Speaker 1: They always teach us in radio one thought per break.
Why can't I have a podcast it does the same thing,
or maybe several podcasts seventeen different subjects and walks of
life Ero dot net A R. R Oe dot Net.
Thank you so much for supporting me over the years. Jeremy,
how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Good errow? How are you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic and very excited to share a conversation with
you because I in reading this book and experiencing this book.
My God in heaven, why does an ESPN cover this
while you're doing it? You know what I mean? Why
do we always have to find out about how great
you are and how you've made your way through storms?
Why do we have to wait till the opposite end
of the book?
Speaker 3: A right, Yeah, it's kind of Those are the kind
of things man that they fall through the cracks.
Speaker 2: But you know, hey, man, set up man.
Speaker 3: They're the scapego right, They're the ones that it's their
fault if you lose, but if you end up winning
the game, it's the starter and the closer that gets
that deal that the middle of really guys, they man,
it don't get a lot of publicity, so it's probably
the same way in the situation, you.
Speaker 1: Know, So where along that happens the line, though, did
you pick up on the art of because because you
know how it is that the more experience you get,
the more that you know that the people will come in,
your managers and stuff will see I need you to
do this, and your comment is basically hmm, all right,
I hear what you're saying. But then you know, deep inside,
I don't know in all my years, there's no way
this would work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: It's it's like one of those things man, where you
just kind of you got to learn one.
Speaker 2: You gotta trust your manager. And so when he.
Speaker 3: When he's what he's telling you to do certain things,
and he's telling you to take on something, you don't
trust him at first, you tow align with them a
little bit. I did that with Bochi several times until
Game six of the Phillies in twenty twelve, but are
excuse me twenty ten game six and then I kind
of trust him for the rest of my career after that.
Speaker 2: So it was it's just something you do, man.
Speaker 3: You guys got to trust them, and they think out
a bunch of you thought outside the box quite a
bit but uh, it was. It was definitely he put
me in a lot of storms, I can tell you that,
and I had to trust the fact that he believed
in me, and he says you and he's the one
that said, I think you're built for this storm. And
when I put you in it, you're built for it.
And that's kind of also part of how I see
the book.
Speaker 1: Well, see, this is the way that I look at it. Yeah,
you went through the storms, and the thing is is
that you learn from the storms, and now it's our
turn to learn through you. So vicariously, we're learning through
you personal experiences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's kind of how I see it in
these situations. You know, I think that, you know, writing
a book. You know, I've written one other book. I've
written two other books. One never went to never never
got to market because I wrote it during the storm
that I went through in a divorce, and I was
never allowed to put it to print, which is okay.
But the first one was about my stuff with life
justin Major League Baseball and how I got into the
injustice movement of human trafficking and trying to help out
with that and deal with the water well situation over
in Africa.
Speaker 2: That was a big part of my life early on.
Speaker 3: But this book here, you wonder why you go through
things in life right, and you wonder why baseball scenarios
and why what I learned so much through baseball. And
it wasn't just about succeeding. Yes, did we succeed a
lot in the game. Yes we did. I will say
I'm glad it worked out the way it worked out.
Speaker 2: But I learned so much through my you know, you know,
the storms.
Speaker 3: That I took on, and I learned when it didn't
work out, I taught so much, so much more. But
what I did realize is no matter what storm in
baseball I had to take on, whether through learning teachable
moments of failure or successes, they all made me a
better person. And I realized that I took them all
on and I charged them. And I wanted to quit
baseball so many times when I was in the major leagues,
I just wanted to quit and go home, and I
never did.
Speaker 2: I kept pushing them through and kept dealing with it
and kept learning.
Speaker 3: It made me the better picture, and it made me
a picture I was able to be in San Francisco.
And then when this storm hit my own marriage where
I lost that marriage after twenty two years, and then
I had three sons. I had to weather that. And
that's what this book is about. It's not about losing
the marriage. It's not about divorce. This is a book
that I want my sons to read, and I want
them to read it with with pride. But it's about
seeing that their family, the family that we were a
part of for so long, that they were in for
so long, fell apart, but it's been rebuilt because I
chose to take that storm on.
Speaker 2: I chose to run at that storm.
Speaker 3: I chose to protect my sons from the situations, and
the next thing I know, they're doing great. They're eighteen, fifteen,
and thirteen. My eighteen year old lives with me full time.
He's lived me full time for four years. The fifteen
or fifteen and thirteen year old have a split time
between their mother and I. And then I've been married
for three years to a beautiful woman who, believe it
or not, I call it the buffalo mentality. But she
when I met her, she owned her to buffalo and
so it was just it was just awesome. And she
knows all about that mentality, and she understands them, and
she's helped me take on so many of the storms,
even these ones. But she's also got to hear the
stories of the storms that took on in baseball, even
to a point where an Indian chief came up to
me and I talk about it in the book. Had
an amazing encouragement for me, which made this book even
that much more needing to be written. And I believe
people can learn from and that's what I want. I
don't want people to look at it as like, oh,
he's doing you know, poor me. It's not a poor me. Actually,
I'm happy I went through the storm. I absolutely am happy.
I wouldn't wish it upon anybody, but I am not
ever going to give it back. And I learned so
much and I'm a better man because of it. I'm
a better husband, I'm a better father, I'm a better human,
and I've got a better view on life. And I'm
hoping that's what this book does, is when you read it,
become you have a courage to become something that you
were always built for. And that was the take on storms.
They're inevitable, they will come, they will come at you.
It's going to happen. It is going to happen. It's
just how you handle them. And that's what I want
this book to be an encouragement for.
Speaker 1: All Right, you got my attention in so many different
ways there, mister Jeremy, only because you said buffalo's you
said Native American. Okay, this is what I study. I
study animal total totemism. I study Native American spirituality. The
buffalo means that you that you have to learn how
to trust whatever you need and focus on appreciative and
be grateful for all that you have and clear out
your surplus goods and recycle those items. When I saw
that buffalo on that front cover, my heart went it
instantly went, oh, this is a man who has learned
how to really incorporate winning, being a choice, move through
it and be be a buffalo, be the animal totem
and and I just I just love your honesty and
transparency on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That that's kind of what it was for me. You know,
like when you look at a buffalo, they take on
a lot of life and they handle everything they do.
They protect their young, uh, they protect their they protect
their their females. The males protect each other when they
charge storms and they take them on, they plow through
through snow. They I mean they are they're a lot
of times in the winter you'll see picture of the
buffalo and their faces covered in snow because they're always sitting,
they're always looking at it.
Speaker 2: They're not looking away from it.
Speaker 3: They're going right at it, or they're plowing it. And
when one gets tired, they come up and they help push.
I mean, that is a team effort, man, because they
do they do do everything. But then not even that,
but so much stuff that I learned about the buffalo
and the way culture has won. I mean, we destroyed
the buffalo, which is really really sad, but for me,
the way they're originally for I mean, there was a
reason why the Native Americans were literally thankful when they
harvested it. They were thankful they did. It was a
thankful thing because that animal provided so much life, whether
it be their bone marrow, their meat, their bones, their capes,
I mean, they're bladder was used for bulls, I mean
like everything. They used every part of that animal to
sustain their life. And for me, that's what it's all about.
And if I have that mentality, man, it is about
if I had to take on this storm to be
able to send a message that would helps, that would
help sustain other people's lives. I'm willing to do that,
and especially my sons, and if it helps them in
life to become the best men they can possibly come
learned from my mistakes. That was not perfect. Divorces don't
happen because one person's perfect and the other one it's not.
I can promise you that. So you know, divorces happened
because it's just not going to work out, and and
people didn't do things right all along the way. And
I was just able to kind of say, hey, man,
I didn't do anything right. I didn't want it to happen,
but it happened. And met but man, who I got
to meet my wife now, she's amazing, And so I'm
very thankful for that because that storm in one of
my favorite storms or what excuse me, one of my
favorite songs. My wife and I love this guy named
Gary Allen. He writes a storm called a song called Storms,
and in that he has a line that says, every
storm runs out of rain. And to me, that's what
take on. And I looked at I'm may looking at
my wife now and I'm like that storm in the past,
round out of rain. I got on the other side
of it. I took it on. The sun came out.
I I met my bride that I'm married to now
for three years, and I'm like, look, I got to
meet you. The boys got to meet you. We got
to have you know. My boys are they're healthy, Our
boys are strong. Our boys understand storms. They know the
buffalo mentality. They're all about it. And I tell it,
I'm willing to do that. And I think that's what
buffalo mentality and buffaloes do and representing.
Speaker 1: It well, please do not move. We'll be right back
with Jeremy A Felt, the name of his book, Built
for the Storm. We are back with three time world
champion Jeremy a Felt. Well, you're coming out with this
book at the right time. And because I don't know
how much you get into the public eye or go
to a grocery store, even a home deep or lows,
a lot of men are with their boys as well
as girls. And a book like this is when you
sit down with your kids and say, you know what,
we can get on with this buffalo mentality. We can
really work together on this because I'm seeing more men
in a leadership role today than I ever have because
my dad never played that role. And so to hear
you see it and to hear you talk about it,
I'm so freaking jealous of you and your family because
you're giving your son something I didn't get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I'm sorry about that, But I
can appreciate your message there because it is super important
and in a day and age right now where we're
trying to you know, honestly, for me, I think we're
trying to limit the male influence in a child's life
or a leader. Let's just put a leader. There are
women that can be unbelievable buffalos, like I mean, they're
amazing buffalo. I mean, don't get me wrong on that
at all. I just think that, you know, for all
of us, we have to be able to lead our
children really really well, not give in to what culture
maybe would say is right or wrong. But it's like, hey,
no want to. I want to make sure that when
you leave my house, whether you're a single mother, single
f married, you're a great team. It doesn't matter. When
the children leave the house, are they prepared to take
on the world storms Because there's a lot of them.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of them, and.
Speaker 3: Are they prepared for it? And so I think for
the last ten years, I don't know if we've prepared
him very well. But you're starting to see a change.
You are starting to see that change. You are correct.
I do get out quite a bit, you know. I
own a brewery here in Bernie, so I see a
lot of it. I see a lot of We're a
family friendly breweries, so we see a lot of kids
with their families. But man, I'll go down. I got
a buddy and we go down to the ranch. I
do hunt, and I'm hunting on a ranch at least
that we go down. We take care of the land
down there and we help it out that one of
the guys brings his son down. His son is nine
years old. I believe you're ten years old. He already
drives a truck and a trailer. This kid back, he'll
go get it. And to me, it's like that's unbelievable
because he takes He's like.
Speaker 2: No, we're gonna do this, We're gonna learn this. And
for me, that's what it's all about.
Speaker 3: And being able to be that leader where your kids,
your sons or daughters can be like, I want to
thank you how much to resist you. I've got teenage
boys eighteen, fifteen, and thirteen. They might think I'm dumb.
They'll roll their eyes, they're like, I'll tell you such
a nag. Or my wife Candace the way, Candas, he's
always nagging, as you can do that now, And that's fine.
We're willing to take that on because when you're twenty five,
I want you to look back at us and say
thank you.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'll be more appreciative of is the
fact that you say thank you for preparing me, not
looking at me and say, Dad, why didn't you prepare us?
Or Mom, why didn't you prepare us? I don't want
to hear that. And that's what this book's kind of
all about.
Speaker 1: Are you teaching your kids to put pen to paper
to write only, because if we don't document our path,
we're going to forget about it and we're gonna make
it up along the way. When they do turn twenty five,
they're gonna say, I think this is what my dad
was saying. No, go back to your books, go and
you know and read what your dad did tell you
physically in that moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'll be honest with you. I don't probably
feel focus on the pen to paper as much. We're
storytellers in this family. My dad so, my dad was
a storyteller. He was awesome and he still is. He
tells her he wrote a book himself and it was
a story, and within the story, it's about a pirate.
Within that story, he has the boy's names throughout the
whether it be the name of a ship, or the
name of a character or the name of the boy's
names are in it. He loves telling story and he
taught me how to speak. My dad's very good. He's
a master's degree in communications. He taught me how to speak.
And I use what he tells me. That what he's
always trained me to do. I teach and talk through story.
I don't use a lot of like notes. I use
stories about things that have happened to me. And I
have a lot of baseball stories, obviously, but I have
a lot of these stories. And it's what this book's
all about. It's about story, and it is not made up.
It's about my story, but not to tell all. It's
not a dig It's my story and what I want
people to learn and be encouraged by because of the story.
Speaker 2: And so I've told my sons. We tell a lot
of stories.
Speaker 3: And my oldest son is a very good communicator, and
he's a businessman, and he can sell you a used toy,
you know, from ten years ago, like it's new. He
can sell anything to you, but he tells it true
story and he enjoys telling stories.
Speaker 2: So they're learning more that way, pen to paper.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I wish we probably would do that a little
bit more, but this world we live in keeps that
from happening sometimes, so's you got to be a little
more intentional.
Speaker 2: But we do talk about stories a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, see I love that and the reason by being
And hopefully this doesn't cross the line. But you can
go back to the greatest storytellers of all time. I
do remember those preachers and disciples ever carrying a book
with him. They were always telling stories. I mean, that's
exactly what it's all about. It's about sharing that experience.
Speaker 2: That's right. Parables.
Speaker 3: Parables are a big thing, and that's all it was
a telling parables and giving examples.
Speaker 2: You know, A long time ago, I.
Speaker 3: Learned from a man named Tim Elmore and he writes
books called habitudes Attitudes of habit, and every single one
of these attitudes of habit come with a word picture
and talks about the It talks about the picture, talks about.
Speaker 2: What it is.
Speaker 3: And it's like, Okay, I talk to kids in schools.
I do them all the time. He does one called
the thermostat and the thermometer, and he's like, okay, what
does it represent. Well, a thermostat, you know, what does
that do? Sets the temperature in the room. What's the
thermometer do reflects the temperature of the room?
Speaker 2: Great, Well.
Speaker 3: Leaders are thermostats, they set the temperature. Followers are thermometers,
they reflect the temperature. And there will be leaders and
there always will be followers. It's not necessarily a negative thing.
Sometimes we make followers a negative thing. That's not necessarily true.
People are some people are not meant to set the
temperature of the room. Some people are to reflect the temperature.
But you can lead through reflecting the temperature as well.
And so for me, you know, I tell those things
the kids because those are stories. Those are things they
can look at and remember and learn and be a
part of. And I'm all about it, and I think
that's what you said like back in the day. Man,
that's parables. Man, That's that's what they That's what they did.
They told stories with a message behind them because people
will remember that rather than just here's a bullet here's
a bullet message here you know, you know, don't steal
a car?
Speaker 1: Yeah cool?
Speaker 2: Why like tell them why you do? As well?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you about something you know? You know
all these things you know I I Warren Buffett. He
puts out a funny one. He goes, you want to
teach your kids about taxes, give him an ice cream
comb and say hold on and eat a third of
it in front of them, and they'll teach them about taxes.
Like but that the kids will get it then, righty,
Like what that's stinks? Well, it stinks, but it's life.
So understand that, you know, and so those are kids,
those are those are important things. Is story, and that's
kind of what I did in this book. There's there's
teachable there's teachable moments in this book, no doubt, but
it comes through story. And that's what's super important.
Speaker 1: I think one of the greatest allignes is the fact
that you work with all people that are on that field.
And what I mean by that is is that you
know that poor person out there in right field. I
mean it's like, man, the ball ever hardly ever goes
out in your direction, but I still need you when
it does. And it's like, how do you find that
trust even in the shortstop, Because if that shortstop does
not have a good relationship with that person on first base, ah, hell,
it's not good. So therefore you've got to be able
to be that leader on that mound going all right,
we're all together here, right, all right, let's be buffalo people,
and let's move through this snowbank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: A lot of you'll see a lot of good guys
that like to play behind guys, and you'll see guys
that don't like to play behind guys. They get flat footed,
they don't make that extra step, and it's not because
they're trying to sabotage them. It's because they're bored and
they're like, man, this guy you know, or this guy,
this guy's just gonna yell at me. But I've seen
the good leaders that guys will lay out for even
if they don't get it, they make sure that they
get dirty for are the ones that when they don't
do it, they look at them. You know, if you're
shortstop boots of ball, right, it's the air boots the ball.
You look at that short stop and I'm like, hey,
I'm gonna get you another one because now you're going
to turn a double play for me. So we're still
going to get two outs, but I'm going to get
you another ground ball, so be ready for it. And
when he gets another ground ball, he does it. You
freaking fist buff of them. As you've run off the field,
you're all smiling. That guy will lay out for you.
He will die for you. He will make unbelievable plays
for you. He will find a way to get it
done because of how you treat him and how you
take care of them.
Speaker 1: Are you going to do a podcast? Because I really
in listening to your vocal tones and you're pitching your
volume and everything. I just it's almost like, I want
this book, but I also want the next level, either
a podcast, something on video where you're sitting down with
all these sports people and you're talking about exactly what
we're talking about. This is real life. That's a game,
which is real life, but this is real life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should pull it up. I've I have a
podcast called Built for the Storm. Actually, and what I
do is I do two of them. So one of
them is I being affluential people on and I do
not talk about your successes. I talk about what has
happened in your life, what storms have happened in your
life that allows you to be who you are today,
or what has happened in your life that allows you
to take on storms a certain way. I've had guys
that one of my good friends is on there that's
been was in the cat Bacteria of Columbine when the
shooting happened. He was on the floor and he was
he was he was trying to get out and he
was a young life guy for that still students and
was in the I've had a widow of her husband
was one of the first guys up from the from
the ten building, which is.
Speaker 2: Right across from the towers. He went up, He went
into work that day.
Speaker 3: Just as like it took an extra shift, went up,
never came back when the towers fell. I've had Buster
on there talking about his stuff when he got hurt.
I've had I've had so many great stories on there,
and I with a brewery. Sometimes they get really busy,
so it slowed up, and I'm gonna start doing them again.
Speaker 2: I just revamped my entire podcast room.
Speaker 3: We put cameras and all kinds of stuff, but I
have I have quite a few podcasts on there now.
And then the other one I do is I do baseball.
I do sports per a conglomerate out of San Francisco.
I do I do Built for the Storm, the sports,
and I bring guys on or I talk about I
go on rantsom how I've used certain scenarios that take place,
But I do do a human inside and that's actually
one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 1: God, twenty minutes with you is not enough, dude. You
got to come back to this show so we can
continue digging into the process of everything that becomes our
moment of Now. Yeah, that's great, excellent, Well please come
back anytime. Man. Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks Eric, appreciate it, man,