Tag Archives: Mark Twain

Swallow the Frog. Do it early.

Leave a reply

Life lessons from Chubby (my dad) and other smart folks I’ve met on the road.

swallow the frog

We all have frogs; difficult or unpleasant things we must do.

We tend to put them off. The problem? They rarely go away. In fact, they often grow into green monsters — harder to do, tougher to face.

Facing a frog today?
Take Chubby’s advice.

Swallow the frog. Do it early.

swallow the frog

“If you know you have to swallow a frog,
swallow it first thing in the morning.
If there are two frogs, swallow the big one first.”
—Mark Twain
*Chubby Rule courtesy of my good friend and savvy dad, Bruce.
**Photo of boy with frog in mouth courtesy of strangecosmos.com

The Dog Biscuit

Leave a reply

“Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often.”

—Mark Twain

Today’s story is contributed by Larry Winget.

your word

Larry, Tyler & Patrick, quite a few years after woofing the dog biscuit

I was walking the dogs, and my kids. Tyler was ten, Patrick was six. We played our traditional game, “How much?” That is, how much money would it take for one of us to eat a worm, or jump into a pool of manure, or lick a dead rat. Grossed out? Of course, so were we. That was the point…and we loved it.

“How much to eat a dog biscuit?” I proposed, pulling a dog treat from my pocket. Tyler’s reply was immediate, “I will if you will, Dad!”

I popped that dog biscuit into my mouth without hesitation! The boys were shocked; the dogs stared in wonder as I chewed up their bacon liver treat.
READ MORE 

Small Potatoes

Leave a reply

“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear you speak.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today’s story is from Art Ernst.

During the Great Depression of the middle 1930s, my dad and his brother, Roy, decided to trade a bushel of my Uncle Roy’s potatoes for a bushel of Dad’s apples when they ripened.

Bushel of potatoes

Small potatoes

After visiting Uncle Roy and Aunt Edith one Sunday, as we started to leave for home, Uncle Roy said “Oh, by the way, I have your bushel of potatoes ready.”

Our car had no trunk so Uncle Roy placed them next to me on the back seat. I observed how clean and large were those potatoes. But, upon removing them from that bushel basket, we found smaller ones in the middle. When we got to the bottom, there was several inches of dirty, dinky little misshapen potatoes. READ MORE 

Just Do What Has to Be Done

Leave a reply

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

—Mark Twain

by Darren Hardy, April 9, 2013

My dad would have been 66 years old yesterday. I lost him to bone cancer seven months ago. In his eulogy I passed forward the half-dozen philosophies he taught me that shaped me into the man I am today, in the hope they might benefit those in attendance.

what has to be done

Darren Hardy in his father’s arms

In honor and celebration of his birthday I’d like to pass one of those philosophies forward to you. This one saved my life… and defined my life.

You might know that my parents divorced when I was only 18 months old. My mother never really wanted to be a mother (she got angry when she found out she was pregnant with me), so when they split up, she cheerfully handed me over to my dad.

My dad didn’t know what to do with me either. He was only 23 years old when I was born. He had just moved from his hometown, in the San Francisco Bay Area, to what seemed like the middle of nowhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

There we were, out there all alone.    READ MORE