The Year of Looking Back to Move Forward

One year ago today, I had a stroke. A minor one, they said—but there's nothing minor about the way time fractures when your body reminds you it's keeping score.

I've spent the past year doing something I haven't done in decades: looking backward with the same intensity I once reserved for looking forward.

The First Leave-Taking

In my early thirties, I did something that felt radical at the time. I left. Not just physically—though I did pack up and move away from home—but mentally, emotionally, systemically. I left behind the comfortable patterns, the expected trajectory, the person I was supposed to become.

That introspection wasn't gentle. It was the kind that strips paint off walls. I had to confront a truth I'd been dancing around: I was building a life based on "or." Be this or that. Choose this path or that one. Sacrifice this part of yourself or fail at your aspirations.

I chose professional aspirations. I chose to become the elite junior tennis coach who could see what others missed—the systems that created champions, the architecture that talent required to avoid waste. I chose to become a role model for children, someone who could help them avoid the trap of wasted potential.

But in choosing those things, I also chose or. And in choosing or, I lost parts of myself I didn't even realize were negotiable.

The Inventory

May 2020: 100% LAD blockage. My heart literally showed me what happens when flow gets cut off.

January 8, 2025: A stroke. Minor, they said. But your brain sending emergency signals has a way of demanding attention you can no longer defer.

I've spent the past year taking inventory. Not of what I've accomplished—I can see that clearly enough. Tennis was never the point anyway; it was just the crucible where wasted potential could be seen clearly, where I could build systems that mattered.

No, I've been taking inventory of what I traded away. The parts of myself I left behind in my thirties when I made that first leap toward professional aspirations. The aspects of my humanity I filed under "deal with later" while I focused on helping others optimize theirs.

I've been revisiting that early journey—not with regret, but with recognition. I can see now what I couldn't see then: I was Walking While Something. Walking while driven. Walking while determined. Walking while convinced that singular focus was the price of excellence.

And just like the mental filters I now write about, that focus highlighted certain paths while blacking out vast territories of possibility.

The Breadcrumb Trail

In my conversations over the past year—including one with my first girlfriend from when we were fifteen—I keep coming back to this idea of being Hansel. Not the child lost in the woods, but the one who had the presence of mind to leave breadcrumbs for those who would come after.

I'm racing against time. That's not dramatic—it's statistical. But here's what I've realized: the breadcrumbs aren't just forward-facing. They're also backward-looking.

To leave a trail worth following, I first had to trace the trail I'd walked. To understand what I'm building now—the disruption of junior tennis development, the philosophy behind Walking While Black, the systems within The Performance Architect—I had to understand what I was running toward in my thirties and what I was running from.

The Power of AND

The past year has been about reclaiming "and."

I can be The Performance Architect and Walking While Black. I can optimize systems and examine perspectives. I can chase professional excellence and preserve personal wholeness. I can use AI to solve one really big problem and acknowledge the psychedelic-fueled dreams of my youth that made me believe I could solve them all.

The introspection I began in my early thirties was necessary. It gave me the clarity to leave, to build, to become who I needed to be to help others. But it was incomplete. It was based on "or."

The past year's introspection—forced by a stroke, deepened by time, sharpened by urgency—is different. It's based on "and."

What Comes Next

I'm 63 now. I've got 35+ years of expertise in elite junior tennis coaching, a brain dump of knowledge that could reshape an industry, two brands that serve different aspects of the same mission, and a body that's sent me two unmistakable warnings about time and its limits.

But I also have something I didn't have in my early thirties: I have the wisdom to recognize that leaving home to pursue professional aspirations shouldn't have meant leaving parts of myself behind.

One year ago today, I had a stroke. One year of looking backward to understand how to move forward. One year of connecting dots I didn't know were related. One year of realizing that the journey I began in my early thirties isn't over—it's just finally becoming whole.

The best breadcrumbs aren't the ones that show you how to avoid getting lost. They're the ones that show you how to find yourself again, even after you've wandered far from where you began.

I left home in my early thirties to become who I needed to be. I'm spending my sixties becoming who I always was—just with better systems, clearer vision, and the courage to embrace "and."

That's what a year of revisiting can teach you. That's what a stroke can illuminate. That's what happens when you stop walking while being something and start walking as everything you actually are.

One year ago today, my body forced me to stop, look back, and finally see the trail I'd been leaving all along.