A banker asked me Monday morning how our year at my company was going. I paused for a minute, then said, Best ever start to a year, on top of a best ever year last year that followed a best ever year the year before.” I didn’t mean to rattle it off that quickly, and it was not something that I had rehearsed, but just came naturally as that is the truth. Since that interaction, I have been thinking about my comment over the last couple of days, trying to figure out why this is the case.
Then, while sitting at dinner last night out of town for work, my wife sends me a text that says, “Home run!” I knew my son Hudson had a baseball game, and then a few seconds later a video followed of his first home run of the season. While watching the video and wishing I was there, I witnessed the following:
His first swing was a great swing with lots of energy but a complete miss.
His second swing was a great swing with even more of a cut and a close miss.
His third swing had that sound of an aluminum bat going “ting,” and then the ball completely disappearing off the screen.
Then, all you heard was yelling and cheering, and the camera dropped because the person filming was cheering hysterically.
I hate I missed the homerun and the look on his face when he ran home, but there is one glaring lesson I have learned from this moment:
No matter what every day throws at you, keep swinging.
Regardless of how many times you miss, keep swinging.
Don’t ever let anything get you down, just keep swinging.
The reason that business is so good right now is that over the last 3 years, regardless of what has come at us or faced us, we just kept swinging. And the payoff is very real.