Austin Scholar #36: The Four Skills That Made This Red Sox a 100 Million Dollar Contract Will Get Your High Schooler Straight A's

Oct 23, 2022

Hey, y'all!

This week, I got to interview JD Martinez–my favorite baseball player on the planet–about his secrets to success as an athlete.

It turns out, pretty much everything he does also translates as advice for high schoolers.

In this newsletter, I'm going to share everything I learned from JD Martinez about crushing your high school career.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This week from Austin Scholar...

Austin’s Anecdote: Interview With A Red Sox All-Star
The Four Skills That Made This Red Sox a 100 Million Dollar Contract Will Get Your High Schooler Straight A's
Scholar’s Sources: My Favorite Resources On Baseball–& Learning From Athletes

This past weekend, Austin, Texas defended its title as the live music capital of the world during ACL. From Lil Nas X’s insane dancers to P!nk actually flying in the air as she sang, ACL this year was electric.

Also super exciting: a three-week Liftoff program started on Tuesday. It’s so insanely cool to meet other teens who love to write :)

Austin’s Anecdote: Interview With A Red Sox All-Star

For those of you who don’t know, JD Martinez is a 5-time MLB All-Star, Hank Aaron award winner, 3-time Silver Slugger award winner, and World Series Champion.

He’s a pretty freaking good baseball player.

I’ve followed JD Martinez’s career since my baseball obsession began in 2018, when the Red Sox (the best team!) won the World Series.

So you can imagine, when I found out that JD Martinez was coming to Alpha High to inspire some high schoolers, I kind of freaked out.

And when I was told I could have the chance to interview him, my brain needed a few seconds to reboot.

The next few days were spent frantically trying to come up with interesting interview questions.

After the interview, I felt like my scrambling had paid off.

Here is my super awesome, super exclusive interview with Red Sox star JD Martinez:

In your interviews, you’ve talked about watching your game film after the game ends. What is it that you look for? And how do you stay objective?

Background for non-baseball fanatics: Martinez is notorious for meticulously going through game film and assessing where he could’ve improved.

I approach life trying to move forward and get better every single day.

Every day, I study my film, and I'm looking at my swings. I'm looking at pitchers. I'm seeing what each pitcher is doing, trying to figure out how they’re going to attack me. It's like a puzzle.

And I actually try to stay subjective and not beat myself up too much. There are 162 games, and if I kill myself on day one with negativity, then I won’t make it.

I have to find a little bit of positivity in everything. I just have to continue to inch my way closer to the top.

Everyone wants to get that mile right away. But if you just gain an inch every day, by end of it, you're gonna be on top.

In baseball, your abilities are constantly being evaluated–professionally and by fans. After 2014, when the Astros’ numbers indicated that you wouldn’t improve, you were able to turn around and hit 4 home runs against the Dodgers. How are you able to bounce back?

Background for non-baseball fanatics: Here is JD’s full journey–from being cut from the worst team in baseball to being an All-Star on the best.

It was that realization of “Okay–what I'm doing isn't working.”

I had to reinvent myself and ask myself “Who is JD Martinez?”

JD Martinez at the time was a mid-600 OPS guy. I had to realize that wasn’t going to move me forward.

I had to do something different if I wanted to succeed in this game.

One of my coaches told me I had to forget my feelings. I had to forget how I felt about myself–or who I thought JD Martinez was. I needed to look at the numbers and realize that was who I was.

Once I understood that, I was able to go out and completely reinvent myself and my swing–which ended up revolutionizing baseball hitting.

What is your daily routine during the regular season? Do you have any specific practices that keep you on top of your game?

I start in the morning. I head straight to the ballpark to practice hitting before the game.

And then, I study the pitcher for an hour before the game, trying to figure him out.

At the same time, I’m running the pitch in my head and visualizing the flight of the ball so that when I get in the box, I’m not seeing him for the first time. I’ve already seen his fastball 5,000 times that day, so I know how I’m going to hit it.

After the game, I break down the game film. Everyone usually just goes home to relax, but for me, it’s not over.

I break down the film and see where I messed up, where I can get better, and how I can help the people around me.

That’s what sets me apart from everyone else.

Before I go to bed, I create a game plan for the next day, so when I wake up and go to the cage, I’m not going in just to hit. I’m going in with a purpose.

I’m a big believer that if you see where you want to go, your brain will map it out.

If you don’t take “no” for an answer, you’ll find a way to get there.

Obviously, being at bat can be super high-stakes and has the potential to be debilitatingly stressful. What are your go-to practices to stay clear-headed and calm?

I feel that a lot of the planning that I do at night brings calmness to me when I get in the box because I'm confident in what I'm doing.

When I’m up next, I do a thing where I tighten up all of my muscles, then let it all go. It sends this soothing feeling over me.

And I constantly tell myself, “You got this,” and go through my plan.

What's my plan? What am I doing at the at-bat? What am I prepared for?

And I calmly step up to the plate because I know I did everything I can to prepare for that at-bat.

Is there any personal bias if you get traded to another team? You just spent at least an entire season trying to crush every other team, and now you’re on one of those other teams. Are there any remaining negative emotions?

There’s a little piece that you still have in you rooting for your old team.

But you have to understand that at the end of the day, baseball is a game. You have a new team, a new family that you're going to be a part of–and you’re just going to have to crush your old one.

Here’s a picture of JD and me at Alpha :)

The Four Skills That Made This Red Sox a 100 Million Dollar Contract Will Get Your High Schooler Straight A's

There are four key practices JD used to become one of baseball’s greatest hitters:

daily habits
receiving feedback
watching game film
mindfulness practices

JD explained how those skills won him a 100 million dollar contract, but I’m going to show you how those same four skills will get your high schooler straight A’s.

Daily Habits

Why Your Kid Needs Daily Habits:

Whenever you sleep, your brain strengthens all the connections and memories it began to form during the day. Sleep is the magic that allows you to remember things.

That’s why your kid can’t cram. When they cram a bunch of concepts in one night, they only allow the magic of sleep to work and strengthen memory bonds once.

If they practice a little bit every day, the repetitive sleep will cause every little piece of what they learned to be locked in–which will lead to straight A’s.

How Your Kid Can JD-ify Their Life:

Yes, Austin, it would be great if my kid studied every day instead of once before an exam. There’s no way to actually get them to do it, though.

Most kids balk against daily studying because they think they'll have to spend tons of extra hours for it to count.

In reality, if your kid sets aside 10-15 minutes of extra study time after homework to review flashcards every day (which uses spaced repetition, active recall, or other learning science techniques), their brain will be solidifying the connections and memories associated with the concepts every night.

Creating a short, consistent study routine is exponentially more valuable than ten hours of studying the day before a test.

Receiving Feedback

Why Your Kid Needs To Be Able To Receive Feedback:

Pretty much every single high schooler is extremely defensive. It makes sense–teens are still trying to figure out who they are, so any “suggestions” on how they could act differently can come off as an attempt to break down the individuality they’re working so hard to craft.

Unfortunately, this refusal to accept feedback (especially from parents) can lead to teens making some bad decisions.

How Your Kid Can JD-ify Their Life:

Okay, this tip is more for y’all. If you’re giving your kid feedback, tell them why. Don’t just say, “Your grades need to be better, or you’re grounded.”

Instead, say, “Here are the specific reasons that you should want to improve your grades, and here is how I’m going to help you do so.”

A coach isn’t just going to say, “Your swing sucks.”

They’re going to say, “Your swing isn’t working because you need to move your arm down, and if you don’t change it you’re going to keep missing the ball and won’t move up to varsity.”

Framing things in that way allows teens to be more receptive to feedback. Creating a habit of accepting feedback (starting with yours!) can allow them to receive feedback from anyone. And if they know how to deal with feedback, there’s no limit to how much they can improve.

Watching Game Film

Why Your Kid Needs To Watch “Game Film”:

Grades can feel super personal to high schoolers. It can feel like an attack on our whole person if we get a bad grade, so we don’t really want to try and fix it.

Also, there’s the whole “C’s get degrees” mentality that causes a lot of high schoolers to be complacent. They think they can get away with a surface-level understanding of ideas–and sometimes they don't think they can do much better.

How Your Kid Can JD-ify Their Life:

Instead of your kid just saying “I got a C,” encourage them to look at what they got incorrect. Is there a trend? Is there a specific concept that isn’t clicking? What learning holes do I need to fill so that I can improve?

Once they identify specific concepts that they’re struggling with, they can watch YouTube videos explaining them or use learning apps (such as IXL) that allow for targeting learning (here’s the newsletter where I talk about learning with online apps).

Mindfulness

Why Your Kid Needs Mindfulness:

I’m not going to lie: I didn’t see the value of mindfulness until I was practicing it every single day.

Mindfulness allows you to…

Know how to stay calm in stressful situations (As described by JD).
Not get stuck in your head.
Reconnect with the world.
Become aware of yourself, your body, and how you take up space in the world.

How Your Kid Can JD-ify Their Life:

I know that a lot of people like complicated mindfulness exercises and have twenty different breathing patterns for twenty different scenarios, but let’s be real: your kid is not going to be able to remember all twenty complex breathing exercises with an important test sitting in front of them.

I just have two mindfulness exercises: square breathing and 5-4-3-2-1.

Square breathing is simple: breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, breathe out for 4 counts, and hold for 4 counts.

When my AP Language and Composition test was placed in front of me, before I started freaking out, I used square breathing to center myself and clear my mind–which allowed me to complete the test without distracting thoughts.

5-4-3-2-1, which really helps me connect with the world and bring myself out of my head, is another one of my favorites. It’s simple. Identify:

5 things you can see.

4 things you can touch.

3 things you can hear.

2 things you can smell.

1 thing you can taste.

This is a super great 30-second practice that your kid can use as part of their daily routine. I go through this exercise on my walk to school. Mindfulness doesn’t have to take extra time.

Practicing mindfulness and being relaxed and connected on the regular will make it easy for your kid to do this when they’re in a high-pressure situation.

(Really, this is using daily habits and mindfulness–they all connect.)

Scholar’s Sources: My Favorite Resources On Baseball–& Learning From Athletes

Moneyball and Astroball are two of the coolest books, like, ever. Even if you don’t like baseball, I recommend reading these. I’m sure y’all have seen the Moneyball movie, and the books give a super awesome deep dive into the stories and statistics behind great baseball.

Of course, I have to support JD, so here is a video of JD’s insane hits and an interview where he mentions watching game film.

Finally, here is David Perell’s Learn Like An Athlete article. He provides a super detailed and clear explanation of how athletes train and how to translate their practices into learning new skills.

Thanks for reading. Go crush the week! See y'all on Sunday.