Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 144
health fitness industry. I was elected its first chairman of the board and remained in that
job until my term expired on July 1999. Cid A. Galindo, Inc. (CAG) was retained as
manager of the association and under its able direction THRSA progressed to be an
effective voice for the industry, a source of educational seminars for its member clubs, a
trading forum for vendors, and a networking circle for owners. CAG continues to be the
executive arm of THRSA even today.
It was an inspiring experience to work with entrepreneurs and managers in the creation
of a substantially new industry with such great implications for the health of Texans. All
of them were pioneering captains who created a whole new genre of business activity.
Among them was Kenneth Cooper, the author of the book who gave form to my
exercise habits, and whom THRSA honored with its first lifetime achievement award in
1966. My former colleagues on the board also honored me with the same award as I
departed my functions at the statewide convention of July 1999 in San Antonio.
Honor, fame and glory can reward accomplishment but, if terminated as such, they are
ephemeral and devoid of the link needed to improve one’s station in life. If these
rewards are not transmuted to a material elevation of one’s standard of living, at least to
a threshold of acceptable family security, comfort and affluency, they may actually
eventually embitter the persons who, having obtained them, are unable to materially
improve the quality of their lives. I have seen many worthy people who performed long
and short-term deeds that resulted in great honor and temporary fame and, at least in
their eyes, lasting glory, but who never permutated them into a better standard of living.
Over some period of time, far from being happy, they carried a chip on their shoulders
that made them sour to the world. I was fortunate to overcome the blows of the late
1980s and survive to try again. My incursion into the fitness business was one of my
salvations. It provided me more intangible rewards and recognition than I deserved and
it also helped me financially. Above all, it gave me an instrument to hold my family
together and to provide us with a common focus.
Glory and public honor are more important to persons who have already fulfilled their
material goals for security and comfort, such as capitalist captains of industry,
government leaders in democratic countries and communist despots or other dictatorial
tyrants whose ultimate purpose becomes wielding power. If someone has gone past the
stage of fulfilling material needs and is now at the helm of an organization through
which power is exerted, whether in a capitalist organization or a government position,
then glory and honor are the only incentives left. Without money, however, no one has
power. The Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung was fond of saying that power emanated
from the barrel of a gun. But before he could buy guns he had to have money.
Corrupting the great American invention of money making, he took all the money in
China for this purpose, even though the vast majority of his subjects had none, and
were not permitted to even think about it. He claimed that most of his subjects agreed to
“better Mao than the Japanese or English,” but he never ran a poll. The fact is that fame
and glory in most cases are an expression of power, and power does not exist without
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