On the day that Yankee Stadium opened, Babe Ruth summed up his style with one sentence.

“I’d give a year of my life,” he said, “if I could hit a home run on Opening Day of this great new park.”

He did.

No one knows if that one home run cost him a year of his life, but Ruth, born this date in 1895, made a habit of thinking big.

He wanted to hit a homer to open Yankee Stadium, and he did.
He once promised to hit a home run for a little boy in the hospital, and he did.
He even, according to many who were there that day, pointed to the distant bleachers, then hit the next pitch there.

“I like to live as big as I can,” he said.

If you want to live big, started thinking like Ruth. Aim high, and swing as hard as you can. Or, to put it another way, form big goals, then pursue them with passion.

Years ago there was a young man who lost his job shortly after relocating. His wife was pregnant, and they were alone in a new town. Some people might have panicked and concentrated on mere survival.

Not this young man.

He sat down at the kitchen table, and began to think big. He made a list of 107 life goals: Coach the Notre Dame football team, being a guest on The Tonight Show, meeting the pope, landing a plane on an aircraft carrier, etc.
The man’s name was Lou Holtz, and at last check he had reached 102 of his goals.

You can be sure that he backed up his list by working with more passion than others.

Today the Winter Olympics open in Sochi, Russia. At the Opening Ceremony, you will see thousands of people who had a dream. But they did more than dream. They trained more than others, got up earlier than others, and persevered more than others.

An above-average dream must be pursued with above-average passion.