The Space Between Strikes: On Breathing and Moving Forward

My big cousin, who also doubles as my godbrother, recently came to the Town. Naturally, we had to catch up. Once we were through the standard-issue New Orleans greetings of “whazzam” and “you got it, dawg,” our conversation shifted toward the TV, where the game was on. It’s October, and to baseball folks, that means one thing—THE PLAYOFFS. Both of us played baseball growing up. Auggie, my cousin, took it further than I did—he played semi-pro. We both always dreamed of making it to the big leagues. Never did, but we moved on. Still, some dreams have a way of sticking around, and there’s nothing like sipping off-the-shelf Cabernet in a San Francisco speakeasy to bring out that introspective mood. The live band, ironically, played “The Saints are Marching In”—almost as if they knew 'dat' we were there.

We started talking about the lessons baseball teaches you. How it’s more than just a game. It’s a metaphor for the business world, and life in general. You see, baseball has a way of humbling you real quick. One minute, you’re feeling like the hero; the next, you’re on the bench, chewing sunflower seeds, wondering how you swung right through that pitch. And one question bubbled up from all of this: What do you do when you strike out? I think it was Mike Tyson who said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Well, this is the diamond equivalent. You’ve got your game plan, you’re ready, and then—whiff. Game over, for that at-bat at least. What we realized is this: It’s best to have a process you believe in and trust before you strike out. A mechanism. A fallback plan for when things don’t go your way. Because in baseball, and in life, you will strike out. It’s not a matter of if; it’s when. And when it happens, the worst thing you can do is just hope or wish for better results. You’ve got to activate that process, reset, and keep swinging. Maybe it’s something simple—stepping out of the batter’s box, taking a breath, visualizing the next pitch. Or maybe it’s something bigger—reviewing what went wrong and adjusting your stance, your swing, or your approach entirely. But whatever it is, you need to have it ready before you need it. One of the secrets I learned from a Buddhist monk in Asia is the power of breathing. It’s so simple, yet so effective. Breathe—not just to calm yourself down, but to lower your heart rate, give yourself the chance to reset, and most importantly, to see the field. When we’re caught up in the moment of failure, breathing helps us to step back and regain perspective. Wishful thinking won't help when you’re standing at the plate with two strikes, or when that big project at work falls through. How many times do we get bogged down when things don’t go our way? When we’re on the back foot, do we linger on the “oh shoot, he caught me slipping” moment, or do we recenter, eyes locked on the objective, and keep swinging? What’s your process? Do you fall into a cocoon of “I should have” or “he got lucky”? Or do you get back up, adjust, and stay productive? I remember a time in my own career when a big pitch I worked on completely missed the mark. It was one of those “strike out” moments that could have left me dwelling on what went wrong. But instead, I had to pull back, revisit the fundamentals, and trust that I’d learned from the experience. It wasn’t about lingering on the mistake, but focusing on what came next. The answer isn’t in beating yourself up. It’s in trusting your process, believing in the next opportunity, and never letting the last strike define your next swing. Baseball teaches you that. Every at-bat is a fresh chance. Sure, the sting of the strikeout lingers, but it doesn’t define you. You’ve got to keep showing up to the plate. Because you never know when you’ll hit that home run.