Abe and the 12% Haters

by Godfrey J. Ellis

All of us have detractors and haters and we all have our fans and supporters. It’s a part of life. In the book, we talk about not letting the negative opinions of, at most 12% of the people we meet get us down. One of the examples to illustrate this point was Abraham Lincoln. His secretary recorded how the hate mail “heaped up in the wastebaskets.” Another illustration that we used in the book (see below) is that of Moby Dick, the whale hunter written about by Melville.