Ep 300 | 300 Earns You a Seat in the Hall of Fame

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the 300th episode of the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. That's right, it is episode 300, and wow, it has been quite a ride. Thank you so much. I want to, I want to take a moment to, to thank all of the No Days Off Nation, those that are committed to getting better every single day, building better habits, building better relationships, focusing on their health, and of course focusing on, on growing their business and their wealth. It takes a heck of a commitment to, to improve each and every day. And again, I just want to thank you for tuning in, for sharing the episodes that are meaningful to you, for sending me messages on, on a variety of things from topics you'd like to hear to critiques that you have for me to make it better. It, in all sincerity, it means the world, and we are just getting started. So in honor of the 300th episode, I got to thinking, okay, that the number 300, you know, what's significant about the number 300? And it's racking my brain, and I'll tell you the first place it went. I'm like, God, what can we learn from the movie 300? You've probably seen the movie with the Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae. It's a hell of a, hell of a movie, and I of course researched it. Unfortunately, that movie, while there are some factual components to it, it's pretty heavily dramatized. So we will not be talking about the movie 300. But as I got to thinking, I'll tell you where my mind landed. I landed on baseball, of all things. Now, some of our listeners, you are sports fanatics. You hear the number 300 and your mind may go in the same, same place as mine. Others of you have no clue what I'm talking about yet, and maybe even after I describe it, still won't know. But I promise you, there is something for all of us to learn. The number 300 as it pertains to baseball— what am I talking about? When I think 300, I think about batting average. So you could— you would say a baseball player has a.300 batting average. What that really means is that 3 out of every 10 at-bats, that player gets a hit. So they have a 30% success rate. So when you say you're batting.300, that means that 30% of the time you're getting a hit. If you're saying someone's batting.250, that means 25% of the time they're getting a hit. Batting.400, which is not, uh, very likely, you're getting a hit 40% of the time. So let's go back to 300 though. Why is this number important? Well, I was doing some research. There are 346 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now, a lot of those individuals are coaches and executives. There's 273 players, individuals that played the game, in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Of those 273, Of those 273, only 118 of those players batted.300 or higher. So let's be super clear here, right? 273 athletes in the Baseball Hall of Fame, 118 of them— so call it, uh, what is that, 40% roughly? Only 40% of the players in the Baseball Hall of Fame got a hit more than 3 times for every 10 at-bats. I think that that's amazing. In other words, if you bat.300 over the course of your professional baseball career, you are almost guaranteed to make it into the Hall of Fame. I think this is a fascinating stat because while many will look at it and say, "Well, you got 3 hits," I actually think to myself, "Well, you struck out or didn't get on base." 7 out of those 10 times. So you failed the majority of the time and you still made it to the Hall of Fame. I think there's a lot to learn from that simple fact, from that, that, that statistic. Number 1, you've got all these players in the Baseball Hall of Fame that, you know, got out the majority of the time. However, they were excellent in other areas. So one way into the Hall of Fame, if you're not going to do it with a high batting average, is to have excellence in diverse areas. So the Hall of Fame is going to look at a player's overall contributions, not just their batting average, but their contributions to the game. Maybe they're good on defense, maybe they're phenomenal at base running, maybe they're a power hitter so they get more home runs, maybe they're just great leaders. But you've got players that frankly had terrible batting averages that are in the Hall of Fame because they excelled in other areas. Babe Ruth, guy struck out an astronomical amount, did not even come close to hitting over.300, but he's one of the greatest home run hitters of all time. He was also, you know, a heck of a player beyond just hitting. I mean, he spent years pitching and doing all sorts of other things. Babe Ruth didn't hit over.300, yet he's arguably the most famous baseball player that many of us know. Mickey Mantle didn't hit over.300. He was close, but he didn't. But these guys excelled in terms of leadership and defense and other areas. So number one takeaway, if you're gonna make it into the Hall of Fame with a poor batting average, you've gotta excel in other areas. Number two, if you're gonna have a poor batting average, you've gotta be consistent and you got to have a long career. You got to have some longevity to the career. So in other words, sustained performance over time. So while you want a great batting average, that would be nice, in terms of making it to the Hall of Fame, the data would show that a good batting average sustained over a long period of time actually leads to Hall of Fame credentials. So consistency over time is actually highly valued when voting for the Hall of Fame. So you've got, I mean, there are countless players, believe it or not, that have thousands of hits that are in the Hall of Fame. I don't wanna say countless. There's a number that are in the Hall of Fame that didn't bat over.300, but they had thousands of hits over the course of their career because they played 15 or 18 or 20 years. So they were consistent with an average batting average, with like a good batting average, but they did it for a long period of time. So that consistency and that longevity and that durability led to a Hall of Fame career. Next, you're gonna have a bad batting average or just an average or good batting average. In order to get into the Hall of Fame, you got to make an impact beyond just the stats. What am I referring to? I'm talking about leadership. On the field or in the locker room. I'm talking about sportsmanship. Truth of the matter is there's individuals in the Hall of Fame that were just loved by the fans, loved by their peers, loved by the press. Sportsmanship, attitude— these things impacted the game beyond just the stats. These players that have influenced the game and inspired their teammates and, and showed some sort of exceptional dedication They can be recognized. Cal Ripken, some of you may know, is a great example of this. He was a pretty good player, but he was well-liked and he was insanely adorable in that he, he holds the most— he holds the record for most games played in a row. So it's not always championships and playoff performances, you know, in stats. But I'll tell you what, if you're influencing and you're leading your team in whatever way you are, and that team does end up winning, like You go along for the ride. Next thing going through my mind in terms of things we can learn from individuals getting into the Hall of Fame that didn't necessarily have amazing batting averages, these individuals typically had to overcome failure. There was resilience. Baseball, a lot like life, involves frequent failure. Remember, a.300 batting average means you're failing 70% of the time at the plate. So this just, you know, again illustrates the importance of resilience and the ability to bounce back from setbacks. So this perseverance, this continual effort, and overcoming frequent failures, and mindset, and all of it goes into this complete package that builds the resume for the Hall of Fame. So on our 300th episode, where am I going with all this? What I'm trying to explain is that in, in sport and in life and in business, while it would be fantastic to have a high batting average and to have success all of the time, you can get into the Hall of Fame in other ways, right? Like, you look at a lot of business entrepreneurs, and we won't run through too many examples, but you, you look at a lot of business entrepreneurs And you'll find failure after failure after failure after failure, and then they have one or two big successes, and now they're in the Business Hall of Fame. Or you look at politicians, let's say Abraham Lincoln. You know, if you know anything about Abraham Lincoln, the guy had failure after failure after failure, and then he rose to the presidency, and he went down in history as one of the greatest presidents to ever live. Hall of Fame of politics. So I think what we could draw from this again is while it would be nice to win every single battle, win every single, uh, achieve every single objective— we'd love that, I'd love to have a high percentage— that's not necessarily what it's going to take though, or there's other paths I should say to getting into the Hall of Fame. So the focusing question I think for you right now Right, like if you intend to be in your version of a Hall of Fame, maybe it's a Hall of Fame father or a Hall of Fame business owner or a Hall of Fame friend, and you recognize that, man, you're— you may not get as many wins as you'd like to, but there's other ways to make impact and to influence. Where can you start thinking about plug it in a bit differently? What could you develop that gets you to that Hall of Fame caliber? I just think it's such a good lesson to recognize that, hey, you could screw up 70% of the time and you still go down as one of the greatest in history. That's all I have for you today on our 300th episode. I'm Brian Gubernick. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.