Andy Neary recounts the day he was released from professional baseball: after a successful appearance the prior day, he returned to the Maryvale spring-training locker room to find a 3x5 pink card — the release notice — hanging in his locker on the last day of spring training. He describes the public awkwardness of being cut in a shared minor-league locker room and the self-questioning that followed (Did I do enough? Did I live up to my potential?). Neary frames that experience as the motivator for his current drive and urges listeners to maximize their daily minutes and bring value to others so that, if they someday face a similar 'pink slip' moment, they can honestly say they lived up to their potential.
Chapters
So what was it like the day I got released, the day I got cut? It sucked. I can remember the day before. I had just pitched a successful inning against the Oakland A's farm system. Next morning, got back to Maryvale, our spring training facility. And the thing about spring training is you get there so early in the morning, it's not even light out. And the routine is you walk in, put your stuff in your locker, and you go eat breakfast so you can get ready for the day it's gonna be. It's typically a very long day. And I can remember when I got to my locker, put my stuff there, it was. It was hanging. It was the pink slip. And it was literally the last day of spring training. And it's literally a 3x5 pink card hanging in your locker. And it's such an awkward moment because your teammates are all there in the locker room. In fact, all of the minor league system is sharing one huge locker room. And everybody knows what has just happened. Everybody knows you're getting released. Everybody knows you're no longer good enough to play for the brewers organization. And it's also a very awkward moment because you pause and you think, did I do enough? What else could I have done? Did I live up to my potential?
And I have to be honest, I often question my level of living up to my potential throughout the minor leagues and throughout my professional baseball career. That's actually what drives me today. It fuels me today, because I never want to go back to the moment where I'm sitting and looking in that locker and seeing that pink slip hanging there. What I ask you is, are you living up to your potential? Are you waking up every day to maximize the hours you have? Or are you making some BS excuses of where you are just to make yourself feel good? Because the day is going to come that you're going to get that pink slip, and you're going to find yourself sitting there going, did I do enough? What else could I have done? Did I live up to my potential? And I want you to never have to get to that point. So my advice to you is.
Wake up every day, single day, to bring as much value as you can to those that you interact with in your life and maximize the minutes, the hours that you have. Because, number one, you'll never know if they're going to be your last. And number two, you want to look back one day, one week, one year from now, knowing you have done everything you can do to live up to your potential. Because when that day comes, if you get the pink slip. You can look at it and say, you know what? I did everything I could. Could. And it wasn't good enough. But that's okay, because I lived up to my full potential.
