Steve LaForte has learned an important lesson: One cannot competitively meditate.
One can, however, practice meditation while competing in a triathlon in 105-degree heat to propel oneself across the finish line.
“I thought I was toast,” LaForte said, recalling that event in Canada in which his finishing time qualified him for the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. “Everyone was dying in the heat. I got off the bike, strapped on my ‘Zen running hat’ and was passing people I shouldn’t have passed.”
LaForte is the chief legal officer and executive vice president of corporate affairs of Cascadia Healthcare, an Idaho-based senior care and living company that he joined nearly seven years ago.
His interest in Ironmans extends back to his college days, when he and some friends, hanging out on a Saturday afternoon, saw an event on TV. He got serious about training for his first triathlon about seven years later and still laughs when he thinks about how naïve he was. A triathlon is a sporting competition in which participants swim, ride a bike and run. An Ironman Triathlon is considered one of the most grueling single-day sporting events: Participants swim 2.4 miles, ride a bike for 112 miles and then run a marathon.
“I have a sense of competitiveness that mirrors a sense of wellness,” said LaForte, who, at the time of this interview, had a 2,557-day, or more than seven-year, daily running streak.
“Every day at some point, I lace up my sneakers and hit the trails,” he said.
Competitiveness aside, the physical exercise and push for endurance gives him time to take a mental break. He begins each day with a guided meditation and has found that the combination of exercise and meditation helps him be better.
“I’m a competitive person, and I wanted to be the best meditator I could be, but I learned that’s not what it’s about,” he said. “My brain is always on, and if you’re always on, you can’t get away without thinking about the next thing. It’s about being present and putting aside the baggage of the past and the worries about the future and just moving in the present.”
LaForte grew up in a small Connecticut town where his mother worked in a bank and his father ran a barber shop. Dinners were around the family table where conversation focused on the people in town — who came into the bank or who came in for a haircut.
LaForte and his wife, Laura, have two daughters and a son.
“On social media, everyone’s the parent of the year,” he said. “You think, ‘Am I doing this right? Did I go to enough soccer games? Did I work too much?’”
Daughter Isabella graduated with her bachelor’s in social work and works at a Cascadia facility. Talia, meanwhile, is studying to be a marine biologist, and the youngest, Santo, is a freshman at Boise State.
“For all my imperfections as a parent, you step back and realize, these are good kids,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a perfect parent. Assuming your motivations are good, and you’re a good person, you do the best you can, and it all works out.”
Resume
1986 Earns bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University
1990 Adds juris doctorate degree from GW Law
1998 Joins The Nathanson Group law firm as an associate
2010 Joins New Hope Healthcare Systems as General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer and rises to General Counsel & EVP of Business Development
2011 Becomes CEO and President of Videll Healthcare
2014 Opens consulting firm Prossimo Ventures
2017 Joins Cascadia Healthcare; named Chair of the Idaho Health Care Association’s Legislative Committee, becomes liaison to AHCA
2020 Earns Value Based Healthcare certificate from Boise State University’s Value Based Healthcare Program
2023 Named Cascadia’s chief legal officer and EVP of corporate affairs amid company expansion
From the July/August 2024 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
