Inspiring Life … Just came across the life story of a HERO

Karoly Takacs. You've probably never heard of him. However, in Hungary, he's a national hero - everybody there knows his name and his incredible story. After reading his story, you'll never forget him...

In 1938, Karoly Takacs of the Hungarian Army, was the top pistol shooter in the world. He was expected to win the gold in the 1940 Olympic Games scheduled for Tokyo.

Those expectations vanished one terrible day just months before the Olympics. While training with his army squad, a hand grenade exploded in Takacs' right hand, and Takacs' shooting hand was blown off.

Takacs spent a month in the hospital depressed at both the loss of his hand, and the end to his Olympic dream. At that point most people would have quit. And they would have probably spent the rest of their life feeling sorry for themselves. Most people would have quit but not Takacs. Takacs was a winner. Winners know that they can't let circumstances keep them down. They understand that life is hard and that they can't let life beat them down. Winners know in their heart that quitting is not an option.

Takacs did the unthinkable; he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and decided to learn how to shoot with his left hand! His reasoning was simple. He simply asked himself, "Why not?"

Instead of focusing on what he didn't have - a world class right shooting hand, he decided to focus on what he did have - incredible mental toughness, and a healthy left hand that with time, could be developed to shoot like a champion.

For months Takacs practiced by himself. No one knew what he was doing. Maybe he didn't want to subject himself to people who most certainly would have discouraged him from his rekindled dream.

In the spring of 1939 he showed up at the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship. Other shooters approached Takacs to give him their condolences and to congratulate him on having the strength to come watch them shoot. They were surprised when he said, "I didn't come to watch, I came to compete." They were even more surprised when Takacs won!

The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled because of World War II. It looked like Takacs' Olympic Dream would never have a chance to realize itself. But Takacs kept training and in 1948 he qualified for the London Olympics. At the age of 38, Takacs won the Gold Medal and set a new world record in pistol shooting. Four years later, Takacs won the Gold Medal again at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Takacs - a man with the mental toughness to bounce back from anything.

Winners in every field have a special trait that helps them become unstoppable. A special characteristic that allows them to survive major setbacks on the road to success. Winners recover QUICKLY. Bouncing back is not enough. Winners bounce back QUICKLY. They take their hit, they experience their setback, they have the wind taken out of their sails, but they immediately recover. Right away they FORCE themselves to look at the bright side of things - ANY bright side, and they say to themselves, "That's OK. There is always a way. I will find a way." They dust themselves off, and pick up where they left off.

The reason quick recovery is important is that if you recover quickly, you don't lose your momentum and your drive. Takacs recovered in only one month. If he had wallowed in his misery, if he had stayed "under the circumstances," if he had played the martyr, and felt sorry for himself much longer, he would have lost his mental edge - his "eye of the tiger" and he never would have been able to come back.

When a boxer gets knocked down, he has ten seconds to get back up. If he gets up in eleven seconds, he loses the fight. Remember that next time you get knocked down.

Takacs definitely had a right to feel sorry for himself. He had a right to stay depressed and to ask himself "Why me?" for the rest of his life. He had the right to act like a mediocre man.

Takacs could have let his terrible accident cause him to become permanently discouraged, to take up heavy drinking, to quit on life alltogether, and maybe even to end his own life. He could have acted like a loser.

But Takacs made the DECISION to dig deep inside and to find a solution. To pick himself up and to learn to shoot all over again.

How Andreas Olofsson, president and architect of Adapteva Inc. (www.adapteva.com), single-handedly invented a new computer architecture, designed his own System-on-Chip (SoC) from the ground up – including learning how to use all of the EDA tools – then took the device all the way to working silicon and a packaged prototype, all in just six weeks... and that's when things really started to get interesting!

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Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my all time favorite authors and the Vorkosigan saga is one of my favorite series. Lois McMaster Bujold introduced the world to Miles Vorkosigan in 1986 with the novel ‘The Warrior’s Apprentice’. The Vorkosigan Saga is Space Opera at its best and there are now fourteen novels and short stories set in the same universe, the latest of which is ‘Cryoburn’. Each and every one is an adventure and full of all the best elements of storytelling: compelling characters, intriguing plots, edge of the seat action, laugh out loud humour and the lighter, sweeter moments of romance and emotionally painful moments. I have been waiting for quite sometime for Bujold to write a new Miles book. This book is #14 in the series and takes place approximately 6 years after the events in Diplomatic Immunity.

The events in CryoBurn take place on a planet called New Hope II or Kibou-daini. The story uses three narratives / viewpoints: Miles, Roic, and a local lad named Jin. The main theme is that Miles arrives on Kibou-daini to investigate some Cryonics companies at Emperor Gregor's behest and well basically things begin to roll. Basically Miles is again the short, twisted, super hero whose powers are a Manic Forward-Momentum and the ability to run rings around his enemies mentally till they just give up in sheer digust and amazement :).

Kibou-daini is an entire culture mortally so afraid of dying to the point where millions of citizens, have chosen cryo preservation by preplanned death rather die in a normal way. Oddly, since they are not dead, as citizens they still retain their votes in this democracy, albeit by proxy held by large corporations. This book contemplates a bit of speculative technology – cryo freezing and cryo revival - and asks a lot of penetrating questions about the sociopolitical fallout. I laughed ou loud by the time I got to the part about commodified cryo corpse contract swaps between companies.

Battle cry was the first ever book written by Leon Uris drawing on his experiences in Guadalcanal and Tarawa. Many of the events in the book are based on Uris's own World War II experience with the 6th Marine Regiment.

The story is set in time right after Pearl Harbor. It's the story of the Marines in the Second World War and of one squad of Marines in particular, narrated by Mac, a tough old timer sergeant who has seen generations of boys pass through his command and has seen many wars. The story starts with the diverse backgrounds of the various characters.