BRIAN TRACY AND EAT THAT FROG

This is a gem of a book; it really is.  The first time I saw the title, I wondered what eating my frog meant.  It provoked me enough to buy a digital copy and imbibe its wisdom over a course of time.

The frog metaphor captures our roadmap to success with gentle humor.  For example, Mr. Tracy gives us the first rule of eating frogs: if we have to ear two frogs, we ought to eat the ugliest one first.  Whatever does he mean by that?

If we have two tasks with similar priority level, we ought to start with the hardest and more demanding one.  Simple to say but difficult to execute!  I mean we know ourselves; we have the propensity to cajole ourselves into doing easier tasks first so that we have a sense of accomplishment.  Mind you, we are settling for 'a sense of' rather than actual accomplishment.  

Eat the ugliest frog first...what an interesting way of conveying a profound message.  Go for actual accomplishment rather than for a simulated one.  

Some of the chapters pick their metaphors form his personal experience.  As a young man, he along with some adventurous youngsters undertook a dangerous journey across a part of the Sahara Desert.  Over 1300 people have perished prior to him trying to cross the featureless desert.  Fortunately, however, the desert was marked with black fifty-five gallon barrels every five kilometers.  The five kilometers marked the distance to the horizon formed by the curvature of the earth, and Brian and company could see two barrels at the same time: the one that they just passed and the one at the horizon.

Mr. Tracy maps this metaphor to the way we should handle our biggest tasks: take it two barrels at the time.  Start from where we are and go on as far as we can see.  We will then be in a posiition to see far enough to go further.

I took a couple of snapshots of the book to show why I am grateful to its clever and engaging metaphors.  As I wrote earlier, this is a gem of a book, and I am grateful for Mr. Tracy who took his time to author it.