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Foreign. Welcome to Leading Organizations that Matter, a podcast about leadership and how we find impact, meaning and joy in our work. I'm Ray Spadoni, and today's topic is here's to the pitchers in the early 1990s, before I fractured both of my wrists playing basketball. There's actually a story there, and one I probably will tell at some point. I was given a gift by my wife to take six golf lessons from a pro. I was actually pretty psyched about it because I wanted to get better. At the time, I had a job working for a big accounting and consulting firm where playing with clients and attending charity golf tournaments was a very nice part of the job. And I wasn't great at golf and so I knew I needed to improve. And so the gift and the lessons were very much appreciated. The pro mentioned something to me during one of the sessions that I never forgot, and that is that driving the ball was a unique experience. In sports. You have to initiate, you have to act. Almost everything else in all of sports is about reacting. Something happens, you react to it. He likened driving the ball to pitching in baseball, saying that the pitcher starts the process. The catcher and then everyone else on the playing field has to react to what happens. Even the batter has to react. Runners on base react. The only player on the field who initiates is the pitcher. The golf said there is something uniquely psychological about being the initiator, the one everyone else gets to react to. He said. It takes a different type of preparation, confidence and concentration, and I never forgot about that. It's a good sports lesson, and I think it's a good life lesson. As I rose through the management ranks in my career over the decades that followed, the golf pro's comment often resurfaced. As I moved upward and my scope of responsibility broadened, I began to see myself more as pitcher than catcher. And then when I became CEO for the first time, I really felt as though I was headed out onto the mound with the ball in my glove and that everyone on the field was waiting for me to throw it. I became the initiator. I like to use this analogy when I'm coaching a leader who's hoping to advance in their career. Especially like to talk about it with someone who has set their sights on becoming CEO. Someday, I'll often be asked, what must I do to become a credible and attractive CEO candidate? Well, there's no one size fits all answer to that, but certainly it includes things like decisiveness, especially under pressure, great communication skills, strategic insight and vision, team building, high emotional intelligence adaptability, great relationships, and more. But there's another area I like to explore, and that has to do with courage and boldness. This is, I believe, essential. I like the pitcher catcher distinction because I asked my clients to think about and describe the times in their life when they were more the pitcher than the catcher. I asked them how that felt, what was good about it, and what was difficult. I ask about what they learned from the experience, and it frequently ends up being a grade area for ongoing focus and discussion. So are you more the pitcher or the catcher? Thanks for listening. Leaving a positive review and letting others know about this podcast will help a great deal. My mission is to help empower organizations that matter by supporting those who lead them. I offer coaching, mentoring, and consulting services. You can learn more about me and my work at Race Bodoni. Com.