The Writers Coin

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I’ve played baseball my whole like and from very early on I knew the kind of player I was: a contact hitter with pretty good speed.

I usually hit leadoff and I bunted a lot—homeruns were not my thing.

One day when I was in my twenties, a new Cuban coach said something surprising:

You should be hitting homeruns. You have the swing and you have the body. Why don’t you hit homeruns?

I told him I’d never hit it out of the stadium we were in (325 ft down the lines and 380 to center, by the way) and that it really isn’t my game.

Grab a bat and go out there and try to hit a homerun on every swing.

At that point, I had played baseball for 15 years and this was the first time anyone had said anything like this to me.

I was skeptical and I didn’t believe I could do it.

But I respected the coach and seeing how perplexed he was that I didn’t think I could do it planted a seed in my mind.

• Does he really think I can do this?
• Can I do this?
• Maybe he knows something I don’t
• Maybe I can do this

So I grabbed a bat, dug into the box, and changed into a mentality I had never been in before: I am a homerun hitter.

I hit a couple line drives…the usual for me. I couple of balls went pretty far, but still not close to the fence.

Then I hit a ball as hard as I can remember hitting one.

And high.

And deep.

I flicked the bat away as the ball was still in the air and thought to myself, “If this ball doesn’t go out, a) I will be very embarassed because I just flicked my bat, and b) I cannot hit a homerun because that was the best I can hit a ball.

It barely cleared the fence but it went out—homerun.

I immediately turned to look at the coach with my big, dumb grin. As in, “Damn! You were right!”

It was a moment I’ll never forget: I did something I thought was impossible thanks to someone else that believed I could do it. Without that coach believing me and pushing me, I never would’ve done it.

The lesson here? Having someone that believes you can achieve something can play a huge role in any goals or resolutions you set for yourself. And even if you yourself believe you can do it, it’s always good to have someone else who does too.

Image by MissChatter and alex44k