Overcoming adversity

Ken runs his first marathon...with an angel on his shoulder

I am going to give you a gift today. Take notes! Stay until the end. I swear, you’ll thank me later.

In late Spring last year, my son told me he had committed to running the Philly Marathon. I was excited and worried at the same time. I am freaky proud of my sons. Matt was a tank commander and general badass in the Army. Pat is probably the best electrician you’ll meet (youngest board member of the Philadelphia Electrical Association). Phil has forgotten more about IT than most people will ever know.

Ken is no different. He is a challenge magnet. He worked his way through Penn State. He and Amy had a kid, my first grandson, while he was still in college. That’s a story in itself that I will share here some day.

My boys share another quality. They’re great dads. In Ken’s case, he would spend almost all of his adult life pursuing a career AND coaching little league and teen-age baseball and softball with fanatical dedication. His coaching is memorialized in Swarthmore, Pa.

So, when Ken said, I’m running a marathon, I was over the moon excited for him. That was the “Dad.”

The “Father” was a little worried, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I would bust his chops if I thought he was slackin’ off in training.

But here’s the worry.

Ken works as a blue chip mortgage broker (top 1% nationally) in a highly stressful market. And he takes his duties to his baseball teams as seriously as anything else. Combine all day on the phone, pulling closings that seemed doomed to fail, out of his ass. Then add coaching, then weekends traveling to this tournament and that, and you’ve got a dicey lifestyle. When Ken stresses, he gains weight. As he trained for the marathon I watched his weight swing wildly. And 2021 was an insane year in the for Ken’s company.

Still, on 20 November 21, on a COLD ASS morning, we dropped him off at the Philadelphia Art Museum (yes, the Rocky steps) WAAAAAY before sunrise so he could join the other runners. The worry was excruciating. But the only thing I told him was, “Listen to your body. If your body says go, you go. That’s it. You’ll finish.” There were moments, especially when he didn’t come up the hill toward the finish line when I expected him to, I almost cried for the worry. I paced a groove into the museum’s front lawn.

My job was to crew for him. Take things from him, or provide things to him, as needed during the race. Kenny’s wife, Amy, his sister-in-law and I put in 8.5 miles, on foot plus an idiotic Uber ride, just hitting key rendevous points. And as it turned out, all he needed was to see Amy’s beautiful face every few miles and he was good to go. So sweet.

I could have stayed the the goddamn Art Museum!

My worry wasn’t entirely misplaced. If not for an angel who came out of nowhere, it’s possible, even Ken will admit, he might not have pulled off his first marathon. But I will let him and the angel tell you that story in the link below.

But finish he did, WITH A KICK AT THE END! I barely squeezed off some snaps and a few seconds of video as he ran past.

I’m gonna chalk that up as a good day. A REALLY GOOD DAY.

Now all that was just braggin’.

The gift is this: Three successful guys telling how Ken met the angel (Arthur) AND handing you the keys to…well…running a marathon if that’s what bangs your shutters. But really they are telling you the secrets to making a quality life for yourself and your family.

As a footnote, I will try to have Ken and Joe on P4B to talk about business and motivation. But I will have them on separately so they can tell funny stories about each other. I will certainly beg Arthur to stop in as well. If he hasn’t written a book yet, he needs to.

Scroll down and check out “Selling The Dream”. It will be the highest quality half hour you’ll have all week. Well…shy of rabid monkey sex or wining the Power Ball, it will be the best half hour.