I see myself at age 39, working late in my offices at 303 West Madison in downtown Chicago, on the 19th floor. The staff has gone home. I’m still grinding—working harder and longer than everyone else, as usual.

It’s January 4, 1991. Snow drifts past the big dual-pane office windows.

On my desk is an invitation to a late New Year’s Eve office party a competitor is throwing in the East Loop. I’m debating whether to go. Parties weren’t my thing in 1991—and they aren’t now. My brain hurts at parties. I’m a one-on-one person.

Across the street looms the under-construction skyscraper I’m the managing partner of: One North Franklin. I’m tense as hell. The curtain wall—the skin of the building—is badly behind schedule. If the project is late, I stand to lose $8 million in guarantees.

So 1991 me paces the office like a caged animal.

Back in 2014, I’m thrilled to discover this time-machine compartment of my brain—one that’s always been there, waiting for me to open the hatch and fire it up. I can easily read my 1991 mind:

Dammit. Is the GC still working? Should I chew his ass out now for screwing up my building—or wait until Monday?

It’s worth noting: I’d been having conversations like this with myself long before my spiritual awakening in 2010—before Italy, before the ET-angel encounters, before the meditation work that eventually took me to Antarctica. (If you want the wider arc of that journey, it lives over on DreamShieldPlanetaryMeditations.com.)

So answering myself now feels oddly natural.

“It won’t matter,” I say to my 1991 self. “Nothing you do is going to save this project. Go home to your wife and kids.”

1991 Ken stops dead mid-pace.

“Where did that voice come from?”

He hurries to the door and peers into the empty hallway.

“I’m in your head,” I say.

“Gloria said I was working too hard and would go nuts.”

“Your wife is right about the working too hard part,” I reply. “But you’re not going nuts.”

A phone call from a client snaps the connection. An hour later, I’m back—this time riding along in his emerald-green Jaguar as he drives home to Lake Forest.

“I’m back,” I say—nearly causing him to swerve off the Kennedy Expressway.

“Who are you—and how are you inside my head?”

“Who do I sound like?”

“Dad?” he asks, uneasy.

“Way off. I’m you—Ken Sheetz, 23 years in the future.”

He laughs nervously. “Time-traveling from the future? Prove it. Tell me something no one else could possibly know.”

I don’t hesitate.

“You and Gloria had a terrible fight on your honeymoon night when she didn’t want sex.”

He goes quiet.

“Jesus. You are me. Or I’m losing my mind.”

“I can prove it another way. Tomorrow—January 5, 1991—the Redskins beat the Eagles 20–6. The final score comes from a third-quarter field goal. Randall Cunningham throws for exactly 205 yards.”

“What’s Google?” he asks.

“A company that will become the source of almost all human knowledge.”

He shakes his head. “If that game happens exactly like you say, I’ll believe you.”

“It’s as real as that Jaguar you won’t be driving much longer.”

“What—am I going to crash tonight?”

“Worse. You’re heading for a complete financial meltdown. In a year, you’ll be returning that Jaguar on foot.”

The unraveling comes fast. Commercial loan failures. Banks seizing properties. By 1994, nearly every Loop building goes back to lenders. One North Franklin becomes the poster child. Barclays Bank loses $80 million—and makes an example of you.

“You’ll survive,” I tell him. “But not as the man you are now.”

By 1992, I’m broke. By 1995, I’m making films. By 2002, I’m in Hollywood. The money sucks—but I’m happier than I’ve ever been. (That pivot—and everything after it—connects to the broader body of work at OveractiveImaginationPictures.com.)

Gloria leaves when the money disappears. The divorce is brutal. The kids are hurt badly. One nearly doesn’t survive their teenage years.

“This isn’t a warning,” I finally tell him. “It’s a gift.”

I urge therapy. Anger work. Gentleness. Putting family first. Leaving the skyscraper deal early. Taking cash—any cash. Starting a small corporate film company. Naming it BuzzBroz.

I tell him the truth I never wanted to face:

The wealth was a trap.
The rage was inherited.
The collapse was the opening.

He tries to fight it. Of course he does. 1991 Ken is ruthless—Chicago real estate tough. A man built out of pressure, swagger, fear, and a need to prove something to a drill-sergeant father who never offered the kind of love you can actually stand on.

And then 1991 Ken—my 1991 Ken—does something surprising: he gets creative.

“What if I change the past,” he says, “and a new future splits off? No paradox. You’re just one version of my 2014 possible selves.”

“That’s actually quite possible,” I say. “A 21st-century theory called multiverses.”

As he pulls into the driveway of my Lake Forest mansion, I push one last time—faster, like the signal is fading.

“Be kinder to Gloria. Get out of the deal before spring. Take whatever you can get. Cash in the bank is king. Don’t wait for pride to do your accounting.”

“And therapy,” I add. “I mean real therapy. I didn’t do it until after the divorce, when I almost killed myself from suicidal depression.”

“Christ,” he says. “This gets grim.”

“Yes,” I say. “But you’re made of indestructible stuff. The question is whether your wife and kids have to pay the price for your anger.”

There are entire libraries on what trauma does to families—and how anger gets handed down like a cursed heirloom. If you want a grounded, mainstream overview of how therapy helps people rewire emotional patterns, the American Psychological Association’s psychotherapy resources are a solid place to start.

He threatens to bet big on the Redskins. He threatens to invent time travel and beat my ass. We laugh—tearfully—because even at my most intense, the heart was still there.

Then he opens the front door.

Gloria and our two kids—Jon and Janelle, ages 12 and 9—run to greet him with hugs and kisses.

And in that instant, both versions of me know:

It’s not too late.

I end the meditation in tears.

This really happened(s). This is not fiction.

I save(d) a family. My own.

And I still had time for my daily meditation hike in Sedona. If you’re into meditation as a practical tool—not as a personality—some of my calmer work lives at CoolestMeditationEver.com, and my civic sanity project lives at PoliticalCoolDown.com.

Peace.