What We Can Learn from the 2013 Boston Red Sox

There are some great stories and lessons coming out of the recent Red Sox win of the World Series.  Full disclosure - I’m a long time Red Sox fan which is why I’m listening and reading about the team.  But I’m also someone who teaches success strategies and there are plenty here for all of us.

 I heard a former player say today that when they come up to the plate to bat, they’re to put all the other times they failed that day behind them.  It’s a new opportunity and that one at bat might be the one that wins the game.  That happened throughout the playoff series with a variety of players who had not at any hits at all.  If they had given up, if they had thought of themselves as failures, they would not have gotten the hits they got that ultimately won that game.  Goes back to my ‘pearl’ theory – that we’re only given this moment and we should treat it like the pearl it is.  It doesn’t matter what you did yesterday, last week, last year – as long as the things you didn’t do well taught you something.  Move on – who knows what incredibly experience is right ahead.

We often think we have to be perfect in everything.  A good batter is over .300 which means they hit 3 out of every 10 times they’re at the plate.  Yet we’re so hard on ourselves when we make a mistake or mess something up.  Of course if you only pick your kids up 3 out of 10 times, that’s a problem but you understand the story.

I find this to be true when I’m going through a down time.  It seems like it will never end.  Then it does - because that’s how life evolves - some of my best times follow.  That was definitely true for the Red Sox who had a pitiful year last year.  But as they say now – from worst to first!  You don’t have to be a ball player to experience that.

The other point today was about team.  That former player was asked what he’d remember about the 2013 Red Sox years later.  They weren’t a bunch of big stars like the 2004 Red Sox – they were a true team that cared about the game (their job), their own place in it and each other.  When some were down, the others stepped up.  And they never quit – on themselves, with each other, with the city of Boston who needed the lift, and with the rest of their fans.  Some great lessons indeed.