Squirrels, Baseballs, & Lies

Dear Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Dreamers, and Creators of Great Things: I write these Love Letters each month with the hope of bringing you a little encouragement, some marketing help, and a few minutes of joy. Whether we are already friends or have yet to meet, I hope you’ll enjoy my stories from the road and some awesomely random takeaways, tools, tips, and updates.

Squirrels

There was a squirrel on my balcony last week.

Now, you may be thinking, “Val, who cares? That seems like a fairly boring thing to point out.”

But, dear reader, this is where I add the context that I live on the NINTH floor. So, seeing a squirrel just randomly sitting on the arm of my patio chair, seemingly without a care in the world, definitely surprised me a little. And it most definitely delighted my cat.

A few weeks ago, I sat down, as I usually do at the end of a year, and spent some time coming up with my ‘word of the year’ for 2026. This word tends to guide me toward a specific goal or habit, and I also use a version of it in my passwords, as a way to force me to change my passwords at least annually. (One of my least favourite things to do.)

This year, my word is climb. I am not exactly sure why, all I know is that it has presented itself to me in about seventy-three ways in the past month or so, and I have finally given in to the universe and accepted that it’s meant to be my word.

Climb. It sounds like work. Like endless stairs or a mountain without a top. It doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling. It’s sort of ominously warning me that growing pains are probably ahead. (Kind of like the year my word was ‘move.’ Ooof.)

Anyway, I was thinking of all this when I saw the squirrel. I looked in its beady little eyes and thought, “How in the world did you get up here?” And I swear to you that the little thing winked at me, flicked its tail, and disappeared up the wall toward the balcony above me.

He climbed the wall, nine floors straight up.

Every day since, both my cat and I have been watching to see if the squirrel will reappear. We are both hoping to see him again. I put “peanuts and sunflower seeds” on my grocery list so I can leave him a little congratulatory pile on the arm of the chair. I really want to see him climb that wall.

And it’s made me realize something. Climbing can be work. It can be scary and daunting. But most of the people I encounter are going to cheer me on. They aren’t going to wish for my demise or for my failure. They want to see others succeed because that means they can too. Climbing can be fun when we all celebrate each other… leaving little bits of encouragement and congratulations as we go.

Food for thought as we all face the walls ahead of us.

Baseballs

I learned something this week and kind of blew my mind, and I wanted to share it with you.

Every single baseball used in Major League Baseball is made the same way. They have a cork center, which is then wrapped in rubber, then in layers of yarn, and then finally in white leather that is hand stitched. Every single ball has exactly 108 double strands of waxed red thread, meaning 216 individual double passes through the leather with a needle. By hand.

Why, in this day and age, are they still stitched by hand?

Because no one has been able to successfully develop a machine that can stitch baseballs.

The average cost of an MLB ball is about $7 each. And the MLB spends about $10 million annually on just baseballs alone.

Imagine what they could save if they could automate the process! And yet, despite many efforts, no one has been able to do it. And so every single baseball is held by a human and stitched by a human hand.

Dang, y’all… this has me really thinking. What is the one thing that is uniquely me and mine that is essential for my clients? What is the thing that will always be needed and can never be taken away and replaced by machines or AI?

And how am I presenting that to the world?

These are the kinds of questions we all need to be spending time on these days.

Here is a 3 minute video that shows the process of making a baseball. Pretty cool to watch!

This is where I share the good stuff.

… the latest websites, books, & tools that are inspiring me, the people who are making me smile, and the stuff I have been writing on sticky notes.