‘When I Can Afford That Card’… How an $80 Baseball Card Changed This Entrepreneur’s Life
As a successful entrepreneur with three businesses, I was still haunted by missed opportunities and external expectations. Then I realized something powerful.
This story appears in the January 2026 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
When I was young, I dreamed of owning Ken Griffey Jr.’s Upper Deck rookie baseball card. “The Kid,” they called him. He defined the sport in the ’90s. The card cost $80, which might as well have been $1 million. My 10-year-old brain thought: I’ll know I’m a success when I can afford that card.
Then life happened. I stopped collecting. After school I became a personal trainer, then started a business. And another. Eventually, I released 32 different products and services: a few strikeouts, mostly bloop singles, and two home runs.
Somewhere along the way, my self-identity got wrapped up in the next project, with my mood dictated by short-term wins (yay!) and losses (dang it!). I’d become driven by external expectations — a continuous and ruinous cycle of ups and downs with no end.
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Then, about five years ago, baseball card videos started appearing in my social media feed. I don’t know why. Social media knows me better than I know me, I guess. I watched one, so more appeared. It stirred memories of a simpler time — when I did things because I loved doing them, before everything needed a reason or an ROI.
I have $80 now. So one day, I bought the Ken Griffey Jr. card.
I owned three businesses at the time, was creating content, writing a book, and had a young son. I wanted a larger family, but with such a busy life, I couldn’t figure out how to make space for one. I was doing so many things and enjoying so few of them. Then I looked at that card behind me, and I realized something: In the eyes of my younger self, I was already a success. I had $80 to spend! I owned the card! So what else was I chasing?
That day, I decided to sell my businesses and become a full-time author. That was the life I really wanted, and I’ve now written 12 books. All I needed was a reminder that I’d already made it — I just hadn’t noticed. Now the card stays on my desk, in case I ever doubt myself again.
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When I was young, I dreamed of owning Ken Griffey Jr.’s Upper Deck rookie baseball card. “The Kid,” they called him. He defined the sport in the ’90s. The card cost $80, which might as well have been $1 million. My 10-year-old brain thought: I’ll know I’m a success when I can afford that card.
Then life happened. I stopped collecting. After school I became a personal trainer, then started a business. And another. Eventually, I released 32 different products and services: a few strikeouts, mostly bloop singles, and two home runs.
Somewhere along the way, my self-identity got wrapped up in the next project, with my mood dictated by short-term wins (yay!) and losses (dang it!). I’d become driven by external expectations — a continuous and ruinous cycle of ups and downs with no end.
