Unbroken circles...

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will

 call life which is required to be exchanged

for it, immediately or in the long run.”

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Thirty or so curious folks showed up in the small conference room.  Most of them looked pretty much like me…not particularly surprising as they were expecting a presentation on “Exercise and Aging.” 

While there are many kinds of recreational and activities of daily living one can do for good health…strength and balance are two of the most important things older people should consider.  Muscle strength has everything to do with day-to-day function, and balance is critically important to minimize the dangers of falling as we age.   These two topics were the focus of the lecture.

The congregants didn’t know me, and with the exception of two or three folk, I didn’t know them.  It would be a ‘cold sell’ on the value of exercise with this group of baby boomers.  The only difference from times past was not the audience, nor their age, but the recognizable kinship I brought to the table…I was one of them!!

The Pima County Library, Oro Valley Branch, sponsored the offering and as has been the case over more than 30 years of speaking to groups – professional and community – I was excited for the lights to dim and the show to begin!

Looking out over the small group of people reminded me how this all started.

Valuing life…

Dick Dalton and I decided we were going to start a small consulting business, calling it Value Life Associates.  We had recently graduated from the University of Missouri with PhDs in health education and exercise physiology respectively, thinking we might have something to offer.  This was before the ‘wellness wave’ hit the United States…it was the very early 1980s.

Value Life Associates!  Yes sir, a name reflecting our life philosophies…a name that seemed ‘just right’ for our little company.  I’m pretty sure Dick came up with the moniker…of the two of us; he was certainly more ‘full of thought.’  With our academic training, we felt we could turn this little company into a health/fitness-consulting group…and so it was to be.

We got a contract with a local hospital, and the first order of business was to put in place an early morning community exercise program called Fitness for Life.  In the summers we held two walking and stretching sessions at a local high school out door track, and in the winters, we held court in a local high school gymnasium and later in a community fitness center.  There were more than 100 people that visited with us over on those oft-darkened exercise mornings in the years we did this program.

The rest of the day, we worked out of a little office in the back of the Learfield Communications building on West McCarty Street, in Jefferson City, Missouri, where we evaluated the things we knew and brainstormed as to what we might bring to the ‘health/fitness marketplace,’ developing a number of offerings for businesses and the public.  We never thought about what it would become, we simply began the process of this little business that, as it turned out, would influence the rest of our professional lives.

Early days…

One of my first jobs was to provide community lectures on topics related to healthy lifestyle.  I purchased a series of commercial health and fitness slides with content areas in strength and aerobic exercise as well as diet, flexibility and balance.  I wasn’t keen about the content of the program, but the slides were terrific, making the price of the product worth every penny.

I taught a five-week series on the above-mentioned topics at a different local hospital – each week on a different subject.  I sold a five-week package package for $15.00 (11 Euros) that took place Monday evenings for about an hour.  The hospital guaranteed to run the series three or four times to test the market. The attendance varied from two to five or six people…one might say it was not a very promising start.  One might say that, but I would not…

Preparing for these community presentations was one of the best life lessons on speaking preparation I could ever have had.  Each lecture began with a legal pad and an attempt to tell a story for the specific topic at hand.  Once a ‘flow’ emerged, I would hunt for the appropriate slide containing the right picture or text for the particular lecture.  It is hard to remember how many lists and accompanying comments were written down, crossed out, completely thrown away and begun again on those yellow sheets of paper, but in the end, there could not have been a better training ground! 

Other things…

One of the best things we did was a flexible seminar called Whose Life is it Anyway. Dick taught the psychology of healthy lifestyle, presenting strategies and techniques for reducing the stresses of daily life.  His teaching style was entertaining with deliberate question asking and guided self-discovery. 

I taught the physiology and biochemistry of stress and physical activity strategies complimentary to what Dick offered.  These seminars were of varying length, and as I look over my shoulder, one of the more enjoyable things of my professional life.  Preliminary work for each seminar began with the two of us free-associating about how we might modify and improve the presentation, and as importantly, what we thought might be fun and meaningful to do. 

We did these seminars for a couple of years locally and around the Midwest.  In the end, they were fun and they were meaningful…maybe more for us than those we taught.  It is said, if you want to really learn a subject, teach it…and teach we did!

Our little business grew, but in the end, we were not able to make a real living doing it, so we took jobs at a local university and taught in our respective content areas of expertise.  We continued with Value Life Associates, but our time and efforts became diluted by work requirements.  It was, however, the platform from which the rest of my professional life emerged. 

This little company and the collaboration with my partner Dick, among other things, taught me this important life lesson – preparation is everything!  By the time a lecture is ready to go, the work is already done.  The only question is whether the material will have meaning to the people for whom it has been prepared.  There is a sense of wonder and excitement that happens every single time the first slide is ready to go.  That is something that has never changed no matter the venue or the size of the group.

Back to the future…

All of the things just mentioned flashed through my mind as I cued up the first slide for the presentation at the library.  Once it began, something automatic took over, slipped into a groove and the 50-minute formal part was over before I knew it.  People stayed around asking questions for the next 45 minutes or so, and then drifted away to finish their day.

As I left the library, I felt that a twinge of satisfaction that I had done the best I could, and an appreciation for that little company, so many decades ago, that had been an inspiration both from its name and work product.

Value Life Associates – it was a great little business that seemed so timely – then and now.  While we were ahead of the health/fitness curve that emerged full blown a few years later, it was an idea from which we found strength and balance in our lives and the lives of those with whom we worked.

Valuing life…what a concept!!

- ted