FINISH STRONG

When faced with adversity, do you lie down or do you fight?


Do you make the most of each day?

What will your legacy be?

When adversity strikes, it's not what happens that determines our destiny; it's how we react.

You have to believe you can do something and then have the courage and determination to see it through. That's what Finish Strong by Dan Green is all about. The book is filled with amazing stores about people from all walks of life who, in the face of adversity, against all odds...finished strong!

Finish Strong is more than a statement...it's an attitude. Today, I'd like to share one of the stories from the book about Miles Levin, a teenager, who despite his terminal cancer choose to persevere and inspire thousands by making each day count.

After a two year battle with cancer, teenager Miles Levin, unfortunately lost his fight. However, during his final years, he achieved a level of self awareness, courage and wisdom that most of us will never reach. Miles chose to post his observations on a carepages.com blog and through his writings he inspired thousands of people. He wrote with amazing grace and eloquence. Some of his posts were short:

"Dying is not what scares me. It's dying having no impact."

Some were long and philosophical. But each post served a significant purpose in that it challenged a reader to think more deeply about life, death and making a difference. Through his expressions, Miles left this world a better place than he came into it. Here's what Miles said just one month after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

"I went to the driving range the other day and I was thinking...I was thinking how you start out with a big bucket full of golf balls, and you just start hitting away carelessly. You have dozens of them, each individual ball means nothing to you so just hit, hit, hit. One ball gone is practically inconsequential when subtracted from your bottomless bucket. There are no practice swings or technique re-evaluations after a bad shot, because so many more tries remain. Yet eventually you start to have to reach down towards the bottom of the bucket to scavenge for another shot and you realize that tries are running out. Now with just a handful left, each swing becomes more meaningful. The right technique becomes more crucial, so between each shot you take a couple practice swings and a few deep breaths. There is a very strong need to end on a good note, even if every preceding shot was terrible, getting it right at the end means a lot. You know as you tee up your last ball, "This is my final shot, I want to crush this with perfection; I must make this count." Limited quantities or limited time brings a new precious value and significance to anything you do.
Live every day shooting as if it's your last shot, I know I have to.



Eat that Frog!

"If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"

Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things to do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't...and let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it.

In Eat That Frog!, Brain cuts to the core of what is vital to effective time management: decision, discipline and determination. In 21 practical steps, he will help you stop procrastinating and get more of the important tasks done...today!

Here's a small sampling in Brian's chapter titled: Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything. Enjoy!

An excerpt from

Eat That Frog!

The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the "Pareto Principle" after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the "vital few", the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many", the bottom 80 percent.

He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.

Number of Tasks versus Importance of Tasks

Here is an interesting discovery. Each of the ten tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the value of any of the others.

Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.
Focus on Activities, Not Accomplishments

The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"

The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.

Motivate Yourself

Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.

Be at it to Beat it

"Never trouble Trouble until Trouble troubles you, for you only make your trouble double troubles when you do".

"Never worry Worry until Worry worries you; for you only make your worries double worries when you do".

Be at it to Beat it: Beatitudes


1. Get Active
2. Find Company
3. Evaluate the worry
4. Fix a Time
5. Exercise and
6. Count your blessings.

Wisdom in a Nutshell from Who Moved My Cheese?

• Anticipate change.
• Adapt quickly.
• Enjoy change.
• Be ready to change quickly, again and again.
• Having Cheese makes you happy.
• The more important your Cheese is to you, the more you want to hold on
to it.
• If you do not change, you can become extinct.
• Ask yourself “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”
• Smell the Cheese often so you know when it is getting old.
• Movement in a new direction helps you find New Cheese.
• When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.
• Imagining myself enjoying New Cheese, even before I find it, leads me to
it.

• The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find New Cheese.
• It is safer to search in the maze than remain in a cheeseless situation.
• Old beliefs do not lead you to New Cheese.
• When you see that you can find and enjoy New Cheese, you change
course.
• Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger changes that
are to come.
• Read the Handwriting on the Wall
• Change happens. They keep moving the Cheese.
• Move with the Cheese and enjoy it!