Hitting Curve Balls

The All-Star Game is coming up. As a kid, I never missed it. These days I'll catch a few minutes and move on. I played baseball growing up, and it taught me more about life than I expected. One of those lessons was learning to hit a curveball.

The kids who could throw one were the kings of the league. It's a tough pitch to hit at first. You have to recognize that the thing coming at you is about to break into a strike. Some look like they're aimed behind you, then bend back over the plate. The hardest ones for me started right down the middle, look like a perfect pitch to hit, and then you're swinging at something already in the dirt.

The part that took a while is learning one of the best pitches to hit is the hanging curveball. Hitting it requires patience. It might look like it's coming right at your head, but staying back and waiting for it to come to you is the key. If the timing is right, watch out!

Life works the same way. The moments that look like trouble are sometimes the ones worth staying with a little longer. That's true in investing, in business, in most of the decisions that matter.

Funny where these lessons come from.