Good morning and welcome to the Increasing Impact Podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 2003. I was

recently reminded of something that happened many, many years ago that I had even forgotten.

A player reminded me of an experience that he had that I happened to be part of maybe almost a decade ago now. This player was young,

he was into minor leagues, and into lower levels of the minor leagues, and he had given up a big

walk-off home run. The other team celebrated. We were at home, and it was devastating at the time

for this young player.

He goes into the dugout and everyone walks into the clubhouse, but he goes and he sits on the bench.

And he begins to sob.

It was a painful loss.

He had been struggling up to that point and this was almost the needle that broke the camel's back.

Now before I went in the clubhouse, I looked back and I saw him sitting on the bench and I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say.

But something inside of me told me to just go sit next to him and just see what happens.

Now mind you, I was, my initial response was to not do that.

I'm not going to say a word to him, but let me just go sit down. So I go and I sit right next to him.

And I heard him talk to himself. I heard him cry. We shed some tears. He threw his glove. He threw his hat.

And we just sat there. One minute passed, five minute past, ten minutes past, 15 minutes passed,

to the point to where they turned the stadium lights off. And there we were just sitting there

in the dark in silence. After what seemed

like an hour, which I'm sure was not an hour, he takes a deep breath, he stands up, I stand

up, having not said a single word to him, he gives me a hug and he says thank you. We go in and we speak nothing of it.

Until a few months later, he comes up to me after he climbed a couple more levels in the minor

leagues and he thanked me for that night. And the reality is I did nothing. I had been asked him,

...