Some numbers caught my attention recently. Frank Sinatra recorded 1,200 songs. Babe Ruth had 8,399 attempts at bat. Picasso had 150,000 pieces including paintings, sketches, and sculptures.

That’s a lot of time in a recording studio, standing at home plate taking swings, and in a room with paint, pencils and clay trying to be creative. Consider all the hours of learning, studying, considering, and then deciding. The next step is the actual trying. Instead of learning songs, they’re now being recorded. All the time at practice is over and now the game really matters. An idea of what a painting could be is now being realized with characters and colors.

Were they successful? When you think of Sinatra, Ruth, and Picasso where do you rank them? Were they just average or do you think they were great?

Before you answer, what’s the rate of success that can make someone great? Does every song have to be a hit? Does every swing of the bat have to leave the park? Does every sketch have to be memorable?

Out of the 1,200 songs Sinatra recorded, only 209 were hits. Only 17% were hits.

Ruth swung the bat 8,399 times. Only 714 of those swings ended up as a homerun. That means 8.5% of his swings left the park.

Picasso had 150,000 pieces. That’s a ton of creativity. All the drawing, painting, and sculpting resulted in this massive mound of work. From all that, 1,170 were considered hits. That’s a success rate of 0.7%.

If you want to be successful, you must be willing to pay the price, and that price is brutal. Babe Ruth didn’t just swing the bat a few times. He took 8,399 swings. Even if he struck out he was willing to return to the plate and try again.

When Picasso drew something and it didn’t wow him or the public, he went back to the drawing board. He went to that board 150,000 times. He kept creating.

Do you want to be great at what you do? Want to be known as one of the greats? Keep creating. Keep producing. Keep going. Keep putting your hands in the clay. Keep swinging. Keep painting. Keep writing. Keep singing. Keep leading. Keep dreaming.

The only way to get better at your craft is to keep at it. Just because you don’t like what you did yesterday doesn’t mean you won’t capture an audience tomorrow. Yet, if you quit and walk away, you’re guaranteed no one will recognize what you have done.

Face the reality that not everything you touch will turn to gold. Embrace the truth that very little ever will. But you must keep digging until you reach gold.

What will you do today take a step closer to having a homerun? I invite you to take a swing. Write the book. Chase the idea. Pursue the dream. Start the business. Create the product. The price is high. Be willing to pay it.

Leadership matters,

Brian