A (0:12)

I want you to imagine this, right? You're at a game, watching your son. It's the bottom of the ninth, right? Your son's up to bat, bases are loaded, game on the line, and he strikes out. Now, I know what you're thinking. Oh, man, I'd be pissed, right? You're fuming inside. Because honest with you, you've expected something of him, right? You've set this bar that you have for what you think he should be doing. And to be honest with you, I understand it, right? You've been paying all of this money, right, Going to all of these tournaments. You've been pouring money into coaches and all these various things. And I know you're thinking, like, what's all this? Even for now, that expectation that I'm talking about, right? The thing that you have in your head when you look at your son seems obvious to you, right? Doesn't it? But my question for you is, has you ever really shared that with your son? Have you ever really communicated what that expectation is that you have with your son? Now, I know you might be saying, of course I have, right? He knows what it is. How could he not know what it is? But if you've never actually had the conversation, if you've never turned those expectations into agreements that your son is making with you, then unfortunately, you're going to keep getting disappointed in him and he's ultimately going to keep being frustrated with you. That's just the reality. This thing that I'm describing, this expectations and agreement, this is the silent killer that crushed so many parent player relationships and leave a residual effect long into the future. And so in today's episode, we're going to be diving deep into how these unspoken expectations are setting not only you up for failure, but him too. And really how you can turn these clear expectations into agreements that ultimately are going to change the trajectory of your relationship and hopefully his baseball career. So I want you to stick around because this could be the game changer that your family needs. All right? So welcome back to another episode of the Most Valuable Agent Podcast. We are here to help travel baseball parents just like you, navigate the highs, the lows, and really everything in between. Make your son's travel baseball journey on the diamond as rewarding as possible. I'm your host, Matt Hannaford, and if you've been here before, you know that I'm an agent for Major League Baseball players, and I have been for the past 25 years. And in today's episode, we're talking about a leadership principle that, funny enough, Actually applies perfectly to travel baseball. But not just travel baseball. The relationships between parent and player in travel baseball. So you're going to hear why these hidden expectations are causing so much frustration, right? How they do more damage, unfortunately, than you even realize in the relationship that you have with your son. And then, most importantly, you're also going to learn how to apply some simple steps to really turn these expectations into agreements that are going to build trust, they're going to boost performance, and they're really going to make the whole experience that you guys have as a family much more enjoyable. So whether your kid is dreaming of playing college baseball one day, or maybe for him it's to be in the big leagues, this is your episode, please. So let's jump in. So let's start with the basics. So what's the difference between when I say expectation and agreement, right? What's the difference between the two of those things? So as parents in travel baseball, you guys all have expectations for your son, right? Things like, you know, I expect him to give 110%, not only a practice, but in games. I expect him to hit.300 this season. I expect him to strike out this number of batters, I expect him to help his team win in this faction, or I expect him to appreciate all the sacrifices that me as his parent is making. But here's the thing. These are often just in your head, right? You assume that your kid knows them, but you never really tell them, right? You don't ever articulate what those things are. They're really just unspoken assumptions about how you think they should act or how you think they should perform. Now, an agreement, that's different, right? It's a two way street. It's sitting down very specifically with your son and it's having a real conversation, right? Something like, hey, buddy, what do you want out of the season, right? What can I, as your dad, what can I do to help you achieve your goals? And in that situation, what you guys both get is you each get input and you both get to understand, most importantly, you both get to commit to those various things that you guys are articulating. So if I had to like give you a quick analogy, it's like going from being a dictator in the stands, right to a coach in the dugout. You're going from being collaborative and being empowering, right? It's a much different energy that you're bringing to the conversation. The. The expectation is one that is met with a lot of frustration, anger, where the agreement is one that's met with a lot of collaboration, if that makes sense. So to think about it, in baseball terms, an expectation is like assuming that a pitcher is going to throw or knows how to throw a curveball without really ever teaching him the grip. Right? But an agreement is actually practicing it together, working on it together, until you both kind of end up on the same page. And the thing that I want to tell you is when you make that shift, the one that I'm describing, you're going to see your son step up in ways that you never even imagined, and I'm sure, ways in which he never even really imagined. So the first thing that we got to do, though, is we got to talk about why those expectations are such a problem in the first place. So. Okay, so why do these unspoken expectations lead to so much trouble? Well, for my years as an agent in the business, I've seen it play out, unfortunately, time and time again, where these expectations, they're just not communicated. Right? So your son, he's got no idea that they're even there. He can't question them. He can't adjust the thinking. He can't even meet them half the time because he doesn't even know the rules of the game that you're playing in your head. So picture this. So you've got a tournament coming up this weekend, and as an example, you may expect that your son skips hanging out with his friends on Friday night. Right? Makes sense. You. You want him to rest up for the. For the tournament, but you never really tell him that. You never articulate it. You never tell him, this is what my expectation is for you. And he never gets to agree to it. So what ultimately happens? Well, he's just being a kid. So because you don't tell him, he ends up going out with his buddies, he comes home maybe a little bit late, and then he sucks the next day. And the outcome of that is you're left disappointed, and he's left, unfortunately, defensive. Right? Dad, why are you so mad right now? And you may say, well, son, I'm mad because you never should have been hanging out with your friends the night before this big tournament. Right? You're not taking this seriously is something that I've heard plenty of parents say to their sons. And of course, as I'm sure you would imagine, what do you think his response to that is? Right? Something like, what are you talking about? You didn't tell me this. I don't even know what you're referring to. Right. It's. It's as if you've had a conversation with someone and you expected him to be there, but he wasn't. What I'm describing, it's a no win situation. And the funny thing is, probably not even funny, the disappointing thing is, is let's just assume actually that he had rested and that he actually did play well. It's just what you expected. So I would assume there's probably not that much praise that you're even giving him. So the thing is, is when he succeeds without having an agreement, there's no praise. But when he fails, what happens? It's all frustration and you let him have it. So I've heard countless stories from parents over the years where all of these things just continue to build up. And there's one in particular that I want to tell you guys about. So this dad that I knew, he told me that, you know, he expected his 14 year old son to work on hitting every single day after practice in the cage, right? And of course the kid didn't. Not only did he not do that, but his grade slipped, he was burnt out. Suddenly there's a ton of yelling going on between him and his son. Naturally, the result of that is the morale between the two goes into the can. Unfortunately, his performance drops and the love for the game, naturally, it starts to fade, right? It's a lose, lose situation. So the thing that I'm describing though, in business they call it a leadership fail. And as parents, and I've said this before on this podcast, you're the CEO of your family. So these unspoken expectations, if you know that they're going to create resentment, if you know that they're going to kill his motivation and you know, ultimately there's an opportunity to turn that around and actually take advantage of what otherwise should be this exciting journey. You know, it no longer has to be this pressure packed experience and instead it could be, you know, this really good experience where all of you guys are coming together. So in this example that I gave you, let's just say that would look like you guys agreeing on his practice schedule together, right? Let's just say it looked like you articulating to him and really asking him the question, hey son, are you on board with not going out with your buddies tonight and resting up tomorrow? And if he says yes, now you have an agreement, if he says no now you have a conversation to have, right? And look, at the end of the day, you're the parent. But the point being is if he ignores the order and he goes out anyways and then performs bad the next day, well, now when you're Mad at him. He at least knows where this is coming from. Okay? So putting that aside, let's now start talking about the good stuff. So how you turn those expectations into agreements, that's where actually the fun lives. So, and I will say it's. It's actually simpler than it sounds, and it will, again, it's going to transform your relationship. So I don't know any reason why you wouldn't try this. So step one, I want you to start the conversation by sitting down, and it can be over a meal, after a game. Just make sure it's not after he had a bad game. So choose wisely when you do this, but after a game and say something like, hey, son. So I realize I've had some ideas in my head about what I want for you in baseball, but I realize I've never asked you, what do you want from this? What are. What are your goals this season? Right. And more importantly, what do you need from me in order for you to achieve them? You see, what I'm doing is you're. You're naming responsibilities both for you and for him. Okay? It starts to take shape, and you'll hear more about it in step two. So step two is you want to get specific, okay? So you want to lay out these roles and responsibilities. So something like, look, if we agree that you're going to go to practice, call it three times a week, okay? And I'm not talking about normal practice with high school. I'm talking about maybe additional work. If we agree that you're going to do this extra work three times a week, I'm going to make sure, as your dad that you're going to be working with the right coaches, you're going to have the right equipment, and I'll even drive you to the field. Right? That's my end of the bargain. And in turn, you're going to be showing up every single day, giving me 110%. Right? And the other thing that you want to add to this is you want to add specific timelines. So by the end of the month, let's check in on this and let's see how it's going. Right? And at that point, he may tell you, hey, Dad, I. I need. I need something else. And maybe that sounds familiar because oftentimes these kids always need more spikes or a new bat or whatever, but maybe he says, you know, I. I'm not really enjoying working with this particular coach. I think it would help me if I found a different one. Right? You're. You're setting Aside time to have these conversations. And that is a really, really important factor. So that was step two. Now step three is you want to make sure that you keep these lines of communication open, okay? So schedule these regular check ins, right? And it doesn't have to be a long period of time, just a quick chat every couple weeks. Hey, son, how's this working for you? Do we need to tweak anything? Right. And the thing is that I want you guys to understand is if he says to you specifically, hey, look, I want to achieve this goal, and he does it, you need to celebrate that win. You need to give him the reward, just your praise, and let him recognize you're paying attention, right? You're, you're not just frustrated at times, you're rewarding me when I do something well, right? Hey, high five, man. Like various things like that, you'd be surprised. Just one piece of positive reinforcement can go a long way for a kid. And the funny, funny thing enough is I've actually done this with my clients. And there's a specific one that, that I do remember having a specific conversation rather that I do remember having with a client where I expected him to do something that he didn't agree to, right? I expected him to do everything in his power to show up, to reach his goal. But he never really acknowledged that he was committing to it. And I never asked him the question, what are you committed to? And so after this one particular conversation, we made an agreement. He owned that agreement. And then his commitment improved because of it. And he was no longer, unfortunately, this commitment was no longer just in my head, it was in his. And we were working together and I was now able to hold him accountable. So naturally, what ended up happening is when something didn't happen that he said he would do, I got to call him out. And then he owned it. You see that? Because I had made an agreement with him, when I called him out, it wasn't coming out of left field. Immediately he knew, oh, you're right. I said I would do that and I didn't. That's on me. That's how we're going to use this to shape behavior. Okay? And one of the things that I want you guys to realize is how easy and how inspiring this is when you see players take ownership. Now, I think sometimes parents, they hear this and they think, well, my son's never going to do that, right? He's never going to take ownership of anything. But most of the time, believe it or not, it's not a matter of you needing to tell him stuff more. So if you assume that you never, ever did this work, it's not a matter of you like, oh, I have to tell him better. That doesn't work. Right? That's where the wall's up and he's rejecting what you're saying. Instead, it's more a matter of you inviting him into a conversation with you, but then having the conversation where you turn that expectation into your head, into an agreement. And if you can do that, you're no longer going to feel like you're talking at him, but instead with him. Right. You're going to now feel like a better parent. And trust me, he's going to feel empowered because of it. So I want to challenge you with this. I want you guys to give this a try. Honestly, it's the easiest thing to do. It just takes having a conversation. I know we've covered a lot today. So as a result, I want to recap this thing real quick. Just the key takeaway. So first, expectations, all they are are unspoken assumptions that set everybody up for frustration. Okay. The second takeaway, these things create defensiveness. They kill motivation in your relationship with your son and you don't want to do it. Okay. And then third, to turn that expectation into agreement, it happens through open dialogue, clear responsibilities, and then ongoing check ins. And it ultimately, as I've articulated up to this point, it's going to boost performance, it's going to bring you both closer together. And it's honestly, it's going to take you from being on different pages to finally feeling like you're on the same team, working together to accomplish his goals. All right, so if this resonated with you, I'd like you to hit the subscribe button so you do not miss future episodes. Leave a review on your favorite platform. You may not know why I asked you to do that. It actually helps other parents find us. And then check out our YouTube channel for more tips on travel baseball. And then lastly, guys, we've done some really cool episodes recently that are coming to you guys here soon. So I recently sat down with Gus and Hugh Quattlebaum. Now, Gus, that name may sound familiar. He's been on the podcast before. He's a seasoned baseball executive for the Boston Red Sox and he has spent his entire career in scouting. And then we had his brother Hugh on as well, who is a father himself to three young baseball players. And he has spent his career in various hitting roles throughout Major League Baseball, both as a director of hitting in major league organizations, an assistant big league hitting coach, head big league hitting coach. And with Hugh, we talk about his upcoming book, don't Be that Coach. And we look at very practical things that you can do as a parent to ensure that your son ultimately is doing everything that he needs to do to make sure that he's getting better. So also did an episode with a client of mine and MLB All Star Austin Riley and his parents, where we discussed the draft. And you're going to hear from his mom and dad, Mike and Elisa, about what that experience was like for them. And then lastly, I recently sat down with the father of the top prospect for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Connor Griffin. His dad, Kevin, who I interviewed, is actually a college softball coach. And that is in response to a listener who requested that we had a softball coach on. And so we talk a lot about, you know, the various things in travel, baseball that we're all dealing with, how that also applies to softball as well. So, guys, I cannot thank you enough. Thank you for tuning in to the Most Valuable Agent podcast. I want to leave you with this question. Mom and dad, what are you doing to become more valuable to your son? I'll see you next time.