Some Inspiration for a Gloomy Saturday.

It has been a rather gloomy Saturday so far, so I have been browsing around on the internet looking for a bit of inspiration. I found a rather newsworthy story that I think will do the trick.

The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is being held tomorrow. It's an important marathon, it's a qualifier for the Boston Marathon (the granddaddy of all marathons), there's $150,000 worth of prize money up for grabs, and the Olympic commitees of quite a few nations are using this marathon to determine who will be on their national teams in London next summer.

Needless to say, there will be quite a few high profile runners competing tomorrow. The runner who has grabbed my attention though, will not be finishing near the front of the pack and will not be chosen to compete for his nation at the Olympics.

100 year old Fauja Singh will be running tomorrow and hopes to set a new world record for his age group. He already holds the world record for the fastest finish in the 90 year and over age bracket at five hours and forty minutes. Now he hopes to become the oldest person ever to complete the Toronto Marathon. Five hours and forty minutes to run 26 miles. That's incredible. I think it's amazing that someone who is 100 years old still sets lofty goals for himself. He certainly puts a lot of moaners and grumblers to shame.

What makes this story even more inspirational is that Mr. Singh didn't start running until he was 89 years old. He took up running to help cope with the loss of his wife and child. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I'm contrasting Mr. Singh's story to our Wednesday meetings at our brokerage where some of the agents moan and grumble about having to learn new things on the internet. We have a little session every week, and some of the agents simply refuse to learn new things or pay any attention to anything having to do with websites, blogging, social media, Search Engine Optimisation and similar topics. This stuff is incredibly easy to do when you take the time to learn it, it certainly isn't as difficult as training for and competing in a marathon. Especially at the age of 100. No, some of the agents simply throw their hands up and grumble that it's too difficult for them to learn. Maybe they could take a page out of Mr. Singh's book. I think we all can.