In this short motivational talk delivered on the morning of Monday, November 24th, the speaker reflects on a hectic week of close soccer games—including Shepherd’s state semifinal loss, Saint Louis University’s NCAA tournament wins, and a tense overtime victory over Kentucky. Inspired by a player’s chant, “pass the baton,” the speaker adopts the baton‑passing metaphor to illustrate how team members must know when to take on responsibility, give their all, and then hand it off to the next person. He emphasizes that effective teamwork involves a continuous cycle of taking, committing, emptying one’s tank, and passing the baton to a ready teammate. The core “Moment of Yes” for the audience is to pause, assess whether they need to take the baton or pass it right now, and act accordingly throughout the busy week ahead. The talk ends with an upbeat sign‑off, “Go Bills!”
Chapters
Hey, good morning everyone. Here's your Moment of Yes for Monday, November 24th. It is Thanksgiving week here in the US. It has been a crazy last week of soccer on our end. Shepherd went to the state semifinal and then they lost in the state final. The night before, Saint Louis University won their first round of the NCAA tournament. And then they won their second game of the NCAA tournament yesterday. 4 days in a row of tense, nerve-wracking. Nothing was ever more than a 1-goal difference in any of the 4 games. And so I've kind of been in that sort of emotional space for 4 days. Which is fun. It's also exhausting. But I wanted to share one of the concepts. We were— when SLU was playing against Kentucky on Thursday night, and we came back from behind and tied the game with 4 minutes to go, I think. And then we went to overtime. And so you've got all this time where the team is coming off and on, off and on at the end. And one of the players for St. Louis, I loved it. He was yelling at the guys, like encouraging yelling at the guys, pass the baton, pass the baton. And I hadn't thought of that or heard that in correlation to like sports. I mean, clearly it's a track and field event, pass the baton to the next runner. But I loved thinking about it from the standpoint of the team. And so when I did a team talk with the guys a few days later, I gave him credit. I was like, you know, Drake used the expression pass the baton, meaning your only job is to empty your tank and then pass it on to someone else so they can take it from there. And so the thing that I added when talking to the team is the first thing we need to do is we need to take the baton, right? We need to take it. We need to commit. We need to do the work and then we need to be able to pass it on to someone else. And that other person needs to be ready to take it. And so we're always kind of stuck in, not stuck, but in one of those, sometimes we're carrying it and we need to pass it on. And sometimes someone else is carrying it and we need to take it. And then we need to empty our tank and pass it on, recover, take it again. And so, um, As we move into, I know, an active week for a lot of us. So just kind of your moment of yes for this week is, do you need to pass the baton right now or take the baton? And remember that, that, and then once, once you take it, you're going to need to pass it and then you're going to need to take it, pass it, take it, pass it. So where are you right now? And as we get into the midst of things, ask yourself, how am I feeling? Do I need to take the baton or pass the baton? There you go. That's your moment of yes for this week. Have an awesome week, everyone. Go Bills!
