DREW MAGGI, AND MY PERSEVERANCE EQUATION.

In June, 2010, in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball draft the Pittsburgh Pirates drafted a 21 year old prospect by the name of Drew Maggi from Arizona State University.

In July, 2010, sitting on the couch of his new wife’s parents’ couch, Peter Saluk built a website using Wix, titled SalukCreative.com

I’m sure in both of those instances, Drew and Peter (sorry…this will be the last third-person reference in this article.), must have felt like “This is it. We’ve made it. We’re going to be a success.” (I can tell you 100% that at least one of these two individuals felt that way.) Reality, as always, is a little bit more complicated. Drew wound up hitting .156 with a .460 OPS in his first year in an instructional year. I made $300 on a single copywriting assignment in the first six months of the website being live. If you know anything about baseball or advertising, neither one of these would be considered a success.

What happened next for both of us would be a decade plus of steps forward, steps backward, refining of their respective craft, plenty of reasons to quit, and just a genuine love for what each was doing.

When the Pirates called up Maggi to the Major League roster on April 26th, it was a testament to the grit and perseverance that he showed throughout his career. 6 different teams (and 1 Mexican League stint), 13 years of bus rides, bad food, relatively poor pay (most minor leaguers earn between $400 and $700 per week and are paid only during the regular season, forcing many to get part-time jobs in other parts of the year.) But he set a goal (shout out to Jon Acuff), and he delivered on it. He got his first major-league hit on April 30th. A feel-good story that will likely get at least optioned for a screenplay.

But okay…enough grandstanding.

What’s the point Ventura?!?

The point is that often, in business, we see the finished product, but not the struggle that it took to get there.

In 2016, Luis Romero wrote a great piece for Forbes about the fallacy of the “overnight success”. The idea being that entrepreneurs and business executives have this unconscious wish for overnight success and having it all. A dangerous thought, because as he wrote “Such wishes make people impatient, shortcut-minded and capricious, all of which have devastating effects on performance and judgement.”

As anyone who has listened to How I Built This with Guy Raz knows, there’s no such thing as an overnight success. Huge companies like AirBnB, Starbucks, Dropbox, Netflix, and on and on, all had years of struggle before being recognized as the market leaders that they’ve become. And if you know an entrepreneur who has made it, it’s extremely unlikely that they hit a home run right out of the gate. There’s months and years of work, and promotion, and design, and failure, and bouncing back, and pivoting, and risks taken and luck before hitting a groove that made things work.

The false concept is not unique to entrepreneurial enterprises. I’m going to sound like an oldhead, but today’s workforce wants immediate gratification. In a recent report by Fortune’s Jane Thier, she wrote that “Most first-time workers get a promotion within 3 years. Gen Z wants theirs right away.” There’s an expectation of success. Very few social media profiles of workers glorify the late hours, and deck building and spreadsheets, and the hard work needed to learn and succeed. You need those three years to make mistakes, and fail, and learn, and grow, and build your expertise. You need to learn how to deal with rejection and failure before you can be trusted to be empathetic towards those who make mistakes. A huge quality of leaders.

In a recent group text thread with some friends arguing about Tik Tok, I brought up the Grit equation made famous by Angela Duckworth:

TALENT x EFFORT = SKILL

SKILL x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT

I argued for my own personal equation:

PASSION x (ACTION + EFFORT) x PERSEVERANCE = ACHIEVEMENT

The reasoning is that talent, while important, is probably the least important. How many talented folks do we all know that have wasted their talent? Next, I’ve personally always valued Action. How many people talk about what they’re going to do? Until you do something, you’re one of those…dreamers. Effort still holds incredible weight, and then of course perseverance. Think of how many people start a project, and then abandon it? For instance, podcasts…only 18% of podcasts are active as of May 2023. People’s enthusiasm for a project wanes. Which is why it’s important to work in an industry that you are passionate about. It has to consume you. If you follow the equation, not only are you going to find success, but more importantly, chances are you are going to be working on something that you love and enjoy.

Drew Maggi made his dream come true.

I’m continuing to work towards mine.

And I’m looking to help those who are working on theirs.

If you have a tale of perseverance, DM me. Would love to hear about it.