Ray Kroc

Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, is a great example of how to Finish Strong.  Today, every five hours somewhere around the world a new McDonald’s restaurant is opening.  However, what’s amazing about McDonald’s is that Ray did not conceive the idea until he was 52 years old.  By that time he had already been a struggling paper cup salesman, real estate broker, piano player and milk shake mixer.  Here’s what Ray said about that time in his life:

“I was 52 years old.  I had diabetes and incipient arthritis.  I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.”  - Ray Kroc

He deeply believed that this new restaurant concept was his biggest idea ever.  He chose to fully commit himself to make it happen.  However, in order to realize his dream he would have to mortgage his home and borrow heavily.  You have to remember that Kroc conceived the idea in a time when the family home-dining experience was very much ingrained in our culture.  People did not eat out very often.  However, Ray believed if Americans could order good food in a clean place and get it fast, they would come.  And, of course, he was right.

He truly was the father of “fast food.”

Most of us at 52 years old would find every reason not to take the risk and roll the dice on an untested concept.  However, Ray believed in himself and was determined to succeed.  Today because of Ray Kroc living his dream, McDonald’s serves more that 47 million customers a day across 117 different countries and employs hundreds of thousands around the world.  He once said, “When you find something that you love to do, you’ll never have to work another day in of your life.”  He took the risk and finished strong.

Dr. Ben Carson in the movie "Gifted Hands"

I recently watched a movie called "Gifted Hands" which I found to be pretty inspiring.  I love movies based on real life and this one proved to be worth it.  Ben Carson played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. starts out life with less-than-ideal circumstances.  He has trouble in school, had a bad temper, and lived in a fatherless home.  He did, however, have a very special mother that believed in her children and taught them that despite their circumstances, they could be anything they dreamed of if they worked at it.  She encouraged Ben to use his imagination (elephant - from "The Ant and the Elephant" book by Bill Peet) and learned early on that television was not going to aid in getting their dreams.  She limited their tv time to 2 pre-determined shows per week.  When they complained, she sent them to the library and told them to read 2 books per week.

This turned out to be a changing point in young Ben Carson's life.  He began to love reading and started his self-directed education.  He quickly turned his failing grades around and became one of the smartest students at his school.  He would devour books in any subject that interested him and eventually settled in to the biology field, which led him to be a doctor.  He was amazed at the power and mystery of the brain calling it the only part of the body that really is a miracle.  Every other part of the body was pretty well understood and you could predict what would happen...except the brain.  The brain was so powerful that no one really knew how it could do what it does.  This led him to be a neurologist.

The most inspiring part of the story for me was how he pretty much learned all he knew from reading books. It was the way he learned and even skipped college lectures while he read and excelled beyond many of his peers.  He became one of the most educated doctors in his field primarily from his own studies outside of the formal classroom.  This is very much like what the "Mental Fitness Challenge" provides.  I am pretty sure I read more non-fiction, life-changing books than the average person.  But who wants to be average?  

Here's a summary of the movie from Wikipedia:

The movie begins in present day 1987, where Dr. Ben Carson (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) goes to Germany to visit a couple named Peter and Augusta Rausch, who have twins conjoined at the head. Ben knows that chances of saving them both will be at risk, because one baby always dies in situations like that. Ben agrees to do the operation, but he will wait four months so he can come up with a plan to save them both. While looking into some of his books, the movie flashes back to the year 1961, where 11 year old Ben Carson (Jaishon Fisher) starts out life as an African American child from a one-parent home with failing grades at school. Ben has an older brother named Curtis. His mother, who dropped out in the third grade, starts making decisions for him. When her boys need to learn multiplication tables, she has them swear to learn them while she is gone to check herself into a mental institution. When she sees her two sons' success hindered by TV, she schedules timings to watch tv, boys show great interest in watching only a quiz show later on and commands them to read two books per week from the library and give her a book report, she also moves them to better schools.
Meanwhile as time passes, Ben learns how to multiply and to spell. He starts to explore the world of books, and he grows in it. He begins to show a temper; Ben almost hits his mom with a hammer while arguing with her about what pants he should wear for school and almost kills his best friend as a teenager. His friend was saved as the knife that he used to stab him broke when it hit the buckle of his belt.
Having almost killed someone because of his temper, he realizes that he can't do anything about it. He runs to his room and cries out to God, praying that He delivers him from his temper.
He becomes the top student in his eighth grade class, third in his high school class and with hard work and strong determination, he got a scholarship to college, passed the MCAT and went on to medical school. He meets his girlfriend Candy, whom he falls in love with. One day, when he struggles with a test study, she helps him out and Ben eventually passes and gets an A.
In the year 1976, Carson faced adversity from fellow doctors and students while working at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. It is here where he performed an operation as a resident without supervision, risking his medical career to save a man's life. Then in the year of 1985, he saves the life of a girl who has seizures 100 times a day, by removing only half of her brain that was responsible for seizures, procedure called 'hemispherectomy". Candy later becomes pregnant with twins, but loses the babies from a bloody miscarriage. Ben's mother later moves in with the family.
Then the movie goes back to where it began: the year of 1987. Ben is eventually convinced to operate on the two twins, and he manages to make the operation successful, and both twins are saved.

Ernest Shackleton

On August 1, 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton set sail with a crew of 28 on an expedition to the Antarctic.  The goal of their expedition was to cross the Antarctic on foot – something never done before.  Shackleton was a successful and highly respected explorer known for his faith, determination and conviction.  He was knighted for his successful expedition to Antarctica in 1907-1908.

In order to recruit his crew of 28 he took applications from 5,000 men.  Many believe that he placed the following ad in a London newspaper to attract the applicants.

While there is no evidence that this ad actually ran, it does quite appropriately frame the environment that Shackleton was trying to recruit for.

This expedition was going to be different than any other one that Shackleton had led.  Five months into the expedition their ship, the Endurance, became stuck in the heavy ice flows near Antarctica.  It was not uncommon for ships to get stuck periodically in the ice flows and Shackleton believed that the ice would eventually recede and free the ship.  His focus was on the expedition and he held fast on that course.  However, over the next three weeks the ship became solidly frozen in the ice.  Attempts to free the ship were futile.  At the end of February, 1915, the crew prepared the ship to become their camp for the remainder of the winter.

At this point, Shackleton abandoned his primary goal for the expedition and turned his focus towards returning to England.  His expedition had become a rescue mission.

By October, eight months after being stuck, the pressure created by the ice finally took its toll on the Endurance.  The ship began to come apart and sink, making it uninhabitable.  The order to abandon ship was given and the entire crew began to salvage as many supplies as they could.  They took the sled dogs, food, gear and three lifeboats and moved their camp to the ice flow next to their sinking ship.  The temperatures were brutal, reaching -15˚F on average.  For the next five months the expedition camped on the ice flow surviving on what little food they had left.  In April the ice flow they were camped on began to break apart.  Shackleton ordered the crew to take only essential supplies and board the life boats.  They fled the disintegrating ice flow and traveled seven days by sea to Elephant Island.  Elephant Island was a barren place to be stranded, made up mostly of rock covered snow with temperatures reaching -20˚.  For the next nine months, under Shackleton’s leadership, the broken expedition remained loyal, optimistic, focused and faithful to their leader’s belief that they would survive.  Ultimately, Shackleton knew that their survival depended upon his ability to reach a whaling outpost that was more than 800 miles across the most treacherous ocean seas in the world.  Determined to save his crew, Shackleton set out in one of the lifeboats with five crew members to make the journey.  The odds of making it were 1 in 100.  Nautical scholars consider this journey by lifeboat to be one of the greatest nautical accomplishments in maritime history.  Shackleton successfully made it to the outpost and returned to Elephant Island with a rescue party four months later.

On August 30, 1916 after 22 months of being stranded on a barren rock in sub zero temperatures, the crew of the Endurance was rescued.  All twenty eight crew members survived the ordeal and most were quick to credit the strong faith of their leader as the catalyst in their survival.

Bethany Hamilton

I watched the movie "Soul Surfer" recently and found it to be very inspirational.  I had read about her before but the movie really brought it to life.  Here's a summary of her story:

It was the perfect day for surfing off the coast of Maui.  A 13 year old surfing protégé had just finished riding a twenty foot wave and was lying face down on her surf board.  Preparing to paddle out to catch another wave, her thoughts of becoming a professional surfer shifted in an instant.  Without warning, she felt a tug on her left arm and in a split second she realized that she’d been attacked by a shark.

As she struggled to gain her composure she realized something even more horrifying – the fourteen foot tiger shark had bitten clean through her board, taking her left arm in a single bite.  At that moment in time, survival and not surfing became a priority.

Bethany Hamilton learned to surf at the age of 4.  When she was 8, she entered her first contest and won both of the events that she competed in.  At the age of 10 she placed 1st in the “11 – under girls,” 1st in the “15-under girls,” and 2nd in the “12-under boys” division at the Volcom Puffer Fish contest.  She was determined to become a professional surfer and was certainly on track to make it happen.  Then, in one violently swift moment on that fall day in 2003, it seemed her dreams would be shattered.

However, Bethany was born with the heart of a lion and the competitive spirit of a thoroughbred.  She was determined to return to the water to surf.  Leaning on support from her friends, family and her faith in God, Bethany recovered rapidly and within ten weeks from the attack was surfing again.  Convinced she could overcome her physical challenge, she worked hard to learn to surf around her disability.  But she also had to overcome the psychological fear of another attack.  Bethany would face her fears by singing and praying when she was out on the water.

Incredible as it seems, less than a year from her attack, Bethany returned to competition taking fifth place at the National Surfing Championships and first place at the first event for the Hawaii national Scholastic Surfing Association.  She was recognized by ESPN in 2004 and received an ESPY award for Best Comeback Athlete of the year.

Bethany’s ability to overcome her physical and mental challenges puts her in an elite class of achievers.  She chose to…Finish Strong.

Her unique ability to confront her fears, embrace them and then continue moving forward in the direction of her goals is the perfect definition of courage.