Situational Mastery

By Rich Galgano

January 8, 2026

Situational mastery is the difference between reacting and controlling the moment.
 In business, sales, and leadership, the people who win aren’t guessing — they know exactly where they are and what the situation demands.

Situational Awareness Wins Games

In baseball, great hitters don’t guess.


They walk to the plate already knowing:

  • The inning
  • The score
  • The pitch count
  • Who’s on base
  • How many outs there are


That information tells them almost everything they need to know.


When you understand the situation, you can make a disciplined judgment about:

  • What pitch is likely coming
  • Where that pitch is likely to be
  • What your job is right now


Advance the runner.
Get on base.
Protect the plate.
Or swing for damage.


The decision isn’t emotional.
It’s situational.

Sales Is the Same Game

Sales operates under the same rules.


If you don’t know where you are in the deal, you’re lost.


You don’t know the score.
You don’t know the inning.
You don’t know the count.
You don’t know who’s on base.


Which means you don’t know what pitch is coming.


And if you don’t know what pitch is coming, you have no idea how to respond when it’s on the way.


That’s when people start:

  • Swinging at everything
  • Forcing closes
  • Talking too much
  • Trying to manufacture outcomes that haven’t been earned


That isn’t pressure.
That’s a lack of awareness.

Control Comes From Clarity

Situational mastery starts with slowing down long enough to tell the truth about where you actually are.


Who’s involved?
Who’s missing?
What’s already been earned?
What assumptions are unproven?
Where does leverage really sit right now?


Answer those questions honestly and behavior changes.


You stop reacting.
You stop forcing.
You stop chasing outcomes.


You make the right move for this moment — not the move your ego wants to make.


Sometimes that means pressing.
Sometimes it means waiting.
Sometimes it means protecting the plate.
Sometimes it means letting the pitch go by.


Every action is deliberate.

Code Yellow

Code Yellow is not passive.
It’s not slow.
And it’s not soft.


It’s controlled.
It’s alert.
It’s disciplined.


You’re aware without being emotional.
Decisive without being reckless.
Present enough to see the situation as it is — not as you wish it were.


That’s situational mastery.


That’s Code Yellow.

Always Be Thinking (Not Always Be Closing)

By Kasey Kasey • January 9, 2026
Why “Always Be Closing” fails and how Code Yellow replaces force with awareness, timing, and disciplined thinking.

Reading the Room Is Earned, Not Intuitive

By Kasey Kasey • January 9, 2026
Reading the room is not a talent. It is earned intuition built through preparation, observation, and awareness under pressure.

What Code Yellow Is Not

By Kasey Kasey • January 8, 2026
Code Yellow is not hype, pep rallies, or positive thinking. It is real-time awareness under pressure and knowing when to act.

Why Most Salespeople Fail

By Kasey Kasey • January 8, 2026
Most salespeople don’t fail because they’re “always trying to close.” That’s a lazy diagnosis. Most of them don’t even know how to close. They fail for a more fundamental reason:  They have no idea what pitch is coming.

Breaking Down Code Yellow Essentials

April 23, 2025
Code Yellow is a critical thinking system built for high-stakes communication and decision-making. It lives in sales, but it applies anywhere clear thinking matters. It starts with situational awareness —being fully locked in to what’s happening around you and what needs to happen next. No guessing. No assumptions. Just clarity, earned through preparation.

IIQ: Intelligence, Intuition, Quotation

April 16, 2025
In business, just like in life, every conversation we have, every question we ask, every statement we make, is a move—a play. Each of these plays serves as an IQ test. I'm not talking about your standard intelligence quotient here; I'm referring to something broader and more practical—Intelligence, Intuition, Quotation. It's a simple concept but packs a lot of punch. Let's break it down.

From the Stockroom to the Sales Floor: My Introduction to Sales

April 9, 2025
I didn’t get into sales because I read a book or watched a YouTube guru. I got into sales because on day one, at my first job, I paid attention to what mattered. That job? Foot Locker. I’m a teenager. Just a kid sent to work in the back, stocking shoes. It’s Saturday morning, store’s packed, and I’m in the back doing what I was told—stacking boxes, putting away sizes nobody asked for. All of a sudden, the manager, Steve, walks in, he looks at me and says, “Can you sell shoes?” Now, what kind of question is that? I don’t know if I can sell shoes—I’ve never done it. But I sure as hell know I can figure things out. So I step out onto the floor. I look around. Chaos. Parents, kids, teenagers—everyone grabbing shoes off the walls like it's Black Friday. Then I see it. A woman. Standing there with a shoe in her hand. She’s holding it up in the air like she’s raising a flag. What the fuck do you think that means? She needs help. Nobody had to explain that to me. Nobody handed me a training manual. I didn’t have a playbook or a headset whispering directions in my ear. I saw a customer. I saw a need. I went. That’s instinct.

The Origins of Code Yellow: How Awareness Becomes Power

March 31, 2025
Code Yellow wasn’t something I planned—it was something that hit me in the moment. It was during one of my business and sales seminars, talking to a group of college-age kids, trying to hammer home a fundamental truth: Situational awareness is everything.

The Sale That Never Happened: How a Lack of Awareness Lost the Deal

March 17, 2025
In this episode of My Two Cents, I recount a sales interaction that started off promising—I truly believed the woman I was dealing with was situationally aware. But just as she had me on the hook, she made a fatal mistake: she started telling me what to do, completely losing all awareness in the process. The deal was dead on the spot. If she had followed my Doctrine of Code Yellow, the outcome could have been very different. Tune in to hear how a single misstep can cost you a sale—and how staying aware can make all the difference. 

"Every Play is an IQ Test": The Code Yellow Approach

March 14, 2025
If there’s one thing you need to understand about winning—whether in sports, business, or life—it’s this: Every play is an IQ test. Every decision you make is either an asset or a liability. You’re either processing real-time information and executing with precision, or you’re getting steamrolled by someone who is. The difference between a good player and a great one isn’t talent alone—it’s how fast they process the game. The best don’t react—they anticipate, position, and attack. And that’s exactly how you need to operate in sales, leadership, and competition. Let’s break this down sport by sport, play by play, so you understand exactly how to think ahead and make winning decisions in real time.