Ryan Lavarnway on Finding Belonging

Ryan Lavarnway was originally drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the sixth round in 2008 out of Yale University. Since making his Major League debut in 2011, Ryan has played in parts of 10 Major League Baseball seasons for eight different teams. He has also represented Israel in the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic. More recently Ryan has been building a brand off the field, starting with his podcast and website with more to come!

 

Ryan had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“It always felt like something there was a little something missing [from baseball] until I started to get onto these teams that really came together as a unit” (5:30).

“Religion is something that, unless you have a Star of David on your chest and are being persecuted for it, people can’t necessarily tell just by looking” (10:35).

“I want the meaning. I crave something deeper” (13:15).

“We’re all always finding ourselves” (14:40).

“The second that you think you know who you are, don’t close the book. We’re always growing” (14:55).

“More important than ‘Who am I?’ is “What do you value and what are you doing about it?’” (15:00).

“As I self-identify, I do it from a place of experience” (18:40).

“There’s a part of you that needs to be obsessed to be great at anything” (19:20).

“Different people need different things to be successful” (20:20).

“I thought leadership was about the leader. I thought it was about being the boss. That’s very much not it. Leadership is about the people you lead” (25:55).

“The platinum rule says treat other people the way they want to be treated” (27:00).

“I loved the service aspect of [being a catcher]” (29:40).

“You can’t measure leadership yet” (31:00).

“Baseball’s a game of failure” (36:00).

“You have to accept that you’re not going to be successful all of the time” (36:25).

“You have to make practice difficult” (36:35).

“I’m trying to find a way to be aggressively selective, not selectively aggressive” (37:25).

“Whatever the genius for you is and however it’s going to come out requires time and space for creativity” (45:00).

“It’s really tough to be a good self-evaluator in [the game of baseball]” (49:50).

“I think it’s important for people to have an example of someone else that didn’t understand right away and learned later” (56:05).

“There’s more than one way to make a decision” (56:30).

 

Additionally, you can check out Ryan’s website here and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. I’d also encourage you to check out Ryan’s podcast Finding the Way with Ryan Lavarnway, which is available on all major podcast platforms. Ryan also has a children’s book which will be coming out, titled Baseball and Belonging. Lastly, you can find the website for the Spark Brilliance Leadership Accelerator here, with whom Ryan is partnering with as a facilitator.

Thank you so much to Ryan for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.