Danny Cahill - Aging Disgracefully

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR AGING DISGRACEFULLY

Aging Disgracefully grabs you instantly with vivid and real characters that make you laugh with them, worry about them, and yes, cry for them. As a speaker, Danny is always at the top of his game. This book elevates him to a new levelamazing.

John Sacerdote, Retired President, NAPS

How can such serious topics be so hilarious? Aging Disgracefully is full of effervescent wit and passion for the emotional rollercoaster aging can be for us all... you will laugh and cry, but leave appreciating aging for the grace and charm it deserves.

Tish Squillaro, Author of HeadTrash and CEO, Candor Consulting

Dannys wicked, light-hearted sense of humor and gut-wrenching transparency serve as a wonderful prism for lifes struggles and capture poignantly what we cant escape as we age: family, health, purpose. Aging Disgracefully made me feel like I had been in a therapy sessionwith more fun and less cost. Enjoy the ride!

Mike Lejeune, Author of A Fathers Love

Danny Cahill spins lifes ups and downs into a refreshing whirlwind of self-discovery. Alarming and brutally honest humor reveals an ultimate truth: Life is about what you make of it until it makes something of you.

Robbie Harper, Associate Artistic Director, The Phoenix Theatre

Aging Disgracefully blurs the lines between work and life when it comes to love, lust, and the search for self-redemption. I held my breath rooting for a winner and finished the book rooting for them all!

Kathleen Tighe Kurke, President Emeritus, The Pinnacle Society

Aging Disgracefully made me laugh and cry. I learned some things about my own life and choices through Dannys eyes. No surprise thoughDanny Cahill has been imparting wisdom, wit, and empathy to the recruiting world for decades. Bravo.

Danny Sarch, President, Leitner Sarch Consultants

Aging Disgracefully is a work of creative nonfiction. In an age where eyewitness testimony is often overturned by DNA evidence and ten people cant play the parlor game Telephone without butchering the original message, it seems worthwhile to point out that while all events are portrayed to the best of my memory, they are my memories. Therefore names and identifying details have been changed, and certain events have been compressed or changed for narrative purposes.

Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press
Austin, Texas
www.gbgpress.com

Copyright 2016 Danny Cahill

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Distributed by Greenleaf Book Group

For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Greenleaf Book Group at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group
Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Print ISBN: 978-1-62634-398-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-62634-399-3

Part of the Tree Neutral program, which offsets the number of trees consumed in the production and printing of this book by taking proactive steps, such as planting trees in direct proportion to the number of trees used: www.treeneutral.com

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

17 18 19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

for Jane

Shame is Prides cloak.

William Blake

... Ive lived my whole life in shame!
Why should I die with dignity?

George Costanza, Seinfeld

Contents

CHAPTER 1

My Free Fall Ends

My free fall, and the madness, stopped on my fiftieth birthday. Not because I had found wisdom or had realized the damage I was doing to myself and others, but because I found myself in an ambulance.

I had gone into the gym an hour before, determined to prove myself still capable of a killer leg workout, and while I didnt buy into what I had been hearing all week from my friends and coworkers, Fifty is the new forty; who looks like you at fifty? (Where does that delusional thinking lead? Sixty is the new fifty? Fat is the new skinny? How long before we arrive at Dead is the new alive?), I did think I still had the ability to move some heavy iron. So I loaded up the leg press sled with seven 45-pound plates on each side. The leg press is how old men do squats.

... EMT Unit 137 en route, patient stable, vitals strong, request support on arrival, we got spinal issues, not good...

Uh, Im still awake here, guys, lets work on the bedside manner.

A fiftieth birthday is tough for anyone. Add on the fact that I was born on Valentines Daya day guaranteed to elicit awws from clerks verifying your credit card and TSA agents checking your drivers licenseand it gets even tougher. Throw in being born on Valentines Day when you are divorced and live alone and, well, you go to the gym to stop thinking about it.

There are two hooks at the bottom of the leg press sled. When you have completed your reps, you slide the hooks under the weight, and the weight is suspended until your next set. I finished my tenth rep, my quads spent. When I went to hook the weight, the entire hooking mechanism fell off the sled poles. I probably should have yelled, but my old nemesis and guidance counselorshamekicked in, and I said nothing as the 630 pounds of weight, obeying gravity, began to slide down toward my face. My knees were being pressed against my chest. With no hooks to stop it, I realized, the slide wouldnt finish until it made its way down the machines track, leaving my legs behind my face in a porn position I had previously viewed but never experienced. Near the very end of the ride, I heard a surprisingly loud crack near the base of my spine.

They tell you, in moments like this, that things seem to slow down. Flashes of your past are supposed to come back to you. I always thought this was a convenient plot device for filmmakers with a smoke machine and a paucity of imagination. But damn, I can confirm that between the time it took for some guys who heard me scream to get the weight off me, and the time I was lying in the ambulance bed with a searing, burning pain, I did seem to have forever to think about my two years of free fall. How I had lost, in order, my mother; my wife; my home; my cats; nearly all my friends; the trust and affection of nearly everyone I worked with; and now, apparently, at a time when I was utterly alone, my ability to walk.

I probably should have thought this was Karma. That would have been rational, and I could have made a case for deserving it. But thats not me. One of the ways I make a ridiculously great living is being a motivational speaker. And on the way to the hospital, I was already thinking I could now justify buying a Segway. I could whirr around the stage and use my free hand to click the PowerPoints that would document my amazing battle and recovery. (How I would get the Segway on and off airplanes never occurred to me. I was spitballing.)

Even better, I could finally end the drama. I had blown up my life over the past two years. Complete carnage. But this would bring it to a close. I couldnt stop the free fall through choice, so it had been stopped for me, by a free-falling weight. And then I felt so damn grateful I was almost giddy! Because now I would have time to write my book! I had done a series of successful seminars for consulting clients on aging gracefully. At fifty, I had eight percent body fatthe physique of an amateur bodybuilder. I had made a name for myself onstage for a sort of boundless and contagious energy, and I looked much younger than I was. I was a wealthy entrepreneur who owned one of the nations largest headhunting firms, and I was in constant demand as a speaker. So my seminar on aging gracefully was always well received and always followed by email testimonials thanking me for the inspirational example: for being the real deal and walking the walk. I was qualified to turn my seminar into a book, right?