“One of the great oddities of baseball: success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lost more than 70 games during their title winning seasons.” – Don Yaeger (American Sports Journalist, Author and Motivational speaker)
Before I decided to write a blog post on the value of base hits, I hadn’t really done the research. My idea was to chat about the importance of “getting up to the plate.”
Although I knew that a good batting percentage was in the “300s” I didn’t really think about it as the insight above illustrates. (The actual 2015 average of the top batters was .322. That said, a 32% rate is VERY GOOD!) True, we do need to get up to the plate, but I think perhaps more importantly is framing our success.
Who ever came up with these unwritten rules about the need to win all of the time, and even to have more victories than failures? Perhaps it’s innate, or perhaps it’s driven into the culture through the grading system in childhood and via little league titles, dancing recital titles, music “chairs,” etc. All said, a 68% failure rate (I prefer “miss rate”) may be just what we need to reframe our success.
Let me be clear, I am not one of the parents who feels every kid should get a trophy or a blue ribbon. In fact, I think we do a huge disservice to our children and ourselves when we do so. I do however believe that succeeding in life is better defined by baseball percentages than being the top of the class/team (insert your favorite blue ribbon goal).
Here’s why:
As the world accelerates (as we talked about last week), we need to be prepared to test and learn quickly. While our parents and grandparents generally worked at a company for their entire career, today’s world will almost certainly mean multiple jobs and multiple required skill sets. In order to find out where you excel, getting up to bat is important. It really doesn’t matter your age, there is so much that life has to offer if you are willing to step up to the plate and give it a try and realize success can be measured in many ways.
“There’s only one way to become a hitter. Go up to the plate and get mad. Get mad at yourself and mad at the pitcher.” (Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox “The Greatest Hitter who Ever Lived” self-proclaimed, but one of the best for sure!)
While I don’t love Mr. Williams’ “get mad” comments, I totally can feel that vibe. We do need to instill a BIT OF PASSION behind our work and personal goals and desires. Today, I hope you’ll give some thought to where you need to GET UP TO BAT…
Try a new restaurant or a food you’ve never liked before
Explore a new city, near or far… Fort Scott anyone?
Try a new hobby… grab the ingredients for that recipe you’ve been wanting to try …
Schedule that lunch you’ve been avoiding…
Sign up for that class…
Ask that person you admire to mentor you…
Go be a MENTOR to someone in your community you know could use your inspiration…
Heck, change your whole career… (after prayer and discernment of course…)
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