Imagine being a kid playing baseball in a little league All-Star Game, and all the fans are cheering. But there’s one fan in particular who you really want to make proud—your father. The game is on the line, and it’s your turn to come up to bat. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.
And you strike out.
But it wasn’t simply that fact that you struck out; it was the way you struck out. You struck out watching.
That’s what happened to Aflac U.S. President Virgil Miller, and he’s never forgotten the feeling he had or the lesson he learned when he joined his dad who was waiting inside the car for him after the game. “When I got in the car, you know what he said?” asked Virgil rhetorically in a recent interview. “He said, ‘Son, don’t ever take a called third strike. You can’t hit the ball if you don’t swing the bat. Swing the bat.’ Oh, I’ve taken that lesson. You’re not going see me sit on the sidelines. I’m not going to be on the bench. I’m going to swing the bat.’”
That mistake seared itself in his memory to the degree that Virgil has rarely missed an opportunity to swing the bat, not as a baseball player but as U.S. Marine and veteran of Operation Desert Storm and then leader at the insurance company Aflac, where Virgil was promoted no fewer than 30 times enroute to his current position as president of Aflac U.S.
A multi-talented athlete who fenced in college, Virgil understands the importance of footwork in calculating risk in corporate America and erring on the side not of caution but of bold thrust and parry. In the podcast, he teaches difference between leading a team and transforming a team.
Resources:
- Read Virgil’s article in Fortune: “1 in 4 people skip regular checkups–and forgo their chance to benefit from early cancer detection. It is time to nag the ones you love.”
- Connect with Virgil on LinkedIn.
- Aflac’s Newsroom.
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