Focus Friday: Baseball and Xerox – A Lot In Common

by Chris Gilligan, Xerox PR

Like most kids of little league age, my nine-year old son wants to be a pitcher. He’s got some talent and some speed – about 40mph – and a few issues.

Sometimes when he pitches, you can see his eyes dart away from the catcher’s mitt. I’m not sure where they are going or what he is looking at, but he is not zeroed in on the target. The Los Angeles Dodgers had a pitcher named Fernando Valenzuela who famously would look up at the bill of his cap/to the sky, but other than him – nobody else could pitch and not keep their eye on the glove. We’re working through this issue.

To help him stay focused on getting better, he’s working with a pitching coach to work on his mechanics. The guy is a pro, knows what he’s doing and gives great advice on the finer points of pitching.

And sometimes when he faces a left-handed batter, he gets weirded-out and throws wildly – saying he’s not used to lefties. His coach tells him the batter doesn’t matter; a good pitch almost always wins out. Focus on the glove. To help practice we set up pieces of wood, garbage cans, whatever we can find to simulate a batter – and to learn to ignore it – focusing in only on the glove.

What a great analogy for life and what we do at Xerox.

If you take your eye off the goal – you’re going to miss it.

If you need help – look to an expert who can help with the details, so you can focus on what really matters.

Block out the distractions – they don’t matter.

While Xerox will focus on getting clients ready for real business, as for me this summer – my son and I are going to spend a lot of tie at the ballpark – working on his pitching.