Episode 02
A CONVERSATION WITH JEREMY GUTHRIE
UNCHARTED PATHS WITH JEREMY GUTHRIE
Let me tell you: this is a man who lives his life with a lot of meaning and intention.
During our conversation, we talked about his professional baseball career and his triumphs and struggles, his spirituality and connection with God, as well as his massive sneaker addiction (he considers himself an OG sneakerhead).
Here are some of my favorite takeaways:
-
Your mistakes don’t define you forever, so don’t let the fear of making a mistake keep you paralyzed from moving forward. Just do the best you can and keep going.
-
Finding good coaches and mentors in your life is vital because they will see things in you that you can’t even see in yourself. For example, Jeremy had coaches who believed in him while he was still up-and-coming in the big leagues. I had people like Todd Pedersen who pumped belief into me and my potential in sales. The best mentors and coaches expand your vision beyond what you think is possible and then fill you with the energy to go and realize that potential.
-
Your choices big and small compound into your destiny. Want to know where you’ll be in 10, 20, 50 years? Analyze the choices you’re making on a daily basis, and you’ll find that they all point in a general trajectory that is either taking you closer or farther from your goals.
-
Losers are selfish. Selfish people repeatedly lose. In a sport like baseball where players are often competing to be MVP, Jeremy learned that if you instead strive to unite with and uplift everyone on your team you can conquer any competitor—even famous MVPs on other teams. It’s all about the abundance mindset.
-
Sometimes your failures end up being the most special parts of your journey. Both myself and Jeremy had moments where we knew our baseball careers were over (although mine ended long before his) and in that moment you might feel like the world is ending, when in reality that is often God getting you ready for the next (and even better) phase of your life.
I’ve known Jeremy for a long time and I’m grateful for his example of faith and persistence in my life. If you know of any support groups for recovering sneaker addicts, please let me know and we’ll get Jeremy the help he needs haha.
.jpg)
MY FAVORITE INSIGHT FROM THIS EPISODE:
The first step to growing your faith is action.
In my podcast with Jeremy Guthrie, we had a long talk about his pro baseball career, but we also talked a lot about his faith. I’ve known Jeremy for a long time, and his faith is something I’ve always looked up to. During our conversation, he told me it doesn’t come easily.
According to Jeremy, action must come before faith. You can have faith in yourself because you’ve proven yourself before. Or you can have faith in a business or person or community because you’ve had experiences with them and seen what they can accomplish. Without having multiple personal experiences with that person or thing, you don’t have faith—you only have hope. And faith is the next step above hope.
The same applies to faith in God. Jeremy talked about how you don’t get faith in God by just learning the difference between right and wrong or by having faithful examples in your life—you get faith by having powerful, personal experiences with God where He becomes real to you. And getting those experiences takes a lot of work and effort, they usually don’t just “happen”.
He also mentioned that it doesn’t matter if you feel like you are a person whose faith comes easily or perhaps struggles with faith—God loves everyone, and He will patiently work with you as long as it takes because He has great blessings in store for both types of people.
I really admire and look up to people like Jeremy who make their faith a priority in their lives. He gave up baseball contracts to go serve a mission, and then afterward continued to make his faith a priority during his pro baseball career even when it was inconvenient and costly.
Faith was only a portion of what we talked about on this podcast episode, so go give it a listen if that interests you: https://bio.site/casestudies