Let the Second Half of the Journey Begin
“How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the gameâ€. – Lou Holtz, Football Coach, Educator, Author
I purposefully held off posting this blog until today, as in a couple hours the team will begin a full day of health events filled with opportunities to share the message in St. Louis. In so, I thought it might be the right time to talk about the second half of the mission.
Last Friday marked the true halftime of the tour if you are to count days as the key indicator. If instead you were to track our progress by miles, it would have been at the end of this past weekend when we went over the 1,603-mile mark entering Missouri. Today as we prepare to take a group of associates from our incredible health partner on a ride, participate in meet and greet health events and again have the privilege to meet with children and youth at yet another Boys & Girls Club of America in the greater St. Louis community, we see this as the start of the second half of the tour. As for this team we tend to count by the opportunities we have to meet with and hopefully inspire and impact people, and less by the days or miles claimed.
However, for those that might be tracking our progress in classical ways (and we are grateful for your investment of time and interest), as of today the team is now 28 days into a 45 day journey which is to deliver an inspirational, educational message of the value of healthy living to individuals, companies, organizations and communities alike. Our small but dedicated group of riders have now ridden our bicycles more than 2,107 miles, climbed an estimated 99,800 feet (which exceeds the average climb average of the Tour de France by more than 33,000 feet – although they ride at a MUST higher pace than we do), participated in 23 scheduled events and experienced a countless number of encounters with individuals along the trails and roads, in motels, restaurants and roadside rests as well as the amazingly well coordinated and orchestrated events. We have now crossed from California and its beautiful coastline, through the scenic deserts of Nevada and Utah, up and over the incredible mountains and Continental Divide in Colorado across the fruited plains of the Midwest. So very much has already been accomplished that we could easily claim this tour as a great success already and be happy with the current and amazing results.
However, as our team prepares to share the message and the road today, we realize that today does not merely represent just another day toward the end of this amazing journey, but rather, it is the start of the second half of something very special and important; We now have the opportunity and responsibility to evolve this tour far beyond one of success and into a tour of significance.
Our team, along with our partners recognizes that health and health care in America currently face tremendous challenges. Our health conditions and systems presently are headed on a collision course with demographic, social and economic trends that without intervention will produce dire consequences for our nation. Health conditions such as overweight and obesity[1] continue to steadily rise. The rate of chronic disease including diabetes[2] , hypertension[3] and asthma[4] are mounting as are excessive and unsustainable health care costs[5]. It is clear that despite our best efforts to make treatments more effective and costs more manageable, we presently face growing challenges. These facts make our focus and efforts on the second half of this journey that much more important. Now more than ever is the time to press into the second half of the journey, the mission, which is to improve health and to do so with focus, energy, effort and attitude. No doubt that we face incredible challenges, just as the team did when climbing the Rockies, yet we have incredible opportunities to succeed. It is in the coming together to face these obstacles that our country can evolve our health to a new level of success and significance.
As we head into the second half of this journey today, we call upon each of you to join us as together we rethink the problems and reimagine the possibilities, reenergize the effort and redeploy our investments, reengineer the policies and priorities and re-inspire the collective human spirit and intelligence of a nation that has proven to the world that we can more than survive, we can all thrive.
There is no doubt that it will take far more than a few people on bicycles riding across America to change the outcomes and improve health, BUT we also know that in our efforts to drive change, we can evolve this tour from a mere experience or event, to something much more valuable; a movement. We see this as a mission of significance in the lives of people, in our businesses and in the very communities in which we all exist. It will be in this evolution that together we begin to appreciate the call and the mission and also move our own lives and attitudes from a life of success to one of significance.
We welcome you to come and join us on the journey both today and in years to come.
“For the second half of life to be better than the first, you must make the choice to step aside of the safety of living on autopilot. You must wrestle with who you are, why you believe what you profess to believe about your life, and what you do to provide meaning and structure to your daily activities and relationships". – Bob Buford, business leader, author, social entrepreneur
[1] According to projections, 86% of American adults will be overweight or obese by 2030 - Source: Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews July, 2008.
[2] While the global population grows at a rate of 1.2% per year, diabetes is increasing at a rate of nearly 4.0% - Source: Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, World Health Organization, September 2006
[3] Nearly 96 million American adults currently have hypertension, a number that grows by almost 2% a year - Source: Health, United States 2008 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus08.pdf#071
[4] Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Vital Signs, CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report – April 2011
[5] By 2016 annual per capita health care expense will exceed $15,000 - Source: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services 2008 Annual Report