Fifty+ Essentials

10/04/2026

I need some help from my first responder and military friends, and especially from your wives and partners.

The success of After the Adrenaline has surprised the hell out of me. I wrote that book because after more than three decades in law enforcement, and a heart attack that nearly killed me, I wanted to understand what years of living inside that world had actually done to my body.

But something has happened during the months I've been advertising the book that I didn't expect.

The wives started reaching out.

At least a dozen women have contacted me to tell me they bought After the Adrenaline for their husbands. Some came back later and thanked me because it helped him understand things she had been watching for years.

And somewhere in those conversations, a lightning bolt hit me.
Who is looking out for her?

I've been with an amazing woman for more than forty years. Jill lived through every part of my career with me. She saw the good, the bad, the missed dinners, the late-night calls, the dangerous assignments, the things I brought home with me whether I realized it or not, and eventually the transition into the life we have now.

I know that life affected her mentally and physically because I watched it happen. And today, many of the things I wrote about in After the Adrenaline, training, walking, sleep, nutrition, hydration, stress management, are things we work on together. Different bodies. Different experiences. Some very different issues. But many of the same foundations.

That got me thinking about something I should have thought about a long time ago.

We were the ones wearing the uniform, but we weren't the only ones living inside its impact zone.

Our adrenaline came from the job.

Hers often came from not knowing.

So I started looking at what was out there for the women who spent ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years beside these careers. There is research. There are studies. But I kept coming back to the same question that drove After the Adrenaline: where is the investigation that starts with the people who actually lived it and then asks what we can do with what we learn?

Not just what happened to her.

What happened to her health? Her sleep? Her stress? Her body? Her own career and identity? What happens when menopause lands in the middle of everything else? What did she sacrifice? What did she gain? What made her stronger? And after the kids grow up and the career finally slows down, how do we make the years ahead healthier and better than the ones behind us?

That's the next investigation.

The Other Side of the Adrenaline.

And this time, I need the women to tell me where to look.

I've put together an anonymous survey for the wives and female partners of current and former law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS providers, military service members, corrections officers, and others who have lived this kind of life.

It should take about ten minutes. No names. No email addresses. I won't know who answered, and I don't want to. Answer as much as you want. Skip anything you don't want to answer. One word is fine. A paragraph is fine.

I don't want to tell you what I think happened.

I want you to tell me what happened. The data is the evidence.

Then I'll do what I did with After the Adrenaline. I'll follow the evidence wherever it takes me and start figuring out what we can actually do with it.

Guys, don't scroll past this one.

Hand your phone to your wife.

Wives and partners, if this sounds like your life, I could really use your help. And if you know another woman who has lived it too, please send it to her.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3pbxz6L-DfHHQBBWFn5U2QQcf6ibWcNLd-mTG2Y3mL0rH9w/viewform?usp=header

You spent a lot of years having our backs.

Maybe it's time somebody had yours.

09/08/2026

08/19/2026

07/12/2026

For a glimpse of what the book After the Adrenaline is about, I wanted to give the Author's Note. Also, the paperback is currently trending as the #9 top seller for Heart Disease on Amazon. So it's apparently in the right category.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I remember sitting in the police academy in early 1989, listening to people come in and talk about pensions, retirement, and financial planning. They were talking to a room full of twenty-somethings about something thirty years away, and most of us—including me—tuned it out. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like it applied yet.

Looking back, they were right to have those conversations. What they got wrong was what they didn’t say.

Nobody stood in front of us and explained what the job was going to do to us. Nobody talked about the way you would have to rewire yourself just to perform at the level expected. Nobody talked about chronic stress, about sleep that never fully recovers you, about hydration, nutrition, and physical training not just as performance tools, but as survival requirements. The financial conversations felt irrelevant at the time. The ones that would have actually mattered were never had at all.

Now I have children in the military and in first responder roles, and nothing has changed. They still get the pension talks. They still get the retirement planning. And they are still not being told what a full career in these professions will take out of them physically if they don’t actively manage it.

That’s a disservice.

These are built professions. They are some of the most meaningful, demanding, and rewarding careers a person can choose. They require a certain wiring to do them well, and they give back a sense of purpose that most people will never understand. But they come with a cost that doesn’t show up right away.

That cost accumulates.

If you’re early in this career, understand this now. The job is worth it. But it will take from you in ways nobody is explaining to you up front. The stress isn’t occasional—it’s constant. The sleep isn’t just disrupted—it’s broken. Hydration, nutrition, recovery—those get pushed aside because the job comes first. And your body will let you get away with it for a while. That’s the trap.

You’ll feel fine. You’ll perform. You’ll think you’re handling it. You’ll think you’re different.

You’re not.

What’s building underneath that performance is cumulative. Chronic cortisol elevation. A nervous system that never fully stands down. Inflammation that doesn’t shut off. Sleep that never truly restores you. None of that shows up in a single shift or a single year. It builds quietly over time until one day it doesn’t stay quiet anymore. And when it shows up, it doesn’t ask permission.

I had strong numbers. I trained hard. I did everything most people would point to as healthy. And I still ended up on a table with a surgeon fighting my arteries for three hours. The only reason I walked out is because I had built a foundation years before I needed it.

Most people don’t.

Most people wait until something breaks.

This book is for the ones at the end of the career trying to find their way back, and for the ones just starting who think they have time.

You don’t have as much as you think.

The work you put in now—the training, the recovery, the discipline—isn’t just about performance.

It’s about survival.

Build the foundation now, before the bill comes due.

07/30/2025

💩 Digestive Advice for the 50+ Club:
👉 Always know your bathroom’s location. Trust me—you’re on a timer now.
👉 Respect fiber. It’s the unsung hero between chaos and control.
👉 Never trust a fart. Ever. It’s a loaded decision.

Getting older isn’t glamorous, but it is strategic.
Plan accordingly. 🚽😅

07/18/2025

💪 Day one was tough. Day ten was tougher.
🚫 But quitting was never an option.
⚡ LC2 didn’t just support the journey—
🛣️ it changed the destination.

07/17/2025

This weeks Perspectives from Fifty+ Essentials with Colin McDonough and Bill McDonough. Stay Strong!

07/10/2025

This weeks Perspectives from Fifty+ Essentials

🎯 Moderation isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom with abs.
💪🍷🍩 One LC2 scoop, one glass of w**e, one solid workout. That’s balance.