In April of 1995 we had a meeting in our Stanford baseball locker room with our pitching coach, Dean Stotz, and our entire pitching staff (about 18 guys, half of the whole team) that had a profound impact on me. At that point in the season, we were really struggling. Going into the year, we were the number one–ranked team in the country. According to all the experts, we were supposed to have the best team in college baseball. But, as we say in sports, you don’t play the games on paper. As the season had gotten under way, we lost some key games and had some significant injuries. By April, which was the midway point of the season, we were no longer ranked number one in the country. In fact, we’d fallen out of the national rankings completely.
Coach Stotz, sensing our frustration and experiencing some of his own, decided to have a conversation with us in the locker room to see if we could shift things in a more positive direction. He said to all of us, “Look, guys, I know it’s been tough and we haven’t been playing that well. I wanted to get together as a pitching staff and talk about what’s been going on. Instead of me doing all the talking, I want to hear from you guys.” He continued, “Let’s have an open, honest discussion about some of your biggest frustrations. You have permission to say anything you want.”
Although we were a little nervous, especially at first, once we started talking, we began to open up and Coach Stotz started writing down what we were saying on the whiteboard in the locker room. Many of the things we talked about initially were pretty straightforward baseball-related issues—we weren’t scoring enough runs, we weren’t playing great defense, we’d blown a couple of games that we all thought we should have won. Some of the stuff had more to do with some specific circumstances we’d been facing: the injuries, the rainy weather early in the season that caused some games to be canceled or rescheduled, the ongoing construction at our stadium that had been delayed by the weather, a few questionable calls from umpires that cost us a game or two. After a while, some of the guys were willing to get a little more personal and started talking about some even more sensitive subjects, like playing time (thinking they weren’t getting a fair chance to play), team policies and rules they didn’t like, and even some of the attitudes of the other members of our team who weren’t in the room (there is often tension on a baseball team between the pitchers and position players, and that was definitely the case on our team).
Coach Stotz didn’t say much, he just continued to add to what was now becoming a pretty long list. When we were finally done, he said, “Look, men, I understand your frustration. I feel the same way about a lot of these things and there aren’t very many things up on this board that I would even disagree with. But, I have a very simple yet important question to ask you—how many of the things on this list can you control?”
As I stared at the list and contemplated Coach Stotz’s question, I realized that most of the things up on the board were clearly out of my control. They were all based on what other people were doing or not doing, or based on circumstances that weren’t up to me. One of my teammates raised his hand and said, “I don’t think there’s anything up on that board we can fully control.”
Coach Stotz then said, “That’s right! The truth is, most of these things are just complaints. And while there may be some validity to them, the more important thing to remember is that there are really only three things that you can control in baseball, and in life, for that matter. Those three things are your attitude, your effort, and your perspective. That’s it—attitude, effort, and perspective. If you can focus your attention on those three things—have your attitude be as positive as it can be, your effort as passionate as possible, and your perspective as healthy as you’re able, then you can be a productive member of this pitching staff and ultimately of this team. The same is true for life. Remembering these things will help you engage effectively in anything that happens.”
For me sitting there in that locker room at the age of 21, it was a pivotal moment and a profound insight about how I could relate to not only baseball but my life moving forward. I was grateful for those words of wisdom. They also seemed to have a positive impact on our team, as we did turn things around that season and ended up making it to the College World Series, which was a huge thrill for all of us.
I’ve thought about that conversation many times over the past 19 years and have shared that same insight with many of my clients. Too often we get caught up in focusing on things we can’t control and render ourselves ineffective at both influencing positive change and enjoying the experience.
Remembering that we have complete control over our attitude, effort, and perspective is empowering—especially when we find ourselves worried about how things are going to turn out with a particular project, relationship, goal, or any other important aspect of our lives, big or small. We can be incredibly powerful and effective in our ability to create and manifest the things we want in our lives, especially when we focus on what we can actually control.