The small win approach with Dan Pink

Read this exclusive conversation with Daniel Pink. Learn more during the podcast interview on Change Starts Here. WATCH HERE

Dan Pink: On the broader life advice, I think really good advice, and I will verify how seriously I take this advice. In 2019, the early part of the baseball season, the Washington Nationals were not doing very well. They had one of the worst records in the major leagues. That year they ended up winning the World Series, but they didn’t turn around immediately. In the depths of this terrible season where it looked like in May the whole season was lost, the Nationals manager David Martinez said something that I thought was really profound.

He said to his team; “don’t think about the season. Let’s just go 1-0 today. Go 1-0 today. And then, what do you do the next day? We’re going to go 1-0 day too.”

And that small win approach is powerful. It’s so much so that even on my whiteboard right above my desk, it says – Go 1-0 today. That’s what I’ve tried to do. You should know your transcendent purpose and so forth, but anything you’re doing, whether you’re trying to turn around a school, whether you’re trying to teach a group of seventh graders algebra, whether you’re trying to write a book, whether you’re trying to enliven the entire school district, go 1-0 today. That’s your job.