That time I fell in love with Khris Davis

It was mid-pandemic and I was struggling at work, back to back zoom calls all day long, while trying to help my children with online school. Needless to say, it was not a situation that was feeding my soul. In fact, soul-sucking might be the best characterization. My husband, who is my forever cheerleader, dropped me some inspiration - a Khris Davis baseball card. Let me explain.

I had at this point in my career hit a few home runs, as I thought of them. I had launched some features for AWS that felt significant and meaningful. The first Config rules to detect open S3 buckets. A packetless port scanning capability, aka network reachability checks in Inspector. The compliance checks in Security Hub. But I had moved out of a feature delivery role to be able to support my kids through online school and couldn't quite adjust. I was frustrated to not be hitting home runs while working in a role that wanted me to hit singles.

But it turns out that there are as many ways to be a baseball player as there are ways to be a technical contributor. Stuck in a mindset that no longer served me, I needed a new role model. Cue Khris Davis.

He's not a household name, not by a long shot. But despite not being well known, his career has been remarkable. Not because of home runs or diving catches. His batting average, which is calculated by dividing a player's hits by his total at-bats, was .247 in 2015. In recent years, the league-wide batting average has typically hovered around .250. This means he hit just a bit shy of average, not a remarkable feat by any means.

But guess what he did the year after his .247 in 2015? He posted another .247 average in 2016. And the following year? Another .247 average in 2017. And the year after that? You guessed it, another .247 average in 2018. Four straight years of getting a hit about 1 out of every 4 at bats.

Khris Davis was really good at being consistently average. And so when I posted the baseball card of Khris Davis next to my desk, it wasn't to inspire myself to get ripped biceps like Khris Davis (although that would be cool). It wasn't to gaze jealously at his knee high socks (which are also cool). Instead, Khris Davis made me realize that sometimes the important thing is to keep showing up and putting in the work. And keep investing in yourself so that you can keep showing up.

There's value in hitting the home runs, but there's also value in being consistent. There will be times in life when your career needs to take a backseat to other priorities. And in those years, focus on being a Khris Davis.