“The Gap and The Gain”

stadmin
April 20, 2025
7:04 pm
2 comments

I'm reading a book right now with that title and it describes a fascinating phenomenon among extremely high-achieving entrepreneurs where they are never happy and never feel fulfilled, despite being massively successful, because of how they choose to measure their "success." Naturally, this made me think of youth sports and some of the pitfalls that we can easily fall into as both parents and players.

In very simple terms, the theory of The Gap and The Gain is as follows:

"The Gap" is when we measure our success compared to what our ideal goal is.

"The Gain" is when we measure our success compared to our progress from where we started.

The authors of the book have found that when people measure themselves against "the ideal," they almost always feel unfulfilled and unhappy.

When people measure themselves against where they started, they feel a sense of accomplishment, self-worth, and happiness.

For entrepreneurs, let's say a founder starts a business from scratch with an annual sales goal of $10,000,000 within 5 years.

After year 5, their company is doing $5,000,000 per year.

If this person focuses on the fact they are short of their goal, aka living in "The Gap" they will, despite going from $0 to $5M, feel like a failure.

Conversely, if this person focuses on the fact that they went from $0 to $5M and recognizes that accomplishment, aka living in "The Gain," they feel validated, successful, and happy.

Now to use a baseball analogy: A 12 year old sets a goal of hitting a home run over the fence this season, works extremely hard in practice and on his own, yet still does not hit one out of the park. There are 2 ways to look at this reality. If they think in terms of "The Gap" and simply focus on the fact that they did not reach their goal, they will be disappointed and unhappy. This type of thinking is very common (and even more so today with social media constantly bombarding us with influencers showing off "the ideal" - albeit often manufactured and fake).

On the other hand, if this 12 year old focused on "The Gain" and celebrated the effort that he put into reaching their goal and more importantly, how much progress they made improving their hitting (looking backwards for clues of success rather than looking forward for evidence of not reaching their goal), they will feel fulfilled and motivated to continue working hard to make more "gains."

I regularly refer to this concept as focusing on the "Process" vs the "Result," but I really like the "Gap" vs "Gain" lens.

It is for this reason that every award I give out at the end of each Summer Camp day is effort-based. I have been celebrating "The Gain" at camp for 20 years without even realizing it!

If at the start of each camp day I told the kids that I would only give an award to someone who hits the ball over the fence or goes 5-5 in one of our games, that would be forcing them to look at "The Gap." Even if a player worked his tail off in batting practice, only to hit the ball to the warning track or only 3-5 they would go home feeling like failure rather than celebrating where they ended the day compared to where they started.

We celebrate "The Gain." And so should you (and your ballplayer)!

As coaches and parents, what the gain might look like is different for every kid.

For one player in Minors, The Gain might simply be standing in the box and taking swings off kid pitch when in the past they've been so afraid of getting hit and have been backing out of the box and not even swinging.

For another player in Majors, The Gain might be fouling off a tough 0-2 curveball when all season long they've simply been watching that pitch go by for Strike 3.

The measure of progress should be where they've come compared to where they started, and not where they are compared to where they are going.

I've always looked at my own playing career through The Gain lens; again, without even realizing what I was doing.

Did I achieve my ultimate goal of reaching the Big Leagues? No. And if I measured my time in baseball compared to the ideal, my career was a failure. That's "The Gap."

But if I look at my career ending in Single A as compared to where I started, as a tee baller growing up in the baseball hotbed of Washington DC (sarcasm!), then wow, what an accomplishment. That's "The Gain."

So regardless of where your kid is in their baseball journey today, celebrate their accomplishments compared to where they started (looking backwards) rather than compared to the ideal (looking forward).

This is also why it's extremely damaging to think about youth sports in terms of "the next level" which is a term you that you hear all the time from coaches and club teams in all sports when marketing themselves. "We'll get your kid to the next level." This is the definition of "Gap" thinking. They are selling the dream, while simultaneously setting your child up for unhealthy and unfair disappointment, even if they make tremendous progress.

Success for kids, and as I've learned reading the book for adults too, should be measured in terms of The Gain, not The Gap.

And back to Summer Camp again (sorry, I really love camp and the teaching methods I get to use over 30 hours on the field with the same group of kids each week), I promise the kids on Monday morning that if they listen to their coaches, are willing to try new things, and work hard, that they will be better at baseball on Friday than they are on Monday. That's the Gain.

I don't promise they'll hit a homerun (The Gap), I don't promise they'll make All-Stars next year (The Gap), and a don't promise they'll make the High School team (The Gap).

I do promise that they compared to where they started, they will be better (The Gain) and that not only is that attainable, but when it happens, they feel a sense of accomplishment and happiness, which is what youth sports should be about.

Play Hard, Have Fun!