RIP George Foreman
Yesterday, the world lost a legend as former heavyweight champion George Foreman passed away.
Per his family's Instagram post, Foreman died peacefully at 76 without any known illnesses.
It's hard to believe he was only 76 years old given what he fit into his remarkable life. He was an Olympic gold medalist, two-time professional champion, renowned boxing commentator, spiritual leader, successful entrepreneur, and a devoted family man. It's hard to see how he could have fit any more into his life than he did. That’s a lesson that we should all strive to make the most of our precious time here on Earth.
The news of Foreman's passing takes on an additional sad note for me because, as most of you readers know, I am writing a book about Big George's historic comeback. Although I felt it was a long shot that I would get to interview him, now that outcome is final. And when I finally publish this book someday, it's unfortunate that he won't be able to read it. But maybe some of his family members will do so, and I hope that it will bring them joy to read about all that he accomplished in the second act of his boxing career.
To do that means I have to keep writing. My life has been more hectic in the past few months since I started a new job and I am still building my life coaching business. Add to that my regular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training, other writing, relationships with family and friends, and I am not left with much spare time.
But I recently listened to an episode of a time-management podcast that explained that 15 minutes daily is all you need to make progress on important projects. Maybe you don't have a full three hours to clean your garage or organize your finances. But you should have 15 minutes, and in that time you can make some progress. And if you keep reserving those 15 minutes regularly, over time you will complete the project.
The guest also gave a specific example of writing a book, saying that in 15 minutes, you can write 250 words. If you do that for 200 days, that's 50,000 words written, which can be a whole book. The point is that I have to keep working on my book and squeezing in short bouts of focus to dedicate to it. The magic comes over the long haul.
So while this post was dedicated to George Foreman's passing, I think it is fitting that I ended it on a motivational note.
George defied the odds and achieved one of the greatest feats in sports history in reclaiming the heavyweight title. He is the perfect example to show us that while we all have obstacles in our way, we can't let them stop us from climbing!