You knew him as Apollo Creed.
I knew him as the voice
that stayed with me
from childhood into adulthood.
Four words that never left.
"There is no tomorrow."
In Rocky 3,
Apollo is training Rocky
for the fight of his life.
Rocky is distracted.
Not present.
Going through the motions.
Apollo stops everything
and delivers those four words
like a diagnosis.
"There is no tomorrow."
I have put things off.
Waited for the right moment.
Told myself tomorrow was the day.
And I have watched years pass.
I have seen what tomorrow does
to the dreams that live inside it.
The future and the past
only exist in the mind.
They are constructs.
What is real is this moment.
The one you are in right now.
Ring fighters understand this.
Every second counts.
Hesitation is the difference
between what you wanted to do
and what you actually did.
Life is the same relentless opponent.
It demands your full attention.
Not tomorrow's version of you.
This version.
This is different
from what I usually write about.
But some lessons
do not belong to any one field.
They belong to anyone
with a dream sitting in a tomorrow
that keeps moving further away.
Whatever you are building.
Whatever you are waiting to start.
There is no tomorrow.
Be present.
Rest in peace, Carl.
Mo Johnson, MD MBA is a cardiothoracic surgeon and the founder of GPe Research. Field Notes are short dispatches from the clinical AI accountability frontier, published alongside the MedicoVigilance™ newsletter at medicovigilance.org.
Follow the work on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mo-johnson