If Jerry Whitlock were 20 years younger, he'd crisscross Georgia making dozens of sales calls in a 14-hour day, lunch on crackers and Cokes in his car and be lucky to catch glimpses of his family. He'd borrow against his mother's car to finance inventory at his company, EPM, a Stockbridge-based seals and gaskets supplier and manufacturer. He'd forgo his family's groceries for a week to fill an order that could pay off big, or maybe not at all. If Whitlock were 20 years younger, he'd let the clocks on his office wall - mercilessly ticking away time in five different zones - drive him to work harder and faster.

"If I was 20 years younger," said Whitlock, 47, "I'd build EPM into a billion-dollar company." Whitlock turns down risky orders and doesn't use a day planner to plot out workdays that are always shorter than eight hours. His pulse doesn't race faster than the second hands on the five wall clocks. This low-stress lifestyle has been difficult for Whitlock to adopt. Taking gambles is part of his nature, as it is for many entrepreneurs. They often risk everything - financial stability, personal relationships, credibility and pride - to give an idea a go.

That certainly was the case with Whitlock. But as his gold-toned medical bracelet reminds him, he's had no choice but to change. Nine years ago he was told that if he didn't slow down, his heart condition would cut his life short. He ignored the first warning. It took a second near-heart attack, less than a year later, to convince Whitlock that he needed to reduce his appetite for risk. "I've now learned to press 'pause,' " he said. That's partly true. Whitlock does go to the house on Lake Oconee every weekend with his wife, Rita. But his laptop goes, too. Rita's just glad he's no longer murmuring sales calls in his sleep, or focusing so tightly on EPM that he forgets to pick up their two daughters from school.

"I didn't know my limits, but sometimes you just have to stop," he said. "I do still have an internal need to win, though." It's the same feeling he had as a kid on the family basketball court in Jonesboro, shooting hoops against his older brother. "I was always a step down," Whitlock said. "Eventually I got better, faster and stronger." But basketball wasn't going to take him anywhere after high school graduation in 1971, and he figured college would be a waste of time and money. So Whitlock went to work for Custom Seal in Hapeville in 1973. By 1978, he had his own business: AAA Seals and Packing Co. In 1990. He merged it with Austria-based Seal-Jet USA and took that name. "Profit became a way to keep score," Whitlock said. The seals and gaskets manufacturer and supplier - for everything from shower heads to hydraulic presses - grew to 64 branches worldwide and 300 employees.

"That's when it really started getting fast-paced," Rita said. "There was no break." When Whitlock wasn't in the car or at his desk on the phone, he was on a plane - to the Bahamas, to Austria, to India. It was after one of these trips in 1992 that the first near-heart attack happened. "It was his body saying that he had to get some rest," Rita said. "It was a slap in the face."

But the sting didn't last long. Whitlock got sucked back into Seal-Jet USA, and by early 1993 he was in the hospital again. "I didn't have the mental ability to hand things off to someone else," Whitlock said. The doctor repeated his warning and forbade Whitlock to play golf, even with a cart, because the short walks would overtax his heart. Whitlock finally decided that winning wasn't worth dying. So he left Seal-Jet USA. Because he couldn't turn his back on the seal business entirely, he started EPM shortly after. Most of the orders from his 1,500 customers are taken over the Internet and handled by his staff of five. "I've stepped over the edge several times, and I'll never do it again," Whitlock said. "But if I was 20 years younger... ."