This book is taking up all my time!!!  Between going to the gym and doing my workouts at home I am editing this book.  It'll be done by the end of this weekend, and then I will have so much to talk about!  Plenty to come, I promise :-)

Thank you for all your love and support.  Keep it coming, and network me to anyone you can...just sell me!

I have made two amazing friends this month, Bethany Calley, who is an aneurysm survivor that runs triathalons and Greg Probst, who I met while limping through The Boston Marathon. Greg is an ultimate friend...he actually walked with me for three miles and still finished his marathon in just over 4 hours!

Anyways, these two are helping me daily to network Determination and get the program launched somewhere in the country. As Greg says, "Everyone knows someone." So please, if you know anyone, tell them about my site, what I am trying to do and have them email me! I am determined to make this program happen and now I'm just trying to find the financial backing to get it rolling...once that happens, momentum will carry it long into the horizon!

Now Bethany has been an amazing spark for me. She got me motivated enough to start editing my book again. Now I'm completely focused on getting An Uncharted Life to its final product by the time I visit my friend Jeneé in Louisiana.

Yes, An Uncharted Life is going to be completed,and then I am off to New York to sell it door to door if I have to. I want this book backed by a big name publisher. I truly believe that this is going to enlighten, and more importantly, impact so many people on a personal level they can relate to. This is my life's work in a book, a compendium of all my knowledge bound together in just over 300 pages.

Needless to say, I am going to do everything I can to pursue it through until the end. I have never turned my back on anything and I don't plan on starting now.

Be on the lookout everybody...big things to come for the rest of 2010! And seriously, get everyone you know looking at this site, networking with me and learning about the program I am trying to start. This is going to do so much good for so many people, and all I want to do with my life is good. Help me make a difference. I can't do this without help.

For now, I gotta keep editing...this book is gonna be amazing!

Seated at the small dining room table at his parents' home just outside Damascus, Greg Wagner paused to consider why he quit his job in marketing to focus solely on training for the Boston Marathon, which he will run Monday for the second time in three years. Why would he put his body, which still feels the effects of a stroke and brain aneurysm when he was 3 years old, through the grind of 26.2 miles?

"Here's a great example of why I run," the 25-year-old said methodically to avoid stuttering, a result of the stroke. "I put up as a Facebook status a while ago: 'This is gonna be my final marathon,' and within 10 minutes I had five responses from different brain surgery survivors telling me, 'No, you can't.'

"It's not that they expect me to run," he added, "it's that it seems almost they find their strength through seeing me accomplish what they think is impossible, and really, what everybody I've been in contact with thinks is impossible."

Wagner ran the Boston Marathon in 2008 and finished first in the mobility-impaired division, running the course in 4 hours 6 minutes 51 seconds. Built more like a linebacker than a long-distance runner, Wagner spent much of his childhood in physical therapy and still suffers from streaming numbness down the right side of his body.

As a result, he puts considerable weight on his left side when he runs and has limited control of his right hand. It also affects his peripheral vision, something that hindered his run in 2008 at the infamous 88-foot final climb between the 20- and 21-mile mark, Heartbreak Hill. Although he tried to run along the right edge of the course, he was cut off at the top of the ascent by a passing runner and his left leg "locked up" when he put full force on the limb. At the time, he was on pace to run a 3:30 marathon, his goal this time around.
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Wagner completed the race, but the IT bands that run from the quad to the calf had tightened like a rubber band and impinged on his kneecap. The injury forced Wagner to take nine months off from running and skip the 2009 marathon. Now he wants to push his body to the brink again. But Wagner's perpetual drive sometimes worries those around him.

"I think what he's doing is a fantastic accomplishment, but it scares me, too," said his father, Chuck. "I remember when he fell over in the back yard with the brain aneurysm, I remember him almost dying in my car [on the way to the hospital], and so that's a vision I'm never gonna be able to get out of my head. He wants to make an example of himself and I'm proud of him that he wants to do that. But I'll be glad when the marathon thing is over with."

Wagner was a talented baseball player who taught himself how to pitch after watching Jim Abbott, the former major leaguer born without a right hand. He even got a couple professional tryouts but never played at the junior varsity or varsity levels at Damascus High. "He tried out two years running," Chuck said. "They kept him out of a lot of things. He was discriminated against, quite honestly. . . . I think he's doing this to compensate for what he didn't get out of baseball."

With no sponsors, Wagner trains by himself, running laps around his Damascus neighborhood and lifting weights at a local gym. The D.C. area's snow-filled winter limited his training time and forced him to fly down to Florida for some intensive workouts. He also must stretch his left leg four times a day in an effort to avoid the same injury that befell him in 2008.

"I've lived with my disability for so long, I know how to push through it, so I know at some point, it's probably gonna be painful," Wagner said. "I've dealt with the pain. If I can survive brain surgery, I can run a marathon for 3 1/2 hours."

Wagner hopes this year's Boston Marathon, which he says will be his last, is a launching point for a career as a disabilities advocate and motivational speaker. He left an Arlington-based consulting firm last October, wrote a book he's trying to get published, and started a Web site, http://www.gregwagnerdetermination.com.

And as he approaches the finish line, down Boylston Street and past the Boston Public Library, he'll have around 20 friends and family members waiting for him. Among them will be 23-year-old Jack Cutler, a Newton, Mass., native suffering from epilepsy. He's one of the 1,800 people Wagner met through Facebook, the reason he says he'll put his body on the line one final time Monday.

"You're constantly made to believe there are these huge limitations on your life, and Greg has really pushed the boundaries," Cutler said. "Greg makes it his mission almost to prove these limitations are not gonna stop him from accomplishing his goals in his life, and that's incredibly inspirational."

1. You do not need to succumb to your forecasted life. Doubt limits what we are able to achieve because doubt stunts the driving force of motivation. Doubt taints it.
2. There is no reason you can’t go beyond what you think you can do. Believe you can do it; believe it fully. As long as you are further today than you were yesterday, there is nothing to complain about. Progress comes in doses, but before you know it those daily steps have carried you into a daily life that was once unknown and uncharted.

These are only two of the many lessons I have learned as I have lived with and overcome my disability. Everything else has been written in my book. The book I am trying to get published this year contains every lesson I have learned across my life. As far as I have gotten myself, versus the forecast every doctor and therapist gave me, I’m doing the impossible. Everyone deserves to be able to gain as much freedom as I have found for myself. I’ve learned how and my ultimate lesson that I live each day by is that this knowledge is worthless unless is it shared.

That is why my next big personal adventure is getting my book, An Uncharted Life, published this year. Too many people settle in life. They get themselves into a situation that is safe and they are too afraid to leave that refuge, even though they may hate it. So many people have dreams and aspirations, but they are too scared to take the proper risk and pursue said dreams.

Find joy in the pursuit instead of solace in the vision. We all have an ideal perspective on how life could be. Instead of letting our dreams be thoughts of how life should be, believe in what you feel and actually make life that way. What do you have to lose? By pursuing what you believe in, you’ll at least wind up surrounded by a world that is fueled by your passion.

By living towards your aspirations, you can’t help but feel optimistic. When your life is driven by optimism, you can’t help but have that positive energy shower across your life.

It’s ultimately your choice to how you live your life. You may be overweight and you want to lose weight. One of the best ways to burn fat is swimming, or running obviously. You can say that you want to lose weight all you want, but unless you can get over the fear of wearing a bathing suit or wearing workout clothes, you’ll never lose weight.

The only way to burn fat is by putting yourself in the environment where you can do so. Yes, it is daunting, and downright scary in the beginning, but the only way you can get to where you want to be is if you start. Start today, progress forward each day, and before you know it your life has changed.

It may seem impossible from where you are, but that is because you are standing still. Once you start moving, you stop focusing on how far you have to go because the journey becomes so captivating. You stay focused on where you’re going that before you know it the life you knew is forever behind you. That is how I ran each of my marathons. That is how I want to help everyone else run their individual marathons. It’s a life goal and I want to help everyone live their lives for the better and find how much fulfillment is awaiting within themselves already.