“My scout, Joey Davis, drafted me in the 33rd round. He saw something in me and I am just so thankful.”

-Brock Stassi

Brock Stassi and his brother Max have been bouncing around the minor leagues for years. Baseball has been in their family for generations. Their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all catchers who played in the minor leagues. A few weeks ago, at the almost impossible age of 27, Max found out that he made the final roster for the Philadelphia Phillies. He is finally a major leaguer. His reaction was priceless.

Brock talks about the people who saw something in him. Those that took a chance on him or gave him a second look. Among the millions of big league hopefuls and others with possibly more obvious talent, a scout took an interest in him. Even while working as a substitute teacher in the offseason, he kept the hope alive that his dream may one day come true.

One of our newest clients just happens to be one of my favorite people. He is a fabulous leader who runs a great business and cares for his people well. He has done what we work towards with every client:

Built a team.

Defined a future.

Created a plan to get there.

And he and his team are flat out executing under our new meeting governance. Timelines are shrinking, decade old problems are getting solved, and bandwidth/capacity are growing. The team now has margin as well as the the ability to process more work, but the margin of time is growing for him as well. He is starting to ask the question about his purpose beyond the day-to-day responsibilities that have consumed his time previously.

In a recent meeting, he and I excavated that issue. We arrived at this picture:

The kid at the end of the bench.

He’s always had a heart for the underdog. The one who had untapped potential that just needed a little interest paid to them. The one who didn’t get the attention that possibly the other kids had received. He identified that as the “kid at the end of the bench” that had always held a special interest for him on his kid’s sports teams. That led us to the simple next questions:

Who is the “kid at the end of the bench” in your company?

Who is the “kid at the end of the bench” in your neighborhood?

Who is the “kid at the end of the bench” in your church?

He called me the other day and told me that he had identified his first “kid at the end of the bench” and he was going to invest some time in the man. He said that he had run into him a few times and that by simply asking him how he was doing, that the guy had told him his life story with all of its’ challenges and disappointments. He said he was very surprised that he had shared all of that with a relative stranger.

I told him that he was no “relative stranger”, but the person who had likely shown that man more interest than anyone in decades. The world is full of people like this, like Brock Stassi, that are just waiting for someone to notice them at the end of the bench and pay a little attention. Maybe that person is you.

Are you aware of what most stirs your heart?
Are you acknowledging that heart’s desire by looking for opportunities to address it in your everyday life?
Do you even have the bandwidth to think about the possibility of that?
What great need is your overwhelm keeping you from addressing?
When are you going to do something about that?