You might recall the popular movie “The Bucket List,” in which two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.

I recently received an email from a loyal reader asking if I had a bucket list and if I might write a column on the importance of having such a list because “many seniors just live one day at a time with no long-term plan.”

Well I don’t want to be among that group, and I hope you don’t either, no matter what your age. As I like to say, don’t count the years, make the years count. I’m not ready to hang it up yet and doubt that I ever will be. I still have too much to live for. I was about to go on a round-the-world trip with my wife in late March and April, but the trip has since been canceled due to the coronavirus. One of my bucket-list items was to visit as many countries as I could.

My good friend Lou Holtz told me that years ago he wrote down 107 things that he wanted to do in his life. He wanted to go to the White House, be on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, see the pope, win a college football national championship, coach at Notre Dame, make a hole-in-one in golf and a lot of other crazy but achievable things. Once he accomplished all 107 things, what did he do? He wrote down another 100 items, and he’s checking off the items on that list too.

Some people might get turned off by creating a bucket list -- thinking it’s a little morbid -- or by creating a list that is too difficult to achieve. I disagree. I believe having a bucket list keeps you motivated and goal-oriented. If nothing else, it makes you think about what you want to do in your life.

I remember taking a road trip with some friends years ago in which we took turns describing our perfect day. The range of ideas was remarkable, and often not what we would have predicted from each other. Our slogan from that trip became “When was the last time you did something for the first time?”

I’m a big believer in writing myself little notes to remind me of my bucket-list items. For example, when I started out working as an envelope salesman, I dreamed of owning a factory. It became a reality for me at age 26. Another bucket-list item for me was selling to the No. 1 envelope user in the Twin Cities, General Mills. I even put a note in my hat. It took a few years, but I knocked that one off too.

When I decided to write my first book, I put a note on my desk that said: “Be a New York Times best-selling author.” That happened with “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.” That feeling of accomplishment led me to write seven more books, including my latest from January of this year, “You Haven’t Hit Your Peak Yet!” That title came from a note on my bathroom mirror, reminding me that I still have mountains to conquer.

Having a bucket list drastically improves your life. It gives you a sense of purpose. I know it helps my time management because it makes me focus on my goals. I become more productive and efficient.

A lot of times people are too busy plowing through their daily to-do lists and lose track of what they really want to experience. Creating a bucket list can happen at any time in your life -- young or old. It’s never too late to create a list of things you want to achieve. And while no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending.

Mackay’s Moral: Make the rest of your life the best of your life.

Don Sutton, the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, was occasionally accused of altering baseballs to create more movement on his pitches and make them harder to hit. When asked if it was true that he used a “foreign substance” on baseballs, Sutton replied, “Not true at all. Vaseline is manufactured right here in the United States of America.”

Cheating and integrity are back in the news, big time, as we hear about the Houston Astros and possibly other Major League Baseball teams having used technology to steal signs of their opponents, causing irreparable damage to the game. After an extensive investigation, it was determined that the Astros' video replay room was decoding opponents’ pitching signals using a centerfield camera and relaying the information to their batters via various signals.

Like the college admissions scandal, it will have far-reaching effects for years to come.

While it should be easy to verify credentials and performance history online, it should not be easy to lie about test scores or use technology to misrepresent one’s accomplishments. But it happens all the time.

The statistics are alarming when it comes to cheating on tests and homework, plagiarizing and copying papers from the internet. A stunning 95% of high school students in one survey admitted to some form of cheating during their high school years.

I recently heard from a college professor who was trying to figure out how to deal with a former student who posted his old tests (as well as other professors’ tests) online, and the current students who benefitted from ill-gotten answers. The proposed punishments went from losing course credit for current students to taking away the perpetrator’s degree. That’s a high price to pay for an already expensive college education.

Ask any human resources manager how many resumes contain a little -- or a lot -- of creative but not quite accurate self-promotion. Then ask them how many of those cheaters land the job. Or if they actually got hired, how long it took to expose their lack of qualifications.

As any businessperson knows, when you cheat at business, you lose business.

In sports, there is a referee or umpire to make sure participants play by the rules, and consequences of violations are usually immediate. But it’s different in business. Regulations and watchdog groups do their best to guard against malfeasance, but those decisions are rarely swift enough to benefit affected customers. Cheaters can drag out complaints for months or years of court proceedings. And the beleaguered client often feels doubly cheated when they have to wait for resolution.

We’re way beyond the butcher with his thumb on the scale here. Little acts of deception often lead to bigger acts. As Sir Walter Scott wrote, “Oh what a dangerous web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

My advice is to play by the rules, no matter how hard or expensive or lonely it may be. Set your code of conduct higher than the rules, so your customers know that you will never cheat them and that they can trust your word and your products and services. Your reputation as a person and a businessperson should line up. And if all else fails, ask yourself, would you want someone to treat your grandmother this way?

Mackay’s Moral: If you have to cheat to get ahead, you’ve already lost.

When you are a youngster, you never think about tomorrow. You take tomorrow for granted, assuming you have an endless string of days ahead of you. In short, you put things off. You are not really aware of the shot clock of life.

As the years fly by, you begin to become more aware that there isn’t always going to be a tomorrow. You understand and appreciate today more than ever.

Having this mindset gives us a sense of urgency. We can’t continue to put off important things until tomorrow. We have to devote time to our goals and dreams today.

Perhaps the best example I can give of someone who won’t let the clock run down is my close personal friend Sid Hartman, who turns 100 on March 15. Sid, a legendary sportswriter, has been a mainstay in Minnesota sports for a span of eight decades. He is, in every sense of the word, a real buzzer-beater. By most human standards, Sid is in triple overtime.

Sid never played any of the games he writes about and never made it to college, much less journalism school. His success is rooted in pure doggedness.

He still writes a column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune three times a week, a job he’s had for 75 years. Plus he has commented on sports on WCCO Radio for 65 years, and broadcasts the “Sports Huddle” show every Sunday morning. He continues to build his immense network, which includes every athlete or team owner who’s ever been part of Minnesota sports, plus many national sports superstars and coaches. You don’t pass through the Twin Cities sports scene without getting to know Sid Hartman.

He owns the most important advantage of sports reporting: one of the biggest, most reliable networks of sports sources of any journalist in the country. Once you’re in Sid’s file, you don’t ever get cut. You’re in it for life.

Sid’s network is second to none. In my entire career, I have never once heard a successful person, like Sid, say he or she regretted putting time and energy into building a network of contacts. You must always have your antennae up. Never pass up an opportunity to meet new people. I call this “dig your well before you’re thirsty.”

I was privileged to co-chair huge events for Sid’s 85th and 90th birthday bashes, which brought in people like former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, University of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, to name only a few.

And Sid fondly refers to all of them as “my close personal friend.” Sid Hartman is in a league by himself.

There are more than 7.6 billion people on the planet, and few work harder than Sid, even at his age. He reminds me of Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn, who was asked to give the commencement speech at his high school. He said, “My advice is to work half days every day. And it doesn’t matter which half -- the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours.”

Sid is also one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met. He is the only person I know who can follow you in a revolving door and still come out ahead of you. He hates to lose. Sid understands that competition is healthy. It keeps you sharp. It makes you better. Competition drives people to work harder and dig down deeper to deliver more than they ever thought they could.

Sid may never make it to the Baseball or Football Hall of Fame, but if they ever get around to a Close Personal Friends Hall of Fame, he’ll be the first one they call. Talent is a gift, but like many gifts, we often take it for granted. If Sid Hartman had applied equal energy, dedication and perseverance to any other career -- sales, for example -- I’m positive he would have achieved the same great success he attained as a sportswriter.

I’m not quite to Sid’s age yet, but I’m trying to maximize my shot clock before the game is over. Give me the person who uses 110% of what they’ve got, like Sid, and they’ll find a way to get the job done when no one else can.

Mackay’s Moral: Happy birthday, Sid, and many more!