More than forty years ago, I made a “business first” decision that shaped my career and Mercer Capital’s future. Recently, I realized it was time for a different decision: “living value first.” This essay explores why the transition from building value to living it is ultimately a transition of identity.
A simple message on my Garmin watch stopped me in my tracks. It suggested that, in one important respect, I wasn’t really 78. That unexpected discovery introduced me to the concept of Fitness Age and prompted me to think differently about how we measure—and influence—the aging process.
Can one quick glance at your watch really ruin a good night’s sleep? After more than three months of avoiding the habit, I accidentally looked at the time—and immediately remembered why I stopped. The experience reinforced a simple lesson: just one look is all it takes.
Every once in a while, a book reinforces something you have believed for years. That was my experience with “Move Your DNA” by Katy Bowman. The book helped me put words around an idea that has shaped many of my daily habits: exercise matters, but movement matters too—and they are not the same thing. The distinction is simple, but it has meaningful implications for how we think about health, aging, and everyday life.
Reading the book, Pickleball Therapy, reminded me of a lesson I first learned from The Inner Game of Tennis more than 35 years ago: the greatest obstacles are often the conversations we have with ourselves. While the voice of self-doubt changes with age, the challenge remains the same, recognizing it before it talks us out of opportunities, relationships, and experiences.
Aging well is about more than living longer, it is about maintaining the health, mobility, and independence that make added years meaningful. This post reflects on the often-overlooked risks of falls and the importance of staying aware, active, and prepared.
In this reflective post, I revisit career advice from an early mentor about the importance of momentum. What once meant ambition, productivity, and professional advancement has gradually taken on new meaning in semi-retirement. Slowing down, he has learned, is not the same as stopping. Aging well may depend less on acceleration and more on maintaining purposeful forward motion fueled by gratitude, engagement, and intentional living.
This post reflects on a surprisingly simple lesson learned during a restless night: sometimes the harder we try to control things, the worse they become. A small decision to stop checking the time led to better sleep — and a broader reminder that aging gratefully may involve letting go of habits, worries, and quiet anxieties that no longer serve us.
A recent trip to Machu Picchu reminded me that balance is not something we should take for granted. Uneven terrain, thousands of steps, and one controlled fall became a powerful lesson that physical balance, like so many things in life, requires intentional care and attention as we age.
This reflective story reminds us that the value we carry through life is often built in the smallest moments of human kindness. In a late-night airport encounter years ago, I learned that simply choosing to be decent, not strategic or extraordinary, can leave a lasting impact and shape how we experience both business and life.
