Eating Frogs

Mark Twain said this. The statement has evolved over years. Now, the statement is most often applied to productivity.

In short, it means do the hard things first. If you get the hard tasks out of the way, the rest of the day should be much easier.

For the purpose of this newsletter, I am going to steal the term “eating frogs” to encourage you do just do hard things. Why? Because all of the good things in life are on the other side of something difficult.

Easy is Unmemorable.

A few decades ago I climbed Angel’s Landing in Zion. If you are not familiar with the hike, it is a right of passage for any one visiting Zion National Park in Utah. To this day, I remember the hike well.

If I see pictures of the trail, I can instantly associate them to my memories. That day is seared into my memory. It is apart of me.

Conversely, I have flown over Utah dozens of times. It would be hard for me to pick out a picture of Utah from the sky.

The reasoning is simple. Climbing Angel’s Landing was challenging. Flying on a plane was easy.

Utah may look great from the sky, but boarding a plane is not challenging. I had to hike 1,488 feet to see the view from the top of Angel’s Landing. It was a memorable reward for a lot of hard work.

We will always remember the lessons learned through our challenges. The easy stuff does not have the same effect.

Challenges Create Character.

Have you ever asked an entrepreneur about how they started their business? The story is never sunshine and roses. Entrepreneur’s revel in the hard times.

It is the hard times that forged the entrepreneur. The challenges prepared them for what was next. Which was a series of increasingly more difficult challenges.

It is not because the challenges are not there or they are not difficult. Challenges become easier because we now know how to handle them. So, the callused character starts to crave difficult tasks.

Those that have over come great challenges will always seek more impressive obstacles. It’s the only way to get the growth that they want. It’s the path to being better tomorrow than we are today.

Common Has No Place in a Uncommon World.

Life will always present challenges and there will always be two roads. Relative security and comfort. Or, difficult, uncomfortable, and even down right scary.

Most of the great people we look up to in life took the second road. And they continue to take it regularly. Society doesn’t tend to recognize common people. We want to see the people who faced adversity and won.

Those that took the first road will never stand out. Just like lottery winners fade into obscurity and the titans of industry have statues in their honor. History will always remember those that are not common.

Run towards challenges. Embrace them. The best things in life are on the other side of those challenges.

Take Aways.

Eat the frogs. Seek out hard things. Do not hide in comfort. Take on challenges. Create a callused character.

Overcome enough challenges and what used to be crippling will be just an average day. Easy teaches nothing. Easy is forgettable.

Do the hard stuff. Create unforgettable memories. Be unforgettable.