During the Triathlon Across America in the summer of 2018, we were able to go to some pretty epic places along our route from San Francisco to NYC...
That said, the one spot that overwhelmed me more than any other was when I ran the same 20 miles into Gettysburg that the armies had marched back in July 1863... When we arrived at the battleground it was pouring rain and there was this eerie calm and feeling that I’m not quite sure I had ever experienced...
When I met up with the family, we made our way through the grounds where over 50,000 men lost their lives... A humbling reminder of its realness are the thousands of unmarked gravesites scattered throughout. If you haven’t come to grips with your own mortality, you will there...
We eventually made our way to the exact spot where Abraham Lincoln made arguably the most iconic and impactful speech in American history, The Gettysburg Address...
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Yup... That’s it, 270 words. The most efficient & effective speech ever given.
I’m not sure I’ve written a single Daily Hustle that short and let that be a beautiful reminder to me and all of the rest of you hustlers out there, the overall impact of anything we ever say has nothing to do with length yet everything to do with SUBSTANCE.
In those 270 words, Lincoln acknowledged the founding fathers and their pledge that all men are created equal... He referenced the ongoing war and the sacrifice made on the battlefield where he stood... Lincoln then made a commitment to not let the soldiers' efforts go to waste by declaring increased devotion to the cause for which these men gave their lives...
The irony of the Gettysburg Address is that Lincoln’s most famously quoted line just so happens to be...
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
Less than 2 years later, Lincoln would be laid to rest and during his eulogy, Senator Charles Sumner said that Lincoln was mistaken...
"The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."
I would argue that Lincoln & Sumner were both right... Without the soldier's quest for equality and ultimate sacrifice, Lincoln would have never made such a poignant and powerful speech... Yet, without Lincoln’s unifying words which prompted monumental ACTION, there’s no telling where we would be as a country today...
-EB
P.S. Have you hopped on a Team GoHard Foot Reflexolo...
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