I have never had more fun being part of something than my experience this summer with the Waynesboro Generals, the 2013 Valley League Champions.
There are lessons – life lessons, business lessons, all – in this.
The 2013 season wasn’t all fun and games. The team started its season with two losses, and at one point, after a five-game losing streak, had a record of 9-14, and was in danger of not even making the playoffs.
Everybody associated with the team – players, coaches, members of the board of directors, volunteers – was frustrated, with the season, with each other.
It could have gone one of two ways – we could pack it in and make plans for an earlier-than-expected summer beach trip, or we could roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Our group decided on the latter course, and in the process developed an almost strange sense of calm about what the real goal was, what we needed to do to achieve it, and what the outcome was going to be.
The goal wasn’t just to go out and win a few games and make the playoffs. That would have been a low bar. No, what our guys said, starting with Mike Bocock, the head coach who had already won seven VBL championships in his 24 seasons coaching summer baseball, was that we were going to be playing on the final day of the season, and winning that last game.
It was a lofty goal for a team that was five games under .500 at the midway point of the season.
But you know what? Setting that lofty goal gave us all a clear target to shoot for, and set the expectations for what needed to be done to make that happen.
I don’t doubt for a second that if we’d just decided to try to make the playoffs, then that’s what we would have done – punched the clock, done just enough to get to the postseason, then packed our bags after fading there and calling it a successful season.
We expected to win, and then we went out and did the work to make those expectations a reality.
The life lessons, business lessons – it may be obvious by this point.
Don’t sell yourself short by setting your own bar too low, or for that matter failing to set a bar in the first place.
Success doesn’t come by accident; it’s part of a process, the last step in a plan of action that begins with a goal and is brought to life with hard work.
I started this column off saying I’d never had more fun being part of something than I did this summer with this baseball team. The feeling of elation that we felt in the moments in the immediate aftermath of the last out of the championship game will stay with me forever.
And right there is my motivation to continue to work hard, to continue to set even higher goals, to continue to strive for more and more in the way of success.
Chris Graham is the president and CEO of Augusta Free Press LLC, a full-service web- and graphic-design and marketing-services firm based in Waynesboro, Va. Email him at [email protected]. More online at www.AFPBusiness.com.
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