What if this was your last day?

Near the end of my 2-mile attempt to run quietly this morning, I remembered yet another profound thing that Steve Jobs said in his speech to Stanford University students in 2005.

He said that when he was 17, he read a quote that said "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."

Since then, for 33 years, he looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer was no for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something.

Now, I don't think he meant getting his will updated and saying goodbye to everyone. Maybe it's like thinking, if I only had one more day of being able to choose what I could or couldn't do, what would I choose to do today?

I would imagine it might be something like spending time with people you love, letting them know how much you love them, and doing what you love doing.

If today was the last day of your life, would you want to do what you're about to do today?

Run quietly

It was a beautiful morning with a clear starry sky at 5.30 as I headed out for my habitual mile today.

I really enjoyed being out there when the rest of the world (the vast majority anyway) were still asleep in their beds. The only souls I encountered were two collie dogs (one of which seemed to fancy coming with me) out for a walk with their owner, and a milkman in his milkfloat making deliveries.

Yesterday I finally had my first physiotherapy session that I've been waiting for since August.

One of the exercises my physiotherapist was a simple instruction. Run quietly.

I like being given exercises like that, although it's not something that comes naturally to me as a runner. Nicky always tells me that I'm very heavy-footed.

Run quietly also reminded me of the opening lines of the Desiderata poem, which I think hold many lessons for me, and probably for others too.

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story."

I'll miss you Steve Jobs

It was very sad to hear the news on the radio this morning, before I got up for my run, that Steve Jobs has passed away.

Sad, but not a massive surprise as it's been common knowledge that he has been very ill for a long time.

Once again it makes me feel how lucky I am to have just completed my 644th consecutive day of running at least a mile. Steve Jobs was 56-years-old. The same age as me.

When I think of my post from yesterday about the 2 obituaries, Steve's ideal and actual obituaries must have been one and the same all the way along.

He represented incredible qualities. He had passion. He had creativity. He had extraordinary vision. He had determination and resilience in bucket loads. He had belief that you must follow your heart.

After all, he was fired from Apple, picked himself up, created Pixar, and then was brought back into Apple to revive their flagging fortunes. And revive them he did!

I'm going to finish this post with a quote from Steve Jobs, which I have always loved. He will certainly not be forgotten.

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs

First woman to row the 3 biggest oceans

Yesterday morning Roz Savage, a 43-year old Englishwoman, reached Mauritius on her 154th day after setting off from Australia, having rowed solo across the Indian Ocean.

Yesterday, she set a world record of being the first woman to have rowed solo across the Atlantic, Pacific and now Indian oceans.

What makes Roz do what she does?

Well, the catalyst for Roz's ocean rowing career started 11 years ago when in a steady office job she decided to write an obituary for herself. The obituary she wrote was the one that she wanted people to say and write about her when she died.

She then wrote another obituary. The one that would be written about her if she continued on her current life course.

Seeing the huge difference between the two, Roz decided that she needed to take some drastic action in her life.

The rest, as the say, is history.

What is your ideal obituary and the one you are heading for now?

If they are vastly different, what are you going to do about that today?

Running turns up the colour

Running really does turn up the brightness and the colour on my day.

You know when you're looking at photos and they're dull, bland and flat, and if you tweak them in a photo editor you can bring some brightness, colour and the life back into them?

Well this morning was a prime example of how running did that for my day.

I had one of those early mornings where I'd forgotten the point, at least I just couldn't see it.

A mile and a bit later, and today is looking good.

My inner game

Back at home again and I decided to run a 2-miler this morning.

I was thinking about how I often get grumpy late in the evenings when something isn't where I think it should be or someone does something that bugs me.

Then I was thinking about what I should try and do differently when that happens next time.

After a few minutes of failing to think of anything, I remembered Tim Gallwey's book, "The Inner Game of Tennis", a fantastic book that probably led to coaching moving from sport and into the business world.

In Tim Gallwey's book he talks about there being two opponents in tennis, the one on the other side of the net, and the one in your head.

That applies to pretty much everything in life (apart from the bit about the net). There is usually an external challenge and an internal one.

Also, what doesn't work when dealing with the internal one is to point out what you're doing wrong and try to find something that you should be doing more of, less of, or better.

It is always far more powerful to take yourself out of your head (and no I don't mean alcohol or drugs) and to concentrate on something else other than how you are performing.

So, my challenge next time I get grumpy is just to notice it and be curious about what's going on, what I'm trying to achieve and how effective my current strategy is. That's all.

How do you start your day?

I stayed in Hove last night so I got to run along the seafront towards Brighton this morning.

I love doing the seafront run, especially when it's such a gorgeous morning as it was this morning.

There was every age, shape and size out running the seafront this morning. And the rest were dog walkers, inline skaters and cyclists. It was obviously still too early for the sightseers, sun worshipers and those on a day out.

What was even better was I topped it off with a dip in the sea with my family before we went back for breakfast in the back garden.

For me, it's so important how I start my day.

If I want to set myself up for the best possible day, I can't beat starting it with a run.

How do you start yours?