Hank Aaron's Story

By Michael Aun, FIC, LUTCF, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame

Some call Hank Aaron's story the greatest in all of baseball. At the age of 17, this 5'-10", 170-pound athlete said "I'm going to play 20 years in the major leagues. I'm going to get 3,000 hits."

Most of us don't remember it today, but at this particular time in Hank Aaron's life, only one black man had ever broken into the major leagues in baseball. Well, to make a long story short, Hank Aaron took that picture of his idol, Jackie Robinson, and put it on his wall and said, "I'm going to be as great as Jackie Robinson!"

Henry Aaron could have viewed himself in a different perspective. He could have said, "I'm too small...or...I live in a racist society...or...I can't do this or I can't do that."

Instead of mentioning the negatives, he said with a positive attitude, "I'm going to play 20 years in the majors. I'm going to get 3,000 hits. I'm going to be the greatest baseball player to play the game." He reached every goal he ever set and some say he is, in fact, the greatest to ever don a uniform.

That's why Hank Aaron is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He refused to listen to the negatives. He put the positive dream at the center of his heart. For anyone to achieve their dream, the same must happen.

We must dismiss all the negatives in our lives and accentuate the positives. In doing so, we remove the word failure from our vocabulary.

Instead of saying the glass of water is half-empty, we then say it's half full. Instead of saying it's partly cloudy, we say it's partly clear. It's all in how you view yourself. If we'll only but view ourselves in a different perspective, then the world is ours for the asking.

Life is a banquet, but unfortunately, most of us are starving to death. Go out and partake of it, and think positive!