Top 5 Feel Good Stories About Overcoming The Odds

Eric LeGrand signed by Tampa Bay Buccaneers—LeGrand is a former Rutgers University football player who sustained a severe spinal injury in a 2010 game. Throughout LeGrand’s ongoing recovery, one of his staunchest supporters has been then-Rutgers coach Greg Schiano.

Schiano was hired as head coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers earlier this year. One of his first personnel decisions was to symbolically sign LeGrand to a player contract. LeGrand spent almost three months as a member of the Buccaneers before announcing his retirement in late July.

Man Climbs Sears Tower Using Bionic Leg—It may not have taken place on a track, field or court, but Zac Vawter’s story deserves recognition as a symbol of the convergence of human spirit and advances in rehabilitation. Vawter, who lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident three years ago, climbed all 103 flights of stairs of Chicago’s Willis (formerly Sears) Tower in November with the help of a bionic leg.

Designed to respond to electrical impulses from muscles, the leg is controlled by the mind. As Vawter climbed the stairs, the leg worked in conjunction with his body and mind to propel him forward. While the device itself will continue to be improved and perfected, Vawter’s accomplishment was an inspiration to athletes with disabilities everywhere.

Oscar Pistorius Competes in 2012 Summer Olympics—Pistorius, who has double below-knee amputations, was the subject of a long legal battle to determine his eligibility to run against able-bodied athletes in international competition. This year, the South African star qualified and competed in the men’s 400-meter race, where he advanced all the way to the semifinals, racing against eventual gold medalist Kirani James of Grenada.

Pistorius also qualified for South Africa’s men’s 4 x 400-meter relay team in the London Games before winning two gold medals and a silver in the Summer Paralympics later that month.

Manteo Mitchell Breaks Leg, Continues to Compete in Olympic Event—One of Oscar Pistorius’ opponents at the 2012 Summer Olympics was Manteo Mitchell of the United States. Running the first leg of the 4 x 400-meter qualifying heat, Mitchell felt a pop in his left leg. He’d broken his left fibula.

Amazingly, Mitchell continued on—the injury occurred at about the halfway point in his lap— to finish his leg of the relay and keep the United States’ medal hopes alive. With a substitute runner in Mitchell’s place, the United States would go on to win the silver medal in the finals of the event, cementing Manteo Mitchell’s spot in Olympic history.

Adam Greenberg Returns to Major League Baseball—In 2005, Adam Greenberg was a rookie outfielder for the Chicago Cubs. In his very first plate appearance in the majors, Greenberg was struck in the batting helmet by a 92 mile-per-hour fastball. The pitch left Greenberg with a concussion, vertigo and vision problems and derailed his baseball career.

Slowly, he recovered and returned to the sport—a comeback that culminated in signing a one-day contract with the Miami Marlins this past October and earning a pinch-hitting appearance against the New York Mets and eventual Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey. The baseball portion of the story doesn’t have a fairy-tale ending—Greenberg would strike out against Dickey—but Adam remains determined to continue his comeback.

“Life throws you curveballs," Greenberg said. "Mine threw me a 92 mile-an-hour fastball, and it hit me in the back of the head. I got up from it, and my life is great.”

Sports Doc, Expert Advice on Staying Fit and in The Game, December 12, 2012

Waiting ‘till spring…may want to rethink that.

We live in a counter-intuitive society. Rather than buy stocks when they are low, we jump into the market when we hear the stock is hot, missing out on the best part of the growth. Instead of selling when things are high, we wait until the ship is already sinking before we jump off. And for many of us thinking of selling our home, we wait until the newspapers, radio and television let us know the market is heating up and it’s time to sell, rather than selling when the time is best for us.

In virtually every market across America – and even in our market here – 15 to 20% of the homes that sell will do so in the first three months of the year, before the spring market gets a good head of steam going. And the best part of that is those who sell during the first part of the year usually face way less competition than those who wait until after March has gotten here.

If you are open to selling at this time of the year, you’ll have a stronger pool of motivated buyers knocking at your door to see your home. That is for sure.

Here are a few things to consider if you are open to selling now:

• ·         Best foot forward: The first showing on your home, believe it or not, is the pictures that people see when they go on line. Make sure you have professional-looking photographs of your home on line so buyer prospects get a great first impression of your home.

• ·         Christmas is over: Packing up the Christmas decorations is a hassle, let’s be honest. Sometimes we can let them linger a little longer after Santa has dropped off the goods. Make sure that you’ve returned your home to its every day look and keep is spotless. It may even be worth it to invest a small amount of money to have your home professionally cleaned so that it shows extremely well to prospective buyers.

• ·         Make small improvements: Sometimes that toilet-paper roller falls off and we let it linger longer than it should. Occasionally, the wall gets marked and we don’t wash it or paint over it right away. From time to time, a stain gets on the floor and we don’t call in the flooring people to get it squared away. Unfortunately, these seemingly insignificant issues can detract from the saleability of your home. Take the time to fix the little things to make your home shine.

There are scores of other hints, tips and tricks we’d love to discuss with you if you’re thinking about putting your home on the market.

Please call us today at 405-216-9600 for a no-cost, no-hassle consultation on what to do to prepare your home for sale in the next few months.

Happy New Year from The Atchley Group

Here are some New Year’s quotes that you’ll surely enjoy in 2013:

Hal Borland
Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

John Burroughs
One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.

Mark Twain
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Benjamin Franklin
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.

Ellen Goodman
We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

Better Late Than Never...

SMART GOALS – TEMPLATE

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SMART goals help improve achievement and success.  A SMART goal clarifies exactly what is expected and the measures used to determine if the goal is achieved and successfully completed.

A SMART goal is:

Specific :  Linked to what you want, specifically, in your life.  Answers the question—Who? and What?

Measurable:  The success toward meeting the goal can be measured.  Answers the question—How?

Attainable:  Goals are realistic and can be achieved in a specific amount of time and are reasonable.

Relevant (results oriented):  The goals are aligned with what you want in life; include the expected result.

Time framed:  Goals have a clearly defined time-frame including a target or deadline date.

Examples:

Not a SMART goal:

·        I want to lose some weight.

Does not identify a measurement or time frame, nor identify why the improvement is needed or how it will be used.

SMART goal:

·        I will lose 30 pounds by the 31st of March, wear a size 8 dress/size 32 waist pants, still enjoy the foods I eat in moderation, all while doing the things I need to do each day at work and in my personal life. I will lose the 30 pounds by averaging a weekly weight loss equal to 1 to 2% of my current weight without starving myself or exercising like a maniac.

SMART Goal Planning Form

Specific – WHO? WHAT?

Measurement/Assessment – HOW?

Attainable/Achieve – REASONABLE?

Relevant – EXPECTED RESULT?

By

Timed – WHEN?

Holiday Funnies...

As promised, here are a couple more holiday funnies:

Chrismukkah

Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Hanukkah will merge. An industry source said that the deal had been in the works for about 1300 years.

While details were not available at press time, it is believed that the overhead cost of having twelve days of Christmas and eight days of Hanukkah was becoming prohibitive for both sides. By combining forces, we're told, the world will be able to enjoy consistently high-quality service during the Fifteen Days of Chrismukkah, as the new holiday is being called.

Massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being the hardest hit. As part of the conditions of the agreement, the letters on the dreydl, currently in Hebrew, will be replaced by Latin, thus becoming unintelligible to a wider audience.

One of the sticking points holding up the agreement for at least three hundred years was the question of whether Jewish children could leave milk and cookies for Santa even after having eaten meat for dinner. A breakthrough came last year, when Oreos were finally declared to be Kosher. All sides appeared happy about this.

A spokesman for Christmas, Inc., declined to say whether a takeover of Kwanzaa might not be in the works as well. He merely pointed out that, were it not for the independent existence of Kwanzaa, the merger between Christmas and Chanukah might indeed be seen as an unfair cornering of the holiday market. Fortunately for all concerned, he said, Kwanzaa will help to maintain the competitive balance. He then closed the press conference by leading all present in a rousing rendition of "Oy Vey, All Ye Faithful."

What to give an optimist and a pessimist

A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom and gloom pessimist.

Just to see what would happen, at Christmas time their father loaded the pessimist's room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist's room he loaded with horse manure.

That night the father passed by the pessimist's room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly.

"Why are you crying?" the father asked.

"Because my friends will be jealous, I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I'll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken." answered the pessimist twin.

Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" he asked.

To which his optimist twin replied, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"