Before St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny started his speech about leadership for the Arrow Leadership and Success Summit, he asked the audience of 1,500-plus at the Show Me Center to go to a place with him, to the cathedral that is a Major League Baseball field.

Matheny asked members of the audience to picture themselves as one of the "kids" that dreamed of being on one of those fields as a player.

"This was me," Matheny said Monday night. "It was early in my career and it was one of those times where I think we all actually just stop and look around and realize how cool something is, and I was in that spot."

Matheny said he captured the aroma of the ballpark and looked out across the "beautifully manicured" field while watching the fans file in the stadium.

"So I'm in a really good spot," Matheny said. "Picture yourself out there, trying to take it all in and all of the sudden, from somewhere behind you, you have someone yell, 'Hey Math-eenie, you stink.'"

Matheny started looking for an escape route and then the man said something that Matheny will never forget, "Hey Math-eenie, you even stink on my video game."

Later that night, Matheny went home to have dinner with his family. He laughed as he told them the story but noticed a look on his oldest son's face, Tate, like he didn't quite get it.

Matheny explained to his son that this happens all the time and that the guy doesn't know Matheny.

"No dad, I've heard them yell at you before," Tate Matheny said at dinner. "The problem I have is that I so bad want to play as you on my video game, but you stink on there."

Matheny then spoke about being a leader of the Cardinals as the team's manager.

"I'm going to be bouncing back between you [audience members] as a leader, us as leaders and us as individuals and some things that can give us a competitive edge," Matheny said.

Matheny said that there are five things that make a successful leader, which included education, discipline, goals, energy and serving others -- or EDGES.

Matheny said he started reading a lot of books about leadership and went to people for advice on how to be a leader, including his mentor Tony La Russa.

"I sat down with a pad and paper," Matheny said. "I was all excited and ready to go and he goes, 'I've got something for you. Every day, learn something new.' So I'm writing and I'm like 'What else?' and he said, 'That's really all you need to know.'"

Matheny also talked about discipline and said couples have met him and asked what their son needs to do to make it to the big leagues.

"The first thing you want to do is probably make sure he's a little bit bigger to get out of the stroller," Matheny said. "After that, I want to challenge you to what is 'Johnny Jr.' willing to do that nobody else is willing to do? What kind of sacrifices is he willing to make that nobody else is?"

Matheny said that he would never tell a child that they had no chance of making it to the big leagues.

"I'll never forget the day that somebody challenged me," Matheny said. "He came to a summer camp and he sat us down and said if we had a dream to make it in the major leagues, we were dreamers and had better odds of winning the lottery."

Matheny said that to be a good leader, you have to have set, written goals. He was challenged to do this a long time ago and he put his goals on his bathroom mirror and the dashboard of his truck.

For energy, Matheny shared that he loves talking with former Cardinal players and specifically mentioned something that Willie McGee told him about how a player can affect the tone of a locker room.

"Some people light up a locker room when they walk in," McGee said to Matheny. "Some people light up a room when they walk out."

The most important topic of the five that Matheny enlightened the audience on was serving others. Matheny said that whoever takes on this challenge should start with thinking of themselves less and changing the people around them.

"That's leadership, leadership is changing people," Matheny said. "Changing people and pushing them to the right direction and helping to guide them by serving them. More importantly, it changes us as individuals. And when we do that, at the end, we can look back and not have any regrets."

The Arrow Leadership and Success Summit, sponsored by Saint Francis Medical Center and the Arrow, was organized to be an opportunity for students and others in southeast Missouri to hear from successful and prominent leaders. This was the first year of the event and there are plans to continue the event in the future.

Matheny ended the event by talking about getting the opportunity on behalf of the Cardinals organization to talk about the energy that the fans bring.

"We're so grateful of the support that you give -- and some of you for 75 years and some of you are just now trying to figure out what colors you want to wear," Matheny said. "Wherever you are on that spectrum, on behalf of the organization, I just want to say thank you and keep coming out."