Triathlete races past breast cancer

After nearly every joke and inspirational anecdote Nancy Reinisch told the crowd, they exploded with applause. Valley View Hospital’s lobby was packed to the gills with people, mostly women, who were letting out shrieks and whoops and hollers. Though they were there, ostensibly, to celebrate the release of Reinisch’s new book, “Chemosabee: A Triathlete’s Journey through the First Year of Breast Cancer,” they had truly come to celebrate Reinisch.

“To feel so loved is a wonderful thing,” Reinisch said, after the party.

As one of her readers wrote. ” I love this book! It’s a cross between the New England Journal of Medicine and ESPN Sports Center, with a touch of Oprah!”

While she, of course, downplayed it, not many people have a story quite like hers. A self-described “adult onset athlete,” Reinisch is a triathlete who didn’t start exercising until she was 34. That was 1987, and she’s since completed hundreds of triathlons. When, in 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she tackled it in a fashion that blew people away. She didn’t stop her life, didn’t give up her exercising. Instead, she used it to help her get through that trying time. The book chronicles her experience — one that had obviously touched the entire lobby of women.

“She’s a great lady,” said Melissa Miller, dabbing tears out of her eyes.

As a member of Reinisch’s Roaring Fork Women’s Triathlon Team, Miller was deeply affected by how Reinisch dealt with her illness. For the most part, she explained, Reinisch was her “chipper self” — one who still got up in the dark to train. That created a resolve in Miller. Though she had only done the swimming leg at her first triathlon, after watching Reinisch’s year of cancer, she completed her first, full race.

“She’s definitely an inspiration,” Miller said.

Standing nearby, Elaine Grossman used almost the exact same words. A cancer survivor and a founder of the Quality of Life Cancer Project, Grossman spoke of the “grace” Reinisch brings to her survivorship. Reinisch’s unwavering fortitude gets to Grossman.

“I would say Nancy is a thriver. She’s not (just) a survivor,” Miller said.

As Resa Hayes put it, “If anyone could charge through this, it’s Nancy.”

Full Story: Cancer survivor an inspiration to many

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Starbucks saved his life

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Michael Gates Gill didn’t learn to savor life until he began serving coffee to others.

He shared his riches-to-rags story in the 2007 book, “How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else.”

The author of the bestseller — soon to be a Tom Hanks movie — spoke Monday at The Economic Club of Grand Rapids to a crowd of about 600 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.

The club tapped the New Yorker for its December luncheon, which is traditionally reserved for an inspirational story. The event also included a standing ovation for executive director Lorna Schultz, celebrating her 20th anniversary with the organization.

Gill says he appreciates hard workers such as Schultz after landing an hourly job as a bartista at age 63.

By the time he wandered into the Starbucks that was hiring, his life had hit rock bottom after he was downsized from a six-figure job, divorced and diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Despite a Yale University degree and a 26-year career as an advertising executive, Gill had few practical skills. Everything had been given to him from his education to his career, he said. He even needed help filling out his Starbucks application.

At Starbucks, Gill said he was taken under the wing by his new boss Crystal and later Kester, his training coach.

He credits some of his biggest lessons to Crystal’s tutelage. Crystal grew up in the projects and worked hard for everything she earned.

“She treated me with loving kindness that I had never thought to offer anyone I worked with in my 26 years,” he said.

Crystal could overlook his less-than-stellar skill in making lattes, but she called him in her office when she saw him refusing to let a homeless use the restroom he had just cleaned.

“The last thing that gentleman needed was to be disrespected by you,” she told him. “This is the one place you shouldn’t decide who to respect or not.”

It took a while for his “old habits of arrogance” to die, but Gill says he is happy with transformation. He didn’t realize how much he changed until Kester complimented him on the quality of his work cleaning restrooms and closing the store, and Gill felt pride for the first time.

“I realized for many years I didn’t have a sense that I had value — that I contributed to something,” Gill said.

The book is based on the journal he kept at his daughter’s suggestion.

From Mlive.com - read full story

Related Story - Life Changes, with a latte to go (NY Times)

Winning the 5th Quarter - life lessons

The NFL did a study a few years back and surveyed 1000 players who had been out of the league for at least four years. What they found was staggering: 87% were either divorced, having serious financial issues, or were dealing with drug/alcohol problems!

When I graduated college and stopped playing football, my finances too were depleted, and to the point that the State of Ohio helped me with welfare assistance.  But by applying the lessons I myself learned on the football field, I have since become a highly successful entrepreneur, have spoken to groups in ten countries, and am a published author a couple times over.

In my latest book, Winning in the 5th Quarter, I write that, “Football Players are told from grade schools to the professional level that the most important quarter in football is the fourth quarter. The only quarter that matters at all however is the 5th Quarter. This is the quarter we all play in, when the game ends and life begins.”

When my oldest son Robbie started playing football, he leveraged the life lessons the game could teach him. “To even play the game of football you have to execute the core principles of success,” I write in Winning in the 5th Quarter. “If you carry those principles forward to the 5th Quarter (Life) you will be successful and happy. When my son decided to dedicate himself to try to achieve a Division I football scholarship I had to ensure that whether he did or did not achieve his goal, he understood the true secret of football: winning… in the 5th quarter.”

According to the National Sporting Goods Association, statistics show that close to twenty million Americans over the age of seven participate in some form of organized football play.  But football is more than just a grueling physical sport; it is a microcosm for life.  “This book is nothing less than a guide for lifelong success,” says Grant Teaff, Executive Director of American Football Coaches Association. “The messages and concepts are timeless. They will have a profound impact on everyone who reads this book and more importantly uses it to create a foundation for happiness and achievement.”

Football player or not, we all need to understand how to leverage the principles of success that football offers us all.  Parents and coaches need to learn how to stress the life lessons football offers to their children and players. Players need to learn how to apply the lesson they learn on the field, off the field.

My goal in life is to reach out to as many players, coaches, parents, and people as possible to share my experiences and help them and their families realize their dreams.  Through the book, Q5 Workshops, personal life coaching, and a TV show my team and I are working on, I am on a mission to help people understand just how to use football as a foundation for lifelong success.

Head football coach of Rice University, David Bailiff, says, “We tell players that attend Rice University they are attending for fifty years not just four. We talk to them about the 5th Quarter their first day here. Bob Beck has expressed this message in the exact way I would like every player and parent to understand. This book will become part of our culture.”

Winning in the 5th Quarter
By Bob Beck