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Abraham Lincoln

This tag is associated with 9 posts

Motivation by the Numbers: 10

Why the number 10 reminds us that less is more.

Great expectations

Abraham Lincoln said, “If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.” If you’re a leader of any kind — coach, teacher, boss — pay great attention to Lincoln’s words, because they are being confirmed by science. You tend to get what you expect. Intelligence, for example, seems to […]

When Opportunity Knocks

Sometimes it takes a while for the real message to sink in. That is certainly true about something I heard at a baseball clinic in Georgia a few weeks ago. The speaker was discussing the challenge of playing the outfield. He said that even though there might be only one or two balls hit your […]

Ryan Braun Lost His Case

The best lawyer in the world can’t help in the court of public opinion. Now that Ryan Braun has won his appeal of a positive drug test, he gets to try his case with the fans. He better win that case, because even though the arbitrator overturned his 50-game suspension, Braun looks like the loser […]

Abraham Lincoln’s Great Halftime Speech

For all his greatness, Abraham Lincoln wasn’t much of a prognosticator. Lincoln, born on this date in 1809, managed to give the worst prediction in the history of speechmaking when he said in the Gettysburg Address, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” Today, that address ranks as one history’s […]

Deciding to Be Great

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Those words of Abraham Lincoln came to mind last night in the gym as I watched practice. Except I would like to paraphrase the famous president. What if we put it this way: “Most people are about as skilled as they […]

Are You Great?

Spring has brought the usual array of new baseball books, and one of them should catch the eye of coaches everywhere. It’s called “The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong,” by David Shenk. The content shouldn’t come as any surprise if you’ve read books […]

Walking the Walk

So the father was lecturing his son. “When Abraham Lincoln was your age, he was walking eight miles to school,” the father said. Replied the son, “When Abraham Lincoln was your age, he was president.” See? Kids can lecture, too. So it not enough for parents and coaches to talk the talk. “What you do […]

The Power of One

“How bad do you want to be good?” — quoted by Patty Sullivan Let’s start with a trick question today, the 200th anniversary of the birth of President Lincoln. Why do we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday? You’re tempted to say we do it because Lincoln was a great president, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and saw […]