Jack LaLanne: Leadership by Living

        Jack LaLanne came into my consciousness at a very young age.  I saw him for the first time on TV when I was six or seven years old, growing up in Summit, New Jersey.  It was the early Fifties.  I remember him being in a jump suit and using a chair as a prop to do exercises.   By the time I grew up and entered adulthood, he was a fixture of our society.  It was as if there was never a time before Jack. 

       Imagine my delight, then, when I was the General Sales Manager of the Mazda dealership in San Luis Obispo and Jack walked onto the lot.  I knew he had come to the county a few years earlier but never thought I’d meet him.  But Jack loved cars and he loved to talk and there is no better place to indulge both propensities than on a car lot.  I got out of my chair and walked outside to meet him.  He looked me straight in the eye, gave me a big smile and gripped my hand with his own, which was small, bony and powerful.  He wanted to look at an RX-7.  He wasn’t really in the market but he just liked cars and happened to be driving by.  I was immediately struck by how easy he was to talk to.  He had enormous energy and charisma but not the kind that made you reluctant to approach.  I’ve always been into health and fitness so I asked him a number of questions about food.  He said, “Eggs are getting a bad rap.  Egg whites are the finest protein known to man!  If you don’t like the yolk, at least don’t stop eating the whites!”  So I was off and running with my egg-white only homemade omelets long before they became popular in restaurants…because of Jack.  We had a great conversation and he invited me out to his house.  “It wouldn’t hurt if you bring one of these,” he said, pointing at the sports coupe.  “Just for fun, you know!” 

      I really don’t know why he took a shine to me at that moment, other than my curiosity about health, but I certainly wasn’t going to turn down his invitation.  I drove up to his house on the slope in Morro Bay a few days later.  His wife, Elaine, was there and was very gracious.  Besides Jack’s energy and friendliness, the thing that impressed me the most was his living room.  It was packed with work-out machines.  There was barely a stick of furniture.  He undoubtedly had another room, a den, for the normal living room functions…but this room spoke with a megaphone about how committed he was to his own health.   There was a terrific view of the Pacific ocean and also a telescope set up so he could watch the whales when they were migrating, which they were at the time.  He gazed through and exclaimed, “There they are!”  He insisted I look, too, and there certainly were California gray whales headed south in their annual ritual.   But the whales were just a bonus.  I was blown away by Jack’s level of commitment to practicing every day what he preached with such gusto to the nation and the world.  He talked proudly about how he had invented these workout machines.  Before him, there was nothing but dead weight.  

       I didn’t sell Jack a car and didn’t care.  It was a kick just to be around him and feed off his energy.

       Years went by and I would see him every rare once in a while having dinner with Elaine at Dorn’s Restaurant in Morro Bay.   We’d wave and shake hands and that would be it, not wanting to disturb each other’s meal.  Then, sometime in 2000, I walked into Dorn’s one Tuesday mid-day with a client.  The client was in town for a 3-day personal retreat, which is the crown jewel of my leadership consulting practice (called The Ultimate One on One, see my website www.bobkamm.com).  We had spent most of our morning among the secluded sand dunes of Montana de Oro, an 8000 acre state park, and then taken the short drive over to Morro Bay for lunch.  Jack was seated alone near the entrance eating a waffle, a bowl of fruit and a couple of eggs.  He was actually such a small man, that you could have walked right by him if you didn't recognize that impish face of his. I stopped and threw my hand out to him.  He looked at me with his hallmark mischievous smile and grabbed my hand.  He said, “How ya doin’?  Haven’t seen you in a long time!”  He didn’t remember my name but who cared?  I was wearing a t-shirt and as he shook my hand, he reached forward with the other one and tapped my bicep and said, “I like that.  You’ve stayed with it.  That’s great.”  I introduced my client, who was truly star struck.  I said, “Jack, are you still working out?  You look great.”  He answered, “Two hours every day, including my swim.  It’s a pain in the ass but you gotta do it.”  He paused and then said, “I work at living every day.  Most people work at dying.  Any stupid ass can die!”  We all laughed and I thought he’d probably used that line a thousand times but what a gift he had of making us feel as if it was the first time he’d ever said it.  I have quoted him a number of times in seminars and speeches.  He made a world of sense in very few words.  He was the ultimate salesman.  Slogans just leaped from his lips and they worked because he was living his pitch.  People talk about Leadership by Example.  Jack was so into his own realm, that term can't touch the truth.  His was Leadership by Living.  It was as big as leadership gets.

    From that encounter forward, I saw him a fair amount.  He said, “Tuesday is Elaine’s golf day.  She plays golf.  I eat at Dorns.  I don’t care much for golf.”  We had a number of discussions that lasted on average perhaps five minutes because of the courtesy we wanted to show each other around meal time.  But those five minute segments were so packed with wisdom, they were like a post –doctoral course in life. 

     He told me how he had been a sugar addict as a kid and was crazy and violent.  He told me how he heard Paul Bragg speak.  Bragg was the father of fasting and arguably the father of nutritional awareness in the US and it was Bragg who gave him the information he needed to change his life.  But the way he did it, committing himself to a wholly different way of living from what he had known—that was all pure Jack. He taught me how to work out different sets of muscles on different days.  He taught me to drop the weight on the machines as I aged and increase the reps.  He taught me that I could absolutely be vital into my nineties and perhaps even beyond. 

     One day he had just returned from a trip to France with Elaine.  He told me that her parents and his had grown up in two little villages in the South of France a stone’s throw from each other but didn’t meet until they were in the States.  The trip had been a birthday celebration…I think it was his 90^th. I know for sure his birthday was September 26^th because he told me.  I learned all these things from Jack and more and I didn’t even know him well enough to say he was my friend.  But I will proudly claim him as one of my greatest mentors…and no doubt the most efficient in how he got the lessons across.  He was a gum-ball dispenser of wisdom.  You didn't have to give much to get something sweet and worth chewing on.

     The last time I saw Jack, I was seated in one of the booths at Dorn’s having lunch with another client.  He had just finished his own meal and came walking by.  “Hey, good to see you!” he said.  He stood at the end of the table and chatted with us for a moment.  As he was leaving, I thanked him for stopping and slapped him on his left lat, just behind the arm.  It was like a slab of beef.  I remember thinking, “Wow, there’s the payoff to a lifetime of working out.  The guy is past ninety.  He’s walking without a cane.  He’s got enough muscle there to do almost anything around the house.  What vitality!”

       Over the last year and a-half, I hadn’t seen him at all.  I’d heard that he had an operation on his heart.  Of course that worried me.  He was amazing but he wasn’t invulnerable.  From time to time I’d ask one of the owners of Dorn’s if they’d seen him lately.  The visits were becoming fewer and further between and I feared he wouldn't make the milestone of a 100 he hoped would be another part of his legacy. 

       It pains me to think he died from complications associated with pneumonia.  This was a man who knew the blessing of breath, being the avid swimmer he was.  It doesn't seem fair.  He should've gone during a nap after a workout as another local icon, Dr. Paul Spangler, did when he was ninety-five.  But Jack was very clear with me more than once that we get to choose how we live and may be able to shape the odds about how we die, but in the end, it's the guy upstairs who makes that call.

      So I won’t be seeing Jack any more at Dorn’s.  I won’t get any more of those high-protein 5-minute lessons.  It’s sad to lose a mentor.  Jack was a force of nature.  He was like these mountains in San Luis Obispo.  They’re so formidable, you just assume they’ll always be here.  But above all, Jack was a great leader.  He led our country into a higher consciousness about how to stay fit and live a long, vital life.  He practiced what he preached.  He was consistent.  He never tired of teaching, which is one of the reasons he continued to perform outrageous feats every time he added another decade to his time on earth.  He purveyed his message with humor and gusto. He was caring and compassionate and just so darn encouraging.  He stretched our sense of what was possible.  He had great entrepreneurial spirit and success, from gyms to juicers.  Leadership by Living.  He certainly mastered it and gave us all something to think about.

    I love the folks at Dorn’s, but it’s going to be hard not to feel sad walking in there.  I guess the one consolation is, from the busboys to the owners, I'm sure they all feel the same way. 

C 2011 Bob Kamm