Sadly for Stalk, dividing his time into buckets makes it hard to do the free association that gets him his best ideas. And China, it turns out, is too big a subject for Stalk to study from the outside. "I've gotten to the point where I realize that if I don't go to China and spend time on the ground, I don't have much more to say," he says. But that is exactly the kind of work he's sworn off doing. "Four years ago, I would have said, 'Hot damn, I'm on my way!' Now I think the issue is either fish or cut bait. I haven't decided what to do."
It's the ultimate Hobson's choice. Stay healthy -- but miss out on one of the great intellectual challenges of our time -- or go and risk losing it all. "He talks about a new life, but it's a veneer," says O'Leary, his friend and former client. "He's still 90% the old George. He's doing it to the limit that he thinks he possibly can and get away with it."
While Stalk was in the hospital, a doctor told him he'd used up nine of his nine lives. But it's only cats that have nine lives. Consultants, George Stalk would like all of us to think, have 10.
Jennifer Reingold is a Fast Company senior writer.
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