Today I am going to share a secret with you… I sometimes fear that life is passing by so quickly that I can’t believe what the calendar is showing as the months and years flip by. Yes, I’ve reached what is referred to as “late middle age” – but I don’t FEEL it! In fact, almost no one believes I’m the age I am. No, the topic today is not about chronological age, because I am smart enough to know that’s just a meaningless number! In addition to great health and vitality, I can check off the boxes in almost every area of my life that would say I have it made:

• I don’t look, feel or act my age and take zero, nada, medication.

• My life is ideal by the standards of most – I am married to a former beauty queen, who is still a “beauty queen” after 30 years of marriage and doesn’t look or feel her age either.

• I stay in tip-top physical condition, five days a week I work out with weights, boxing, swimming, cross-training – on occasion even dancing, which I enjoy very much, having won a couple of dance championships in the distant past.

• I can go anywhere I want, have anything I want, do anything I want and don’t have to worry about scraping together a few bucks or making big sacrifices to have a nice vacation or do something extravagant.

• I have a nationally syndicated radio show (www.makinitnow.com), multiple stimulating and successful businesses, two beautiful homes (some would call mansions), investments, rental property, luxury automobiles, influential friends and great employees that I have the privilege to work alongside daily.

Most would say I have a dream life, and, indeed, I am a rags-to-riches story, considering my roots, the son of an immigrant shoemaker, growing up in an 800 square foot home with 6 people, never having two nickels to rub together as a youth, having to make my own way, I have risen above it all and lived the American Dream.

So what’s the big secret, what is the great nagging fear that haunts my mind that is so secret that I have never shared with anyone until this day? Here it is: I FEAR that I will someday reach the end of my life without completing all of my earthly missions; I FEAR that when I reach “the other side” I will find out that I was meant to do so much more, accomplish so much more, be so much more; I FEAR that someday I may look back on my life and say, “Is that all there is?” I FEAR that I may not have satisfactory answers to the questions we must all someday ask ourselves: Did I live my life with purpose, passion, and intent? Did I inspire others? Did I make a difference? Is the world any better because I passed through it? Did I love enough, give enough, believe enough?

So those are my fears. Do you share some or all of them? I never like to share a problem or dilemma without providing a solution, so let me share this as well: Fear is a lie…Fear is deception… Fear is the world’s way of limiting you, of paralyzing and neutralizing you, of blocking you from your assigned destiny… F-E-A-R stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. You are on this journey we call life for a greater purpose than you can imagine; you are meant to accomplish more and go higher than you now realize. So take off the blinders and ditch the limiting beliefs, roll up your sleeves, take control over your mind, and unleash yourself on the world; and when you do, even long after you’re gone, people are going to remember where they were when they first met you, when they first heard about you, when they first experienced the greatness within you. This world has never seen or experienced anyone quite like you, so show ‘em what you got!

Tommy Runfola
Keep fighting the good fight – “GET BACK UP!”