December 15, 1992. A cold, snowy morning. I was pouring a cup of coffee when my wife called down from upstairs to say she was in labor. By six that evening, everything had changed. I was 25 years old and a father.

That was the first time I learned that life is measured in before and after. Dates that split everything in two. There is not being a father, and then there is being a father.

July 20, 1994. My second son was born. Two boys who would be children, then young men, then men. I knew only one thing: if all went well, I would be there to guide them for a very long time.

You might think my marriage to their mother should have been one of those dates. It wasn’t. In hindsight, that is why we were divorced two years later. If you don’t feel it, take that as a warning. I was a busy young cop and a young father, doing my best, and I did not look closely at what was in front of me.

June 23, 1998. A sweltering summer day. I was thinking about lunch. Beef and broccoli, if I remember right. My partner and I had been assigned to different units, so we planned to meet at noon and eat together.

Within ten minutes I was facing a gunman in a schoolyard full of children on track and field day. A suicidal man with a shotgun, firing in every direction and threatening everyone in his path.

I made a decision that I would own. I would not let those children get hurt. I would not let my brothers and sisters in blue get hurt. I would go home to my own children, who were in school only miles away. It could easily have been their school. So I did what a reasonable police officer would do, and I put him down.

That day changed me.

After that, the befores kept coming. I have lost grandparents, and friends to illness, accidents and suicide. Each one leaves you a different person. You are never again the before version. I met my wife along the way, and this time I read the signs properly. There was no life without her.

I built a business from scratch. It was a dream come true. Then I lost it, almost overnight, and I was thrust into a new after.

I could have given up. I couldn’t. I got back up and started another company. People said I was crazy. Hadn’t I learned my lesson? I had. I knew exactly what I did right and what I did wrong, and this time I did it right. I poured myself into it, and it thrived.

Eventually I sold the business. Wife, two sons, beautiful homes, cars, motorcycles, boats, good friends. All of us healthy and happy. Time to relax.

Only one problem. Every after eventually runs out of befores. I was in my late fifties, and I was under no illusion that I had a ton of time. The average American male lives to 76. I was 57.

Then I looked at myself in a photo from a return trip from vacation. I saw a soft, fat, sad old man.

Here is what I noticed. Every life-changing date I’ve listed so far happened to me. Births, a gunman, deaths, a lost business. Even meeting my wife was by chance. I didn’t schedule any of them. This one I could schedule.

So I chose a before. One decision. No negotiating. I hired a trainer and went to work, with diet, exercise and no excuses. It took a year to get my body back.

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Then I hired a coach and asked the harder question: what was I supposed to do with the rest of my life? I don’t know that I’ll ever have a complete answer. But I felt so good about being fit that I wanted to help other men do the same, so I became a certified trainer and wrote Forged After 50. That gave me the confidence to finish the book I’d been carrying for years, Badge to Boardroom, about what high-stakes police work taught me about leading teams. Now I’m enrolled in a leadership program at Harvard Business School, and I’m loving it.

Somewhere in there I found what I had been circling for years. I want to write, speak, and teach what I learned as a detective: how to read people, keep yourself safe, and make better decisions. I used to tell myself it wouldn’t pay the bills. I’ve defied the odds before, and I plan to do it again. I trust there is some reward for following a calling.

Most befores are chosen for you. You don’t get a vote on the phone call, the diagnosis, or the day the business disappears. But some of them are yours to schedule, and most of us wait far too long to do it.

So pick one. Make the decision. Don’t negotiate with it.

And every day, try something small. Hold a door. Say thank you. Be kind.

— B

Choose Your Before