Thanks to three-straight wins from 23XI Racing to start the 2026 NASCAR season, including the Daytona 500, the Michael Jordan Media Renaissance is upon us and buried deep within is a critical lesson for midlife men everywhere.
You just need to watch one live trackside interview with the 63-year-old MJ after one of these big racing Ws and you’ll see what I mean. But first, let me walk you through how we can all, once again, dream we groove and dream we move, like Mike:
When Michael Jordan retired from the NBA for the third time in 2003, he was walking away as the most famous basketball player ever and the soon-to-be wealthiest ex-athlete of all time. He starred in Space Jam and Saturday Night Live. He appeared in iconic commercials for McDonald’s and Nike and Gatorade and Hanes and more.
He was building a billion dollar empire with the Jordan brand. He was a household name in countries that didn’t even care about basketball. He’d made enough money to live a hundred lifetimes comfortably and he’d accomplished every single thing a man who plays basketball and has worldwide ambition could hope to accomplish. Most of you can probably recite his stats offhand: six NBA titles, six-time champion, six-time Finals MVP, five-time league MVP, ten-time scoring champ and on and on.
But here’s something you’ve probably never thought about.
When Michael Jordan retired from the Wizards for the third and final time he was 40-years-old.
That’s it. Eight years younger than I am now. Fifteen years younger than you if you’re in your mid-50s and you probably aren’t even thinking about retiring.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot as we witness what I’m calling the Michael Jordan Media Renaissance on the heels of his team’s incredible NASCAR success.
Because what do you do at 40 when you’ve already climbed the mountain? When the thing that drove you to become the best in the world is still wired into your DNA, but there’s no more championships to chase?
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General Douglas MacArthur famously said, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
But if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you knew that the king of the fadeaway was never going to just fade away. Not permanently.
Competitive men on the level of MJ can’t simply turn that switch off. They need an outlet. Or many outlets. Jordan famously gambles wild amounts. He famously golfs with insane rules and challenges. And he famously golfs and gambles at the same time, but that was never going to fill the grand canyon-sized competitive hole in his soul.
So what do you do as a basketball one-of-one icon when that same internal engine that fuels greatness has nowhere to go? You buy a basketball team.
In 2006 he became the minority owner of the Charlotte Hornets (then Bobcats), before becoming the majority owner in 2010 (changing back to Hornets later). On paper it made perfect sense. He knew the game better than anyone. He had the money. He had the stature.
It didn’t work. Bad drafts. Weak rosters. Coaching changes. He sold the team in 2023 with a horrible record of 423-600 and only two playoff appearances while he was involved.
The search to find something to get his pulse racing like his NBA heyday continued. He became an avid sport fisherman, with his 82-foot Bayliss boat, Catch-23, competing in big game tournaments, even winning the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament (I’d never heard of it, but I guess it’s a big deal).
I have no idea what level of joy that brought him, but a picture of MJ on his awesome boat would occasionally pop up on social media and it looked cool. Still, it was a fringe activity, not at all on par with winning titles under the spotlight of the NBA.
But recently, MJ found an arena to compete in that has brought him right back to the forefront of sports: NASCAR.
Full disclosure: I am not a diehard NASCAR fan. I’m barely a casual NASCAR fan.
I check in casually. I like watching the last 20 laps of big races.
And that’s when I saw him on TV at the end of the Daytona 500 last month because the driver of his team, Tyler Reddick for 23XI Racing, won.
And there was Jordan, jumping around like he’d just beat the Sonics in ‘96.
Then Reddick won the 2nd race of the season last weekend.
Then he won the 3rd race of the season on Sunday, which is the first time a driver has ever won three races in a row to start a NASCAR season.
And after that win on Sunday, the interview with Jordan brought me all the way back to his playing days. Watch it here.
There he is at 63-years-old, walking with a hop in his step, smiling like he’s 24 again. Giving all the credit to his driver and to his co-owner Denny Hamlin. Jordan said all the right things, deflecting praise, talking about the team.
But look at his face. That is not nostalgia. That is not a bored billionaire passing time. That is a competitor who found another game to win.
That’s what’s stayed with me.
When was the last time you felt like that? The last time you were jacked up by a huge win you were part of? Or even led?
Most of us have regular jobs. ‘Regular’ meaning the world is not televising our performance. There are no cameras waiting for us in the hallway. No trophy to hoist if we do well.
But that feeling is still available.
Watching that interview and seeing MJ’s giddy body language made me realize how important it is for guys over 40 to not give in to the inertia of slowing down towards complacency; to not let the competitive juices die; to never give up looking for things that get your blood flowing.
The lesson here is not that we all need to become global icons. It is that coasting is dangerous. The older we get, the easier it is to settle into maintenance mode until one day you look up and realize you haven’t felt that edge in years.
Keep in mind though, whatever that “thing” is, it’s not going to come looking for you. You’ve gotta go find it. Join a new team. Start something that scares you a little. Take on a challenge where the outcome isn’t guaranteed. Feel the energy of winning and losing and competing again. I did, with competitive swimming, and it was a personal game changer (you can read my column on “Rediscovering My Prime” here).
Look, none of us are Michael Jordan. He is a one-of-one human talent.
But the drive that kept him chasing new arenas and new titles at 63 is available to all of us.
That’s why the advice from 1996 is the same 2026:
You Still Need to Be Like Mike.
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Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
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