tl;dr: a reminder that inspiration is one thing, courage is another.

I had a bit of insomnia the other night and flipped on Netflix.

The lead promo movie for me was Moneyball.

Like the Big Short, it’s a movie I’ll watch every time. Maybe I just have a thing for Brad Pitt, I don’t know.

As I watched the movie, I really started to appreciate the inherent beauty of the Moneyball and the orthogonal thinking that Billy Beane brought to the game.

Today, everyone knows the wisdom of the analytics-driven approach to, well, everything.

It has revolutionized baseball, basketball, politics, and much more.

But back then, it was heretical.

I found inspiration in it.

A reminder that, when looking at a situation, the thing to ask is “what is everyone else assuming is reality and therefore not seeing?”

There’s hidden value in front of us (ht: CFF), but sometimes that’s the easy part.

The hard part?

Having the courage to do it.

When Billy Beane meets with the Red Sox owner, John Henry, Henry says:

“I know you are taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall always gets bloody.”