"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."
Babe Ruth
The smell of football is in the air with college starting up in a few weeks. The professionals have finally resolved their labor issues and are in the midst of training camps and will kick off their season in a little under a month.
In competition to the cheers soon to be heard around your local gridiron, the "boys of summer" have started heating things up and the pennant races across America's baseball diamonds are keeping at least one of the true sport's fan's two eyes on their game.
With just under 40 games left to play before the playoffs, the games will begin to get a little bit more contentious. The managers will think through every lineup change, the pitchers will throw a little bit harder and the hitters will become just a little more focused in hopes of leading their team, city and loyal fan base into the coveted month of October where a World Series Champion will be crowned. 80 years ago today (August 21st, 1931), the great Babe Ruth hit his 600th home run. As most sports fans know, Ruth went on to hit 714 home runs in his career and held that record until Henry "Hank" Aaron broke it in 1974. There are only 8 players in history that have knocked it out of the park 600 or more times (with Minnesota's Jim Thome joining the club just last week) so needless to say, Ruth, Thome and the other six had to swing at a lot of pitches. In fact, all 8 members of the 600 Home Run Club are among the Top 100 in strikeouts in the history of baseball.
From the Baseball Field to the Field of Real Estate
It's a new week. Let's think of it as the top of the inning and guess who's up to bat? Yep, it's you.
Are you ready to get up there and swing for the fences? Here comes the pitch...
- Will you call that former client of yours who you ran into this weekend?
- Could you stop by the expired listing that just showed up in the MLS Search of your target area?
- How about calling on that For Sale By Owner who has been trying to sell for the last several months in your neighborhood?
- Should you try out the new dialogue that you've been practicing in the office on your next Open House visitor?
- Don't let fear stop you from showing up at your next coaching session.
- Reach out to some of your "less vocal" connections on your social media channels and get engaged.
The market isn't going to toss you any easy pitches so you better dig your feet in, focus on the ball and start swinging for the fences.
Get out there and start building relationships, solving problems and having fun.
There's no way you can swing and miss at all three of those.
Flickr photo credit - Meadowsa
