7 Things You Can Learn from the Death of James Gandolfini

By Jo Ann LeQuang

James Gandolfini was reserved, shy, and soft spoken. He was no raving psycho rock star; he seemed sort of like us, only bigger and more successful. If the tabloid press is to be believed, he sometimes misused drugs and alcohol. Judging by his physique, he overate. He loved motorcycles and in 2006 was in an accident that injured his knee and postponed—but did not prevent—the filming of that quirky, open-ended last episode of "The Sopranos." He got a divorce and a couple of years later remarried. He was by so many accounts ordinary—and yet there was something about him that was extraordinary.

There are some amazing things we can learn from James Gandolfini’s death at age 51 from a heart attack.

Jo Ann LeQuang runs the site EnduranceWalker.com that can help couch potatoes become former-couch-potatoes.

Hush

Don’t be afraid to be the quietest person in the room. Matt Lauer once said that every time he interviewed Gandolfini, it was as if Gandolfini did not want to be there. Not that Gandolfini was rude—he was just naturally reserved. In today’s look-at-me social media culture, Gandolfini stood out because he wasn’t seeking the limelight. He was a likeable man, in part, because he allowed you the space to like him rather than demanding our attention. When "The Sopranos" abruptly faded to black in that last episode, it left all us wondering if Tony Soprano had been killed. To me, it seemed obvious Tony was killed that night, but David Chase left us some little frayed hopes that maybe Tony was alive. Maybe the show would come back. And now we know it won’t.