I'd say this in the original article's comments, but apparently it does not allow anonymous comments:

I found this article to be really inspiring. I guess I can see how some people may think Chris is just stroking his own ego, but I did not read it that way at all. First and foremost, I took from this article that a key to feeling great about yourself and your accomplishments is to actually do stuff, all the time. It's a simple concept that I'm sure we're all aware of, but this article really hit it home for me.

As a direct result of this article, I am inspired to do stuff, even if that stuff is considerably less awesome than what Chris accomplished last year.

I start with a personal response via blog post: http://epixa.com/2012/04/on-inspiration-chains-and-being-awe...