This time of year, spring sports are in or moving to playoffs.

During my son Seth’s high school years, he played baseball at Patrick Henry (PH). I was the announcer for their games at the tournament hosted by PH every year (think a combination of Al Michaels and Robin Williams).

PH’s primary rival was Chilhowie. They beat us like a drum most years. In Seth’s sophomore year, with a senior-laden team, Chilhowie beat us soundly in the tournament. So, the following year’s team had only one of the stars come back and the others had graduated. Some would say the team of mostly juniors and a couple of sophomores were not as talented as in years past. However, this group of guys had played together since Tee-Ball and they had been through the grind together for years.

That tournament’s championship game came with our team (an underdog) against, you guessed it,  Chilhowie. Our team was solid playing-wise – nothing fancy with good fundamentals. More importantly,  they were mentally tough. During a back-and-forth game, the game came to a head with the best baseball play I ever saw live. A throw from deep centerfield that Seth caught on the mound and threw, while horizontal in mid-air, to home to get the runner out. We won the championship! Bedlam ensued.

We have rivals in Banking. Some might say we couldn’t get someone to bank with PVB because they have banked at XYZ Bank for years. That attitude is defeatist – giving up before the game even starts.

We can sometimes forget how great our people are, how great our products and services are, and most importantly how we can be better bankers for people and businesses than the other guys.

You may lose, but you’ll never win if you don’t play the game. Let’s play the game!

Have a great week.
– Leton

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“Letters From Leton” is a blog series comprised of the weekly updates that Leton Harding – President, Chairman, and CEO of Powell Valley National Bank, shares with the Bank’s team members. These newsletters are full of uplifting anecdotes and intriguing insights that are applicable beyond the Bank, so we want to share them with you.