Dodging a Bullet

All I have to say is a double WOW… I worried myself sick after the doctor told me there is a 90% chance that my right main heart artery is 100% blocked. We scheduled an angiogram and just before they wheeled me in the doctor tells me that if my left main artery is also blocked then they will have to do open heart surgery. Of course, that last comment scared me to death and I started thinking about dying. Hey, I’ve had a good nearly 69 years and a lot of people get much less than that.

So there I am in the operating room staring at the ceiling as the doctor gets to work. (They don’t put you under for an angiogram.) I think back on my life and that everyone has to die and maybe it’s my turn now.  Less than an hour later they wheel my bed back to the hospital room where my wife Kimberly is waiting. Then the WOW news!! And what was that news?

“We didn’t find any blockage. All the tests, cat scans and nuclear stress EKG’s that you had that showed a blockage were wrong. It was a false positive.”

Did that ever make my day … or life! But what a lot of stress I went through to get there. I guess that kind of proves the old adage that “What we worry about the most doesn’t usually happen.”

But there was a good lesson that I learned. It goes back to what the Buddhist have said for years … that everyone of us needs to mentally go through in our heads the process of dying (to die before we die) so when we do get to that point in our lives where we really are going to die, it makes that transition much easier to accept and to embrace.

So yes, I dodged a bullet. Even if I did have a stent put in or had open heart surgery the chances of survival would have been very high but still, dodging that bullet helped me prepare myself for the inevitable. It also gave me pause so that I took a good hard look at the relationships I have with family and friends and renewed my vow to do more with my life.

But you don’t have to go through an unnecessary scare like this to appreciate and reaffirm the strength and importance of your relationships and really see what you are doing with your life. Just ask yourself, if I died today, would I feel that I was the kind of person I wanted to be for the people I love and am doing what I really want with my live? Then listen carefully and well to the answers and make the changes you want to see while you still have the time here to do it.

Gold Vs. Heart Attack/Maybe Death

Okay…  what do you want first–the good news or the bad? Let’s go with the bad first.

I worked hard on my tennis game all year long with the gold medal as my goal at the Huntsman World Senior Games. I was going to get the gold in men’s 65 to 70 singles–no if’s and’s or but’s. The bad news is that I failed!! But there is good news connected to the failure … I didn’t die. I kind of like that part.

You see, one week before the Senior Games my Doctor was searching for the source of my 2 year cough when a cat scan revealed something totally unrelated to my cough.  I had a possible 80% blockage in my right coronary artery.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My family has no history of heart disease, I eat a very healthy diet and I work out regularly.  But when I totally flunked my stress EKG test I started to believe what the doc was saying. I told him that I was heading to the Senior Games in St George, Utah and asked for his advice.  He said I would probably be ok but not to push myself and besides he added “they have defibrillator machines on site (that comment did not fill me with confidence!)

So I forged ahead but with some caution and a fair amount of fear. I worked my way through matches but when I found myself in the finals I got a huge big time scare! I started the match playing very strong but when I found myself ahead in the first set 3-0 something started happening to me.  I began feeling a slight chest pain and felt a bit sick. By the time my opponent Michael Murphy caught up and we were “on serve” I was sweating like a horse and my chest pains had intensified. I stopped the match right then and told Michael I couldn’t or at least shouldn’t play on, so the gold medal was his and I had to settle for the silver medal. Yes I was very disappointed but more than that I was scared. More than 30 minutes later my heart was still racing with a resting rate of over 100!

Back in Salt Lake City I had another EKG stress test, this time with radio-active dye that gives the docs a clearer picture of the blood flow through the veins. And yes I flunked that test too.

Then just a few days ago my doc called and told me that there is a 90% chance that my right coronary artery is completely blocked. His recommendation was to have an angiogram and most likely they need to put in a stent. Of course I agreed and scheduled it for this coming Wednesday, October 24th.

What is the take away lesson here? For me it’s this … life is so precious and can be so very short. You never know what might happen so live it in that “Great right now”!  Thankfully, we have access to such great medical knowledge, great medical technology, and great medicines so with that, taking care of ourselves, and a great bit of luck, we can all live a little bit longer and stronger.

So that is my great “golden” lesson of this year. Or should I say my great “silver” lesson?

 

The Healing Power of Laughter

I know the subject matter has been a little heavy the last couple posts–not that it’s any wonder after spending those couple weeks in the hospital watching over my wife. She is doing better every day, by the way. Thank you all for your support and well wishes.

I want to talk more about taking care of yourself but this time, I want to talk about one of the easiest ways to help keep your mind, body and spirit in good shape–laughing. I think human beings have always known that laughter had wonderful side benefits. You even see a reference in the Old Testament to the healing properties of humor: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Although life can be difficult and, at times, discouraging, you can always inject a little humor into your day to pick you up and reduce your worry.

Norman Cousins, in his book “Anatomy of an Illness,” strongly believes that humor cured his debilitating disease. He watched old Marx Brothers movies and allowed himself to laugh uncontrollably. Eventually, he was able to overcome his disease and lived a long and healthy life into his 80s. By laughing!

Laughter has been shown to reduce pain, bolster the immune system and decrease destructive levels of stress. The process of making a joke about something we find dire or frightful can also put situations and how we deal with them into perspective and show us these things aren’t as overwhelming or as scary as they might first appear.

So, if things are getting tough, just remember to laugh (appropriately of course!) Laugh at yourself, laugh at difficult coincidences, look for the silliness in a situation and just let yourself laugh. When you need outside help with this, do as Norman did and watch a funny show or movie or read a humorous book. Get together with friends and let them know you need a good laugh and see if things don’t start to look much brighter and lighter.

**If you like what you’ve read in this blog please send it on to people you know and love, to people who you think this message and information may be very helpful. There is nothing in the world that brings greater satisfaction than helping other people. Don’t you agree?

Friendships for Health

It’s not only me that believes keeping up friendships is important to your health and the quality of life. I recently came across an article on the Mayo Clinic site (that highly respected health research and educational organization) about just how important it is to maintain your friends and social circle.

According to this article friendships can:
• Increase your sense of belonging and purpose
• Boost your happiness
• Reduce stress
• Improve your self-worth
• Help you cope with traumas, such as divorce, serious illness, job loss or the death of a loved one
• Encourage you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise

Now that’s a lot of benefits for something most of us would like to have more of anyways! So why don’t we keep up with our friends better?

It’s because life just gets in the way. We are constantly drawn away by other priorities such as work, caring for children or elderly parents, or trying to make a dent in that long to-do list that is always hanging over our heads. We also move around a lot in this country so even well-established friendships start to fade with the distance between us all. And then it’s hard to find the time and even motivation to go out and make new friends. But it would seem, we can’t really afford not to.

It’s not that we need to have a lot of friends to get these benefits, but rather, according to the Mayo clinic article, it’s the quality of the friendships–do the friendships you have fulfill your individual need for a certain kind of closeness, comfort, and availability? It’s different for everyone but the important thing is to value those friendships, take time to call, visit, write or whatever else is appropriate for the relationship you have with your friends. Don’t let time and distance get in the way of acquiring all the great benefits friendships bring you and giving those same benefits to others.

If you’d like to read the Mayo clinic article, you can find it at: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/friendships/MH00125

Recharging and Making Memories

My wife and I just returned from the annual Stein Eriksen Tennis tourney just south of Ennis Montana, high on a mountain over the Madison River. Kimberly and I planned out the trip in detail, contacting a number of people to tell them we were going to stop by. When we finished the trip I was a little shell shocked by the “super high” that the trip gave me. And it was really more the people and the reconnecting with old friends that did the trick, even though the scenery was spectacular.

Our first stop was cute little Garland Utah where we visited with Bob Jensen, an old friend I’d met in England back in 1963. Then we drove to Providence Utah where I renewed my friendship with a middle school friend, Jay Low. Then it was onto Bear Lake where we stayed overnight with my good friend and prior business partner for over 17 years, George Winquist.

When we arrived at the tourney, we were warmly greeted by Stein and Francoise Eriksen and several other friends from my more recent past. The next day Bjorn Eriksen buzzed the house in his small plane to let us know that he and his girlfriend had arrived. For the next three days 40 of us played tennis, laughed and talked over great wine. Isn’t it amazing that you can go a year or even many years without talking to a good friend and then you pick right up as if no time has passed at all?

Even our drive back was highlighted by great conversation. In Jackson there was another middle school friend, George Thompson and wife Jett. The next day we stopped to see sister Sue and her husband Paul and my brother Scott and his wife Pat. And every conversation just recharged me more.

Family, friends, and tons of great memories made just filled me up on this trip. It gave both my wife and I a super re-charging of mental and even physical batteries. All of us can and should re-dedicate ourselves to staying in touch and re-connecting with friends and relatives–it’s the best stuff in life, keeping us pumped up and making life so much richer.

Good times, Good Friends, & Getting Away From it All

So this week we’ve been out on the road and at the annual Stein Eriksen Tennis Tourney in Montana. It’s so much fun and there are so many great people there. Getting to this event every year is kind of a goal of mine. It’s not a goal like getting in shape or increasing my wealth or anything serious like that. It’s just a great time. And that, too, is important–getting out and having a good time on a regular basis.

I know we can get very wound up in our work, our big goals for our future and our family, even the little day to day things. But in addition to the serious goals and daily responsibilities, you should make it a point to get out and enjoy yourself. That is also a goal, one that is good for your health as well as your spirit. Those fun times make getting back and getting down to business much easier. If you keep running full steam ahead on all the work you have to do, you’ll burn out, or do your work poorly, or get frustrated and give up. Good times, good friends, and just getting away can do wonders for your motivation, energy level, and overall attitude.

Commit Yourself–to a Grand Health Goal

So, are you ready to put together your Grand Health Goal? Is there any reason why you wouldn’t want to get yourself into the best possible health and do it for the rest of your life?

We should back up here a bit because, of course, that Grand goal is way too general by itself. You absolutely need to break it down into specific small goals and steps in order to be able to monitor and measure your progress along the way. I talk about what I call “Bite Sized Miracles” in Chapter 6 of my book “How to Ignite Your Passion for Living”. It’s one of the most essential elements to guarantee you are successful in this very important goal.

What small bite-sized miracles can you aim for that will make your Grand Health Goal a reality? That’s not something I can tell you. You need to decide what you want and then figure out the steps to get there. Just don’t let the idea of a Grand goal make it feel impossible. You can just add a short exercise routine this week and then a new sport next week to get yourself back into shape. Try cutting out soda followed by eliminating all the empty calories of white bread and white rice soon thereafter to keep your weight down. With these small, managable steps and changes in your life, you will soon find you are healthier and feel better and that high energy feeling alone will motivate you to do even more. Then you just keep it up and there you are, living your Grand goal!

But back up one more step. Are you ready to do this? Is it important enough to you? (And if you say, no, you really have to ask yourself what is more important than the very aspect of your life that allows you to do all the things you want to do and enjoy it because you feel good?) Because the first and most important step is for you to realize just how enormously important your health is and commit yourself to preserving and improving it.

So, are you ready to live a healthy and full life for the rest of your life?

The Right Goal–For Life

Last week I talked about how important it is to keep yourself in shape–not just for now but for LIFE! In the next few blogs I am going to cover what it takes to stick with a program that will get you in the best possible health for the rest of your life.

The very first step is—and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve heard this before– you just absolutely need to set the right goal. For example, the wrong goal would be to say I am going to lose 20 pounds. Why is that wrong? Because that’s too short term. I mean, think about it—you set the goal and when you reach it, you celebrate a bit but a few weeks or months later it’s so easy to slowly slide back to your pre-diet eating and exercise habits until, once again, those 20 pounds are back.

This will happen because your goal didn’t address that you wanted this to be for the rest of your life. If however, you set the right goal—like setting the goal of hitting your ideal weight and make keeping that ideal weight for life a critical part of that goal, then that is the right goal.

And yet, there may be an even better goal than this. Although having that correct health goal for life is huge, why not take it a step further and go for a Grand health goal? It’ll take a number of small steps including this first health goal for life. So get to work on setting the right goal for yourself and then next week, we’ll talk about bigger and grander goals for your health that will allow you to get the most out of every day.

A Picture of Greatest Health

Back in 1998 I saw a picture of a man that really shocked me. It was the picture of an African American man posing in a swim suit as he flexed his rather well defined muscles. The headline below it read “can you guess this guy’s age?” i took up the challenge. I saw that he was in great shape and his skin looked pretty wrinkle free so i guessed 45 or 50 years old at most. I wasn’t even close.

Harry Scott was actually 65 years old which, of course, made me ask if just anyone, myself in particular, could look that good at age 65! I tore that page out of the magazine (sorry about that my good doctor’s office!) And have carried that now very tattered page with me ever since. It was and is such a great inspiration to me to not just look good and be in good shape but more importantly, to strive to be in the greatest health that is possible at every age!!

I am 67 now and near my high school. The things I’ve done to keep in shape are likely stuff you already know but let me give you some critical keys to put what you know into practice but may not do consistently. Remember that old great saying “To know and not to do, is not yet to know.”

So I would suggest you start thinking about what you’d like to improve in your health, fitness routine, and energy level. Over the next few weeks, I will cover what it takes to stick with a program that will get you in shape and keep you in the best health possible.

If you want to see this great picture of Harry Scott, it’s in the picture center of my re-written book “The Next Step To Waking Up The Financial Genius Inside You”

35 Years Is Enough

When you ‘retire’ it is not time to sit down and watch the world go by. It is time to go re-read your favorite 10, 20 or 100 books, to re-learn all those things that may have slipped slowly away over the years. It’s time to re-connect with old friends and make new friends. It’s time to start a new business or donate your time to a great cause. It’s time to visit a few 3rd world countries and see how many people you can help. It’s time to improve learn, and re-learn.

If you are thinking, “Hey, I don’t have enough energy to do some let alone all of the above”, well, then maybe you need to re-fire yourself by setting a goal to generate more energy. I am talking about rebuilding your body and mind through a regiment of physical exercise and a super-charged diet. Eat more and more fruits and veggies. Set a goal to stop sitting around just watching TV. Get up and move about. You’ll see that the movement itself, whether it’s walking, running, hiking, tennis, bowling even just playing pool, will energize and re-fires you all by itself.

Then once you have some of that renewed energy running through you, get back to living, not retiring. You have so many more years yet and so much to do.

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