Cory Edwards’ team was a few outs away from losing the Little League World Series final 11-2, when he gathered his players for a quick talk. What he said went viral, and it’s just as useful in a boardroom as it is in the dugout.
“Hey, listen, no matter what happens, you have to hold your head up,” Little League coach Edwards told his team from Henderson, Nevada, in a moment captured on ESPN. “When it gets tough, you get tougher.” The 17-second clip wasn’t rehearsed, he said in an interview, it just came out in the moment.
Edwards, who works as a manager at Starbucks in the off season, told The New York Times that the message wasn’t really about the scoreboard. “How you respond to challenges shows a lot about your character,” he said.
That’s a leadership lesson worth borrowing for anyone building a business. Losses happen, funding flops, launches bomb. What separates people who recover from people who don’t often comes down to resilience.
“If you don’t lose the right way, if you don’t hold your head up and go about it the right way, sometimes that sour taste in your mouth is going to wash away all the great things you did,” he said.
Cory Edwards’ team was a few outs away from losing the Little League World Series final 11-2, when he gathered his players for a quick talk. What he said went viral, and it’s just as useful in a boardroom as it is in the dugout.
“Hey, listen, no matter what happens, you have to hold your head up,” Little League coach Edwards told his team from Henderson, Nevada, in a moment captured on ESPN. “When it gets tough, you get tougher.” The 17-second clip wasn’t rehearsed, he said in an interview, it just came out in the moment.
Edwards, who works as a manager at Starbucks in the off season, told The New York Times that the message wasn’t really about the scoreboard. “How you respond to challenges shows a lot about your character,” he said.
That’s a leadership lesson worth borrowing for anyone building a business. Losses happen, funding flops, launches bomb. What separates people who recover from people who don’t often comes down to resilience.
“If you don’t lose the right way, if you don’t hold your head up and go about it the right way, sometimes that sour taste in your mouth is going to wash away all the great things you did,” he said.
