Chris, I wanted to give you an idea of how much “Younger Next Year” has changed my life. I have a perspective on aging that’s both personal and professional. In my working life I am an RN, advising people with serious health problems – like coronary arterial disease, diabetes and hypertension – about how to keep themselves out of hospital. I see that despite all the knowledge and information out there, people have a tremendous motivational deficiency – we all do. We all live in the midst of the bad decisions we’ve made, yet we’re paralyzed when it comes to making better ones.
“Younger Next Year” helps us over that hurdle of ‘how do I do it’. It says ‘get over the decision. Treat it like a job. It is just what you do’.
So that’s why I’ve gone from being someone who never worked out for health to being at my local YMCA four to five times a week before work. And I am much more productive, much more active than ever before.
The picture you see is me and my husband on our tandem bike and it was taken while we rode from the NC mountains to the coast in seven days. That’s 503 miles, about 70 miles a day. Ten weeks earlier I didn’t even ride a bike. I started reading YNY in July, loved your ‘voice’ and set the ride across NC as our ‘kedge’, started training eight weeks before and did it! It was an amazing ride and a shift mentally about exercising for my life – simply a monumental event and a monumental book of enlightenment and motivation.
I’m forever changed and it has stuck!
Now I find myself recommending your book to others at least five times a day while work. It’s heartbreaking to see so many people living life without regard to the long-term implications of their choices but your book gives hope that it doesn’t have to be that way.
As both a professional nurse and the creator of a line of heart jewelry dedicated to helping people express their love, since reading YNY I find myself even more passionate about nursing the hearts of others through sharing the philosophy of being younger next year! Thanks Chris! Thanks Harry!