As we approach #IndependenceDay2024, I wanted to provide a few thoughts to have you consider making an impact to #EndALS. Leo Tolstoy once said “If you feel pain, you are alive. If you feel other people's pain, you are a human being”. On July 4, 1939, after 17 seasons as New York Yankees first baseman, Lou Gehrig sadly retired from baseball using the following words in front of 61,808 fans to ensure that he was not going to let ALS define his career or his life: "Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.” Lou ended his speech, not with the “feeling of pain” but with these words of hope: "So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."
Recently, on Jim Cramer Mad Money (https://lnkd.in/eCa2FM_C), Bill Nuti, Indu Navar and EverythingALS creates a call to action to put an #EndALS. As Jim Kramer says, “Nuti didn’t give up” instead he is bringing technology, data science and AI to #EndALS (https://lnkd.in/eib67b-Z). For those of us that know Bill Nuti from his work at Cisco and NCR Corporation, he is on a mission to replace people’s pain and ensure they know that they “have an awful lot to live for.” Bill Nuti, like Lou Gehrig, is not letting ALS define his life or his career. For those of us who have worked with Bill, we know he will never be defined by his “bad break” but by his leadership and inspiration.
John Kieran, a New York Times Sports columnist, wrote a poem in honor of Lou Gehrig in 1939 but it could have also been written about Bill Nuti as both men have lived lives that where examples of “Hope, Gratitude and Blessings.” I have been honored to know Bill Nuti, learned from him and seen the impact he has had on many people. I think these words are fitting for the work he has done as a leader and his rallying cry to join him to #EndALS
“We’ve been to the wars together; We took our foes as they came:
And always you were the leader, And ever you played the game.
Idol of cheering millions: Records are yours by sheaves:
Iron of frame they hailed you, Decked you with laurel leaves.
But higher than that we hold you, We who have known you best;
Knowing the way you came through Every human test.
Let this be a silent token Of lasting friendship’s gleam
And all that we’ve left unspoken. Your Pals of the Yankee/Cisco Team.”
Celebrate Independence Day by Giving to #EndALS (https://lnkd.in/eib67b-Z), and to reference Tolstoy, it will make you both “alive” and a better “human being”. Please repost and spread the word. Be well, remain kind and stay safe. Happy #IndependenceDay, America. Let’s do something to #EndALS. PSF
Lou Gehrig’s Independence Day Speech July 4, 1939: https://lnkd.in/ehKnta4R
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3wIt is so unfortunate many youth of today do not have a clue about the cost of Freedom. Watching this AM the televised production coming from Normandy, France was heart felt. I was a toddler on D-Day, and yes, I remember WWII. The aftermath and the Happy Days of the 50's. My prayers go out to each and every man and woman who served in WWII and to all those in attendance today at Normandy... God Bless America! The LAND OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE...