How a brush with death shaped my long game

Last February, I opened my laptop and began writing a farewell letter to my 18-month-old daughter.

“Dear Bea,” I began, “I want you to know how much I love you…” Then I carefully organized the passwords to my computer, email, and online brokerage accounts. My wife and I sat across from each other on the couch in stunned silence.

A few hours earlier, an emergency room doctor had told me that I needed emergency brain surgery to remove a “rapidly enhancing lesion” the size of a walnut in the center of the cerebellum, just above the brain stem.

At the time, doctors didn’t know what it was. They explained that it could either be a stage 4 glioblastoma (a terminal brain tumor) or an abscess that could rupture at any time. If it was an abscess, its proximity to the brain stem meant that an infection would likely be fatal as well.

I texted friends and family to share updates and love, my parents boarded a flight west, and my closest friends stepped up to help my wife with whatever she needed.

That night, a few hours before my brain surgery, I lay in bed unable to sleep. I remember thinking about the ironic reality of my situation. Over the last few years, I had built my professional identity around the idea of ​​long-termism. I wrote a weekly newsletter about long-term investing – compounding investments over decades. I loved to quote investors like Warren Buffett. He would say things like, “Our favorite holding period is forever.” I really believed that, too. I believed in the idea that all good things last. time…

But I’m 35 and I’m out of time. No more compound interest, no more long-term investing. To begin with, our company’s tagline, which I wrote, was “The Future-Focused Investor.”

For me, that future was falling apart. Time was running out. It was at that moment that the idea of ​​long-termism or the “long game” began to seem almost embarrassing, or even ridiculous. It seemed an act of arrogance. The future cannot be earned; it is something we are blessed to experience.

In truth, I had never even considered this possibility. I had not modeled this scenario as a tail risk in my life outlook. Of course, we all know intuitively that life is precious and that it can end at any time. We are all familiar with the cliché: Life is short, live in the moment — but how often do we actually think about this until it becomes important?

Not at all. I took my youth for granted.

Even if I survived the surgery, I was told, brain metastasis meant almost certain death. The emergency room neurologist told me, somewhat indifferently, that I might have three months to live. Maybe six. I thought, I won’t live to see my daughter’s second birthday. For the first time in years, I cried.

Before this, I had never had any major health issues. But the truth is, I wasn’t living a completely healthy long-term lifestyle. I was constantly stressed at work. I stopped exercising. I was glued to my phone and the markets. We had had a rough year and that was all I could think about in the months leading up to this. I would dream about the stock market and wake up in a panic.

Although I held long-term ideals in my professional and public life, in reality I was living the exact opposite lifestyle. I was focused on the short term – on everyday success. I was avoiding friends, my marriage was strained, and things were falling apart.

Then, one afternoon in January 2023, at the height of my confusion, the symptoms began. As I went to the hospital before a second MRI revealed the brain lesion, I emailed my friend Tom about my situation. A few weeks earlier, I had confided in him about the stress and anxiety I was feeling at work. The former finance man was forthright, if not philosophical: “These shocking events are coming right on schedule,” he wrote to me. “It’s not going to be fun, but it might be a relief. It’s this horrible reset that’s going to prepare you for the stage of true creative synthesis.”

The morning of her surgery, I tried to finish the farewell letter I’d started the night before to my daughter. The clock was ticking. Parents, I ask you: What would you write to your 18-month-old the day before she dies? Tell them you love them, of course. But what else? How do you pack a lifetime’s worth of knowledge into one letter?

I wanted to write about creativity. I wanted to write about risk and how to stay safe. I wanted to write about money, investing and safety. I wanted to write about heartbreak. I wanted to give her a manual for life. As a parent, you implicitly understand this: the only thing that matters in life is the safety of your children. And if you don’t protect them, you’re doomed.

That morning, I hugged and kissed my daughter. They shaved my head and prepared me for surgery. I hugged my wife. I called my parents.

I messaged my closest group of guy friends, trying to keep a sense of humor. Take care of your family, I told them. “Or… I’ll come haunt your ass as a ghost.”

And that was it. The anesthesiologist came into the room. “Please count backwards: 10, 9, 8…” darkness.

In my mind, I had traveled a million miles, and then a funny thing happened.

I woke up.

The good news is, sometimes it works.

The craniotomy was a major operation, removing a large chunk of skull from the back of my head, spreading my brain open with forceps and removing the lesions.

I woke up in the intensive care unit with a surgeon standing there.

“Is it cancer?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

The doctor explained that the pathology results needed to come back, but he was certain that it was a rare brain abscess, a strange infection that occurs in one in a million cases.

Ultimately, and it took days, which seems simple in hindsight, the report was conclusive: it was an infection, not cancer.

I later learned that a typical abscess takes about 10 days to burst. Mine had been in my head for at least four weeks. No doctor could explain it. There was a time bomb in my brain that would not explode. Maybe the detonator had malfunctioned.

Tests over the months following the surgery didn’t provide many answers. No source of infection was found. HouseOne of the nurses told me that, but I was at a loss for words. I had seen dozens of doctors, but no one could explain why this had happened, or why I was still alive.

Does it matter? As my friend Tom said, perhaps this was the “freaking reset” I so desperately needed. It was a wake-up call, and a truly dramatic one.

So here I am. Call it a miracle. Call it luck. My heart is beating. My daughter will be three in July. The sun is shining. Or it’s cloudy. It doesn’t matter. If you’re reading this, just stop for a moment. Take a deep breath. You are alive. In August, my wife and I are closer than ever and we are having our second girl.

When asked how this experience has changed me, I would simply say that I am more determined to play the long game.

Playing the long game isn’t just about structures and processes and systems designed to withstand the long game. It’s about the joy and gratitude of being able to play the game in the first place. For me, up until that point in my life, I had made short-term decisions that led to stress and burnout. And looking back, it’s likely my “always-on” lifestyle that led to my near-death experience. Stress and short-term games literally nearly killed me.

My focus was all on the wrong things.

After this experience, I actively shifted my focus. I made both personal and business decisions to create an environment where the most important things in life could thrive after I was gone. I read more, talked to new people, and put more effort into my relationships. I no longer thought about getting through the day, but about what I could build for the long term. I put down my phone and made new connections. I asked myself, “How can I set up my life today to ensure that my children, and their children, are blessed?” In business, I asked myself, “How can I set up my business today to ensure that it will still be around 50 or 100 years from now?”

In essence, I took a step back and thought about what was really important to me: my family — my wife and kids — and about building a business with a more thoughtful approach to longevity. This required change, and it was hard. That’s the point. Playing the long game isn’t easy.

In the end, the reason I play the long game is simple: the long game isn’t actually that long. teeth Life is short. We want to enjoy it. But we only have a limited amount of time to make decisions and create structures in our life that will maximize the chances that things will go well in the future. That’s why we need a strategy, a playbook, to help us play the long game.

I am writing Long-term I’m writing a column. want We often play the long game in business, investing, and life, but we don’t. Our culture is obsessed with the short term. With metrics. 24/7. Breaking news. It’s hard to rise above the conflict and make the tough, consistent decisions that create magical power, but I know there’s a desire to live more intentionally this way.

Long-term The column features lessons and ideas inspired by authors, thinkers, entrepreneurs, investors, artists, therapists, Buddhists and philosophers. It’s about people and companies that have done great things over the long term. So much of our popular media tends to focus on overnight successes and “30 under 30” lists. This column is different. It’s about how to act decisively in the moment while still thinking long term. As an investor, all I think about is how to make decisions. today What strategies will work over the next few years? I have some strategy guidelines that I’d like to share with you.

Last year I realized something: Long term isn’t really about the future. It’s about the present. It’s about consistency and discipline. It’s about giving yourself a reason to be in the game for the long term. So why do I play the long term game? Because I can. Every day is a bonus. I’m so honored to be here.

I wish you all good health and good fortune.

Until next time.