What A Two-Handed Bowler Can Teach You About Daring To Look Stupid

Ok, this is from a year ago, but YouTube decided to push it to me this afternoon ... I spent 45 minutes with it, and will do so again. This is another "Moneyball" moment for me. Click here for a video about (checks notes) ... bowling. This video is right up my alley.

More specifically, it's a video about Jason Belmonte, who might be the greatest bowler of all time. He doesn't put his right thumb in the ball and bowl one-handed, as is the "best practice". Nope. He bowls with two hands. And he's the best. All sorts of mocking, misinformation and misunderstanding happen as he rises to the top.

• He's told (as a child) by adults that he'll never be accepted by the establishment ... that if he wants to bowl for his national team he'll have to change. Pay attention to what he tells "the establishment" after he wins their tournament.
• He comes to America to prove himself ... the time-honored story so many have followed.
• He's mocked.
• Fans taunt him while he tries to win televised matches.
• Competitors mock him.
• He's accused of cheating.
• He's bowling for a championship and his opponent is interviewed before the match and his opponent insinuates Jason is "doing it wrong" and the opponent is "doing it the right way".
• He's called a "cancer on the sport" by a leading individual in the sport.

Let's just say kids now bowl with two hands, as do younger professionals entering the sport.

Maybe a third of you work in what used to be called the "catalog industry". Can you identify parallels between the content in the video (two-handed bowling = using other techniques to drive sales/profit) and your business? And when presented with facts (i.e. mail/holdout tests) the former "industry" discredits the results or derides the approach of testing (i.e. ignoring the scoreboard) to protect the old-school approach.

P.S.:  I'm willing to bet nobody has evaluated more catalog mail/holdout tests in history than I have. I'm sure there is somebody, but go try to find the individual. The mail/holdout tests tell the truth. Pure and simple. Ask Orvis. They are the scoreboard that our bowler (above) could point to when he won his matches. And yet, people discredited him - ignoring the truth. The parallels between what used to be the "catalog industry" and this 45 minute story are deliciously intertwined.