It’s Ironic. And Surprising. And Scary.

I finished the edits to Friday’s issue on Thursday afternoon. If you read it, you will remember that the main bit was about aging – how my perspective on getting older has changed throughout my life. I said:

“In my 20s and 30s, I didn’t think of death at all. In my 40s and 50s, it felt like a lifetime away. In my 60s, it was a thought, but only an occasional one. But now I can see it just around the next bend.”

At 5:00 p.m., after emailing that essay to Judith, I had a Jiu Jitsu class with Vitor. I was feeling tired, but we wrestled vigorously. And so, by the end of the class an hour later, I was feeling good. Vitor and I sat on the mats talking about this and that, as we often do after a lesson. At one point in our conversation, I noticed that I was having trouble articulating my thoughts. It was difficult to produce a coherent sentence. This went on for maybe a minute. I felt slightly embarrassed. So, I decided it was time to go. I was halfway to my feet when I fell down. We were on a mat, so I wasn’t hurt. I went to stand up again. But, again, I fell down.

I rested for several minutes, attributing my little episode to temporary exhaustion. When I felt I could stand, I did so, successfully this time. As I approached the door to exit, I tried to say something self-denigrating to ease Vitor’s evident discomfort. But the words came out garbled.

Vitor asked me to wait. He went next door to my exercise facility and brought back John, my physical therapist. John gave me a few diagnostic tests. He said he thought I had experienced TIA, which I found out later was short for “transient ischemic attack.” TIA is basically a mini-stroke that doesn’t do any permanent damage. Still, John recommended that I go to the hospital to check it out.

By then, I could speak without a problem and I felt fine. But I agreed to let Vitor drive me home. While Vitor drove me home, John called K and filled her in on what had happened. Seconds after I got out of Vitor’s car, I was in K’s car heading to Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

K dropped me off, and I walked into the emergency room. “It’s probably nothing,” I told the receptionist. “But my friend thinks I just had a TIA.”

She got on the phone, and seconds later a young man was interviewing me. I was amused and flattered. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in an emergency room with a broken this or snapped that, in great pain, waiting hours to have someone take a look at me.

Minutes after my interview with the young man, I was speaking to a doctor. And then another one. By the time K returned from parking the car, less than 15 minutes later, they were admitting me to the neurology wing of the hospital (which, I learned later, has a very good reputation).

I got a CAT scan that night and an ultrasound on my neck the next morning. They told me I needed more tests, so I spent all of Friday getting one test after another. It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon, after the MRI of my brain had been analyzed, that K and I learned it wasn’t a TIA. It was a stroke. Actually, two strokes.

I was aware of the irony of my Friday essay. But I was also surprised. No, shocked. For someone my age – even for someone half my age – I’m in very good shape. I’m strong. I’m flexible. I have good lung power. Stamina. I mean, I compete in grappling with guys half my age. My personal MD had reminded me that my general cholesterol rates were somewhat high. And he’d suggested that I take statin drugs. But I declined. I didn’t need anything, I told myself, except to keep training like a 30-year-old.

Alas, my thinking was flawed. Being in outside shape – and even in inside shape with respect to the usual metrics (blood pressure, blood sugar, heart capacity, lung capacity, etc.) – does not mean your organs and circulation system are in equally good shape.

In my case, the problem was in the left carotid artery. It was 80% to 90% occluded. “But look at me,” I said to the chief neurologist. “I’m fine.” “Yes, you look fine,” she said. “But the ultrasound images look scary.”

“Scary?” Did she have to say “scary”? Couldn’t she have said “not so fine”?

So, I did what any intelligent person would do. I conducted my own scientific research on the World Wide Web. And I managed to come up with enough data and authoritative statements to be convinced that if I lived past the weekend, I’d be lucky to live another three or four years.

This put a damper on the rest of that day and the next. The shadow of death I had alluded to in my Friday essay was now directly in front of me. As the bard said, my “native hue of resolution” was “sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.”

I got no work done on Friday, but managed to get bits and pieces of mindless emails answered on Saturday. And by Saturday afternoon, I was ready to start something more challenging. I started with writing this.

Tomorrow morning (Monday), if all goes well, I will meet with the surgical team that will tell me whether they are going to shove a stent through my groin and up through my heart and into the carotid artery. Or whether they will slice open my neck, open the artery, clean out the plaque, and sew me up. (I’ve done some research on that. Given that the extension of the carotid artery, which is in the head and attached to the brain, is apparently also heavily occluded, I think they’re going to do the cutting surgery, which is fine with me.)

You will be getting this issue, as usual, on Tuesday. If I’ve had the procedure and it was successful, I’m sure I’ll be back to my usual level of resolution. I’ll be pontificating about how to live a better, richer, more productive life, and I’ll be asking you to take my advice.

But what I hope I’m going to be doing is something very different. I am hoping that I will look at this event as just about every person I’ve spoken to has advised me to do. As a lucky break. A second chance.

And they are right.

Of course, they are right! We all know that there are things in life more important than wealth and accomplishment. There’s love. Kindness. Caring. Relationships.

We know all that. And we know that if were smart – like wise-smart – we’d live each day like we truly understood this most fundamental truth.

So, that’s what I’m thinking about tonight. What would I do if I really wanted to live each of my next days with the highest quality of experience I can ask of life? It’s not such a difficult question. The answers, when you are in the state I’m in, come pretty quickly and clearly.

I know what they are. The question: Do I have the resolve to stick with my plans? I felt terrible on Thursday and Friday. I’m feeling good enough to do some work (this work, for example) today. And as I feel better, I notice that the pale cast of thought is getting paler and paler. The resolution seems to be seeping back.

If I actually do what I think I want to do, what I should do in this last, exponentially shortening stage of my life, this may be the last blog post you ever receive from me.

But… check your inbox on Friday. I may have something there, an update, waiting for you.

Feeling My Age… Finally!

I’ll be in Myrtle Beach for a week in October, a yearly get-together with some life-long friends, playing golf, watching football, talking shit, and reminiscing. We’ll rehash old stories about the halcyon days of high school. And there may be some private conversations about the harrowing days in Vietnam. There will be proud accounts of our progeny, ruminations about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And there will be lots of self-deprecating remarks about how our golf games, and all the other activities we engage in, are degenerating due to our age.

I was thinking about that aging issue. And it occurred to me that during each decade of my life, I’ve had a different perspective.

Seven Decades; Seven Relationships With Time 

During my first decade of life, becoming older was an unquestioned good. Something looked forward to with unbridled anticipation. Becoming six would be better than being five. As being eight would be better than being seven. The value of becoming older in that first decade was such an obvious improvement in life that I measured my age in half-years.

Becoming older was equally desirable in my second decade. Each birthday made me in so many ways better off than I had been in previous years. My allowance went up. My responsibilities increased. And what modest liberties my parents gave me expanded. At 17, I enjoyed the height of social status in high school as a senior. The only thing I resented was that I had to wait until October of my freshman year in college to get a legal ID.

In my 20s, the eagerness I had always felt to become older faded. It was gradual. I don’t think I even noticed the change. But looking back at that time now, I can understand what happened. In my 20s, I was at the peak of my physical and mental fitness. I was strong, smart, and quick. I was also learning at the speed of light. I felt like there was nothing I couldn’t do. And that I would never die. I didn’t want to be older because I didn’t need to be older. Becoming 30 would give me nothing that I didn’t have already. I was a 20-something young man, at peak power and confidence, living the dream. The world was my oyster.

As I approached 30, however, I rued the fact that I’d soon be passing out of my 20s. Being 30 wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t peak performance time either. I wasn’t quite as quick in my reflexes as I had been. I remember distinctly the moment when I failed to execute my go-to ball-stealing move in basketball. My mind said “Go.” And my legs said “No!” I began to look for other physical signals that I was “getting old.” And I made a commitment to resist them by incorporating strength and cardio conditioning into my everyday life. I did that. And it helped. The quickness I once had was gone for good. But I was able to maintain my strength and flexibility and stamina.

Turning 40 was another milestone in my relationship with aging. In terms of physical strength, I still had a sufficiency. But my speed and stamina were now waning, along with the quickness. My brain was still firing on all pistons. If anything, I was thinking better than ever. But I could no longer hope to compete physically with younger people. To compensate for the deflating effect this had on my ego, whenever a younger person would outperform me in a physical activity, I would remind him or her that I was “an old man.” And if I happened to win, I could not refrain from reminding my opponent that they had just had their ass kicked by a 40-year-old!

In the decade from 50 to 60, my body continued its slow but steady degradation in terms of quickness, speed, and stamina. But for the first time, I was also losing strength. This was, of course, predictable. (There are competitive weightlifters and even fighters in their 40s, but none in their 50s.) But the loss of strength was difficult to accept. Not because I needed the strength in my daily life, but because it foretold the loss of other capacities.

From 60 to 70, I could, for the first time, refer to myself un-ironically as an old man. I had lost any hope of keeping up with the strength, stamina, agility, or speed of younger people. In Jiu Jitsu, I could win matches against younger opponents, but only if I were technically more advanced than they were. In overall physical terms – i.e., horsepower and athleticism – the kids were miles ahead of me. This I knew I had to accept. And I adjusted to it. At the same time, I had to face another side of aging – the gradual disintegration of my skeleton and heart and lungs all my other vital organs. I have been lucky with that so far. But I was surrounded by friends that were dealing with all kinds of medical problems. That cast a shadow.

And now here I am, almost 72 and very much aware that in eight years I will turn 80. I will continue to dig my heels into the downward slope of my aging, but for the first time ever, I feel like I’m not a younger version of someone my age. I’ll continue to fight the noble fight as hard as I can, but I am also accepting that I will be encountering new physical and mental degradations. And while I’m doing that, I will be seeing something that so far has been out of my range of vision. I’m talking about the specter of death, standing somewhere behind that next milestone at 80.

In my 20s and 30s, I didn’t think of death at all. In my 40s and 50s, it felt like a lifetime away. In my 60s, it was a thought, but only an occasional one. But now I can see it just around the next bend.

The average life expectancy for healthy 70-year-old men in wealthy countries, the data people tell us, is somewhere in the range of 80 to 85. That means I could be in the ground in as little as a decade. And that thought is in the back of almost every decision I make.

I’m Bigger. Much Bigger. But He’s Much Better… in More Ways Than One!

I want to introduce you to someone special. He’s someone I love and admire. But first, let’s talk about moi – i.e., my physical fitness routine.

I train for fitness twice a week. I do two hours with a trainer. A combination of stretching, weightlifting, bodyweight exercises, and high-intensity cardio. These workouts are good for me. So, I do them. But they are hard. And boring. So, I dread them.

Four days a week, I train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for an hour. (It’s grappling. Like wrestling, except the object is to “submit” your opponent by joint lock or strangulation.) Each session consists of five eight-minute bouts of moderate- to high-intensity grappling, with two or three minutes of instruction between each round.

For me, this is the perfect way to stay in shape. In terms of challenging the body, it’s like combining sprinting, powerlifting, yoga, and Pilates in the same workout. In terms of challenging the mind, it’s like a combination of speed chess and Zen meditation. My BJJ sessions are good for me. But, unlike my workouts with my trainer, I look forward to them. They feel like playing. The kind of playing I did when I was a child.

There is another reason I love BJJ: It gives me the chance to form friendships with people that I’d probably never otherwise know. Three of the four guys I train with are Brazilian. Eric is in his late twenties, Vitor is in his early thirties, Sam is in his early forties, and Renato is 51. Vitor and Sam weigh about 235 pounds, Eric is about my size at 205, and Renato normally weighs about 155 to 165.

In my journal yesterday, I wrote this about Renato:

Renato Tavares is a multiple-time world champion in three weight classes. He walks around at about 160 pounds. But once a year, for the World Master Championship tournament (usually held in Las Vegas), he gets down to 138. At 160 pounds, Renato looks like he could win an all-natural bodybuilding contest. Dropping to 138 means losing like 15% of his weight. That’s hard to do when you weigh 250 pounds. And when you weigh 160, it’s insanely difficult. I’ve asked Renato why he does it. After all, he is competitive at two classes heavier. He tells me that, for him, it is an extreme mental and moral challenge. And when he accomplishes it, he knows that he can also accomplish the many less extreme challenges he faces every day.

And he has plenty of challenges. Besides being a world-class athlete, Renato is a devoted husband and father, a friend to all who know him, an active philanthropist, a successful businessperson, and a lifelong learner.

I’ve known Renato for about 20 years. He came here as a member of American Top Team, one of the more successful teams competing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and mixed martial arts. He quickly rose to the top of his class as an athlete. But he had other goals. He wanted to partake in the American Dream.

And that meant learning English. (He didn’t speak a word when he got here. He’s fluent now.) It meant getting a job. (He taught BJJ in his spare time.) Starting a side business. (He now has a BJJ association with members in the states and many foreign countries.) He saved every dollar he didn’t need to maintain a simple lifestyle and invested in real estate, one small purchase at a time. Today, he has a beautiful home, several investment properties that bring in monthly income, and a business that is profitable and growing.

He’s the hardest-working person I know. He’s also one of the kindest and most charitable. He’s done all that and he still manages to get better at his sport. The last time I trained with him, he was down to 145 pounds. I was “down” to 205. That’s a 40-pound difference. I felt like I was wrestling with an alligator.

How Renato finds the time to do everything he does and stay on top of his game at 51 years old is amazing. I often tell him, “I want to be just like you when I’m your age.” (That’s a joke. He doesn’t think it’s funny either.)

Anyway, last weekend he was off to compete in the World Master tournament in Vegas, while I was here in Nicaragua, sitting in my Tiki hut, with the beautiful beach and mountains in front of me. I had completely forgotten that Renato was competing when Sam, (one of my 235-pound training partners) texted to ask if I’d seen the news.

Renato took first place and now is ranked number one in his category (50+, black belt) at 138 pounds. As I’ve said, this isn’t the first world-championship belt he’s won. But when I consider all the other things he does, it’s truly inspiring.

And the way he won this year is doubly impressive. He won his first match in 43 seconds (knee bar). And the second one (wrist lock) in 13!!!

That’s him on the podium at the top of this article.

How to Write a Best-Selling Novel

As someone who’s made a fair part of my living writing, I gobble up advice from successful writers whenever I can find them.

I consume advice about writing fiction and nonfiction, poetry and drama, essays, and news. I’ve read all the best-known books and dozens of essays. But because of their brevity, I’m especially fond of checklists.

Judith, my editor, just sent me this list from Elmore Leonard, a very successful novelist that wrote, among other things, Hombre, the book I’m reviewing below.

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” …he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.But Leonard’s most important rule is one that he says sums up all 10: “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.”

Can This Old Dog Learn This New Trick? 

I’ve been told more than once that I have a rather undiplomatic communication style when talking about business problems and solutions. I’m quick to arrive at a conclusion. I push my opinion strongly. And I’m blunt.

I would describe it as passionate and supportive. That’s how it feels to me. But when it comes to communication, it doesn’t matter what the communicator feels. What matters is how well the message gets across and what, if any, the unintended consequences are.

I’ve been communicating this way for more than 40 years. And with dozens of businesses and hundreds of executives. Overall, it’s worked for me. And for the businesses I’ve grown.

That doesn’t mean a kinder and gentler version of what I do would not have worked better. I don’t know. Neither do my critics.

But I believe – no, I know – that there is a better way to communicate my criticisms and suggestions. And I want to learn. In fact, I’m getting coaching right now from a partner and colleague who is very good at this skill I haven’t yet mastered. So, there’s hope!

I was reminded of my struggle to make the change when I saw this clip about Katelyn Ohashi, the Olympian gymnast whose career was turned around when her coach figured out how to be more supportive. Click here.

What I Believe: About What Matters Most to the Human Animal

If you want to know the truth about government and big company activities, instead of believing what you read in the government- and big company-influenced press, you must “follow the money.”

That’s what they say. By “they,” I mean those that believe that world politics – including geopolitical relations and even war – is controlled by a small group of very rich individuals. And there is no doubt that many wealthy people use their wealth to try to influence political and social outcomes.

But if you want to know what really shapes the world, in the larger context, it’s not the money. It’s something much bigger, much stronger, and much less easy to understand. I’m talking about culture.

Some people will lie and steal for money, but very few will commit murder for it. However, every person that feels they are a good person (even down deep) will be happy to kill and die to preserve their culture.