Dating back to 1999, this is how many games the Kansas City Royals lost in each season (remember, more than 81 losses in a MLB season means you’re a sub-.500 team):
- 97
- 85
- 97
- 100
- 79
- 104
- 106
- 100
- 93
- 87
- 97
- 95
- 91
- 76
- 73
That list goes up from 1999 to 2014. As you can see, eight times since 1999 the Royals have lost more than 95 games in a season — the true mark of a horrible team — and lost more than 100 — a really horrible team — four times in that stretch.
Now, however? They’re about to represent the American League in the 2014 World Series:
The broader lesson here is pretty simple: things can look really bad, and really bleak, and your fan base/customers aren’t there, and nothing seems to work — and then, if you surround yourself with the right people, start making some good decisions, and get a little bit of luck on your side, everything can change in seemingly a matter of moments (even though you’ve been building towards it for years, in reality).
In the case of the Royals, they made smart hires, made smart trades, and developed their players — and they didn’t quit.
Think about Google, too: at one point in the 1997-1998 region, they were having a hard time paying for more server space for search queries. Now they’re arguably one of the most important brands in the entire world.
This is all a long, and probably convoluted, way of saying that stuff isn’t always going to go right for you. Bad things will happen, and you will be depressed and you will think the future doesn’t look that bright. But if you make a few changes here and there, and start to surround yourself with better people and ideas, anything can happen.
Don’t take my word for it — as Harvard will tell you too, “Whatever it is, you’ll get over it.”
The Royals are an awesome story