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Life Lessons from Former MLB Pitcher Jim Abbott Help Technology Professionals ADAPT at ITEXPO

October 10, 2010

Professional journalists covering the tech world live in a sea of acronyms. And there are many challenges we must overcome in terms of understanding the constant stream of new technologies we cover on a daily basis.

But for former Major League Baseball player Jim Abbott, there is one acronym which can be applied to nearly every aspect of one’s professional life, especially when confronted with obstacles which are seemingly impossible to overcome: ADAPT.


“So much depends on our ability to adapt,” Abbott, the one-handed pitcher, one of only two to make it to the Majors, told a crowd of technology professionals during a special reception held during TMC’s Internet Telephony Conference and Expo West (ITEXPO West) in Los Angeles this past Monday evening. “We will all be challenged, we know that – we will all be pushed. Sometimes the challenge comes in different forms, different obstacles different struggles. But the question remains: What are you going to do about it?”

The special event held at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles was sponsored by contact center software provider Interactive Intelligence.

“I was born without a right hand,” Abbott told the near-standing-room-only crowd. “I never wanted to make a big deal out of it. Still don’t. But I adapted…”

Abbott’s story is one of sheer will and determination. He defied incredible odds and intense scrutiny (particularly from the media) to become one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history. He played for the California Angels, the New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox, and the Milwaukee Brewers, from 1989 to 1999. He is one of the select few MLB pitchers to have pitched a no-hitter during his career. He also won a Gold Medal when he played on the US Baseball team that competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics. He attributes his success to the support of his parents, teachers, coaches and trainers, as well as members of the small but tight-knit community of Flint, Michigan, where he grew up.

Abbott said he had “one of those Dads who was all about the lessons of sports.” When his high school football team, for which he played quarterback, lost the state championships in his senior year, his father, on the car ride home, lectured him about “humility.”

A year later, when he was winning baseball championships while playing for the University of Michigan, his father would lecture him about “sportsmanship.”

“Loved my Dad – hated those meetings,” Abbott said. “But now I see the wisdom of it.”

Today, Abbott works as a motivational speaker. His moving presentations are built around the acronym ADAPT, which he breaks down into five components of success: “Adjustability,” “Determination,” “Accountability,” “Perseverance” and “Trust.”

Adjustability, he said, is about “the willingness to do things differently” – the willingness “to make small adjustments” in how you do things. For example, Abbott learned how to quickly switch his glove from the end of his right arm to his left hand after delivering a pitch, so that he could catch grounders, fly balls and line drives. He would then quickly switch his glove back if he needed to throw to base.He demonstrated his unique style of play by having a little game of catch with Interactive Intelligence Chief Marketing Officer Joe Staples.

That willingness to adjust, Abbott said, was nurtured early on by his parents and teachers – for example, his second grade teacher taught him how to tie his shoes by going home every night and practicing how to tie his own shoes using a clenched right fist. Later, when Abbott was recruited as quarterback for his high school football team, his coaches and trainers worked tirelessly to find a way for him to take hand-offs smoothly.

“When you do things differently, you’re bound to run into pessimism, skepticism, people who say it can’t be done,” he said, adding that this makes it all the more important to be able to be able to filter out negativity.

His “determination” and willingness to “adjust” started paying off early in his baseball career: For example, during one of his Little League games, the other team, convinced that a one-handed pitcher couldn’t field a ground ball quickly, “bunted six times in a row,” to test his ability. Each time he managed to field the bunt and got all six batters out.

There were also many times throughout his baseball career when players on the opposing team would try to steal a base, hoping to exploit the fact that Abbott had to switch his glove over in order to throw a runner out.

These types of challenges, he said, “can change you – but only if you let them.” Determination, he said, is what drove him to overcome his physical limitations and beat the odds to become a professional pitcher.

Accountability, he said is about being true to yourself, more than anything. It’s about “making the most out of what you can do.” For Abbott, that also includes helping others with physical limitations to see that those limitations “don’t have to hold you back – that in fact they can push you forward.”

“When I made it to the Major League, I thought I could outrun the label,” he said. “I thought that I would no longer be thought of as the ‘one handed pitcher.’ I thought that I’d be viewed in the context of how well I pitched, not how I pitched. Well, I guess I was a little naïve because the opposite turned out to be true.”

But as he got older, he learned to “cope with the naysayers.” He recalled how he would sometimes meet with children with similar physical handicaps following games, walking down the long dark corridors of the stadium to meet with them to sign a baseball and offer a few words of support and encouragement.

He said there were times when he “didn’t want to do it,” because it “only supported the label.” But due to a sense of accountability he felt he had to -- in order to support the disabled children and parents who viewed him as an inspiration, a role model.

Perseverance, he said, is about “just flat sticking with it – refusing to quit. So much is possible in this world if we just stick with it.”

Trust, he said “is knowing your strength – and when the world speeds up and you need your best performance, following through with belief, confidence, trust.” It was this trust in his abilities, Abbott said, that enabled him to pitch a no hitter against the Cleveland Indians on Sept. 4, 1993, when he was with the Yankees.

During this segment of his talk, Abbott provided an inning-by-inning account of how Trust enabled him to pitch a no-hitter against one of the greatest batting line-ups in baseball history – including greats such as Kenny Lofton and Manny Ramirez. He said no matter where he pitched a game during his MLB career, in every stadium “there was a flag pole with that gold ball on top of it – and I’d look up at the gold ball and imagine that the word ‘Trust’ was on it.” Doing this, he said, gave him the confidence he needed to pitch his famous no-hitter in that famous game, which the Yankees won 4-0. Only six days before throwing this no-hitter, he gave up ten hits and seven runs in only three and a third innings versus the same power line-up.

But one of the most poignant moments in Abbott’s career wouldn’t come until years later, when speaking at his daughter’s “Career Day” program in nursery school. He said after receiving a bunch of “silly” questions from the children coming from “out of left field” (such as “do you have a dog?” and “do you drive a limo?”), his daughter nailed him with a really tough one “that really put me on the spot.”

“She asked me ‘Daddy, do you like your little hand?’” he said. “And it stopped me in my tracks.”

His response was, “Yes, honey, I do like my little hand. I haven’t always liked it, but it’s taught me a lot of lessons. Life’s not easy – and it’s not always fair. And if my hand had taught me anything, it has taught me this: If you can find your own way of doing things, and make the most out of what you can do, nothing’s ever going to stop you. Challenge will come to us all, we know that -- but it doesn’t have to hold us back.”

At that moment what was being held back were the tears of dozens of technology professionals (and parents) who were practically blindsided by the dramatic impact of the conclusion of this emotional and uplifting presentation.

Following Abbott’s moving talk, attendees retired to the Bonaventure Brewing Company for great beer, good food, networking and hands-on demonstrations of Interactive Intelligence’s market-leading contact center and IP telephony solutions.


Patrick Barnard is Group Managing Editor, ContactCenterSolutions, focusing mainly on call and contact center technologies. He also compiles and regularly contributes to ContactCenterSolutions e-Newsletters in the areas of robotics, IT and customer interaction solutions. To read more of Patrick's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Patrick Barnard



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