The Story and the Evidence

Every man has a story about why he is where he is. Age. The job. The kids. The knee. Not enough hours.

Some of it is true. Most of it is a story.

I spent 35 years in rooms where people told me stories. A police officer in 1991, then a detective. Then my own investigations business, which I built from scratch and sold ten years later. I rose to corporate vice president, and today I direct an international Special Investigations Unit. In every one of those rooms the story was where I started, never where I stopped. You check it against the evidence.

Almost nobody does that for the man in the mirror. His wife won't. His friends won't. He won't.

That is the work.

I Am Not Writing From a Summit

At 40 I lost my business and my home and started over from zero. This time I built the business right, but I lost part of myself.

At 57 I had a good marriage, two grown sons, money in the bank and a solid career. But the career was stale and I was fifty pounds overweight and depressed. I didn't even notice until I saw some vacation photos of myself. I went to the gym, but I wasn't trying anymore. The mission had ended and I hadn't noticed that I was drifting with no purpose.

So I did what serious men do. I hired help. An executive coach who mentored me on leadership and helped me rise to corporate vice president. Then a fitness coach for the body, because the mirror was not lying.

Then I noticed something neither coach had promised. As the body came back, the mind followed. Every morning in the gym was proof I still had the discipline. The confidence returned. The physical rebuild propelled everything else. The leadership excelled when coupled with fitness.

So I went back to school and obtained a fitness training certification from ISSA. Now I am completing a leadership program at Harvard Business School. Along the way I wrote two books on my journey. Forged After 50 on fitness, and Badge to Boardroom, leadership principles forged under fire. In that book I created the FORGE framework for leadership. In this framework the foundation is physical fitness. I truly believe that without the foundation of a stronger body you cannot effectively lead a team, a business or a family.

Today I am also part owner of a fitness gym. The standard is not a slogan to me. I own the building it lives in.

Now I am the coach I could not find when I needed one. One man for both jobs. The career and the body, rebuilt in the same room, because they were never separate problems.

Body first. Then the mind. Then the man.

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