This first letter is short yet contains far more than the reader probably sees and I would wager, that this first letter is most over looked or taken for granted.

    The lesson on health he is teaching is crystal clear and it is not lost on me that he chose this topic first. His father died at the young age of 59 of heart failure and that spooked him just as my father’s death has spooked me. He did live ten years longer than his dad and it wasn’t due to modern medicine by any means. He was very hard on his body until he was middle age, but then he would fall in and out of work out phases.

    At one point he was running up to 13 miles on the beach and ate only health food. Unfortunately he had an arterial blockage that caused his death, but the ME confirmed that other than that he was in great shape for his age.

     I did try jogging and never liked it. The time it takes to get the endorphins running to the brain to make you feel high takes too long for me.  It is also too hard on my knees.

    We all love the high or endorphin rush we get from exercising for a long time and we all love that calm mellow glow we have when we are done, but I don’t look forward to the process of getting to that point.

    For me, exercise should be fun from the get go and not a WORK out simply because if it is fun and therefore easier to find the motivation to do it and keep doing it.

    I prefer non-competitive sports instead. There is very little equipment in sport chalet that I have not tried at one time or another and the only activity that really stuck with me is bicycling.  It is easier for me because when I ride, it feels like exploring and not so much like exercise.

    When he wrote the first letter, I was 15 and at that age all young men think they are invincible to what ails old people. I knew I would have to take better care of myself, but I thought it was something for later in life. It reminds me of a line in a song on the Faces album. “I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger.”

    In fact, that song always reminds me of my pop. I imagine him telling my son about women’s ways (and then me correcting him).

    Anyway, there is a lesson he didn’t outright express in this first part of the letter. When he talks about how when he first got there it was hard just to walk around the hill and very soon he was running up it.

    When I got my first mountain bike I decided to ride it to Mullhulland Dr. and basically that was a three-mile road that varied from around 3 degrees to at least 45 degrees in some spots.

    The first day I went to conquer the hill I made it a whopping 1/8th of a mile. I decided to try again the next day only this time I vowed to get off and walk if I had to.

    This time I took it slower and knowing this was going to be tough, I decided to try and peddle in a gear that seemed too easy.

    Well I am sure you can guess the end of this story. Yes I made it all the way up on my second attempt and the moral isn’t just to not give up.

    The moral of my dad’s workout story and mine is the same and it applies to all of life. Try things at least twice. Just the second attempt at anything hard will be much easier. Not a little bit but by A LOT. It is true of almost everything, not just sports.

    All first attempts are sloppy and lame. Most people will quit after their first experience with things that don’t go so well, but if you are like my pop and I, then you KNOW that the first attempt is almost destined to fail and you will learn enough to get a better assessment of the whole picture and what it will really takes to attain a goal on your second attempt.

    Just that much more ambition will propel you ahead of 95% of everyone walking the earth.

    The sad part is, we all already know this lesson, but we have to remind ourselves of it. Anyone who ever learned to ride a bike remembers their first attempt to learn because it ended with blood. Oops, anyone old enough not to have the advantage of today’s protective gear that is.

    As people get older they start to decide whether they like stuff based on their first experience. Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks simply because, if he doesn’t get it the first time he gives up.

    Everyone wants to climb the mountain, but the big difference between those at the top and those still on the bottom is simply a matter of showing up tomorrow to give it just one more shot.

    The other lesson he touches on is getting up early to do road work and that too has a business lesson and a VERY important lesson as well.

    I think he wrote about this in his newsletter, but he used to teach people something I called “the four square lesson on life”. It was something he picked up from a great book called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. It is a great lesson and relates to the one in the story.

    The lesson is this. Everything you do can be categorized as either important or not important. Also everything you do can be categorized as urgent or not urgent.

    To make it easy to explain we will use a 4 square box:

    As you can see the chart is divided into fourths or quartiles, which is what the Q is for.

    Basically things that are found in Q1 are urgent and important and would be things like getting a broken arm fixed.

    Things that are urgent but not important would be things like getting to the toy store before it closes.

    We all decide what is important to each of us, but for the most part what is important but not urgent are things such as working out or getting a prostate exam.

    The final category is hardly worth mentioning because it is neither urgent nor important and it has things like reading a classic novel. You do them if you want to, but if not, it doesn’t matter at all.

   We all spend much of our day taking care of what falls into Q1 and then Q3. Later, if there is time left over and depending on our mood we will relax and do things that would fall into Q4 or maybe even take the time to do some of the things in Q2.

    Winners in life and successful people spend a lot more time doing things that fall into Q2 than most people.

    If you take the time to think about it, everything you do in Q2 helps avoid having to do so much in Q1. If you spend a lot of time working out you should spend less time at the doctor’s office. If you take care of things that are important before they become urgent, then the only things that become urgent will be beyond your control or unimportant.

    At the end of the letter he talks about getting it done early because he knows that it is something that falls into Q2. The point is we all have to deal with what is important and urgent. However, early in the morning is the only time most of us can avoid dealing with regular chores long enough to take care of things categorized in Q2.

    Once the world wakes up and the e-mail messages, text messages and phone calls start your time will quickly get consumed with things that are urgent.

    The rule is the same for business. Take care of important things first and early before you lose the chance. If you have a marketing campaign to test, the earlier the better. If you are writing copy for an ad, do it early before the phone starts ringing.

    If I had to guess, I’d say 90% of all successful people get up early and most of the other ten percent stay up late for the same reason. While everyone sleeps or watches the boob tube they can get stuff done without being interrupted.

Copyright © Gary C. Halbert.  All Rights Reserved.