At What Risk

At What Risk

            What was more unpredictable? If you talk to my old English teachers, they will probably tell you that Nick Morgan writing stories was more unpredictable than Covid! 😉 As true as that may be, here I am again taking another crack at it. If you are still reading up to this point I’d like to say I appreciate you suffering (following) along this creative journey with me, and I hope you enjoy this story. If any of you reading this are my old English teachers, please refrain from commenting below with a Letter Grade! haha  

The Unexpected       

            In 2016, the summer going into my Junior year of College, was the hardest summer of my life. I’m sure everyone here has heard of “2 a days.” How about 3 a days?  That summer I was attending JJ Mcleski’s Athletic training facility every morning at 8AM working on speed, flexibility, and conditioning. Call me crazy, but the thought of box jumps, hurdles, sprints, and hot yoga on a summer day in Louisiana was not exactly making me pop up out of bed each morning lol. Later that day, around noon, I would hit the gym on my own and work on strength workouts before hitting the field/cages later that afternoon for my baseball training. My main focus point that summer was Defense, shortstop to be exact. I was coming off a defensive MVP award at BRCC the year before, and I wanted to continue that at my new school Delta State. I have always played Shortstop and like all shortstops do, we take pride in our defense, so fielding ground balls was always my favorite part of the day. After 2 whole months of 3 a days I was at my peak and really hitting my stride. I was bigger, stronger and faster than I’ve ever been, and I could not wait to return to school to get ready for the season. With 2 weeks left of that summer, on my last set of hurdle jumps, I suffered an injury and SHATTERED THE HOOK OF MY HAMMATE. The only way to fix this injury was surgery. I was devastated as 2 months of relentless work just went down the drain. For those of you who know what the hook of the hamate is, I’m sure you’re thinking “How do you hurt your hand jumping hurdles”… in that case I will explain what happened as long as we understand I am a lot more athletic than this story may sound! Hahaha. So here I am jumping hurdles, one over the other. On my last hurdle I did not jump high enough, and my feet did not make it over the bar which caused me to flip backwards and land on my back. In an attempt to catch myself I actually ended up trapping my hand behind me and falling back on top of it crunching it under me. I know what you all are thinking……. and that answer is NO!! There are not any videos out there haha.

             

For The Good Of The Team

            By the time I made my way back on to the field, I had already missed all our fall workouts in preparation for our season in the spring. Before we left for Christmas break, I got called into Coach Mike Kinnison’s office to discuss holiday workout plans so that I could return ready to play for the season. Now, this is where life can throw you for a loop sometimes. Coach told me that after our fall workouts the true need for our TEAM had changed and that he would like me to change positions and start to focus my time at third base in order to help our team be the best that it could be. For those of you wondering, the answer is NOOOOO! I have never played third in my life. I was a short stop. Since I was 6 years old, every game, every practice, every ground ball I had ever taken had been from shortstop. My entire life had been rep after rep perfecting my craft for the position I play. With that being said, coach gave me some great drills and provided me with some extremely valuable tools to ensure this switch to 3^rd would work best for our team and myself. I agreed to the position change and told coach I would begin to practice at third over Christmas break and do my best to get comfortable at a new position. When I was leaving his office, I kept thinking to myself, how was I supposed to prepare for this? This is unlike anything I have ever done. I had to adapt!

Adapting

            Looking back on this past year I think its safe to say that everyone was forced to change positions. Most of the population had been playing shortstop and going into the office for work every day. Five days a week, year after year, employees have been coming into the office perfecting their craft like they have always done. As business owners, office managers, coaches, did you throw your shortstops over to third without providing them with drills and setting them up for success? When Covid hit and we sent employees home to work remotely, did we take the necessary steps to ensure that we were not only looking out for our employees as individuals but also looking at it from an overall view of our team? Our company? If you ask me, it appears as if companies are still preparing their team like they are playing shortstop.

The Point

            If there is one thing that I would like every reader to take away from this is that we need to start putting ourselves in position to have the best success at third base. It is not a coincidence that 60% of businesses experienced a data breach in the last year!  If you are a business owner, did you send your employees home to work remotely on their personal laptops? Are you advising that the best thing for your employees to do is access your company’s data without having a business grade laptop with enhanced security features? Business applications being run on personal devices is not only putting your company at risk from a security standpoint, but it is also not built to run at speeds that allow your employees the ability to work without having any issues. Have you installed strategic technology solutions to allow your employees to work from home effectively and securely? Being in the technology industry I have had the opportunity to hear about how companies have been or haven’t been adapting to the new working environment that Covid has put us in. If you are a company that has not invested in any solutions since the world has been moved to third base, please take some time to reach out and let’s talk about how you are doing business right now.  I am asking you to not keep preparing your team as if they are playing shortstop. INVEST!  Enable your employees and your business to have success with these changes. Do not have your employees accessing company data on personal laptops.  Do not have your employees accessing your company’s’ data without a VPN to ensure a secure and private connection to your network. Cyber-attacks are at an all-time high throughout the US and we have to start investing in trained technology professionals to help advise and support you in this new world we are living in! Do not continue to risk the well being of your company, employees and clients.

Pay Off

            I promise you, if you invest in your new third basemen, they will lead your team to the world series just like I did! 😉