player to the first one to be to do a camp over there. So it was great.

That's great. Well, you know, there's not that many pictures that have the experience you've had. I mean, not just a number of years, but all the different places, and you know people in these different countries. You could have a worldwide traveling, you know, Jay Jackson Camp, you know, dropping in these different places. Of those places you play, outside of the, you know, the coolness of the major leagues, which one of these stops was the most fun?

I think Japan was probably the most fun just because how different I saw the culture was. It was my first time really traveling that far, but also just how different the culture was just in general, just the respect, how clean everything was, you go everywhere, like how on time things were to a certain extent too. But no, Japan was just awesome. I think I loved it.

there. I wanted to spend more time there, but, you know, God had other callings for me to come home and keep playing here. So I just was blessed to be over there and experienced as much time as I did. So were you in Tokyo? I was in Hiroshima at first, and then my second stint in Japan, I was in Chiba, which was on the outskirts of Tokyo. And they're crazy about baseball, right? Yeah. They're fanatics. They're fanatics. I love it. That's great. And what did you like eating over there? We call it Korean barbecue. They call it Yakiniqueu.

It's just when you grill the food in front of you. And, like, I would always go to not the big chain places a lot of times. I would go to, like, the little family, like, off the side of the road places. Because they would always have the best food. They would have the best meat, the beef, the chicken. Everything would just be really fresh. And you could just taste it in the food all the time. Even the vegetables.

It was unbelievable. and the homemade sauces they would make a lot of times. So those were like my favorite places. And then they had Yackie Tori as well, which is just like food on the stick. Okay. So they would grill the food on the stick. It would be different pieces of chicken, different beefs.

It would also be different vegetables, and they would just put it on the stick pretty. Yeah, yeah. And so before that, back it up, I skipped Furman. So you, after your career at high school, which was stellar, you chose to go to Furman. and I'm assuming I know they had a pretty good baseball program, but also you want to be close to home?

I definitely want to be close to home. That was mainly, it has to do with my little sister that I had. She had Down syndrome, so I want to be as close to her as possible and close as my family as possible. I don't want to have them to travel as far as some of the schools I was talking to, but also I just felt like Coach Smith just sold Furman in such a great way that I didn't have a choice really. That's a shout out to Coach Smith.

he did a fantastic job of the program that he built there and how he created a program of just fine men that always wanted to be there and how he recruited very well to have me and a few guys I know from around town to want to stay home. Yeah. So give us, this is a good one here, a good sales subject, but it was Ron Smith?

Yes, sir. And he played basketball too? He did. Yeah. So great athlete, great leaders, point guards, I recall. and he was able to recruit above, you know, what you would think, like people like you that would go to Furman. What was his spiel that, like, made you think,

okay, this is a good thing? He got really ingrained with my family. That was the main thing with him. He fell in love with jazz. So my sister, so... Just like me. So he fell in love with jazz. So he sold me on that, being close to jazz,

sold me on. how he could help me, you know, with the academics that I had going to Christchurch, be able to find a way to not make the cost of Furman being what it was be as much for me and the family and also selling me on the position that I was going to be on the team, that I was going to be one of the leaders right away. And just he also sold me the dream that I was going to be able to play basketball too since he did it in college, but that didn't end up happening. But he did told me that would be a possibility if,

I didn't, I guess if I didn't have a good freshman year of baseball, I guess that was in the back pocket. Yeah. But I knew it was having a pretty solid freshman year. I should have probably had a better freshman year. By my expectations, I really should have definitely had a better freshman year. But it was good enough where he didn't, he didn't tell me to go play basketball. And so why don't you think you had a better freshman year? I just think it was a little bit of me adjusting to just the atmosphere.

everything that was going on my first year in college. Even though I was at home, I was still away from home. I barely went back home except for, you know, to get close washed in home cooked meal on Sundays, really. But having my family there, but just being in college, I think just adjusting to that whole thing, adjusting to being in classes, being on my own schedule, and all that, working out, having the morning workouts,

having coaches that didn't really know me but did know me. And I think just all that, I think that's why, I feel like I should have had a better freshman year and knowing what I know now I think I should have. But, you know, everything works for a reason. So I don't take it for granted that. Well, that's your book. We'll get to that later. But, you know, being able, no matter what comes at you, is deciding how you're going to respond to it.

100%. You know, and maybe you use it as motivation for sophomore year. Is it a crying about freshman year? 100%. Right. I love all this stuff. This is great. So what did you do in the summers during college?

Freshman summer, I played Legion Baseball, and I went to summer school. Okay. Sophomore year summer, I went to play baseball in Delaware, Ohio. Okay. I went to play in the Great Lakes League for the Delaware Cowes. So I went and played summer baseball that year, and then I got drafted my junior summer so I was playing professional baseball after that so so were you out of firmer at that point my junior year yes sir okay it's hard to say no to that it was it was

it was definitely a hard time I wanted to come back to school for one more year and play with the guys one more year and have a chance to go to the NCAA regionals and do something special at the school and hopefully try to bring a championship but I talked to coach Smith coach Smith just told me you know it was a better option to go just start my baseball career early and it was a great chance that I could be a major league baseball player so and he was right so yeah it was right good good for him being honest 100% it's nice to have you back as a senior on the mound yeah it wouldn't but he that's one thing i can say coach smith was always honest with me about what the right things were just were going to be

for every for all of us by the way for those who don't know so i went to the citadel and i took classes at citadel i took some classes at remitac and then once in someone like i'll just take some at Furman. So I took two classes at Furman. They about kill me. I mean, that's a hard school. It is. I mean, God, it's much harder than Christ's church. It was a very tough school. He told me it was going to be that hard. And it's just, again, I think that was the adjustment freshman year too, just trying to figure out how tough these classes were, what was going to be my schedules, what was going to be the best classes for me, what was going to be the best major for me. And just going about the whole thing. So, but yeah, Furman was definitely, definitely, definitely

a tough school. Yeah. It's also funny you say, you know, Furman is 15 minutes from Greenville, the beautiful campus. And people are always like, well, I'm going to go to Furman and be close to home when you never see them. Once you get out there, you know, you're not coming downtown or whatever. Everything kind of stays out there. Yeah, everything stays out there. And it's nice that everything is available on campus. You see us come downtown a little bit just to, you know, get away. And that's I think everybody's get away as you go to downtown. You go to the beach. and Merrill Beach or you'll go to Asheville just because they're all really close. You're kind of close to Asheville, yeah.

Very close to Asheville, so you would do that. But, you know, everything's really on campus. You have all the things you need, the lakes right there, so people just go lay out on the lake and get whatever they need. The food hall is amazing every day, so you just kind of make your own way. And the dorms are always so convenient in the community that you build there, and the, you know, friends that you make. Yeah.

You just never really want to leave, so it kind of works out. The Citadel's not like that, by the way. We're ready to get the hell out of there as soon as we can. So your junior year, that's the first year they can legally draft college players. Is that right? If you go to a four-year institution. If you go to a junior college or if you find a way to maneuver the system now with NIL and things like that, then that was the earliest at the time since I chose Furman out of all the other places.

that I could be drafted. I had to be in school at least three years or be 21 years of age, I believe. Okay. And so was it the Cubs? It was the Cubs. Cubs, that's a pretty cool team. It was the Cubs.

Didn't know I got drafted actually. Didn't know how to draft party because at the time I was told and predicted that I was gonna go in the first couple rounds. So had a lot of people over to watch the draft and see if I got drafted early, but ended up not getting drafted on the first day and then got a bunch of phone calls

after that, waited around a little bit, turned the TV and the computers off and everything else like that, and actually found out from one of my friends that I had been drafted, and then I had to go check the computer and found out that the Cubs had drafted me, so. Well, that's another thing, you know,

and I read that part in your book, you know, about them telling you that you're gonna get drafted and having everyone waiting for the draft and it doesn't happen. I mean, and your dad came in the room just said, okay, what are we doing now and everything's going to be fine and just keep it moving. Keep it moving and there'll be an agent, whatever, you know. And it's just a great lesson that we're not going to crawl up into a ball and cry and be sad for ourselves. I mean, what's the next,

what's the next step? Yeah, what's the next step? What's, you know, first step is just being grateful for the opportunity that I did have in the fact that I had so many people around me that cared so much to be there. But after that, it's, you know, well, what's the next, where do we go from here? Do you go play in the Cape Cod League so you can see if you can up your value to get better for next year or what do you want to do? Like so. Yeah. It was a great time.

I give my dad a lot of credit for all the things that he did as he, you know, pieced my whole, you know, upbringing together. He's done a very, as I look back and he tells me different stories as I've gotten older. He's done such a fantastic job of how he's just raised me in the way he did. Well, I'll say, I'll say this. Randy, he had, I didn't quite know what it was, but just he had a calm, kind of stoic presence to him when he was a kid when he was 15. I mean, he was different than everyone else. And now, thankfully for the community, you know, he's been running the Phyllis Wheatley Center, which is for all, um, which is for all, um, underprivileged kids, right, and Greenville, and he's put on, he's just done such a good job over there.

No, he's done a fantastic job. I go by there all the time when I get a chance when I'm home and to see him and see what he's done and how he's built that program back up from where it was a few years ago. I'm proud of him to say the least. He's done a fantastic job, and he still keeps working behind the scenes, and I know he's supposed to be retiring from there soon, so we'll see. I know he can't stay away too long. I know he likes to always be around and help as much as he can.

Yeah, yeah. He told me once, I was over there visiting and asked something about fundraising or whatever, and he says, if we need money for something here, he goes, I tell my team, figure out a way to make it. How can we make some money versus just asking for money? That's kind of a lesson kind of from your book, right? 100%. You know, we're responsible. No, we're always responsible for all the things that we do, especially.

the situations we end up getting in might be out of our control a lot of times, but like you said earlier, how we react to them, and then what can we do to fix them to put them in our favor if we can't? If we can't, then try to make them as even as possible. Yeah. There was a guy I know who he was a high school All-American running back, and he went to South Carolina, and like literally the beginning of his freshman year,

need blown out, can't play football anymore. It was that bad. I mean, that would be like, oh, it's the most disappointing thing in the world. But what did he do? He's like, okay, now what do I do? Drop it out of Carolina, transferred to Harvard, and it became one of the best attorneys in the southeast. But he wasn't going to do that if he'd stayed at South Carolina. So he took this horrible thing and said, what can I do now?

Made it great. Yeah. You know it's like my dad always tells me it's, you know, turning the limit. in the lemonade. Right, right. You try to figure out the best things that you can do in the situations that you're in to reach whatever goal that you have. It might switch to a certain degree, but it's finding what makes you happy ultimately and

then trying to do that for as long as possible and making sure you're doing something that you do that is making you happy because then you'll go through, you know, the down times a lot of times. If you're doing something that doesn't make you happy and you have a bunch of negative stuff happen to you, you're going to either quit or just, you know, just, you know, you're going to resent what's kind of going on. Yeah, yeah. Before we get all into the book, I can't wait to talk about it.

Who was the best batter you ever faced or threw to that you'd like, it's going to be hard to get this guy out? Everybody who wants me to say Shohei Otani now, and I would say Shohei now is probably one of the best hitters of all time. He's going to be if he stays on his pace. but back when I first came up into the major leagues, I faced Adrian Gonzalez. I think Agent Gonzalez was probably one of the best hitters I've faced over the years,

but I've also faced Aaron Judge. I've faced Paul Goldsmith when he was on his MVP tears when he was in Minnesota, I mean, not in Minnesota, in St. Louis. I've faced Nolan Aeronado a few times as well. So there's been a few guys over the years that have been MVP's that I could say I've faced, but I've been lucky enough that some have guys, gotten out, some haven't.

So I say show he's probably the one that has gotten to see me the most that I would say is the greatest hitter that I face the most amount of times. I would imagine Judge is kind of intimidating when he's standing there in the box. He is. We had a whole fiasco a couple years ago when I was with the Blue Jays playing against them when it came to find out or it looks like he was getting pitches for me tipping pitches from the first base coach. So that was a whole thing a few years ago.

But no, he's definitely a great hitter. He deserves everything he's done. He's played so well over the years. And I think he's got a couple more MVP. I know he wants a World Series first, but I feel like the way he's playing and the way if he continues on this pace, that he's going to be one of the greatest Yankees

and one of the greatest players that ever play the game too. So that's fun to see him versus Shohei a lot of times go at it. Yeah. Also looked you up, did some homework online, and saw that you had seven at bats or something like that. Did I didn't know.

I didn't know it was that many because I didn't know that I struck out a few of us because I know there's been a couple times when we did hit as pitchers. The manager or the pitching coach would tell us to go up there and not swing. So it would just be us just not to get hurt. Yeah, exactly, just to make sure that we could go out for the next inning and pitch. So I'm pretty sure out of those seven at bats, it's probably six strikeouts at least or something like that. It's not good.

What's it feel like? I mean, because obviously I'm sure you're a good hitter in high school, maybe college too, but when you're a major league situation, is it feel a little, coming pretty hard at you? It's a little different. It's definitely a little different. I ended up a couple times,

I face guys that ended up being teammates later too. So it's funny that I've gotten to do that. But as a pitcher, when you get to that level, is definitely a lot tougher just because you don't get to hit as much. You're not practicing. Yeah, you're not practicing a lot. So it's definitely you can be as good of a hitter as you want up to those years.

And then you get up there and you're swinging about like once every six, seven days. And in my case, I was swinging once every like month pretty much at that time because I think I was in the bullpen. But before as a starter, I was hitting probably twice a week and I actually hit better in the minors. So I got a couple of home runs back in the minor. So that's the thing is I'm sure you're a good hitter, but like anything else, if you're not stretched out and ready to go and practicing hitting ball every day, goes away.

100%. Yeah. And I can see why they would say don't swing, because if you're not swinging, if you're not ready to swing, you know, you might literally hurt yourself. Guys have. Guys have done that a few times

where they've got up there and they've swung and swung in, like, torn their oblique. I believe, or throwing a shoulder out of place or something like that, buckled a knee or something like that. So then they can't go back out and pitch, and so it ruins the whole rest of the game plan for the manager and the pitching coach. So being a, so far your career has been all around baseball, who's your favorite pitcher?

Growing up, it was Pedro Martinez. Okay. That was my favorite pitcher of all time. Red Sox guy. That's who I wanted to be like if I was going to be a pitcher, and that's who I thought of a lot of. times I didn't quite have the career he did but no he was definitely the guy I looked up to and wanted to be like as a pitcher as an outfielder in a position player I always looked up to Barry

Bonds and King Jeffrey Jr so those are my two favorites those are all great people he's great any any other lessons learned I mean you you obviously you know from a sales perspective you got these different jobs you know at different major league teams, different minor league teams around the world. What kind of sales story or skills can you tell us about that? I think it's about being as personable and adaptable as possible. I think because everywhere I've gone, I've tried to just be ultimately fit into whatever they need me to do and be willing to do whatever is possible to help the teams win. I think that's kind of resonated throughout my career because a lot of the teams I've been on.

we've won a lot of games. So I feel like that was the main thing, is trying to make sure I'm doing whatever the team needs to do to win, wherever I go. And then as I got older, realizing that being myself and fitting in makes it twice as good. So I try to tell a lot of people now, is like, once you figure out what makes you happy,

you go where you're necessarily meant to be because you're going to go do the work and it's going to show throughout everything. And so then you fit in with your, surroundings and that makes the team so much better. So it's not trying to put a circle peg into a square hole a lot of times. So in that case, your deeds are speaking, right? I mean, who you are, how you're behaving on the team, because for sure, if you're trying

to get a job, let's say, in Mexico, then they're going to call the Venezuelan GM and say, how was this guy? You know, bad teammate, good teammate, drinking problem, it could be anything, right? And if you do a good job like you've been doing, you just keep getting, they say, oh, he's a good guy. He's great for the team. Bring him on.

100%. That's what I think helped me a lot of the times during my career was the fact that I tried to be the best teammate too and the best clubhouse guy. And just, again, try to be there for my teammates and on the field and off the field as much as possible. Just try to make sure that we had a good vibe and a good positive atmosphere

to try to help us win as much as possible in every way, shape, or form. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. When we're hiring salespeople, you know, we want them to, let's just say, maybe that we want them to be from a certain region. Like we want to hire people all from the southeast, and we want them all to have gone to Clemson or Furman or Wofford. You know, those are our three schools we're going to really recruit hard at.

And we like it if they've been athletes, at least in high school. You know, they're athletic, they have some whatever. We like it if they've been involved on campus. you know, they're present of eternity or something. So all those things were like little checkboxes. But the very last one is when we meet them and spend some time with them, we want to hang out with them. We want to have a beer with them or something.

We come out the beer test. If the answer is no, then all those other check marks don't matter. You know, if they're not good people, that's it. You know, we don't want them on the team. And that's probably why you've been on so many teams. I think so. I feel like that's, I've been blessed to do that.

I think I've been blessed to do that as well as also blessed to be consistent enough to help teams win on the fifth. And win. I think that definitely helps a lot of times too because I know that as I got through some of the phases in my career where it was downs that I think that helped keep me around a lot of times is trying to be the person on the team that was still working hard, making sure that people saw me being a leader to a certain degree and try to help. as much as possible. Well, another thing, and people can tell about just looking at you is your smile, that you smile a lot, and I'm working on it. Here I am. I'm, you know, I'm 60-something years old.

I'm still working on trying to smile more because I don't naturally do it. I naturally kind of like, you know, a frowny man. And it's not because I'm not happy. It's just not a habit of mine. But man, when you walk into a room and you smile, people smile back, right? Yeah, 100%. And that's normally people's first reaction when you do smile, because even no matter what's going on, you know, you show them a smile.

They try to do the same thing back because it just brightens them up a little because they're just wondering, you know, that's the first instinct. You normally don't see somebody frown at you when you smile. It just wouldn't make sense. And I think a lot of times it's easier for people to smile, and then that just starts a whole chain reaction a lot of times for people around them to start smiling too because one person might see it and they might not think that they're smiling at the same person or smiling back and then it just starts the whole thing. You don't work the other way too with the frown.

100%. If you and I came walking, we didn't know what each other came walking in the room and I'm like, you'd be looking back, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, that guy's a jackass. I'm going to go, you know, all of a sudden it starts for no reason. Exactly. Just to look. It's all tied together. It's negativity and positivity.

Both of them are tied together just like that. So if it's a bunch of negativity and a bunch of negative things, then, you know, you seem negative, then it resonates and it starts growing too. I feel like you see that a lot of times with, you know, certain highlights and stuff a lot of times. We focus on a lot of the negatives nowadays because those are better highlights for people. So that's what spreads a lot of the other negativity instead of, you know, getting the good highlights and the more positive highlights.

And that's one of the things that I try to tell people is make sure you do look at the positive highlights of your life and make sure you're doing things that make you happy because those are going to cause more of that positive things for you to do. Yeah. And that's going to resonate if you're happy all the time and then it snowballs. We're talking about nine innings to living your best life. I have read seven innings so far. And it's awesome. But it's full of this kind of stuff.

And we're going to talk more about it. But my first question, how did you learn all this? I think it's just over just life experiences, I think from my dad a lot of things that he's learned over his life. instilled in me and then going to school and being a firm and being a philosophy major and then being able to just travel the world as much as I have over the years and just the things I've gone through just with different things through a lot of just my baseball career just traveling with that but just my career being up and down seeing the political side of baseball going through the minors getting to the majors having to go back down and just I think also just being

a black athlete, a black player in baseball with that and how it kind of does differ sometimes and you see how it does with me now seeing on the other side of it, seeing kind of how it's played out just with the numbers still being as low as they are. It's kind of crazy to see. The number of black athletes in the majors? Yeah, 100%. It's low. It's really low, yeah. Okay. Well, I don't watch a ton of baseball. Last time I really got into it was when the Braves were doing their thing with Maddox and Glevin and Smolts. That was a good. Now, you must have been like 10 years old or something.

It was a long time ago. Those were in the 90s because they just ruled the whole 90s. But that was a good time for that. I think the percentage at that point was like 10 to 12 percent. I think now it's down to like six or seven. Really? Yeah, it's something. It's been trending down for a bit.

But there's programs in place to hopefully gain some more traction. of that and I'm hoping to see them drive more but you know it's still kind of low I think that the support systems around those guys a lot of times happens to because there's not a lot of black coaches either they're all either first base coaches and there's not a lot of managers at the top so I think that kind of hurts a little bit not having that kind of same ear for the front office to support some those guys well do you have you have any other theories as to why that number is shrinking I just think baseball has become so much more of a globally dominant sport.

And the price of baseball for younger kids like AU is unbelievably pricing. Yeah, it's getting priced out. Like, guys are getting priced out where a lot of times you see basketball and football, you know, they have programs where you're getting a lot of free stuff, where baseball is more looked at as, you know, you afford everything yourself. It's not like a lot of teams just donate stuff. Traveling teams. That would go for any underprivileged.

kid. Yeah. But it's certainly the numbers indicate. I mean, I would say that's a very reasonable thing because I, you know, my kids, thankfully didn't, I didn't have to try to take them around and do all that. But a lot of people do. When they're gone for the weekend and they're getting hotel rooms and you're paying tournament fees, entry fees, and then you have to travel every weekend.

And then it's a lot of times guys feel like if you miss a weekend, then you lose your spot and stuff too. So it's a lot. It's a lot. That's wild. And then baseball equipment, you have cleats. Cleets rip half the time. If you're playing a lot for sure.

With those many games as young kids are playing. Bats are cracking. Bats are hundreds of dollars. Gloves are hundreds of dollars. So you got to do lessons all the time. You got to do, you know, just everything to keep up a lot of times. Bags. Well, I'll say this.

I was a, I was a, I was a, okay, you know, youngster athlete, basketball and football and tennis. So I thought I was like the All-American athlete, right? Like, you know, 10 years old. And I thought, well, I'm going to play baseball this year. And my dad's like, really? Like, yeah, I'm going to go play baseball, you know. And so I'd never even thrown a ball before. I had no idea what I was doing. So my mother, of course, takes me to the store, you know, the sporting goods store, and I got a good glove. And the sales guy's like, what club do you want? I said, you know, I said, what do you mean? He goes, which hand? And I said, right hand. Because I figure I'm right-handed, but I want to catch it with the right-hand.

So I got a right-handed glove. That was my start in baseball and it got worse from there. Really? Yeah, it was terrible. I didn't know how to play. I mean, literally, I'd thrown a million down-and-out patterns with my dad and football. But never caught a ball. I didn't know anything about it. I mean, one of my first at-bats, the guy threw the pitch, and it was like real high. And I kind of swung, almost like a vertical swing at it.

It was so bad that the umpire said it was, you know, check swing or ball or whatever. and the coach he came out and goes can I ask the bat or something he goes yeah he goes do you swing at that son I'm like I sure did but he's out

so you know that's another I'm not sure it's in the book or not but I love to try things but you might want to prepare just a little bit you'll do a Google search or something I think that goes with your confidence

when you do things though that yeah that just goes with your confidence It's like when you prepare better, that means your confidence level is higher. And so that's normally when you're able to do things that make you happier and doing better, right? So I think it all comes together. But, like, yeah, I don't think I'll put that part. But, yeah, no, it makes sense.

Like, definitely if you're going to try something that you want to be good at, you probably should prepare a little bit. Like, say Google, YouTube it. Yeah, something. Something. Well, you know, to that point, you know, Steve Jobs is probably one of the greatest. marketing guys ever, the Apple guy, and he used to give these wonderful speeches

that just, no one of you can imagine how good they were. They were short, but they really got the point across and everyone got it. And so when I was reading his biography, they said, well, he used to make like 10 or 12 people get in the audience at the place where he was gonna be doing the speech. And they had to help him.

continue to revise the speech over and over again until he thought it was just right. And then he would do it a hundred times with them watching. And after every time, what can we tweak? What can we do better? So by the time he did the speech, it was perfect. Perfect. Perfect, the right length. No big deal.

So anyway, I now believe in preparation after my baseball fiasco. Well, that's awesome. So chapter one, I think, is mostly about kind of being grounded. 100%. It's about being grounded. And about, you know, I tell my guys, it's about foundation, right? So it's being grounded, but the support system you have around you, that also keeps you in a place that, you know, you can always revert back to that's going to be a good place.

Because a lot of times if your foundation's not grounded or not foundationally sound or settled, and it's broken, then you end up being a lot more negative a lot of times because you're trying to always search and find what you're trying to do. I totally agree. I was talking about you this morning somebody, and I just said, you know, that chapter one just is such a great example for people because Jay, you know, obviously, you know, on its way to being a major league baseball player, great basketball player,

good looking guy, scholarship, you know, you could have gone to Miami, right, or Florida State or, you know, any of those party schools and just had, you know, been king of the campus, you know, of this party school for a number of years, but you wouldn't be grounded

if you live in some other life, right? 100%. And I probably would have done that. But I mean, but you're smarter than me. But I get it. I mean, some of the very best people I know, the most successful people I know, That's just, that's a big part of it.

Is they're grounded to begin with? No, you try to be, you try to be as grounded as possible. I definitely thought about going to those other schools. And then, like I said, luckily, and, you know, God had other plans for me, honestly, that, you know, I fell for coach Smith telling me that I was going to be able to play basketball. Ultimately, that ended up being the last checkboxes. You know, he loved jazz, but also he was like, you're going to be able to play basketball. if like you do well. I was like okay like if I'm gonna be able to play basketball too

then that's something that I really wanted to try to do at least once one of those years so I didn't get to but yeah you try to you just try to always do the right thing I think that's what my dad's always taught me is you try to do the right thing and then after that if it doesn't work then you try to do the right thing again you try to just keep you just keep trying to follow the same path like and it's how you react. If something negative does happen, if you react more with negativity,

because that's where you're, again, goes back to where your foundation is because you're searching, then you're going to just bring more negativity and you're going to continue searching. But if you have a good positive foundation, then you're going to get back to finally something that's going to be positive

and you're going to be able to start all over again to grow from there and hopefully learn and you're not going to just quit and give up. Right, right. with all that positive maneuvering, you might end up finding a better path. Exactly. Than what you thought begin with.

And that's what a lot of people do. Like you find out what you truly might do. Because with baseball, the percentage of people that make it from high school baseball to the major leagues is very slim. So there's a lot of, you know, I think 95% of a failure rate. So how can you learn from these things? and you're going to possibly have to pivot to something else anyway.

What else am I good at? What else is going to make me happy? How can I use if baseball makes me happy and I'm not able to make it to the majors? How can I use that and the lessons I've learned from that so far to do something else that makes me just as happy that I can, you know, resonate and make other people around me better as well? Yeah. And so you're right in the process of pivoting yourself, right?

You're pivoting away from being a player to being a coach and someone who wrote a book about what you learned. Yes, sir. and your speaker and you do camps. I mean, that's all a pivot to being, you know, non-player anymore. But I think it's really smart that you're not kicking baseball away, that you're, like, still tethered to it because you have all the experience and contacts and knowledge, you know,

it'll make this easier, I think, than if you just started over. No, 100%. I think it was one of the things, again, that made me so happy throughout my life and it's gave me so much throughout my life. So giving back to the world through what I've been blessed to be good at that's made me so happy is I think one of the ways that I can positively impact everybody else. I don't want to, like you said, necessarily start completely over because then it's going to be something that I'm possibly not good at, but I can also give it a try.

You know, I don't have as much preparation like you said about your baseball experience. I don't have as much preparation in other things as I do. do in baseball, but also with what I've learned through baseball, I can give back not only to the baseball community, but to the world in general. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. And I think the pivot's starting and it's been fun so far. I think I've had a lot of success and a lot of things that I'm doing. And I'm looking forward to more success and helping more people and being able to go, you know,

spread the good word of, you know, not only baseball, but just being positive and happy as much as you can be. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to cover one of those things. I'm not sure what chapter was in, but one of the ways you said to stay positive and happy was to avoid, there were certain things to avoid, like the news and things like that. I mean, they're negative, generally negative, because they're just trying to sell advertising. And the negative stuff gets people's attention.

I mean, it's used to make me mad. I'm like, why are they just showing? Well, I know why they're doing negative stuff. is to make money. It's sick. It is. That's what they're doing. It just generates so many headlines, right?

So the more you can catch a quick clip of somebody saying something that just wows you or shocks you and it's normally negative, it's not really something that's positive. So I think it's in the book, but obviously we want to avoid those kinds of things. Like I used to avoid newspapers and any kind of news channel. But another thing is that. is what you put into your mind trying to, trying to, let's say, box out the negative stuff. Like if you're just putting the positive stuff in, there's no room left for it.

Exactly. So what kind of positive things do you recommend people put in their brains? Besides reading your book, they can put that in there. No, I tell people all the time, you just wanna make sure that all the positive things that you can remember throughout your life or whatever you're doing, not only in your life,

but whatever the specific task might be. Always remember the positive things from that time. and learn from the negatives and then try to find a way to fix them because the more you think about the negative things, you're going to get more frustrated and it's going to take you longer instead of trying to find a way to fix it or get some help. You're going to be able to think in a positive way to be like, okay, I can't necessarily completely do this thing. Yeah. Let me go get some help to find somebody that can. And that's the more positive thing to do because the ultimate goal is to finish it.

It's not always to do it in a self-conscious, like selfish manner. So it's always, for me, always putting in as much positive things and positive thoughts as you can and trying to react as positive as you can. So regardless, like, you try to just be as positive. Like if the water bottle spills on the carpet instead of getting pissed off that it's spilled on the carpet, you just figure out like, okay, it's happened. Let me clean it up and go about it the best way I can. That's the better reaction than getting mad about it.

Right. So avoiding the negative stuff, putting the positive stuff in there, One thing, I don't know if I read this in the book or not, but it's that group of people that you surround yourself with. And I know in your case that starts with family, being around your dad. But let's just say in my case, you know, who are the five people I want to hang out with? You know, who are those people? And if they're all more successful than me in life and in business, I'm going to get pulled up towards them. 100%.

Right? And if they're all down here, you know, betting on football games and getting drunk all the time, and we're heading in that direction. 100%. And, you know, I've got, you know, one or two really good friends. And every time I hang out with them, I'm like, oh, really? I'm literally taking notes. Like, oh, try this, try this, call this person.

You know, I'm getting this stuff that makes my life better because they've kind of already figured a lot of stuff out. So the people part's huge. No, the people in your support system is always huge. because the people around you that are lifting you up always going to be huge. It's not only the people that are lifting you up from your friends like that. It's also those people that are lifting you up just from checking in on you and making sure that you are being happy and trying to be the best version of yourself at all times too. Because those people are always going to be the ones that at the worst times are going to be there

to help make sure you get back to being that person that you need to be to help you and others around you as well. So it's definitely the five people around you, and it started with my family, and then trickled over to my friends, and I can say all my friends that I have that do stay around me are such great people that they make me want to do better things and help other people and make sure that we're all striving to be better people and go in the right direction.

Good, good. So here's another one. I think this was chapter three about positivity, is something comes at you, something happens. Like you said, the water falling on the carpet or, you know, someone runs you into your car or something that normally would say,

oh, that's terrible. So how do you recommend people turn, like I just say, we walked out here out of the studio this afternoon, and someone has ransacked both of our cars, you know, they broke the windows, they took out our briefcase. or whatever.

How do you say something, how do you stay positive there? For me, as long as nobody's hurt, that's number one. Nobody's hurt. That's number one for me. So you just try to stay as positive as you can. It's okay, nobody's hurt. What was taken, if it was stuff that was important, okay, can I get it back? Okay.

Then you try to figure out just what process is going to be for me to get back and how long it's going to be. If it's going to be an inconvenience, then you just try to start making phone calls. and do the best you can with what you have at that point in time. But the more that you panic and struggle going through those situations, again, it's snowballs from there. So if you're panicking and struggling and being stressed out about it, then you're calling everybody else,

and they can hear that you're panicking and stressed and struggling. And so they start to panic and struggle and stress. And so, again, it snowballs. And so then nothing's really truly getting done. You know, so you're trying to just stay. And again, react. as calmly and as smooth as possible as the as the situation dictates I wouldn't say in all situations there are times where I would tell people if you're getting punched in

the face or something like that don't just you know don't just react calmly and smoothly all the time but but in most situations I don't feel like I feel like we do overreact as people a lot of times just because we we go off our first instincts instead of sitting back not even necessarily taking a second to think about it, but figuring out what's the best situation, whether it be, okay, yeah, I should hit this person in the face or, no, I shouldn't hit this person in the face. It's all about your reaction because it does, again, snowball to the other people around you. You see it all the time. That's why firefighters and policemen are normally who they are, is because they're there to de-escalate the

situations. Yeah. Well, your friend Jack, my son, I don't know if you remember, but he was in college, he had an accident on campus with his truck. And he called me the next morning. And he said, Dad, you know, had an accident on campus, you know, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, he was really, he and his mom were like, not feeling so good about this. And I said, well, I said, was anyone heard? And he said, no. I said, were the police involved?

He said, no. I said, was there any like drinking involved? He goes, no. Just driving too fast and got in a wreck. I said, we don't have a problem. We had a wreck truck. I mean, we can get into a truck, you know, or fix this one. But there's no problem.

There's an accident. And I was proud of myself for that one. You know, because you'd think the normal TV dad would say, what the hell you'd, you know, all that stuff. It's just like, no. Everything's okay. No big deal. And that's why I,

I give my dad a lot of credit because he was like that a lot of times in a lot of situations. Yeah. He was, he had the right emotions at the right times. And so I'm trying to ultimately be more like he was and I'm trying to be the best version of myself that could, you know, represent him and the family in the best way possible. But, you know, he said that he's learning some things for me too. So I take a little pride in that. That's good. That's good.

That's good. That's real good. One other thing on that. I coach myself and people that I coach sometimes is to do that thing you just said. When someone says, you know, John, you're a son of a bitch or whatever, it's just to go, just take a second and think about how could I respond? I can be fight back.

I can be neutral. Like, why don't you say that? Or I can be positive. Like, you know, you've got to have a reason to tell me that. You know, so you, you. We have choices, but you have to stop and think about A, B, or C. 100%. You do the same thing?

100%. I think I took out the A and I still wait between the B and the C now more than I used to. It's taken me a long time to get to that point, and I tried my best to not ever have that option A as the fight back. I try to make sure that it's always either neutral or trying to spend it as positive as possible. and I know it makes a lot of my friends sick half the time because they're like, you can't really think like this all the time. I'm like, it's like, I try to think like that all the time. So it's not that I'm thinking like that necessarily,

but I'm putting in the effort necessarily to be like, okay, like, yes, this sucks, but okay, you're asking me for advice. I'm going to give you the best advice I can on the most positive thing I can instead of falling for you wanting me to fall for, giving you the advice you probably want to hear, or something that's neutral, I'm going to try to make sure you understand that, like, there's a better way to look at this instead of falling into that trap because it's not going to help you or the situation to be in that much of a negative situation.

So, like you said, like, okay, why did this happen? Is there a way I can fix it to make sure that it doesn't happen again or that I can fix it and make it better for next time? Yeah, yeah, I love that. I just, I wish everyone could take that one second and think about my, is my intention here with my response versus what's the first thing I think of because that first thing is usually why did you say that well that's very cool there's another one that I liked about your intentional list kind of how you want to start every day you know tell us

about that part no you have to be very intentional with like how you want to start your days right so you want to be more concerned with how the day's going to be more positive and productive and not okay letting things happen to you like having an intentionality of okay my life's gonna be like I started more doing more journaling recently so I could be more intentional so I could be more disciplined to make sure that I'm thinking of the right things throughout the day so I can make sure that these things are getting done yeah so So that's for me being intentional is what do you want your life to be?

Yeah. And how do you want it to be perceived and then trying to work as much as you can to make sure that's happening? Yeah. And so if it's writing down a list or writing down a gratitude journal, but it's just knowing when you first start your day how you want your life to look and trying to strive for it as much as possible. Yeah. So a lot of people, and this is the way I was when I was in my 20s,

you wake up, you know, watch Sports Center, you know, get in the car, listen to the radio, get to work, check your messages, start working, you know. I mean, now I think it's got to be, you know, your affirmations, you know, review your goals, take some actions on your goals, work on your physical fitness. All those things should come first before, I mean, all those things. that I was doing are just complete, you're not only waste of time, they take you in the wrong direction. They take you in the wrong direction depending on what you're listening to.

Some people, more people now are getting into the mode of listening to more affirmations and meditations and stuff going to work, which is great. That's what you should be doing. And like you said, making sure you're waking up in the morning stretching, making sure you're getting your body moving. I try to meditate. I try to, when I'm at home in Florida. And at home in South Carolina when the weather's not freezing from time to time, I like to make sure I get up in the morning and go just try to ground and put my feet in the sand or put my feet in the grass somewhere.

I did it all the time when I was playing baseball. I would always make sure I got to the field early enough where I would go out and go walk around in the outfielder in the grass and just try to sit and relax and just try to just think about what I wanted to do that day and how I wanted the day to go and how I wanted the game to go for me personally. and how old are my body you feel. So I think it's the same thing. Like you just try to do that as much as possible. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

I've got a very detailed list that I start every morning. And there's some work stuff on there. There's some gold stuff, some affirmations, some stretching, some breathing. You know, it's just like, I tweak it all the time. Like if this isn't working right, put something else in there. But it's just so much better. you know, to have, it's almost like you've got a head start on everyone else because you've already done all this stuff.

And most people are just showing up at their job and starting, you know, and everything before that's just kind of a waste. No, 100%. If you get all that stuff done, which people don't understand, like if you do certain things like that, it's stacking small wins on top of themselves. Even if you're not realizing it, it's still doing small things. Like, even today, I was like, I know how to, I know how to,

a long day but at the same point I was like okay I know I need to go to the gym and if I don't go to the gym I'm going to feel some type of way just kind of like I said in my book like if I knew that the day after I pitched that I didn't go work out or whatever then I knew that I wasn't going to feel as good the next couple days or I wasn't going to feel as good my next start because I felt like I was missing something because it just the positivity and everything else to me being intentional with what I was doing just didn't line up with everything so even today like I said I was like, I need to go to the gym before I do all this, but I was like, I don't want to go to the gym. But it's stacking that little small one on top of everything else.

It's like, okay, now the day feels better, and I feel like I can make these meetings and these other things that I'm doing be so much more productive and so much more positive because I knew that I accomplished something that I didn't want to at first, but it turned into something. Yes, yes. That will link forward, right? The more of that kind of stuff you do when you don't want to makes it easier the next time. 100%. That's wonderful. Let's see if there's one more in here. I guess at the end of the book, in Chapter 9 you have a great quote that you put in here.

And it's something about we can't go back and control our beginnings, but we can start now and control our endings. Yes. I love that. Yes, for sure. I always think of the quote and the things where you can't change the past anymore. You don't know what the future holds at that point in time, but you can be where your feet are.

You can be where the president is because that's all you have at that moment. And your president can change the future, but you have to start where the president is. Everything beyond and before the president is is unknown at that time. So if you're where your feet are and you're in the present moment, then you can do things at that moment to try to change the outcome for good or for bad.

Yeah. But hopefully for good going forward. But you have to start in that moment, regardless of what happened before that. You see it sometimes with people that are incarcerated and come out, and you see it sometimes with them doing the opposite. Some will come out with a positive mindset, and then others will come out with a negative mindset and they end up going back in.

But the ones that come out with positive mindsets, they end up trying to help society and they end up doing it in some sort of way. And you see the success stories on that as well. But you try to just make sure from that present moment forward, you try to do as much good as possible. Yeah, I love that. I saw something.

It was some monk, Shaolin Monk or something, talking about life, which is pretty cool. But he was saying kind of the same thing. He goes, you know, our life is today. Everything that happened before today is gone. That's not our life anymore. 100%. And then tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

So we don't know. So like you said, right now is the life. 100%. I told my friends and family, and I know that, again, they probably get sick of me saying it all the time. I tell them every day, like every day I wake up is a blessing. And if I can wake up in the morning,

then I can figure the rest of the day out. But as long as I wake up in the morning, that means there's something else I was supposed to do. There's something I can find to make sure that I'm trying to help as much as I can. And I can try to make it as productive and positive as possible because there's a lot of people in the world that don't get to wake up every day.

So every day I do get to wake up. I try to make sure that I take it as a blessing and not for granted and just try to keep moving and figure out the rest of the day as positively and impacted as, you know, positive and be as happy as I can throughout the day. Yeah. Well, you're impressive and I think hopefully you can get more exposure to lots and lots of people,

old and young alike. It's a very good, very good that you put in the book. Nine innings to Living Your Best Life Available on Amazon? Yes, sir. Nice. Anyone heard of Amazon? All right. It's a great picture.

And then you're also doing camps. And you're available as a speaker? I'm available as a speaker as well for universities, baseball teams, you know, businesses, anybody that needs any uplifting motivation, anything that we can talk about, focus, discipline, any of those things I help people just, you know, try to live their lives and help, you know, be the best version of themselves. But also starting in January, we'll be starting the baseball mentorship app. And that's kind of my new adventure that I'm, you know, my new adventure that I'm,

I'm hoping I can bring some, you know, baseball IQ and some mentorship to this next baseball generation to help them be better baseball players on the field and better people off the field. So that's a global thing, right? I mean, they can access that globally. That is, that is completely global. We're doing camps all over for that as well. So looking forward to it. Good.

So what is, what's the best way to reach you if someone needs to reach you? The best way to reach me is at my Instagram, which is Jackson 5-8, but also at Smy. smiley j company.com, which is S-M-I-L-E-Y, the letter J-Company.com, and also at smiley-J-Busness at g-mail.com as well. Okay. So the Instagram, tell me that one again. Jacksland, 5-8, J-A-A-X. Jack's son. Jack's land. Jacksland. Jacksland. J-A-X-L-A-N-D-5-8. Okay. All right, well, if you can't find him, you can, you can, you can, you contact me, I'll find it for you. You can always find me.

Yeah. I'm thankful that you're here, and maybe I'd love if you come back like in a year and give us an update on all the stuff you're doing. 100%. I'll look forward to it. Got a lot of stuff. Hopefully that'll be going in the works. That'll be, you know. Can you teach me how to hit a baseball? I have coaches that can. I don't think I can do it anymore, but I have somebody that probably can for sure in the program.

Thank you so much for coming. We're so proud of you. I appreciate it. And we look forward to seeing what you do with all this knowledge to the rest of the world. Yes, sir. I appreciate. Thank you for having it. Okay.

Yes, sir. Well done.