After riding the gravy train for more than ten years in the mortgage banking industry, author Tony Caico’s industry and his life met at an intersection and crashed. His worth was so closely tied to what he did for a living that he no longer knew who he was. After some careful soul searching, his healing began, and he put his life back on track.
Using the back nine holes of a golf course as a guide, Caico uses his experiences to help others analyze what they need to do better to truly enjoy the second half of their lives. Each golf hole represents one of the following nine key life components: family, health and wellness, knowledge, career, spirituality, leadership, relationships, self-improvement, and happiness. In My Back Nine, Caico synthesizes current thinking and research on careers, evaluating strengths, and formulating life plans to offer a guide to making changes for the better.
The essential qualities needed for success in golf—preparation, focus, patience, discipline, integrity, and honesty—are the same qualities necessary to be successful in life. My Back Nine shows how both life and sports can often create real winners on and off the playing field.
What do we need to do better to improve ourselves and truly enjoy the second half of our lives? The good news is that we have a major advantage over a simple golf match. The “turn” (or evaluation period) for us is the first step, and it can last as long as it takes to understand our past and get prepared for our future. We have time on our side. Time to analyze what happened in the early stages of our lives. Time to look at our conditioned behaviors, our past mistakes, our untimely decisions, and our true strengths and weaknesses. Time to really examine our front nine, the decisions we have made, and the paths we have chosen. Time to take a deep dive into our philosophic minds to find our true calling in life. After all, very few individuals find true happiness at a young age. It takes time, experiences, and deep self-understanding to realize one’s true potential. Many of us have to take the wrong path sometimes to realize that it’s the wrong path. The real question is, what are we going to do about it? What are we going to change?
TONY CAICO is an accomplished sales executive, manager, speaker, and presenter who has worked in sales management for more than twenty years. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, and is the proud father of five incredible children.