Two NFL playoff games prove that if you want to start winning, you must stop losing.
Comedian W.C. Fields, while riding in an air balloon, yelled to the ground to ask, “Is this Kansas City, Kansas?” When told he must be lost, Fields replied, “Kansas City is lost. I am here.” Not many people go through life with the certainty that Fields did. Fear of the unknown and the fear of […]
Frank Lane, a long-ago baseball exec who loved to make trades, is said to have even swapped a player for a box of cigars. “But,” Lane was careful to point out, “They were very good cigars.” Lane comes to mind because the end of July marks baseball’s annual trading deadline. Teams make last-minute deals to […]
Joe Torre reached the Hall of Fame in his field the same way you can get to the top in yours. He did it by knowing the biggest problem he had to solve. In Torre’s case it was George Steinbrenner, who hired him to manage the New York Yankees but who had a habit of […]
Everyone strikes out now and then. It doesn’t matter if you play baseball or not. You can fail a test, get cut from the team, or lose money in a business. Striking out isn’t the issue. Your attitude about striking out is the issue. Hall of Fame slugger Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times in […]
If you’re a boss or a coach, you want a great team. You want to build a champion! Here are some tips from Rajat Taneja of Electronic Arts. I’m struck in particular by No. 3, “Hire for uncommon strengths.” Too many people hire with the idea of avoiding weaknesses. Championship team-building involves hiring with strengths […]
To hear some people react to the Hall of Fame voting, you would think that the writers had attacked all that is pure and good. Not so, said my friend and mentor, Fred Down. Fred saw lots of baseball in his time, including Babe Ruth in the flesh, and survived long enough to regale young […]
A heat wave in the Northeast makes it a refreshingly good time to discuss someone who made his living on the ice. Wayne Gretzky is a Hall of Fame hockey player whose exploits earned him the nickname “The Great One.” What a nickname! But this post is not about hockey or Wayne Gretzky. It’s about […]
Someone once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his great ideas. “Ideas?” he said. “I’ve only ever had one.” That one idea — the Theory of Relativity — marked Einstein as one of the greatest minds in history. Not everyone will match him in terms of impact, but everyone can copy […]
If Rogers Hornsby were alive today, he would be celebrating the start of spring training. Hornsby, a Hall of Famer and owner of the second-highest batting average in big-league history behind Ty Cobb, would be right there in Florida and Arizona, even though, technically, only pitchers and catchers must be there this early. At this […]