How I Got Here

When I was a boy in rural Indiana, I wanted to feel smart, rich, and successful. So I picked targets. I would be an executive at a big multinational. I would travel the world for work. And someday I would do something big enough to be interviewed by Barbara Walters.

I hit most of them. I became a CFO. I lived in six cities in ten years and flew more than a million miles. Along the way, I lost my first marriage and found a second, which came with a bonus daughter. I am still waiting to do something worthy of a Barbara Walters special. She died in 2022, so I am letting us both off the hook.

Here is what I learned along the way.

1. 1.

   Before you marry, make sure your spouse knows your career plans. A big career looks great on paper. It is lonely for the person at home. That is how you lose a spouse.

2. 2.

   Titles are rentals. They belong to whoever holds them now. My old business cards make excellent scratch paper.

3. 3.

   Miles and status are earned on the nights you miss at home. American Airlines remembers every one of my million miles. My daughters remember the nights.

4. 4.

   Tread carefully with close friends of the opposite sex. Attraction starts physical and turns emotional, and friendship feeds both. When you stop being affectionate at home and start comparing your spouse to the friend, back away from the friend.

5. 5.

   Fear of losing again is a bad reason to skip being happy. I remarried at 46, and people said it was too soon. They were wrong.

6. 6.

   Every job ends. Mine ended in August 2026, and at 59 I asked a friend if I could sleep over. Plan for that day while you still have the job.

7. 7.

   Your memories are the only things that are all yours. They also die with you.

So here I am at 60. I have no job, no pension, no Medicare, and no Social Security. I also have about ten good years left to make memories. For the next decade I will track my health, money, marriage, and friendships, and publish the numbers every month. For once, I plan to measure the right things.

The lessons in this diary will outlast my memories, at least until someone deletes them, or tapes over them like an old VCR cassette to record their own story.

Life begins again at 60. What are you going to do now?