I was so sad to hear the news about Rachael Bland who died yesterday from Cancer aged 40.  Along with BBC colleagues, she compiled an audio blog, which was all about her journey dealing with Cancer.  Her approach was, to be honest, and talk about things and not to hide anything.  I first heard Rachael on BBC 5-Live talking about her condition, and I found myself becoming very emotional, particularly when she spoke about her young son.

What I admired about Rachel was that she used the news of her condition to start to live.  She used it as a vehicle to promote her role as a confident voice to individuals and families going through the same experience.  Her blog has helped and provided information to so many people; it wasn’t about self-promotion, it was about promoting issues and giving knowledge.

Many individuals exist, they go from day to day without an end goal or vision; without a reason to live. This is what happens to many of us of course, and it so easy to exist, we are on a treadmill, and it's easy just to be on the treadmill without really thinking where we are going; we then end up on autopilot.

Of course, the reality is that we don’t know what’s around the corner, we don’t know if we will be facing in 6-months time.

Let us take something positive from Rachael, she started living and produced fantastic results at a time when many people would give up.  Of course, we all know that life is fatal, why don’t we take something positive from her experience, let’s not wait though until we have to, let’s start living now.

Ralph Moody is the founder of Target Training and specialises in trainer and management development.  You can read more about him here.  To see courses where Ralph delivers see our website here.