Ageless Mindset
Growing up in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, Herb Kirk kept himself in shape playing football and running track in high school. He then enrolled at Lehigh University. But when the U.S. entered World War 1, he and some of his buddies joined the Navy Flying Corps anxious for adventure. As a combat pilot, Herb flew reconnaissance and bombing missions.
When the War ended Herb returned to the U.S. determined to build a successful business career. Herb was creative, becoming an engineer, a salesman and then a business owner. Sometimes he fared well and at other times he lost out but ultimately Herb succeeded.
Retiring from business at 60, Herb wanted to pursue other activities and he and his wife Eleanor moved to Bozeman, Montana where she had family. There he became a potter, an avid tennis player all the way into his 90’s and a runner, running in races past the age of 100. Even in his 90’s, he would run for as long as an hour, four or five times a week, covering roughly four miles each run. When he was 104 Herb became the oldest man to finish the annual Montana Governor’s 5K race.
“It keeps me in good shape, active, interesting,” Herb told Good Morning America. “I wouldn’t do without some exercise. I’d be downhill fast.” But Herb not only exercised his body; he kept his mind active as well.
At the age of 97 he became the oldest college graduate in Montana State University history when he earned his degree in Art. He was surely also one of the oldest people to graduate from college in U.S. history. It kept him engaged with people, especially young people with plenty of energy and new ideas.
As Herb Kirk reinvented himself throughout his life, you can too as you enjoy exciting new opportunities. But he would never have attained all that he did nor live so long had he not kept his body and mind so fit.
This Game Changing attitude is something each of us should commit ourselves to.
–DS