How Adopting a Home Run Derby Mindset Can Help Talent

MLB’s All Star week is over and this weekend it was back to the grind for the league’s 30 teams. I almost always find a radio-related analogy or two to take away from the week. This year I was thinking about the “all or nothing” nature of the Home Run Derby. That morphed into thinking about how adopting a Home Run Derby mindset can help talent.

All or Nothing

The Home Run Derby measures one thing: it’s a dinger or it’s irrelevant. Thumbs up or thumbs down.

That’s a brutal scoring system: all or nothing. t’s “Great” or “No one cares or remembers.”.

Breaks on a show are evaluated in the same way: either it’s a great break that contributes to the talent’s and the station’s brand – or it’s not and no one cares or remembers.

There are no walks in the Home Run Derby so that’s not a strategy for winning. It’s the same for the on-air equivalent (jingles, sweepers, meaningless one-liners or claims). They don’t add anything to your total score.

And, just like in the Home Run Derby, your near misses don’t matter either. In the Derby, no one cares about or remembers “balls in play” that might have been a single or double in a regular game. No home run? You failed.

And swings and misses? Forget about it.

Taters and TSL

In the Home Run Derby mindset, every swing matters. This is precisely how the Home Run Derby mindset can help talent: approach your show knowing every break matters.

A talent’s “can’t miss content” is radio’s version of leveraging a Home Run Derby mindset. It’s radio’s “tater.” These “must hear” breaks are key components that drive occasions of listening, the pillars for maximizing TSL.

An unfortunate reality is that many listening occasions may only span a quarter or less. As a result, an entire show could be evaluated on just a single break.

Adopting a Home Run Derby mentality for breaks – all or nothing – increases the odds that you will get to the “finals” in the competition for repeat listening.

The Littered Roadside of the Forgotten

Furthermore, those who don’t advance are quickly forgotten.

It’s “hero recall or zero recall.” And why not? Each successive round is a shiny new object to attract our attention.

There’s a radio truth: “Your brand is how you’re thought about when you’re not being listened to.”

And that’s another all or nothing proposition. You’re thought about or you’re not.

Coaching and Self-Coaching

So here’s the big question for talent (and for those who coach talent). If each break is either a home run or a fail, how would you do in the Home Run Derby of Breaks?

Adopting the Derby’s all or nothing approach is a good way to keep the focus on sustained vs. intermittent excellence.

Hitting every break out of the park requires focus, diligence, and discipline. Certainly this mindset makes a difference in the Derby. But it do the same thing for talent and those who coach them.

But don’t wait until next year’s Derby to start. Adopt the Home Run Derby Mindset now and have an amazing show today.

Related:

Read a previous All Star Week post here. Read a couple (of my many) baseball-themed posts here and here.
Photo by Hanson Lu on Unsplash