What a Life!

Red Auerbach was an NBA Hall of Fame coach and general manager with the Boston Celtics. He was born September 20, 1917. He died October 28, 2006.

Quotable Quotes:

"Take pride in what you do. The kind of pride I'm talking about is not the arrogant puffed-up kind; it's just the whole idea of caring - fiercely caring."

"Everyone is born with a certain potential. You may never achieve your full potential, but how close you come depends on how much you want to pay the price."

"I don't believe in statistics. There are too many factors that can't be measured. You can't measure a ballplayer's heart."

"Winners train, losers complain. Give me twelve players that want to win and they will find a way to win."

Roger Welsch was a professor of anthropology turned storyteller born November 6, 1936. He died September 30, 2022.

Quotable Quotes:

"My life is a series of stories, so I have to tell you a story."

"In Lincoln academic circles everybody around me is the same. They're all professors. In suburbia, everybody pretty much has the same income. But in Dannebrog, I sit down for breakfast and converse with the banker, the town drunk, the most honest man in town, a farmer, a carpenter and my best friend."

"My little town is like an extended family. There are my favorite uncles. A mean cousin or two. Some kin I barely see and do not miss. And some I can never get enough of."

There are so many surprises. Every week out here when we turn on television to listen to the weather, there's a new record set — record highs, record lows, record change, record snowfall, record draught. That means we don't know anything yet. We haven't the foggiest notion what this place is like. We still don't know what the parameters are of this place."

Beryl Benacerraf was a pioneering radiologist born April 29, 1949. She died October 1, 2022.

Quotable Quotes:

"Because of dyslexia, my brain works differently, and I can see these patterns. I do have a gift that other people don't have, and I will always stay ahead of the crowd and see more in an image than other people. You can't overcome it; you can work around it and make it work for you, but it never goes away. That's probably a good thing, because if dyslexia went away, then the other gifts would go away, too."

"You develop the ability to be a big-picture person rather than a detail-oriented person, dyslexics think much faster, and it's a more creative way of thinking. I'm very proud of it."

"I was never accommodated. I had to swim in the waters with everybody else."

Dietrich Mateschitz was an Austrian billionaire businessman born May 20, 1944. He died October 22, 2022.

Company: Red Bull

Quotable Quotes:

"I don't believe in 50 friends. I believe in a smaller number. Nor do I care about society events. It's the most senseless use of time."

"It's a must to believe in one's products."

"The most dangerous thing for a branded project is low interest."

What a Life! Lessons from Legends Podcast is a daily commentary featuring 90 second (or so) obituaries of interesting people who lived interesting and meaningful lives. Bestselling biographer Paul Batura believes we can and must learn from those who just died. In fact, we often learn as much or even more from their successes as we do from their mistakes. The best life is the life that makes the most of this one – and yet reaches happily and faithfully for the next.