I finally understood why he retired in 1993 and I needed to tell him.

In 2015, my father passed away, I turned 40, and I left my corporate job of 11 years to build a sustainable music supply company from scratch. All of this within 7 months.

It was (and yes, still is) an adjustment in about as many ways it could be. Emotionally. Physically. Psychologically. Mentally. Spiritually. Intellectually.

But it’s also weird to realize that, on paper, you’re pretty much the textbook definition of a mid-life crisis cliche. I mean, no I didn’t dye my hair and get a candy apple red convertible, but goddammit.

Then one day in late 2015, I thought of Michael Jordan.

Like pretty much every guy my age, I grew up a HUGE Michael Jordan fan. Obsessed. Big time. Unapologetically. In college, it was the one thing that me and my friends from New York didn’t ever, ever talk about. It was dangerous ground and I’m 87% sure (give or take 13%) that avoiding this topic at all costs is why I’m still friends with them today.

I thought about when he retired from the NBA in 1993 (the first of three retirements for him). His father had recently passed, he couldn’t see the road of what was next for him in basketball, and needed something new to energize him and work towards.

I read, watched, and listened to all the interviews he gave about it (there wasn’t many at the time), and I didn’t understand it at all then, but I supported him. Do what you gotta do, man. You do you. Wait, “you” is now a double-A baseball player? Oh. Umm…ok. Yeah…you do “you,” I guess.

But now when I think about it, it’s different.

Now, I understand. I get it. It took me over 20 years, but yeah… I TOTALLY get it now.

I get how working “on” something is unfulfilling when you need to be working “towards” something.

I get not knowing what’s next and how it’s terrifying, but also exciting for the same reasons.

I get needing change.

I get reinventing yourself and what you can discover from it.

It was weird to finally understand something after such a long time.

It’s like finally getting an answer to a question that you forgot you even asked. I didn’t know how to explain it to people, so…I wrote a letter to Michael Jordan. I understood and he needed to know.

I introduced myself and told him about my recent loss and that I understood, a little, about what he might have been going through back in 1993. I then thanked him for showing the world exactly how thin the line is between crazy and courageous, and that reinventing oneself was not only very doable, but also very necessary.

Written, signed, folded.
Stuffed, stamped, mailed.

I never expected to hear back, but I did get a form letter kind of thing a few weeks later saying the usual stuff: “He gets a lot of mail. Thanks for writing. He can’t respond to everything he gets.” Etc. For real though, whether or not he actually read it – or will read it – doesn’t concern me. The value and purpose of this exercise was putting it in writing and mailing it out. It was therapeutic and cathartic.

. . .

There is purpose in reinventing yourself.

Reinventing yourself is an exercise that many avoid for whatever reasons they have (I can only assume some reasons are probably good ones). But those that do it will learn that they are – and are capable of – more than they think.

#bewhatyoumake