Fans blame refs for losses, and kids learn to blame external forces instead of taking responsibility. The same pattern shows up in business: when clients cancel or agents quit, it's usually because you didn't build enough sales or capacity. Stop waiting for others to make bad calls and build a business that can handle them.
Chapters
When Maddux strikes out or loses a game, who do all the parents and the players blame for the loss? Referee. Umps. In baseball, it's the umps. Every time, it's always the umps' fault, right? And that trickles down to the kids because that's normal outside the fences with the parents. It's normal to blame the ump. It was a bad call, Dad. Let's pretend it was. You know, if you hit the ball before that pitch, you wouldn't have been in the position to get the bad call. Does that make sense? So why are we putting yourself in a position to to let someone's bad call make an impact on you. And in our space, you're mad about cancellations or agents quitting. Why? Because we don't sell enough, we don't have enough of a team. That's the only reason you're mad when someone cancels, because you ain't got enough money. If I dropped $10 million on the table right now and someone can't— any one of your clients cancel today, you wouldn't give a shit. Does that make sense? But we tend to put blame in different places, and then worse, we allow agents to do it.