I was happy. Not just
‘doing okay’, I was really happy.
That was my reflective thought as we sat down this weekend
and looked at all the photographs of our family vacation. My kids looked at the pictures of me standing
at the top of Angels Landing. After a
2.5 mile jaunt that led me almost 1400 feet up in elevation…there I was perched
atop the Landing with a real wild smile on my face. It was almost manic. You could see it on my face and in my
posture. Happiness.
I took several hikes alone on the vacation. Hikes my family was too tired to take because
they would be filled with hills. Or
mountains. The hikes gave me time to
reflect on my last 70 days of P90X and the last four years of my life. I had time to think about all that had
changed. As the thoughts played through
my mind, I found myself many times jogging up the mountains. The inclines were there and sometimes steep,
but I felt great. I felt light. So I would pick up the pace. Why?
Because I could. Really, there’s
no other reason for it. I could go
faster. So I did.
A thought that keeps playing through your mind when you take
unfamiliar mountain hikes is, “Where do I go from here?” You hit these plateaus and think you are at
the pinnacle of the journey, but you’re not.
You come around a corner and there is another hill looking you in the
face. It had a kind of symmetry to my
life. Five years ago, I was saying the
same thing. At forty-five years of age,
I was asking myself the same question that a lot of people that age ask
themselves.
That question had a lot of implications. Am I ready for the next thirty years? How do I want my career to ultimately
be? How do I want to spend this
time? Have I done all the things that I
think a life should contain? Do I still
have dreams left?
The driving force for the last five years has been that last
question. What dreams are still
left? The answer for me, and I bet a lot
of you if you are honest, is ‘many.’
The first thirty years of my work life were spent learning as
much as I could about goals, incentive, motivation, people, money, family,
balance…the list can go on and on. So
what do you do with it? It was obvious
to me that it was time to apply all that learning to good use. The first step…the very first step…was to
make sure that my body was ready for the trip.
Every vacation we ever took as kids started out with my
father giving the car a good “once over.”
Clean it, change the oil, check the rest of the fluids, and replace all
the plugs if need be. Any trip can end
real fast if the vehicle is not ready for the journey.
That first step I took five years ago was the most valuable one. It was a difficult one too. It required a lot of discipline. It meant a complete physical overhaul. Lose 85 pounds. Change my eating habits to be more
healthy. Change my fitness routine to be
permanent and lasting. It was not only
the most valuable, but also the most needed.
All my gauges were off the charts.
Weight. Cholesterol. Back and joints. Endurance.
My physical health was declining.
That’s right, ‘declining.’
Why was I so driven?
Because mentally, I was as sharp as ever. I had spent a large percentage of my life
learning about banking, technology, and business. I have never been the kind of person who
thought I “knew enough” or that my learning was complete. I had a sharp mind inside a physical shell
that was now failing me.
So I made a decision to change.
What are YOU waiting for?
That’s not a challenge, it’s a very sincere question.
As I took every next mountain last week, I did it with a
smile. My body was and is in better
shape right now than when I was twenty-five years old. At one point, I was hiking up Angels Landing
with three guys. They were remarking how
I was just flying up the hill. They were
working to keep up. I stopped and looked
at them, loaded with sweat and breathing hard at the last steep ascent. It took them a while to recover. “How old are you guys?” I asked them. One said, “twenty-eight.” The others were the same range. I laughed.
I said, “C’mon, you guys aren’t supposed to be breathing heavy.”
I will say this though, I was ready for every new hill.
P90X is the best gift I have ever given to myself. It has put me in a position to really take
the next twenty to thirty years and milk the time that is left. That’s right…I said it. THE TIME I HAVE LEFT.
Be honest with yourself.
We are here for only a finite amount of time. No one lives forever. But how are you going to close the curtain on
your life? Are you going to sit in a
reclining chair with a drink, watching life pass by? If that’s your choice, I respect that. But that won’t be me. I have too much left that I would like to do
and see. I want to make sure I am
physically prepared to do it.
So, “Where do I go from here?”
If you ask yourself that question, do you know what the answer is? When I ask myself, I do.
Based on how I felt last week and right now, the answer is, “Anywhere I
damn well please.”
Why?
Because I can. That’s
all there is to it.
You are not ready to retire.
Not in your forties or fifties.
This isn’t the nineteenth century and the average life expectancy is not
sixty years old anymore. It's a lot more than
that. You are going to be around for a
lot more time than you think. Are you
ready for that? Are you going to let people have to guide you around for the next thirty years in a debilitated state? Or are you going to be the best you have ever been? You can be, if you want.
You know what? So are you. Think about that one. It's kind of sobering.
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