Hi, I'm Jeremy 👋

I'm a former professional and Olympic baseball player, union advocate, and writer. Most of my work comes down to supporting creative people and the communities they lead.

During my career, I’ve felt most at home as an operator. The person who organizes people, creates processes, and gets work off the ground. It’s been a fun, purposeful, and effective excuse to try new things.

A few years ago, I founded More Than Baseball ⚾, a nonprofit that helped form the Minor League Baseball Players Association. In some ways, I still can’t believe we got to do this work.

In 2021, I co-founded MindReady to help provide athletes with sport psychology coaching and education. As someone who has dealt with mental health issues stemming from experiences on and off the field, the work I do with MindReady provides me with solace and comfort knowing athletes have the resources I wasn't afforded.

Things I believe

It's important to do things fast

• You learn more per unit of time because you make contact with reality more frequently
• Going fast makes you focus on what's important; there's no time for bullshit
• "Slow is fake"
• Time is the your most important resource

Seek advice from experts

• Connect with people with more experience than you; age does not equal experience
• Experts can take you from point A to point B more efficiently
• Mentors will present themselves when you are ready
• Trust your gut

We know less than we think

• The best leaders listen
• Mistakes are truly the best lesson
• Many of the things we believe are wrong
• We are often not even asking the right questions

The cultural prohibition on micromanagement is harmful

• Great individuals should be fully empowered to exercise their judgment
• "Done is better than perfect"
• The downsides are worth it

Smaller teams are better

• Faster decisions, fewer meetings, more fun
• No need to chop up work for political reasons
• No room for mediocre people (can pay more, too!)
• Many companies are 2-10x overstaffed

Where do you get your dopamine?

• The answer is predictive of your behavior
• Better to get your dopamine from improving your ideas than from having them validated
• It's ok to get yours from "making things happen"

You can do more than you think

• The laws of physics are the only limit
• Work hard and great things present themselves

Things I'm reading

• The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
• A World Without Email by Cal Newport
• The Billionaire Who Wasn’t by Conor O’Clery
• Open Space by Elias Tebache and Mick Aure

Things I do

• I'm a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences discussing the intersection decision making, mental models, and team culture development
• My work has been featured in Forbes, Los Angeles Times, The Athletic, and the Wall Street Journal
• You can email me at hello@jeremywolf.co

Every week, I write essays on the intersection of sport and society. Join a few thousand friends and get notified the next time I publish new words.