Greg Aument

In 1992, current Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy found himself seated next to Muhammad Ali. So he asked him: "Where did all the bragging come from? Were you always like that?" Ali leaned over and said quietly: "I was scared to death." Three decades later, Murphy just led the Milwaukee Brewers to a World Series championship. That Ali quote stuck with him, he realized: "We all are (scared). Who we kidding. Fear is part of it. If you learn to use it like fire, it can do a lot of great things. If you don't, it can burn your house down." Too often, we walk around with this idea that the best performers aren't scared. That they are relentless, alphas, who bulldoze through whatever they're feeling. It's BS. The greatest of all time felt fear. We all do. The point is how do we navigate and channel it. Feeling fear and knowing what to do with it are different things. For much of his early career he coached the other way entirely: hard, blunt, and, by his own account, driven by his focus on himself. He had real success with it, until he was forced to resign as a college coach in 2009. Then he went through a litany of minor league jobs. Along the way, with help from journaling and counseling he started to fundamentally change how he coached. One of the catalysts was becoming a parent. "And I started thinking about it like, every kid I coach is somebody's Kai Joseph. You know what I mean? Every kid I coach, they have parents who love their kid the way I love my kid... Wow, I've got to be a little mindful how I treat these guys." He eventually landed on a different definition of success: "This profession isn't about the wins and losses. This profession is about, how do I impact this person?" You can see that switch in how he's guided the Brewers to become the best team in baseball. It was there when he didn't go to his closer in a save opportunity, as Trevor Megill said, "We’re not here for egos, we’re here to win a ring.” It's there in his coaching philosophy for the team: He calls it love and discipline. In that order...not too dissimilar from how you parent... The Brewers are the World Series Champions. They did it with a closer who checked his ego, a first baseman nearly retired but returned for health insurance, and a manager who had to let go of the way that led him to early success and rebuild how he coached. In the actual arena, performance is messy. It's not the cheap slogans we're sold online. We're all afraid, even the greats. You have to figure out how to direct it. You have to care, but not so much that it feels life and death. You need discipline, but it's got to be founded on love. And sometimes you need a 67 year old coach who was a tyrant, let go, and had to find a new path...to lead a small market team to the top of the MLB.