Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do

8

Say It with Soul

On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig, baseball's legendary first baseman, walked on the field at Yankee Stadium to give his farewell speech to the more than sixty-two thousand fans in attendance. Gehrig fought back tears as he thanked his fans, calling himself “the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”¹

Gehrig, thirty-five years old, was retiring from baseball because of a degenerative disease that would take his life two years later. His farewell speech that day went down in history. As you read his words, it is impossible not to feel his soul shining through. Now think of the impact they must have had on the crowd in the stadium as they listened to Gehrig speaking to them directly:

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading ...