A Complicated Thing...

I'm sitting here with a baseball in front of me...staring at me like the volleyball in Castaway. In just a few minutes, I'll be speaking to the staff at work about being a team...the importance of preparation, performance...and the biggest one of all...being able to place your trust in something or someone other than yourself.  It's not easy.

So I'm about to talk about what I know...baseball.   I'll be invoking the 1998 New York Yankees and what that team accomplished and the adversity some of its members faced.   I'll hold the baseball and hope they get the metaphor of a pitcher letting the ball go and trusting the team behind him.  In spite of all your training and preparation, you've still got to let the ball go and trust the team behind you.  Such is life.  We'll see how this goes.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  Sometimes you never know with people.  Trust is a complicated thing.

There's a Maya Angelo quote that says, "when people show you who they are, believe them the first time."  I've always loved that.  I've got a ton of acquaintances, but only a handful of people I consider friends.  The trust that I'll talk about to the staff is a big reason why.  If you're my friend, I will trust you with ME.  I'll be honest and vulnerable and fun and you will know ME.  THAT is me trusting YOU.  That rarely happens in a work environment...but here I go.  I'm off to be an advocate of the team and the trust we need to have in the people we count on to pull off something bigger than ourselves every day.  Let's see how much they trust me...