Select Page

Save one run

Do you remember Jonty Rhodes?

The man was the best fielder in world cricket for more than a decade, completely revolutionized the standards of the discipline forever. Growing up in the 90’s, every boy I knew had a poster of Jonty on their bedroom wall. We would spend hours in the pool or garden trying to take “Jonty catches”, ending up with bloodied knees and elbows, which we wore with pride.

He is a living legend, a South African treasure (like Mango Groove).

Jonty recently appeared on a podcast with Paddy Upton, talking about all things related to his personal journey, cricket and life after playing the sport. It’s a great listen, even if you don’t like cricket, but what stood out in particular was the following: The host asked him what the three lessons are that he would like to teach to kids growing up now (or to anyone that would care to listen, for that matter). I forget the other two, but the one that stood out was: Save one run.

Rhodes still coaches on a very high level all over the world and one thing he says to all of his players when going onto the field is to try and save one run. If every player can do that, you would restrict the other team to 11 runs less and at the highest level that could be the difference between winning and losing. But he went further to make it applicable to life:

When you look at the needs of the world and all of the things that are seemingly going wrong it is easy to become despondent and give up. When facing overwhelming odds, the most “natural” thing to think is: “what difference can I make, I’m just one person”. And then we end up not doing anything. But what Jonty reminds us of is to try and save one run: Make one small difference, pick up the trash in front of your home, share a friendly smile with one person, help out one struggling family, share an encouraging word with one friend – whatever it is that comes to mind, save one run.
If we start doing that, those runs are going to start accumulating and a snowball effect will occur. That person you helped or encouraged goes on to do the same for someone else. There is really no end to the impact we can have, if we try to save one run.

The 2019 Cricket World Cup final was decided by one run, for crying in a bucket! One run matters!

As always, thank you for reading. Please share with anyone you think would like being reminded of how awesome Jonty is or who could find this useful.

Have a great weekend and again GO BOKKE!!

PJ and Shinell

At PurposeWorks we are all about Making You and Your Work Rock. Our focus is on Organisational Health and Design, Employee Centered Culture, Leadership Development and Performance Coaching. For more information on how we can help you create a work environment that rocks, develop a great team, become an inspiring leader or unlock your personal excellence talk to us at info@purposeworks.co.za.