The Decade Echo
How One Client Reclaimed His Future by Listening to a Whisper From His Past
Dave walked into my gym two years ago with a familiar story:
He wasn’t broken.
He wasn’t unfit.
He wasn’t out of shape.
But something was slipping.
Something subtle.
Something only athletes can feel.
He had an old knee injury from years back—one that never healed properly—and the ripple effects were starting to show up everywhere:
less range on the golf course
less precision on the mountain
less freedom in the waves
He could still do all the things he loved… just not like he wanted.
And that matters when you’ve spent your whole life as an athlete.
Add to that the demands of being a CEO and father to two young kids, it just made sense to seek support.
He wanted to perform better,
he wanted to feel better,
he wanted to get his athleticism back—
so he could keep showing up for the roles that mattered most.
In his 30s, he ignored the knee.
In his early 40s, the knee stopped ignoring him.
The echoes had arrived.
Small Choices, Big Consequences
For the longest time, nutrition wasn’t a major focus for us. He looked good, he trained consistently, he fed himself well… actually, his wife — a nutritionist and ace cook, did that part, ha.
But recently, something new surfaced.
He admitted that late-afternoon and nighttime snacking had become a pattern. Nothing dramatic. No bingeing. No spiraling. Just a slow, quiet slide into convenience and comfort.
Those Costco cashews are the real deal.
A little something to take the edge off.
A small habit with a long shadow.
And then he shared a story that stopped me.
A Seed Planted in His 30s
Over a decade ago, in his early 30s, Dave had lunch with a mentor—a disciplined, sharp, late-40s business mentor who clearly took care of himself.
During lunch, the mentor said something about business strategy that landed somewhere much deeper:
“The choices you make in this decade will show up in the next one.”
Dave felt the weight of it at the time.
It made sense in the context of the business he was building.
Some lines hit you in the moment…
and then stay with you long enough to find a new purpose later in life.
For 10 years, that sentence sat dormant—
waiting for the right conditions to sprout.
This year, it did.
A New Stage of Life, A New Kind of Why
Now, at 43, he’s in a different chapter.
He’s a father. He sees the way his kids play. He sees the way they’re forming a special bond with their grandparents.
He sees the joy.
He sees the love.
And then he envisions himself in that role decades down the line.
And he realized:
“The way I live today determines the kind of father and grandfather I get to be.”
That’s when the echo came back.
Not as advice—
as truth.
Not about business—
about his body, his family, and the quality of his future.
Suddenly, the snacking wasn’t about willpower.
It wasn’t about macros.
It wasn’t about looking good.
It was about adding 10 years of quantity and quality to his life…
so he could be part of the moments that bring deep connection with his kids and grandkids.
It was about being able to:
keep up with his son bombing down the mountain on winter break
show his daughter that dad’s still got it on the court
catch dawn patrol with his brother years to come
build and climb the tree house with his grandkids
He doesn’t want to be the grandfather on the recliner.
He’s becoming grandfather in the arena.
This is what a real ‘Why’ feels like.
This Is What I Call the Decade Echo
Every decade sends signals to the next.
Sometimes they whisper.
Sometimes they roar.
Your body keeps receipts.
Your habits write checks.
Your future cashes them.
When Dave first came in, he wanted to move better and feel better now.
But through this insight, he tapped into something far more powerful:
A vision of who he wants to be in 10, 20, 30 years.
And that kind of clarity carries an emotional charge strong enough to reorganize a person’s behavior almost overnight.
You don’t fight cravings when your Why is this big.
You outgrow them.
This Is What Self-Leadership Really Looks Like
In my coaching framework, we talk about two types of Whys:
Insecure Whys
Rooted in:
shame
fear
envy
jealousy
anger
These have power.
They can move us.
They get things started.
But they’re not sustainable. And we shouldn’t aim to reinforce them.
Secure Whys
Rooted in:
love
joy
peace
connection
truth
These are different.
They create alignment.
They quiet resistance.
They turn discipline into devotion.
What Dave found was a secure Why—the kind that reorganizes a man from the inside out.
The kind that makes saying “not today” to cashews (or whatever your vice is) effortless.
Not because he’s restraining himself,
but because he’s choosing himself, his family, and his future.
The Lesson
What you choose today is a letter you’re mailing to your future self.
It doesn’t arrive tomorrow.
It arrives in your 40s, your 50s, your 60s—
when it matters most.
Most men won’t feel the consequences of their habits until the next decade.
And when they do, they’ll wish they had listened to the echo sooner.
Dave did.
And now he’s writing a completely different future—
one small choice at a time.