At least he did something.

There’s a story behind that.

This is your daily message from Chad number 1205 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to Lanny Taschuk. You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, at fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.

Here’s the upgrade:

You tell yourself to do nothing because you can’t do everything, but upgraded thinking understands something is always better than nothing.

Here’s the story:

In 1977, Terry Fox was 18 years old when bone cancer took his right leg. Three years later, in the spring of 1980, he was standing at St. John’s, Newfoundland, with his prosthetic leg dipping into the Atlantic. His plan: run across Canada. A marathon a day. To raise money for cancer research. A marathon a day

Here’s what motivational speaker Michael Spence said: “If you want to hide something from the average person put it behind a great challenge.” This wasn’t a great challenge. It was an absurd challenge. Most people never attempt a marathon on two good legs, let alone a marathon a day for almost six months. He was attempting a marathon a day on one leg.

Zig Ziglar: “The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.” Fox didn’t start with marathons. After the amputation, he started with short, painful training runs. A cancer patient learning to run on a prosthetic leg, doing only what he could do on a given day. A little, repeated daily.

He eventually ran 5,373km (3,338 miles) in 143 days. But he never finished. The cancer came back. It moved to his lungs and stopped him outside Thunder Bay, Ontario. He died the next year at 22.

But he didn’t have to finish, because others picked up where he left off. The annual Terry Fox Run—held every year on the second Sunday after Labour Day—has raised over a billion dollars for cancer research since 1981. In fact, the 46th annual event was held a few weeks ago on September 20th, all because a guy challenged himself to something most couldn’t imagine attempting. The better story to tell yourself is, “I don’t start by doing it all. I start by doing what I can today.” And this message is a companion to number 794 on pain—because this is where pain becomes purpose.

Tell me a story of what you did today with what you had to work with. Send it to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and tell them, “Something is better than nothing.”