Small Ball Snapshot: The Endless Pursuit

Late in the baseball season, Kansas City Royals infielder/outfielder Michael Massey, one of the most thoughtful athletes I cover, told me something that stuck.

Massey told me hitters can spend months chasing a tiny mechanical cue. Something so small it’s barely noticeable. “Sometimes hitters get caught chasing a ghost. You chase a mechanic for so long… I wanted to make sure what am I chasing?”

He wasn’t talking about chasing a dream.
He meant chasing something that feels right but isn’t actually helping. The habits and cues you keep trusting because they’re familiar, even when they quietly pull you in the wrong direction.

For him, it was his left-handed swing.
Hours studying tension and coil. Backyard reps. He even tried a right-handed test swing to expose flaws his body was hiding because, as he told me, what he thought he was doing and what he was actually doing were two different things.

None of it loud.

None of it public.

All of it necessary.

Lately, I’ve been in my own version of that search.

Trying to build a steadier rhythm for business development.
Trying to create systems that work without draining me.
Trying to understand balance well enough to test it with a month where I mostly unplug and see what becomes clearer when I’m not constantly producing.

And if I’m honest, I’ve discovered a few ghosts of my own.

Old rhythms I’ve leaned on because they’ve always kind of worked.
Familiar patterns that feel productive but don’t actually move the needle.
Behaviors that look right on the outside but don’t match the intention behind them.

It’s uncomfortable to admit, but it’s also freeing because once you see the ghost, you can stop chasing it.

That’s the real parallel.
Massey was refining his swing.
I’m refining how I work and live.

This month off isn’t stepping away.
It’s checking my swing path.
It’s removing slack.
It’s rebuilding from a better base.

Everyone has a version of this.
We all chase ghosts until we finally see them for what they are.

And that’s the moment things start to change. Not because we worked harder, but because we finally worked from the right foundation.

That’s Small Ball.

Question: What ghost in your world might be quietly guiding your effort in the wrong direction?

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