Tag: Mid

Run, jeff noel, Run!

Everyday, we are presented with the opportunity to use our gifts.

What gifts?

Great question.

How about the gift of our body?

So in a few minutes, I’ll tie my running shoes, grab my stopwatch, and head out for a five-miler.

It’s been three days since I’ve run.  Monday I ran in Hartford, CT.  Today, Orlando, FL.

Today is also the deadline for Master’s Track & Field athletes to submit their intent to compete at the 2009 Master’s Track & Field World Championships, this August, in Lahti, Finland.

It’s difficult to do what must be done, when it must be done, whether we want to or not.

That, if you really want my opinion, is one of the harshest and toughest realities of our lives.

Embrace it or not, it won’t change.  Will you?

Carpe diem, jeff noel  🙂

Lane 8 Blog from Hartford, CT

Lane 8 Blog from Hartford, CT.

I’m co-facilitating a two-day professional development program, for a regional financial services company, here in Hartford.

Life on the road can be very hard work, at least that’s what I’ve found to be true.

After standing all day teaching, my feet were sore and my body was spent from the “emotional labor” expended to do an excellent job in the classroom.

I took the day off from training, took 800 mg of Advil, iced my left foot, and then fell asleep early.

Sometimes the journey to become world class isn’t what you might think it is.

And yet, the journey continues.  

As with any noble goal, we can’t give up.

Carpe diem, jeff noel  🙂

Blah, blah, blah?

Blah, blah, blah?

Nope.

Dream Big.  Get There.  Stay There.

That’s what Lane 8 is about.   Staying there.

Ran into a Father of my son’s classmate, at the gym yesterday.

I asked, “What motivates you”?

He replied, with an apparent wisdom, that he has found it more difficult, now that he’s almost 30, to stay in shape and keep his weight ideal.

Please forgive me for thinking this, but all I could think of was, “You really think that you’re going to stay fit and at an ideal weight for the rest of your life”?

“Dude”, I wanted to say, “You have no idea what is ahead of you, but I can predict one thing for sure.  If you think it’s hard now, imagine it 10 years from now, or 20 years from now when you’re almost 50”.

How do I know?

Because I turn 50 in three weeks.  I’ve got 20 years of “wisdom and mistakes” on him.  That’s how I know.

Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from making mistakes.

I should be the wisest man on Earth, eh?  Carpe diem, jeff noel 🙂

Slowest of the Fastest?

What does this metaphor, “The slowest of the Fastest” mean?

It means very simply this:

We have a choice every moment of every day.

To be positive, or, to not be positive.

Here’s one of life’s invisible truths:  Everybody is fighting a hard battle.  Everyone.  Even the people who appear, on the surface, to have a great (easy) life.

We all have a choice on how we live our lives.

There are two choices:

  1. To be the fastest of the slowest.
  2. To be the slowest of the fastest.

On our deathbed, if we are lucky (blessed) to have this moment, we can look back on our lives and say with a peaceful joy, “I gave it my best effort and have no regrets about what I could have, should have or would have done“.

Visit, or revisit, if you’re interested, the post that explains another metaphor, Lane 8 .

Carpe diem, because if you don’t, who will.  If not today, when?  jeff 🙂

Do you think I should?

Thursday night, I asked my son, “Do you think I should still go the World Championships“?

Without hesitating, he said, “Yes“!

“Why”?, I wondered out loud.

“Two reasons”, he said.  “Number one, to complete your goal of being the slowest of the fastest“.

I smiled and asked, “And what’s the second reason?”  

“So we can be a little famous.”

Smiling again I asked, “Is being famous a good thing?”

He said, “Being a little famous, who wouldn’t want that kind of esteem?”

Kids say the darnedest things.  Indeed.

Carpe diem, jeff  🙂

PS. Esteem, or self-confidence is a critical success factor, in my humble opinion.  If something were to ever happen to me, maybe he’d remember that his Dad always said, “You have the choice to be positive or negative“.

I’ll explain the “Slowest of the Fastest” metaphor tomorrow.