Enthusiastic Ball Player

Years ago, a successful businessman named Frank Bettger wrote a book entitled How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling. In one chapter, he told of being fired from the baseball team in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. At the time, he was a young aspiring ballplayer who wasn’t lazy, but nervous; but his nervousness came across as laziness. Going to New Haven, he tried out for the team there. No one knew him, and he made up his mind that, nervous or not, he would establish a reputation for being the most enthusiastic player in the New England League.

“From the minute I appeared on the field, I acted like a man electrified,” he wrote. “I acted as though I were alive with a million batteries. I threw the ball around the diamond so fast and so hard that it almost knocked our infielders’ hands apart.”

He went on to say, “It worked like magic. Three things happened: 1) My enthusiasm almost entirely overcame my fear. 2) My enthusiasm affected the other players on the team, and they too became enthusiastic. 3) Instead of dropping with the heat, I felt better during the game and after it was over than I had ever felt before.”

The next morning, Bettger opened the newspaper and read about the game. It said: “ This new player Bettger has a barrel of enthusiasm. He inspired our boys.”

Bettger went on to play in the major leagues, and later became a successful life insurance agent and motivational writer. “What did it?” he asked in his book. “Enthusiasm alone did it. Nothing but enthusiasm.”

Success; Enthusiasm

Turning Points

August 2007

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