A Conversation With Brandon Barnes...Former MLB player

Throughout our  chat, Brandon doesn't hold back on the personal sacrifices that come tethered to professional triumphs. Imagine stepping off the field after hitting for the cycle, only to be hit with the life-changing news of expecting a second child. This episode is all about the balance—between exhilarating highs and grounding moments, between family and fanfare, and between physical prowess and mental fortitude. It's a heartfelt reminder of the importance of resilience, not just in the game, but in every inning of life.

As our time together rounds third and heads for home, we talk about the inevitable shift from athlete to former athlete, a transition as mentally demanding as any championship game. From swinging bats to real estate deals, Brandon is an ace at finding new avenues of success, and he's committed to helping others do the same. Wrapping up, he shares a playbook of life lessons for anyone stepping up to their own personal plate, whether in sports, business, or the daily grind. This isn't just an episode for baseball fans—it's for anyone ready to take a big swing at life's pitches.

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Transcript

Brandon Barnes

Coach Riley 0:33

Welcome to the 6am Practice Podcast. I'm your host, jace Riley. Today, I'm honored to talk to Brandon Barnes. He's a former Major League Baseball outfielder who's played all over the place. He played in America, he played in Korea, multiple teams. He started back in high school, at Cattell High School in Anaheim, where he played both baseball and football. His early experience in balancing both sports is an inspiring example for young athletes about the importance of playing dual sports.

Coach Riley 1:02

In his professional career, brandon played for Major League Baseball teams such as the Astros, the Rockies and the Cleveland Indians. His notable achievements include hitting for the cycle with the Astros in 2013, a very rare accomplishment in baseball and throughout his MLB tenure, his adaptability and his skill shown as he navigated the challenges of playing in a highly competitive sports environment. Brandon's career statistics in the MLB are a testament to a skill and dedication on the field. Over his career, he achieved a 242 batting average, smacked 20 dingers and notched up 102 RBIs. It's a journey that exemplifies the possibilities that arise from hard work, adaptability and a never say never attitude. Brandon, welcome to the show.

Brandon Barnes 1:45

Thanks for having me.

Coach Riley 1:46

Appreciate it, coach, absolutely. And I mean you've been to this show right and I just welcome to this show. You've been to the show right, so that's huge. That is so huge. So you started out in high school. You played dual sports. You worked through, you're playing in the majors. You know what an amazing ride it's been so far.

Brandon Barnes 2:07

Yeah, it's been a blessing. You know I got to live my dream for 16 years professionally and got to the highest level. You know whether I thought I was going to make it or not. I was going to ride that dream as long as I could. And, you know, just an honor to be able to step on the field with some of the greatest players.

Coach Riley 2:25

I would imagine. I mean a lot of the athletes. You get to these higher levels, right, you know, you're in college, you know, and if you're lucky enough, you make it to the pros, and you're right. You're playing with like the 1% of the 1% right Of 8 billion people in the world. You've got these high caliber athletes. But yet did you view yourself as a high caliber athlete, or was it still like these are my idols? And I mean because you made it, you were there.

Brandon Barnes 2:57

Yeah, I always viewed myself as a high caliber athlete, not a high caliber baseball player, because I was more of a football player growing up in high school. You know that was what I thought I was going to do for the rest of my life. And you know, when you get thrown into the draft of the MLB and then you sign a contract and you go play professional baseball, you find out real quick that you're not the best dude out there. You get humbled very quickly and I did my first two years. But I always knew I was a high caliber athlete. I knew I was one of the best athletes on the field. Just might not have been the best hitter or best all around baseball player. Right.

Coach Riley 3:35

And doing some research on you. You know highly defensive player, right? You know what I mean. There's a saying, you know offense sells tickets, defense wins championships. But I want to go. I want to circle back to what you mentioned about playing football, right? So let's go back to your high school days. You're playing baseball and you're playing football. Are you playing on both at the same time? Is one more to stay in shape for the other one? Like there's basketball players that wrestle just for conditioning? So walk us through. Like you know, you got junior high. You got high school. What sport did you start playing first and then? How did you make the transition and when did you make the transition from dual sport to one sport? Yeah, I grew up, you know.

Brandon Barnes 4:11

I think from the moment I can remember I grew up thinking about four years old. I always had a bat and ball in my hand. Baseball was my passion. It was my first love. It was, it was the thing that I knew that I always wanted to do. And it wasn't until I got into high school, you know. I started playing football, tackle football around 10 years old and fell in love with it as well. I just liked the. I was able to go out there and take some aggression out and hit somebody and not get in trouble. What position did you play?

Coach Riley 4:41

Man, I started. I took a lot of time.

Brandon Barnes 4:44

Man. I started 10 years old. I was an offensive guard and then the next season I was a full back and then played linebacker and as I got up I started to get into more position, you know, like defense, offense and then being a wide receiver and a safety. And essentially when I got to high school, my freshman year, I was the starting quarterback as well as the starting safety. So I never really came off the field. I returned punts, I returned kickoffs, I did the kickoffs, I punted. You know I loved being on the field, I hated sitting on the sidelines.

Brandon Barnes 5:17

So high school came and I played football and baseball different seasons. Football always came first. So you know you train over the summer and for me football helped me become physically strong for baseball. It made me stronger than all the guys that weren't playing football Because in football you got to train and you got to train to get hit every day. You got to be big, fast, strong and that's something I really think excelled my baseball career. And then I think it was my junior year it was I really started getting recruited for football. You know I got letters from tons of different colleges and I thought that's what it was next for me. You know I come from a middle class family that didn't have the funds to pay for college. So I knew getting to college was getting a scholarship, and so my junior year I decided to go full in on football and baseball. And then my senior year, I decided to quit baseball completely and just focus on getting bigger, faster and stronger to get to the next level of football.

Coach Riley 6:16

So you're playing both sports. You're bigger than most of the baseball players because you got the football training in there, right. And you talk about hitting people. I mean linemen, fullback, linebacker, safety, those are all hitting positions. It's it's all about putting the hit on somebody, right. So you've got acceleration, you've got you know, and those have to come across in the world of sports or in the world of baseball, right. So so you're getting all these offers, but it's for football. So where did the? Where did the? Where did the? I'm done with football and I'm playing baseball full time. When did that come into part?

Brandon Barnes 6:55

Yeah. So my senior year of high school I had two teams that I was I was probably going to go play for in college. Colorado State came in and gave me an offer to come play as a freshman, right out the gate at the safety position, and then my my true team, the team I grew up watching, ucla came with an offer and I decided to to do a verbal commit to UCLA and I remember getting a call that they they fired Bob Toledo, hired Carl Durell and he wanted to get rid of all the non blue chip recruits, the five star guys. And so I fell in that four star category and ended up getting to go to UCLA, ended up going to a junior college to to work out and stay in shape. And then I was in a transfer out of junior college my freshman year and I think it was man, right before baseball season I go up and I tell the, the head coach. I said, look, I'm not going to UCLA, I'd really like to come back and play for the baseball team. And it had to be a unanimous vote where every player and every coach said yes. Every player and every coach except for one coach said yes. So I wasn't allowed back on the baseball team. So I just decided to devote my time to getting bigger, faster, stronger and going to Juco to play football.

Brandon Barnes 8:15

It wasn't until I played in a tournament just like almost like a wreckball it was. It's called big league, it's 17 and 18 year old little league tournament and we ended up going to the World Series. I hit eight home runs in 10 games. Hit like 400. Wow, play like.

Brandon Barnes 8:32

And I hadn't played baseball in almost a year and a half and it was just something. I fell back in love with the game. It was crazy to just think about going back to that moment and realizing, like this is what I need to do. And one of my buddies who was going to junior college to play to play baseball told me right in that moment during that tournament he goes, you need to quit football and you need to play baseball. It's what you're meant to do. So I remember just saying, hey look, I'm going to go pray on it tonight and when I wake up I'll know what to do. I went, went back to the dorm that night, prayed on it and woke up and immediately transferred junior colleges and without even having a tryout for the baseball team. So I was going to the number one junior college and probably the state of California and didn't have a tryout. I was just going off strict faith and ended up getting the tryout and making the team not having to register and got drafted that year to Houston Astros.

Coach Riley 9:25

Well, I mean, thank goodness for that. One coach Right, like and that's that's an important thing is, a lot of times you have these athletes right and they're younger and you know they're not making the team and they're, and so they're changing teams all the time and they're trying to figure out where they fit in and stuff like that, and a lot of times you can't see what's coming around the corner, right? You just know what happened to you today and I mean you could have easily, when that one coach said, no, you could easily throw in the talent, you could have said, ah, to heck with this, I'm not playing anymore, like it wasn't meant to be, but instead you flip that around and you said, ok, how do I utilize this? Right, and from that point on, yes, there was a lot of hard work still, but you had more direction, right, and so now you're, you're, you're playing ball.

Coach Riley 10:16

You know what did you say? You had like 10 home runs and eight games, or eight home runs and 10 games Some incredible amount, right? So it's almost like the guy. That's what you're supposed to be playing Like, you know. So it sounds like you were like an OK football player, but you were a very good baseball player and I think that's one of the most important things about when you play multi sports as a kid, because a lot of these guys are locked in year round Like they play basketball. It's just nothing but basketball. You just, you just never know, right. So let's talk about the day you get the call. So you're sitting around, you knew they were going to call, you're waiting for a call, you're eating breakfast, at the phone rings like walk us through when. Walk us through that moment when you realize that you've made it.

Baseball Player's Journey to Success

Brandon Barnes 11:02

Yeah, are we talking about the call to the big leagues? Are we talking about the call to get drafted?

Coach Riley 11:08

Well, whichever one, whichever one had like the biggest impact that you're like. I mean, I'm sure they were both big but, like you know, yeah, the baseball draft.

Brandon Barnes 11:17

I didn't know a whole lot about it. You know, I was more of a football mind at that point so I knew a lot about the NFL. I didn't know a whole lot about the MLB draft and back then it was strictly computer. You know it wasn't televised, it was. You know you waited for the ticker on the computer, waited for your name and you got the call. But definitely getting the call to the big leagues was a moment I'll never forget.

Brandon Barnes 11:40

You know I played seven and a half years in the minor leagues and probably repeated every level. At least once and I was in AAA, we were playing Salt Lake City Bs, which was the Angels affiliate, and we had lost that night on a walkoff home run to Col Calhoun. And during this whole, this whole period, you know I had been killing it. I was probably hitting 325 leading off every day and just being a menace on the field. So I hit this like point where I was struggling a little bit right, like the highs were high but the lows were starting to creep in. And I just remember telling myself like I've really learned over the last couple of years the mental side of the game and I really wanted to stay, even killed, through the downs and even the ups, like I didn't want to be that guy that was raw, raw when I was doing good or, you know, mopey, when I wasn't playing well. I wanted to be the same guy every single day. And so, you know, I hadn't been playing well and we lost on a walkoff that night and I get called into the manager's office because I thought he wanted to ask where that pitch was that that Col Calhoun hit out, because he usually asked me, since I was playing center field, what was the location? Was it a good pitch, bad pitch? So I walk in there and he just asked me, like what's wrong with your attitude? And I, I, I pride myself on my attitude every day. So I kind of snap back. I said what do you mean? I'm the same guy every single day. And he said no, you're not. He said you don't have that, that oil and vinegar running through your blood like you usually do. Is it because the different guys start to play your position as well, so we're rotating guys in? I said no. I said I'm just not playing as well, so I want to stay, even killed. And he looked at me in the face and said good, you're going to the show tomorrow.

Brandon Barnes 13:21

And I just remember, like, pulling my shirt up over my face, crying for like 10 solid minutes, and then, when I pulled it down, like all the coaches were were teary-eyed and crying because they'd watched. You know my struggle and my grind for seven and a half years to get to that moment. I mean then being able to call my wife and and tell her she thought it was a joke at first, like right. And she's like, no, you're, you're kidding, you're you're lying. Like when we that year we had come to a point Like I taught, we talked and said, are we okay playing this game for as long as we can, just being in triple A? And we both said, yeah, you know, this is something that I dreamt of and doing for for my life. And she was, she was on board with that, which which made things a lot easier. So when I got to make that call to her, it was, it was special for me to to be able to let her know like thank you, and we did this together.

Coach Riley 14:09

Yeah, that's a I mean what a setup by the coach right, bringing in he's, he knows right, he's just kind of lining up, you know, you give him, you give him the right answers, and stuff like that. So I want to touch on a couple of things. You know in the bigs right, and I mean I'm sure you've got a million stories and there's all kinds of stuff and I mean what, like people who play baseball or any sport pros is always the level right In reality. In reality, you took it, you took a damonautch. You were always looking at what's the next level right.

Coach Riley 14:41

So I'm in high school and I'm in college right now. I'm in the, I'm in AAA, you know, I'm on a farm team, you know. So you were, you were always, you always had that dedication to be the best. You were where you were right, which I think is very important for student athletes. No, if you're on the bench and you come in for two, three minutes a game, make those two, three minutes, get the most out of it. Yeah Right, don't be, don't be on this. You know a lot of athletes, when they're on the bench, they're not paying attention. You know, they're salty, they're, they're just, they're upset, when, in fact, there's a role for everybody, right, and there's and there's a role for bench players. Right, you got to. You want to come in and, depending on your sport you know basketball bench is a little more you know important football, though you're rotating in and out, you know to give people breaks and stuff like that.

Coach Riley 15:31

So I'm really proud of you that you were able to keep that mindset of I'm here, I'm going to do my best and not, you know, poor me, pity party type thing. You talk with the wife, you're like, are we okay being here? You guys were absolutely, and I think that's one of the driving forces that you that set you up for success is you were always playing through, you weren't, you weren't upset where you were and stuff like that. So, major league, two questions. First one what was the first home run like? Where was it? What was it like? Was it in slow motion? Like walk me through, because that's, I mean, that's every kid's dream, right, you're always. You know you're in the backyard, you're playing bing, so walk me through the first home run.

Brandon Barnes 16:14

Oh, man, we were. It was my first year in Houston getting called up that year, in 2012. We were in Chicago at Wrigley Field and I was facing Jeff, jeff Samarja, you know, obviously I love Jeff because he went to Notre Dame and played post sports. Right, he was a baseball football guy and that's what I always wanted to do, but I understood how hard that was. So we were in Wrigley, I'm facing Jeff and, man, he blows the first 95 mile an hour of fastball right by me and so I know, I know it's coming again. It's probably coming higher in the zone.

Brandon Barnes 16:46

I'm trying to get another swing and miss and I don't know. I think I closed my eyes and made solid contact and it wasn't like a moonshot. This thing just got over the basket and into the first row. So I took off sprinting I was a speed guy early on in my career so I took off out the gate just out and I noticed that the ball had landed, but they threw two balls back into the stadium. If you know Wrigley, like they don't keep homers, if it's from the other team, they're strong.

Brandon Barnes 17:14

And so they deek me. They threw two balls back on the stadium so I thought the ball like ricocheted off the wall and I was sprinting. I probably got around the bases in about seven seconds, just full sprint all the way around. And it was a moment I think it was on ESPN that night they had the ticker ticking me all the way around the bases to see how fast I ran it Right. So I'll never forget, just because we've got some ESPN footage, and it was a moment that you know pretty crazy.

Coach Riley 17:43

Yeah, and that's a big thing in you know baseball. If you don't know if you're at home and the opposite team hits one into the stands, you throw it back Right. You know I don't want this. Get it back Right. So they, but they throw two right. Did you get the? Did you get the original ball?

Brandon Barnes 17:59

Yeah, I have the original ball. It's it's packed up in my closet. But yeah, the ball back. They tried to deke me with a fake, but the team got the real ball and you know it was. It was a moment I won't forget, for sure, right.

Coach Riley 18:13

So huge accomplishment, right, you go on to hit 19 more, right. But let's talk about you know hitting for the cycle. And for those who don't know and I, and I'm pretty sure I know, that's getting a single, a double, a triple in a home run all in the same game, right, yeah, absolutely, and very few people do that Did you do them in order? Did you like was? Did you need a third base? And you slowed down so you didn't make a home Like how walk us through? That's got to be an incredible night, cause. The one thing I like about sports is on any given night it can become magical, whether you're a fan or you're an athlete. It's like things don't always happen, but when they do, it's amazing. So take us through the night of you know hitting through the cycle. What was the order? Did you feel the pressure? Were you trying to get it? Like what? How did how did that all go down?

Baseball, Family, and Overcoming Pressure

Brandon Barnes 19:07

Yeah, the cycle is probably the craziest story I have in my career. You know, it was the first day back from the All-Star break and I had struggled, you know, probably for a couple of weeks before the All-Star break and we were in Tampa Bay right before the break and I remember going to my room that night before we headed back to Houston. And you know, I'm a man of faith and I believe in my savior, and you know I was struggling, so I prayed and then that whole night for probably two hours, all I heard was I've got your back. Over and over and over again, I've got your back, I've got your back. And so, you know, I decided, you know, this All-Star break, I'm not going to pick up a bat, I'm not going to swing, I'm not going to do anything, I'm going to hang out with my family, I'm going to trust in the process, I'm going to trust in the break and I'm trusting in God. To you know, he told me he's got my back.

Brandon Barnes 19:55

So we're playing Seattle, joe Saunders is on the mound and it's the first game back, my first at bat. I go deep Left center homer and I was just like, wow, this is a good start to the second half, second at bat, I hit a triple into the right center gap, just flying I think I almost tripped around second base and then my third at bat. I hit this just like seeing eye single through the right side and I needed a double to finish it off. And my fourth at bat ended pitting this just. It was against Danny Farquhar. It was a cutter and I hit it right down the first baseline all the way up into the outfield and it ricocheted off the wall and went straight to the right fielder show. I wasn't stopping. My first base coach told me just to keep going. So even if I hit it right to somebody else, probably still going to second, all right, dope in.

Brandon Barnes 20:46

It was a bang bang play. I was called safe and I ended up hitting for the cycle and I ended up getting one more hit that night swinging but to go five for five. So pretty cool moment. But the coolest part is, you know, after that night we go home and my me and my wife had been trying to have our second daughter for for quite a while and nothing was working. And we're struggling and I get home that night I'm eating my food, just watching some TV. She's in with our older daughter giving her a bath, and she calls my name, and so I like, frantically, run in there I don't know what's going on Right, and in the little sticky letters that they have for the kids, she put I'm going to be a sister. So on the same day that I hit for the cycle, I also found out that we were having our second child. That night, and you know, when God says he's got my back, he truly does.

Coach Riley 21:35

That's like the grand slam, right, you know. I mean and and that is so important that you mentioned you know you're praying about it and you get in. You know, if you're a spiritual person, if you're, if you're listening to this, you know when you hear that that's still, that's still quiet voice, right, you know, and a lot of times you kind of, eh, you know, maybe it's just me or whatever, but there's times when you know and when you know, you know, and the fact that you basically said I, I'm going to enjoy my family, I'm going to take a step back, right, I'm not focused on this stuff and then you don't even just hit a home run, you bat for the cycle. You get home, your wife's pregnant, I mean it's like, like you said, he's got your back, that's, that's an amazing story. That is, that is such an amazing story. You know you could have hit like three home runs or whatever, but I mean the cycle, the pregnancy, I mean that's movie stuff. That's the stuff movies are made.

Coach Riley 22:33

I mean, earlier you mentioned, you know they change coaches. So the coach, you know you got that's Rudy stuff, right, you know, and and so all of this, you've got all this going on, right, it's, almost it's. It's the dream, right? You're playing, you're making it, you're there, you're living the life you know you have, you know family, you know family is is an incredible thing, especially once you start having kids, you know, and so that had to be.

Coach Riley 23:03

That had to be a lot of a lot of pressure on you, right? I mean you got, you got the family, you got to take care of You're. You're playing a sport where they can cut you at any time if you start to slack off, you know, or your, your performance drops. And one of the weird things about baseball is is you know the, the measurement of success is so small, right? So if you're hitting 300, you're hitting, you're striking out seven times. You're not getting on base seven out of out of ten times, right, and that's considered high level. And so when you win, when you fall into a slump, right Now, you're only batting, I don't know, one out of ten, or you know it in the low twos, or you know high ones, or whatever. That's a lot of pressure, because now you got a wife, you got kids. How did you handle the expectations that came from the team first off, and then the expectations that came from your family Right, and then the expectations that you felt were coming from god.

Brandon Barnes 24:03

I think as you matured and you grew up in the game you know I got into the game when I was 19 years old professionally and, you know, truly grew up. You know I became a man playing baseball. I had tons of learning opportunities from different people, different coaches, different players and you learn how to To deal with failure and that's the biggest thing I try to teach baseball players is is failure is going to happen. You have to understand that. Like, if you go three for ten and you do that over a period of 10 to 12 years in the big leagues, you're gonna be a hall of famer, right, if you're hitting 300 over that period, you're gonna be a hall of famer. But you also that understand you're gonna fail seven out of those 10 times and you've got to be okay with it. You don't have to like it, but you have to be okay with it. And so the pressure to me, pressure is different.

Brandon Barnes 24:50

Pressure was always something that I believed was was self-induced. Pressure is what we do to ourselves. It's something that's in our own brain. So when I really truly understood the brain and how it worked, there was no pressure because I wasn't putting it on myself, it was just go out and do what you love, because god gave me the opportunity to play this game at the highest level and just go have fun. And so when I did that, there was no pressure.

Brandon Barnes 25:16

Yeah, I would. I would get frustrated If I went on a over 20 slump or made an error. You know those are things that you have to learn to accept, get over and figure out how to not do them again. And that just comes with training and practice every day, right Like Once you get to the highest level. All these guys, they don't stop practicing, they don't stop training. If anything, they go harder and they try to get to the next level, because there's always someone In professional baseball that's trying to take your job. Whether you're an all-star or you're a bench guy like me, there's someone that wants your job. They want your opportunity to go out and do something great because you can change your life in the sport?

Coach Riley 25:54

Yeah, there are. There are no friends when it comes to positions like this. Guy can be your friend, but if he wants your spot, one of my best friends I played with.

Brandon Barnes 26:03

We're both outfielders, we both competed every day for the same opportunity and we looked at each other, said, look it, when it comes to who wins the job, it's not going to be you, it's going to be me. And we thrived on that competition with each other and we ended up both making the team and playing in the big leagues. I think he played gosh. He might still be playing in the big leagues, but you know, we had that, that little love rivalry. That it's not going to be you, it's going to be me and and you know you, you got to have that, even if it's a good friend.

Adapting to Change and Overcoming Injuries

Coach Riley 26:33

Yeah, and you mentioned that pressure is self-induced and you're a hundred percent, spot on, right. I mean, honestly, it is something you, because you, can take. You can take the same scenario, two different people, and they can have two different totally mine Different mindsets, right? Typical examples that's given is there's a father. He's an alcoholic. He has two sons. One son becomes an alcoholic. The other son never touches a drop, you know, in his life. When they're asked why, you know, why are you an alcoholic, his answer is because my dad was an alcoholic. And the other son why? The outcome? You never drink. This is because my dad was an alcoholic, right? So it's all.

Coach Riley 27:12

There's all of this, these Scenarios and and things that we have no control over. We have zero control over them, but you mentioned Putting that pressure upon yourself. That's where it really comes from and if you have the ability to, to know that, like you studied the brain and you know, yes, we were the brain is very Unique in how it works and once you start, once you start diving into it, but it's just crazy, crazy, and you think you know, oh well, you know, as a high school athlete, you're like, ah, it's just, you know, I'm I'm depressed or whatever, like you think. It's just all you know. If I think it'll happen sometimes yes, sometimes no, but there's ways you can trick the brain into doing things that you wanted to do. That's how you set up habits. You can take a situation. I heard something this morning Every loss is a lesson, right, if you take something from that, like, because you're never going to win them all as an athlete, you're never going to win every single game.

Coach Riley 28:12

And I like to say you know, winners aren't better winners, there is better losers. Because you can take that and say, okay, well, I did really crappy today and then reflect Did I get enough sleep the night before? Was I, did I do, you know, did I eat the right foods? And if you can check all the boxes off, knowing that you did everything you're supposed to do, there's not a feeling of what a should, a coulda. It's like, well, that's just what happened, because sometimes you strike out, sometimes you hit on runs. It's just part of the game, right, and you're going to go through these cycles, um, in athletics, where sometimes you win them all, sometimes you lose them all, sometimes you play on a team and you never win a game. Sometimes you're undefeated and you win every game. It's just, it's very.

Coach Riley 28:57

Sports is such a microcosm. It's all a microcosm of how the world works right businesses, life, relationships, it's all. And that's one of the things that I really like about athletics is it teaches you what and how to deal with things outside of sports. Right, how do you deal with not getting a promotion? How do you deal with if your girlfriend leaves you? Stuff like that? Right, because those are things you don't want to happen. But through sports you can learn those lessons. Then you can apply those Later on in life. Now, one of the one of the lessons you did learn was how to adapt to different teams. Right, and this is a common thing where athletes, when they're younger, their parents move. They have no control over it. So you're going from you know one team to another team, and so you have you have all brand new teammates. They either know of you or they don't. They already have their expectations. How did you, how did you mentally deal with changing teams and then representing yourself as who you truly were to your new teammates?

Brandon Barnes 29:58

Yeah, I thrived in those. I was. I was a guy that I wasn't shy, I knew my place and I knew my role. But I truly thrived when I got some new places, because I, you know, you play 16 years.

Brandon Barnes 30:11

You play against a lot of the same people, um, and a lot of the guys when, when I would come over to a new team, the first thing they would tell me is is I hate playing against you. And you know, at first I I didn't like you, like I. I don't know you as a person, but I just didn't like you because you're such a competitor, you'll do whatever it takes to win. You'll you'll get under someone's skin. And so I just went in as myself every single time. There's no reason to fake who I am, because who I am is that's going to go out there and get after every day. And so I held my teammates accountable.

Brandon Barnes 30:42

Whether you're a 10-year veteran or you're a rookie, I came in the same way every single day, ready to get after it. And, and my teammates and my coaches appreciated that, even though I wasn't the best baseball player on the field, I stayed in the big leagues as long as I did because of who I was as a teammate and the way I went about my business. So so going team to team, it was, it was awesome because I got to meet new guys, new players, guys. I played against that. I really wanted to get to know and just Played the game because that's all it is. You're just going to play the game with new guys.

Coach Riley 31:15

Yeah. So you come into a team and, like you said, you know I hate playing against you. That's probably one of the biggest compliments somebody can give you right, because it's like, uh, and that's a big thing, like you know, it's mindset right, and so a lot of people are like they come into a game and they're worried about this other guy. And then you got guys who come into the game and they're like the other guys worried about me, like I don't worry, I'm gonna play my game. I, I am who I am. I'm gonna give it my. All my teammates know I'm gonna go to bat for them. You know, because at that level everybody's working so hard and it's and it. It's still a game, but it's also your livelihood, it's how you, you know, support your family. It's very, very competitive and so During that time you're in, you know, you're in AAA, you're in the bigs, you're in college and stuff like that.

Mental Toughness and Service in Sports

Coach Riley 32:08

One of the things that happens a lot to athletes is injuries, and I talk to a lot of athletes who get injured and then they don't know what to do right to like I can't play Right, I'm really depressed, I'm struggling. You know, and you had mentioned in your In your career, you had one injury, but it sounded like it had a really big impact on you mentally, mentally and physically. So why don't you, why don't you walk us through you know, when you were playing, how you got injured, how it impacted you mentally, and then how did you work through that? Because I think our athletes could really use some. You know, it's one thing for me to tell you well, you can do this and you can do that. Right, I was never high caliber athlete. I definitely never played in the in the bigs. How did you deal with an injury that basically took you away from the game that you love?

Brandon Barnes 32:59

Yep, first off, I think it's it's injury prevention. You got to and I still to this day to do the same thing. You got to eat right. You have to eat healthy. You have to eat for your body and for training. Whatever diet they may that may be, you got to make sure that it's giving the nutrients for your bones and your muscles and your cartilage and everything to be prepared to go to war, because sports is war at the end of the day. You know baseball. You play 162 games in the course of 180 days, so you've got to be ready to go to battle every day. And so first off was was eating right. Second off is training right. It's just not going in there and trying to get big muscles. It's it's training for flexibility, it's training for strength, power and speed. And then after that, it's all about recovery. You know there wasn't a day that, after a game, I didn't jump in the colt up. You know I was in the colt up every day. I still jump in the colt up to this day to get my day started. And and so you take those three things of putting the right nutrients in your body, training your body smart and then recovering your body. You have a recipe now to have a long withstanding career.

Brandon Barnes 34:09

And then, you know, when a freak injury does happen like I think I was year 14 for me when I finally got injured, I strained an oblique just because I was. I was playing in New Orleans it was, and it was hot and humid every day I was. You know, I don't have a whole lot of body fat, so you know I strained my oblique pretty bad and in in baseball you need your obliques to swing. So I was out of good six weeks and trying to rush back as fast as I could. But you know, being a guy that's never been off the field, it took a toll mentally on me because I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know how to help my teammates because I wasn't out there grinding. So what I did is is I took a long look at what I'm supposed to do right now be where my feet are. I'm not on the field, my feet are on the dl, and so I got to find ways to get better and to help my teammates get better.

Brandon Barnes 35:03

So what I ended up doing is is learning a lot more about, about the mind, the mental game of of baseball, and then relaying that to two different guys on my team, whether it was a guy that came down for from the big leagues to triple a, didn't think he was supposed to be there. But you know, I had to tell him, like, this is where you're at. If you're not where your feet are, you're never going to get back to where you want to be. And you know, some guys come down and they shut it down. They're like oh, I'm a big leaguer, I don't have to work. No, if you want to get back to where you you think you belong, you better work 10 times harder.

Brandon Barnes 35:35

So I really took a point to Strengthen my mind, grow my mind, because I couldn't work out, I couldn't hit, I couldn't do all the things that you know made me me. So I said let's, let's add a new tool to the toolkit and train the mind, get the mind better, learn more about the brain and then help my teammates along the way with those different things.

Coach Riley 35:55

You did exactly what a high caliber athlete would do. I can't run, I can't throw, I can't hit, I can think. And so let's delve into that, that lifestyle of mental preparedness, mental toughness. How do you do it? Being in slumps? And then not only did you, did you teach yourself that you did, you did the next level thing and you taught other people that right.

Coach Riley 36:20

And what you do with knowledge Is so in this world you can have all the knowledge in your brain, but if you don't share it it doesn't really do anybody any good. And back in the day, if you knew something I mean chances were you and very few people knew it right, because there was, there, was there was. Information was a commodity, like you could hoard it right and not tell the other team man I am. I can look up anything in the world and find anything on my phone instantly Right. So the information is no longer, is no longer sacred. But it's what you do with the information, how you relay that to other people. So I mean that just goes to what a stand-up guy you are, that you are willing to help the other guys on the team, and I think that's a big issue now because Kids are so worried about well, that guy's gonna take my spot, so they don't want to help them. So they're not really being a better teammate. They're more focused on what can I do to improve myself and stuff like that.

Coach Riley 37:14

And yep, I'm sure you know you don't have to be the best player on the team to be the leader.

Coach Riley 37:19

Right, leaders are followed. Yeah, leaders are followed because the person who's following them knows that they have my best interest. So if you're the captain on the team and I'm on the bench, if I believe that you're only in it for yourself, I'm not going to listen to anything you got to say Like I don't really care. But if you're conveying to me that you want me to be a better player and you're helping me out and you're like, hey, listen, do adjust your swing like this or whatever, you're now trying to help me realize my goals, and everybody needs somebody who's two or three steps ahead of them. So when you go in and you're sharing that knowledge with your teammates and I think that's a big takeaway for the student-athletes listening is when you help the other players become better, you ultimately become better because you're having to teach it, so you have to know it, so you understand it at a different level. So the fact that you were injured probably turns you into a better player overall.

Brandon Barnes 38:19

Absolutely. It was something that you have setbacks. Everybody's going to have a setback and it's what you do with that setback and I didn't want to just sit there and waste my time. I wanted to continue to get better and I still do it to this day, where I pick a subject and I try to learn about it as fast as possible and then share that knowledge Because value is important. If you give someone value for free, I guarantee you a lot is going to come back to you just because of your knowledge level and what you're giving out to the world, the world is going to give you something back.

Brandon Barnes 38:50

So I live my career by that. I didn't care if someone was competing against me, if I knew something that they didn't. I wanted to help them out Because I knew, at the end of the day, my work ethic, my game, is going to take me as far as it's going to go. I have no control over that, and when you play baseball as long as I did, you understand that almost everything is out of you control. I could hit the baseball perfectly 110 miles an hour off the bat, at the perfect launch angle, and it can go right to somebody and I'm out. So all I can do is control what I can control and leave the rest to the game.

Life After Sports

Coach Riley 39:24

Yeah, and so you mentioned helping other people, and what that really comes back around to is service, and when you are passionate about what you do, work becomes service, and you mentioned you know you were trying to learn these things as fast as you can, and then you're helping other people and you're 100% right. When you can provide value to somebody, they will keep you around, they will pay you more money at the job, you will get promoted, because it's all about a lot of kids nowadays. You know they go to get a job and they're like well, what, how much are you going to pay me? I'm not going to only pay me that much, like they don't understand that they need to provide that company value or that sports team value. Right, and I, you can be an athlete and you can take away from the team. You can be negative, you can complain, you can blame everybody else but yourself, and so that is actually, you know, reducing value, and you know coaches don't want that. They don't want that attitude around.

Coach Riley 40:26

There's a lot of professional athletes that you hear aren't on teams because of the way they carry themselves in the locker room, and so you seem to have this knowledge and this understanding about you know, I can only control what I can control. Now here's the one thing in sports that you can't control at some time it's going to end, whether it's an injury, whether you just run out of talent, whether you retire in the hall of fame, at some point it's going to end, and that's a big thing. For kids who are in high school and, you know, play some college, all they know is the sport. They don't know anything else. They haven't, they haven't focused on anything but the sport, 100%, right, right. And so when the career comes to end, for whatever reason, right, that's very, that's very tough on a person.

Coach Riley 41:20

I think the fact that you were, you were focused on helping other people, right, your attitude doesn't seem it was about me, me, me, it's about we, we, we right, we're the team, right. So you're always providing this, this value, to people, you're helping them, you're teaching them, you want them get to where you were or where you are right, and so I would assume the transition for after sports was a little more simpler for you, or was it were my, am I a hundred percent wrong? And, man, it was the worst thing in your. It was the worst thing in your life. But what did you do when your career as an athlete ended?

Brandon Barnes 41:59

Cool man, that's a loaded question. I I had always known that I wasn't going to be able to play this game forever. It was something that I instilled in my brain. It's something that you can't escape. It's like death, it's it's inevitable. You can't escape it. It's going to happen at some point, you just don't know when.

Brandon Barnes 42:18

So I always wanted to make sure that I was a husband, a father, a friend, a brother, a teammate before I was just a baseball player, because I think those things will last longer in life than just being a baseball player. So you know, when I did play that last game and you know I didn't know it was my last game I thought I was going to have another contract after that, but it didn't work out and I looked at my wife and my kids and I said it's time for me to come home. It's time for me to be a dad, a full-time dad, a full-time husband, not someone that's on the road for six, seven months out of the year. And it wasn't easy. You know there's a lot that changes when you come back into the household that your wife has been running, you know, for the last 16 years. And then I interject myself into things because I don't know how things are running. So it creates this chaos as well as what am I going to do next? You know I wasn't a guy that made a ton of money. I also didn't save my money the right way. I lived the lifestyle. I didn't invest my money, so I didn't really set myself up for life after sport, which is probably the thing I kicked myself in the butt for the most. But you live and you learn.

Brandon Barnes 43:28

So that transition period was tough. That first year, you know, I didn't know what I was going to do. I tried a bunch of different things and I always knew I wasn't going to work for the man. I wasn't going to work a nine to five. I feel like I'm smart enough to be an entrepreneur. I put myself in the right rooms and loved to work. I pushed myself. I love to give value and bring things to people.

Brandon Barnes 43:50

So it wasn't until I moved to Boise, idaho, and got into the real estate gig. It was something that I loved because it was providing value. I got to get people into their first home or find a forever home, and that, to me, fulfilled me. And then that comes into what we've got going on. But for me the transition was tough, but the way I set it up throughout my career mentally not physically with saving and investing my money, but mentally I knew that this game was going to end and I think if athletes can truly just get into their brain and know, like I can't do this forever. I loved playing the game, but I knew I wasn't going to. I knew I wasn't going to be a coach. I wasn't passionate about coaching, I was passionate about playing the game. So, knowing that it's going to come to an end, I've got to do something else. And how am I going to provide value and have a passion beyond sport?

Athlete Branding and Marketing Strategies

Coach Riley 44:42

And so you mentioned being in real estate helping people, right. First time homebuyers that's a huge that is, if you've never bought a house before, that is a huge accomplishment in your life, right, and there's a lot of joy in that. Forever homes right, this is like. This is my dream house. This is where I want to live. This is where I want to spend the rest of my years here. So the fact that you were really tuned into you know you're not making money, you're helping people, right, you're helping people get what they want. And so I want to talk about this project and this company that you're working with now Athlete Narrative. Right, because it does tell right into that In the real estate game. You're helping people get what they want. Athlete Narrative you're helping the athletes get what they want.

Brandon Barnes 45:29

If you look back over the span of my career, I got on social media pretty early for an athlete. I think I was on Twitter early, I was on Instagram early, and so I learned over the course of my career how to brand myself almost as an athlete. And then when that ends, it's like okay, what do I do now with my social media? And it took me time to realize that I got to continue branding myself. I got to use these opportunities, this network, to go into the next phase of my life. So branding and marketing for an athlete is special to me because I've had to learn it, I've gone through it.

Brandon Barnes 46:02

I still have really good contacts and friendships with some of the brands and people that sponsored me throughout my career. So I really use those networks to grow into the next phase of my life. Right, and so with athlete narrative, we took the concept of taking an athlete, showing them, showing the world to them on social media by giving them the content that's going to provide value to their brand and then giving them resources not only for social media but to learn the transition phase, to learn how to write a resume or to reach out to a college coach. We really want to excel these kids in every facet of life, not just sport. So we really took this concept of okay, let's blow these kids up, let's get them noticed, let's mess with the algorithm and then let's combine everything and watch them grow into their own athlete entrepreneur.

Coach Riley 47:02

So if I'm a parent and I've got a kid who's playing high school, whatever, what's the importance of branding for them? What do you mean when you say they're a brand, what they're, nike they're like? Explain how and I'm going to show my age here how is the world different? Because 10 years ago this wasn't a thing. It didn't exist, right? So my kid's a brand. What does that even mean?

Brandon Barnes 47:27

Yeah, so you are your brand, you are the niche you know and that took me a long time to learn is I was always trying to be somebody else, but I am the story, I am the brand. I don't have to be Nike, I don't have to be Mike Trout. I am who I am and people like me. They follow me for a certain reason. So the reason why we say high school college athletes need to start branding themselves, it's a personal brand. Right, you need to show your interests, your hobbies, your family. You need to show more than just your sport, because that's what coaches, colleges, pro scouts, that's what they truly want to know. When scouts came into my house, they already knew I could play the game of baseball or football. They want to know more about me. Am I the right person? On social media, right, kids make dumb mistakes. I did it. Are you posting the right things that make you look like the athlete that that college wants? Are you providing value for your teammates, for your school? So your brand is you.

Brandon Barnes 48:27

So what we do is we take that brand, we start helping you navigate it, create it, build it, and then we blow it up, we make it into you specifically for you. We give you an archetype. Like for me. I would have fallen under the underdog hero because I wasn't supposed to play in the big leagues. I was a grinder mentality guy and I made it. I got some big leagues. I played parts of six years. So what I tell parents is yes, it may seem young to start branding yourself, but throw the word brand out. Show who you are. That's all it is. It's showing the world, showing coaches, and if you want to go play at the next level, you're going to have to do that.

Coach Riley 49:06

Yeah, it's almost brand equals character. The phones aren't just something that they use. It's essentially in a weird way. It's who they are. And it's who they are because they have social media right. So your kid has an Instagram account. They have a TikTok account. People follow them based on what they post. Right. Are they posting valuable information? Are they posting something about how to be a better athlete? Are they talking positive about their teammates? Or are they posting stuff tearing their teammates down? Are they posting stuff that's not even relevant to the sport, because that is out there and in today's world it's very, very, very different.

Coach Riley 49:48

When colleges are looking for athletes or even high schools are looking, you know, programs are looking for athletes they're looking on their social media 100%. They have departments that do nothing but scour kids' social media right, and the wrong thing posted can get you crossed off a list before they even call you. And you had said something Immediately. Yeah, and you had said something. When the scouts came to your house, they knew you could play. They wanted to see how did you interact with people, how did you? Maybe they looked at you or was it messy. You know they want to look at your character and that's how they do it now, because there's so many kids playing sports, they don't really come to your house. They go to your kids' social media accounts. Well, how do you guys work with the athletes? And then how do you set them up for success?

Brandon Barnes 50:36

Yeah, so, to go back to your point on colleges and coaches, I was talking to a coach last week and he said the first thing they do when a kid comes up on their radar, the first thing they do is they pull up their social media account and they go through it, because if they find something they'll cross you off the list right away and it takes one bad post to ruin your scholarship or ruin your career.

Athlete Social Media Safeguards and Monitoring

Brandon Barnes 51:00

So to go back to what you asked, I think that what we do that's different than everybody else is we immediately give these athletes an assessment test, and it's not just based off their sport, it's based off who they are their hobbies, interests, likes. We want to know every single thing we can about the athlete as an athlete and as a person. We then go and audit their social media in the background and give them an archetype that they're going to fall under. And our technology takes all three of those things and binds it and creates content specific to that athlete to really emphasize on who they are and who their brand is as an athlete and a person.

Coach Riley 51:42

You said, one post can tank your career before it even starts, right Immediately. How does athlete narrative prevent that? Or what safeguards do they have in place? Because you guys are essentially becoming a social media manager for the kids, right? So how do you monitor what they're posting? How does that all work? Because if I'm a kid and I'm going to do whatever I'm going to do, I need safeguards in place. What safeguards do you guys put in place to avoid making those mistakes?

Brandon Barnes 52:13

Yeah, that safeguard is going to be implemented, I believe early February. We're still knocking down the technology and getting it in place, but we have put in. And when we thought of this feature we just thought like, oh, this would be a great feature for people. But it's turned into probably one of the greatest features we have, because parents and athletes love it, colleges love it when a kid goes to post. I'll give you a quick example.

Brandon Barnes 52:39

A basketball player gets the caption of you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. They're supposed to put a picture of them shooting hoops. Well, we understand that young adults, their frontal lobe isn't fully developed and so they make ration and dumb decisions. And so let's say that basketball player decides to put a photo of him and his buddies taking shots at tequila. Actually, we know that's not a smart decision for branding, and so our system, our technology, will flag it. A warning will come up immediately and tell the athlete that this doesn't align with their narrative and could do unripeable damage to their brand.

Brandon Barnes 53:18

Would they still like to post Now? We give them the option to still post, but if they post, our system will then give them a five minute timeout. It will log them out of the system. They will have to sit back for five minutes and think is this something I should really be posting? Is this going to hurt my brand and my image at the end of the day? So we want to give parents peace of mind. We want to give colleges ways to have code of conduct put into the contracts, as well as just protect the athlete at all costs.

Coach Riley 53:46

You're telling these kids listen the goals that you have. It's, essentially, it's a business, and they expect certain behaviors and standards from you, and if you're going to go against those behaviors and standards, they don't want you on the team, they don't want you in the program. And a lot of the kids nowadays well, not a lot, all of them are on social media, and so this is something that a lot of parents struggle with. Their kids don't want to show them their social media, and so the fact that you guys have created this technology, created this app that they go through, and so they have three different social media accounts. They tell you guys, I have these three accounts. Then, when they go to post, so they're not posting directly to the app, they're posting through your app, and that's where your guys, this technology, comes in. So it's almost like and every parent knows you can tell your kid the same thing a hundred times and I'm going to listen to you. Coach tells them once is gospel. So the fact that you know, as parents, we want to keep our kids safe, we don't want them posting stupid things, but they're not going to listen to us. So if they're involved in this program, right, it's now coaches telling them, other athletes are telling them, right, and so it comes from a source outside of the parental realm. So chances that the kid listens to it significantly higher. Because, like I said, coach tells you to stop drinking soda. You're done, you're done right. Mom and dad tell you to stop drinking soda. Whatever you go, drink three sodas, right? So the fact that it sounds like you guys are able to fulfill this need that parents have little control over, but yet you guys are doing it in the best interest of the child, right. And it goes beyond sports, right. Because, like you said, in today's world you are your own brand.

Coach Riley 55:45

So when they're hiring for resumes, they look at your social media. When everybody's looking at everybody's social media, and if you and if you're a kid and you think, well, I got a burner account, then they'll find it. They'll find it, that's what they get paid for, right? They'll look at who you follow, who follows you. Oh, you both follow this guy you both follow. Oh, this account is actually you and this is where you post all your stupid stuff, right? So there's no way around it except for to not do it and, in all honesty, you know posting something that is that would do you, like you said, such damage that you'll never even know. You would never even know your opportunities, right?

Coach Riley 56:27

So I really, I really like the fact that you guys have discovered. You know, with new technology there's new problems, and with kids and kids and teenagers there's always problems, right, because, like you mentioned earlier, their brains aren't totally developed yet. So what we deem is that's the dumbest decision in the world. Why would you do it To them? They're like what are you talking about? Makes perfect sense. Like, of course, I'm going to do it right. So you guys put those safeguards in place so you essentially become the parent's best friend, right? You're the cool uncle who the kid will listen to, right? And so I think that's such a unique opportunity to, as a parent, to get somebody like that.

Youth Social Media Management Platform

Coach Riley 57:08

Because if you're the parent of an athlete, there's always talk about teams, you know, and usually you think it's just your kid's team. They play for the blue sharks, whoever they play for, right? No, yep, there's the academic team, there's their parental team, there's their coaches team, there's their peer pressure team, there's their spiritual team, and now, in today's world, they need a social media team, 100%, 100%. And you guys have said, hey, we recognize there's a problem and in the spirit of how you live your life is you want to provide service to these parents and say, hey, listen, I understand it, I get it, I've played it, I know things you don't know. And we're here to help your kids out, because, as a parent, you just want your kid to be successful. And so programs I mean because you'll go out and you'll pay I don't know crazy amounts of money for them to learn how to run faster. All parents do, right, you know they go to camps and trainers and you got this guy. You're paying all this money in a very short period of time.

Coach Riley 58:11

Within the next one to two years, because of NIL and all this other stuff, having a social media manager for your child is going to be commonplace. It's going to be just like a trainer. You're going to have to have somebody to manage that. And I think athlete narrative has really struck on what the golden ticket is. You guys have looked at problems, you've put solutions in. You guys all have the heart of teachers. You're in it to actually help the athletes, which makes you guys coaches. I mean, that's the reason why I coach. There's nothing like seeing somebody who has a struggle and you know the solution and you give them the solution. Now. There's nothing more frustrating than giving them the solution and they don't take it and then a year later they're like, oh man, I wish I would have right. So I would highly suggest is if you're a student and you're listening to this, let your parents know.

Coach Riley 59:03

If you're a parent, getting control of the social media is going to have a huge impact, not only on their sporting career but on their career after sports, because it's networking. You know, whether you're in sales or retail or whatever, it is right, there's always going to be networking. So the earlier you can build their brand, right, like we talked about earlier. And so brand is really character, right, and social media just magnifies it right. It's like money If you're a jerk and you got a lot of money, you're just a jerk with a lot of money.

Coach Riley 59:33

If you're a nice guy with a lot of money, you're a nice guy. So it's the same on social media. If you're kind and compassionate and you want to help people, that gets magnified by social media. If you're a jerk and you're always putting people down and or you're always blaming somebody else for your issues, that just magnifies who you are, and the world really needs to see who your child is, without the damage that a kid can make by posting something to it. So I'm really really impressed at what you guys are doing over there. The mission statement and you're really about helping kids protect themselves from themselves. Essentially, it's what you guys are doing.

Brandon Barnes 1:00:13

Yeah, we are taking kids and we are safeguarding them, we're helping them blow them up, we're getting them seen and, at the end of the day, for me it's providing value. We're giving not only value within social media and their sport. We're giving them the resources and the tools that go beyond sport. We have a thing in there called the Playbook, where these kids will learn about investing. They'll learn about business, being an entrepreneur, how to write resumes.

Brandon Barnes 1:00:42

For us it was very important because some of us have gone through that transition phase where we didn't know what was after sport. So we wanted to cram as much as we could into this platform and give immense value at such a great cost. Because I think if you most of the world knows it if you hire a PR firm or a social media manager, you're paying upwards of thousands of dollars a month. We're Amazing man. Our platform's a hundred bucks a month. We do it for you and you get tons of resources that are sport and life after sport. But we are almost at full launch. First week of January Apple will be live. Warning system will be in place in February.

Coach Riley 1:01:24

That's the five minute timeout. That's the five minute timeout, okay.

Brandon Barnes 1:01:28

That's your initial warning and then, if you post pass that, that's your five minute timeout. That will be in February, and then we have the locker room, which will be ready in January, as well as your customized radar page, which is almost essentially a digital business card for each athlete that comes on the platform.

Coach Riley 1:01:49

So I'm a parent, I like what I'm hearing. I wanna get on board your guys' program. How do they find?

Brandon Barnes 1:01:55

you. So you can either go to athleanarrativecom and sign up there or you can use my link. You can go to my Instagram at brandonvarnes, underscore one. Hit the link It'll take you right to the sign up page. There's plenty of different ways you can do it, but I would say, go to athleanarrativecom, check it out, see what it's about. Look at what our mission is, and something we're big on is our impact partner, which is the Special Olympics. So every athlete that does come onto the platform, we give a Special Olympic athlete the platform for free.

Coach Riley 1:02:28

Oh really, wow. Okay, that's impressive. I like that. So is your main platform on Instagram or what's your? Is it TikTok? What's your main platform? If I wanna follow you outside of athlete narrative, but I like Brandon Barnes as a guy who's told some crazy stories what's your biggest?

Brandon Barnes 1:02:46

platform. Yeah, my biggest platform's definitely Instagram, brandonvarnes, underscore one. I have TikTok and I have a YouTube channel called the Athletic Department where I talk a lot about my career. I talk about branding and marketing for athletes. You know we've made this shift in my career. You know I've had to brand myself a couple different times, as a baseball player, as a real estate agent, and now I wanna provide value to athletes in the realm of branding and marketing themselves To honestly monetize themselves.

Brandon Barnes 1:03:18

I think athletes nowadays can make a lot more money at a younger age and set themselves up for a transition period, because we understand that only seven to 10% of high school athletes go on to the next level and then 1% from there go on to go pro. So it's all about monetizing and doing it the right way, because through social media there's so much power there's no. Newspapers are dead, anything. Paper's dead articles, magazines, whatever it is. It's all digital. We're in a digital era and social media's king. As much as I don't like it, right For some of the aspects of scrolling and misinformation and bad information, social media can provide value and immense value. So that's what I try to do on my page is bring value to athletes as well as my YouTube page.

Coach Riley 1:04:06

Yeah, I mean. Social media is like the old saying it's like a brick, right, you can either throw it through a window or you can build a church. It's just a brick. That's a tool, right? You can go on social media and waste your entire day, or you can go on social media and hit YouTube channels that give you immense information on all of these topics. That's really how do you choose to spend your time, so we'll put those links in the show notes. You know your YouTube channel. Are you still doing real estate in Boise?

Brandon Barnes 1:04:36

Yes, I'm still doing real estate. It's something I'll always be a part of. I'll always have real estate in my back pocket, but right now, athlete narrative is the baby. It's the one thing that I'm truly passionate about that I found after baseball that wake up in the morning I'm like let's go, Like I'm ready to go and crush the day and just build this and give this value out to tons of athletes, Because at the end of the day, I wish I had this as an athlete in high school you know, being a footballer, I had to splice VHS tapes by hand and send them out to every college and there's a 50, 50% chance that that college would even watch my highlight tape. Or now we can organically push you in front of coaches and colleges.

Coach Riley 1:05:19

Like you said, you know social media is king. It's the new currency. Right, Attention is the new coin. I gotta tell you, parents, as smart as we are because we are some of the smartest people in the world we don't know squat really about social media and how, like. We understand what it is, but we don't really know how it works and the role that it plays in our kids' lives and the role that it plays in their chances at future opportunities, be it in sports or not. In sports we really don't have a clue because you know, we just don't. It wasn't around our entire lives.

Advice for Success

Coach Riley 1:05:53

And so you know guys like Brandon over at Athlete Narrative, they understand the game. They're a little younger than us, they've been involved, they study it. You know you heard him. When he gets up in the morning he's like let's go. And when you got a guy who's passionate about what they do for their job, it becomes service and the value that they're gonna bring to you is gonna be off the charts. It's gonna be. And when it comes to your kids, every investment we make, we want a high return. We always do. And these guys they've got what it takes. They know what they're doing. They really have your kid's best interest at heart, you know. So definitely check them out over there. And so that brings me to my last question. You've mentioned a couple of times about how you wish you know this and around when you were a kid. You know different, you know. So let's let the Brandon of today talk to the Brandon in high school, right? Yeah, what are you gonna tell yourself? What piece of advice do you give yourself?

Brandon Barnes 1:06:53

Man. First advice I would tell myself is stop getting into trouble. Stop hanging out with the people you're hanging out with. Surround yourself with about five guys that are better than you in every aspect of life, because if you're at the bottom, there's always ways to go up and to continue to chase dreams and follow passions. Don't do everything for the money. Do it for what you love.

Coach Riley 1:07:16

A lot of athletes, you know they're chasing the bag, or you gotta get the bag or whatever. It is right, you know. And for parents, that's money, right, you know, the bag of money. And so I can never keep up with the terminology. Thank goodness I got a 20 year old son. I'm like cap what? No, I don't have a cap. What are you talking about? No, cap, yeah, I'm not wearing it. Anyway, if you do things for the money, you can make a lot of money, but you'll be miserable. And there's people that make millions and they're just miserable. They're just miserable when you chase your purpose and you find your purpose and you follow that. The money will come later, because what happens is people are like, hey, I grew up just like him or my story is similar to him.

Coach Riley 1:07:56

And you mentioned earlier, you know, there's all these narratives, the underlying here. People are the heroes of their own stories. They don't care about you, they don't care about me, they really probably don't even care much about their parents. It's about them, right, and that's just human nature. So the fact that you guys key in on that and say, okay, who are you as a person, what do you want to do? You mentioned, you know, hanging out with the wrong people is so crazy. If you're hanging out with guys who make fun of you for trying to be successful, those are the wrong guys. It's true winners. True winners will never make fun of somebody who's trying to win, like and the example I give. All of them is like people who are overweight, they don't want to go to the gym. They're embarrassed. People are gonna make fun of them. Man, if you're in the gym, nobody in the gym is making fun of you. They're giving you props if anything, right, if. And so people? One of the lessons I've learned as I've gotten older is people don't really think about me as much as I thought they did. Too worried about themselves, right. They're not even thinking about me, right, like I'm just a blip on their radar, right? So I really like the fact that you mentioned you know who you're hanging out with. That's a huge thing.

Coach Riley 1:09:04

You know, there's an old saying don't be the smartest person in the room, right, and it's just exactly what you said. If you're playing with guys who are better than you, you're gonna become better. If you're the best player in the group of kids you hang out with, or like if you hoop and the guys you go play one-on-one with. If you're the best, so what. That might feed your ego, right, because you demolish in your high school buddies, but that's not gonna make you any better right? So that's a fantastic piece of advice and, honestly, after talking to you today and stuff in the spirit that you have and how you lead your life and how you wanna help other people, I mean that is such great advice.

Coach Riley 1:09:47

I mean you're really looking out for the kids and I think you as a human and as a you know you mentioned you're not really you weren't really passionate about being a coach. You know, for baseball, you are a coach man. You're gonna help these kids. You're gonna help these kids get to where they wanna go, and that's all anybody ever wants is. They just want some help and they don't wanna have to be told what to do. It's always better if it's their idea. So that's part of the genius of athlete narrative is they're still posting the stuff. It's still their decision, right? You're not taking it away from them. And as they learn, as you do something consistently, that's how you become. So if you're consistently posting things that are positive and things about helping other people, like that just changes your character. I think you guys are doing a fantastic job.

Brandon Barnes 1:10:37

Yeah, at the end of the day, you are what Google says you are these days. So if Google says you're a terrible person, I'm sorry. Even if you don't believe that, everybody in the world is gonna believe it, because it's an easy Google search. So your perception on what you put out there into the world is who you become. Whether you believe it or not, it's out there and so for me, you've got to be putting out good in the world.

Coach Riley 1:11:00

Well, listen, I just want to thank you so much today. I mean it's been an honor to talk to you. I mean you're a guy who's walked the walk, you've stared down some pictures, you've been in the outfield, you've seen tens of thousands of people cheering for you, booing against you. I mean like you've been there and just the fact that you're willing to donate some of your time today to help us out, you've dropped some serious knowledge nuggets in here, definitely worth the re-listen, and I just want to extend a heartfelt thank you for sharing your incredible journey and some of these insights. The stories you've told about bat in the cycle and then your wife's pregnant, like what an awesome. I mean, that's a movie. That's a movie right there, man. So thanks for sharing that with us and to all the listeners of today's episode is going to motivate you to pursue your dreams, cause Brandon dreams play.

Coach Riley 1:12:01

It didn't turn out like he thought they were. He kept following through and he actually made it. And when one door closes, another one opens every single time. And if you work hard, you have the commitment mindset like Brandon did. You have the positive attitude that you bring to the team. You're trying to provide value. You're going to achieve serious accomplishments in the world of the sports and in the world outside of sports after you're done, and I just want to tell my audience you know I appreciate you guys. I'm hoping I'm able to provide some information for you that helps your career. And until next time, this is Coach Riley, with 6am Practice, and I wish you all the best. Remember, winners aren't born. We just practice more than everybody else. See you next time.