What’s Your Life Tempo – Crescendo or Diminuendo?

I’m a slightly above-average guitar player.  One would hope so since I started playing in 1959.  We’re talking Bill Haley and the Comets and early Elvis time zone, folks.

About a dozen years ago, I discovered a player by the name of Tommy Emmanuel.  If you are an acoustic guitar player or aficionado, you know this native Australian to be unarguably the greatest acoustic player on the planet.  Chet Atkins, a Tommy mentor, endowed him with a Certified Guitar Player designation – one of only four or five such crowns awarded by Atkins before he passed.

I consider Tommy E. my guitar mentor.  I have nearly every one of his CD’s.  I’m learning from his instructional DVDs and tablature books.  I’ve attended every performance he has had in the Denver area over the last 10 years.  I’ve actually met him twice, have two autographed instructional books and have a photo with him (it’s a bad cell phone photo so it’s staying in the camera gallery – trust me on it!)

To give you an idea of this man’s talent (and in hopes of adding you to his fan club) click this link to one of his masterful creations.  As a testament to his talent and popularity, you can find hundreds of YouTube videos of his performances.

One thing I’ve observed is that Tommy seems to live his life in constant crescendo, which for you non-musicians means “an increase in intensity”.  He is a prolific songwriter, active teacher and does over 300 live performances a year worldwide.  Now in his 60’s, he doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Despite being able to do things on an acoustic guitar that are often mind-blowing, Tommy’s credo is “to be better tomorrow than I am today.”  I remember him saying that he doesn’t let a day go by without working on and refining his craft.  This after nearly six decades playing the instrument.

When he is performing, Tommy sometimes will pour on the “crescendo” and leave the planet with his incredible technique, creativity, and mastery of the instrument.  I find myself kind of tuning him out when he soars into the stratosphere.

I like him best when he pours his heart and incredible connection with his music into his softer, slower songs – like “Questions” or “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or “Digger’s Waltz”.  That’s when Tommy reverts to “diminuendo”, which means “a decrease in loudness and intensity.”  He lowers the volume and the pace but without sacrificing the emotion.

I thought of Tommy this morning as I was reviewing some notes I had made in a journal a few years ago while reading Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” Covey asks: “Are you living your life in ‘crescendo’ or ‘diminuendo’?”

His definitions for the terms, however, stray a bit from the musical meanings:

  • Crescendo – greater energy and volume, strength and striving
  • Diminuendo – lower the volume, back off, play it safe, become passive, whisper away your life

Tommy E. may “lower the volume” but he doesn’t back off, play it safe, show passivity and has by no means been whispering away his life. He is one of the most ubiquitous, energetic musicians out there.

But I get where Covey is going with the question.  Are you winding up, or winding down?

I’ve asked myself:  at 76, is sustainable crescendo possible or realistic?  Should I accept Covey’s definition of diminuendo as a given, a necessity, a rite, an assumption, an automatic in my life as many seem to do?

Our culture would have us play to diminuendo as we age.  The signs are all around us: a continuing (but diminishing) emphasis on the unnatural concept of retirement; a proliferation of retirement communities; youth-oriented media and institutions; open and rampant age discrimination.

I’m taking a stand for the crescendo role.

But I’ll admit it’s harder than I thought to make the leap.  Naps come way too easy each day; the drive to seek adventure and newness has a pretty thick crust of “you’re too old” enculturation to cut through.  Learning is as deep but takes a good bit longer.  A look in the mirror in the morning generates the question: “Do I really want to put new strings on that??”

But I’ve “whispered away” enough of my life already.  Got some serious catching up to do – and that takes crescendo.

Crescendo into our 70’s, 80’s, 90’s is possible.  We have a multitude of examples to turn to.  There are the notable outliers like billionaires Ken Langone, T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett that I wrote about in my 7/2/18 blog “Time For a New Cultural Portal”.  But there are thousands of centenarians – the fastest growing segment of our population percentage-wise – that will attest to the validity and empowerment of never-ending crescendo.

When we give in to diminuendo, we might as well – in the words of Dan Sullivan – “send an email to the universe that it can start taking the parts back.”

Tommy’s crescendo attitude and his creative perfectionism are highly inspirational.  But, someday, the universe will take Tommy’s parts back – I hope it isn’t in my lifetime.   But when it does, I’d bet on it happening while he is soaring “off the planet” in one of his musical creations, not slowing down for a minute.

Shouldn’t that be how we all should go?

How’s Your Vitality and Happiness?  Not sure?  Test it!

You may already be familiar with Dan Buettner, National Geographic Fellow, explorer, educator, and author of a very popular book on longevity entitled “Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,”  He’s the guy who assembled a group of demographers and sent them all over the globe to find the areas of the world where people lived the longest.  Then he tossed their findings to a group of statisticians for analysis and correlation.

Five areas on the globe emerged as unique relative to global averages of length-of-life and late-life vitality: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; Lodi, California.

The findings of this extensive effort are widely recognized and quoted.  Buettner has become a prominent name in the growing campaign against our western lifestyle as it pertains to our overall health and longevity.

It’s a worthy read, if for no other reason than to learn what the common factors were across these five Blue Zones that contributed to the extraordinary longevity and amazing late-life health.  I’ll just leave you a hint since I’m sure you will rush to buy the book based on my recommendation (inserting winking emoji!)

Yep, diet, exercise, sleep, low stress and social engagement pretty well sum it up.  There you have the cliff notes on the cliff notes.

With this article, however, I want to call your attention to a fun little tool that Buettner has put out there to test your “true vitality” and “true happiness”. I guess “fun” may not be the best description depending on what your test results are.   But if your results come back “un-fun”, at least the test includes suggestions that will get it closer to fun.

Two tests, eight minutes

Go to this site for the True Vitality Test.  This 3-minute test “calculates your life expectancy and how long you’ll stay healthy” and will “send you personalized recommendations for getting the most good years out of life.”  It’s all kept private.

Then you can go to the True Happiness Test  and do a second test (five minutes) “based on the leading scientific research into well-being” that will “help you improve your environment to maximize your happiness.”  Same deal – a personalized report with recommendations.

OK, it’s all free and it’s designed to lead you to purchase a course that goes deeper in each area.  You know the game by now if you spend any time in the online world.  I’m a thief, out and out.  I steal everything free that I can and never (well, almost never) bite for the “special offer” that follows.

But, I like these two tests and feel they had some substance.  I admit I may have been a bit swayed because I liked the results.  To wit:

  • On 2/9/18, I took the Vitality Test the first time and it predicted my life expectancy to be 92.6 against the average of 76 (which is where I am – whew!).  Since I’m committed to living beyond 100, this test result bothered me.  I looked at the recommendations that accompanied the test.  I found, and added, a couple that I wasn’t doing that made sense.  So when I took the test again on 7/7/18, my life expectancy prospects had improved to 96.9.   Good – getting closer. Note to self:  continue to work on the recommendations.
  • On the same day – 7/7/18 – I took the True Happiness Test and it came back A+, the top possible bracket. It says I scored high in
    • PURPOSE: Your passion, drive, and sense of meaning and connection.
    • PLEASURE: Your everyday positive emotions and experiences.
    • PRIDE: Your sense of satisfaction in the major areas of your life.

Aren’t I wonderful?

I shared the results with my wife.  She gave me the same eye-roll on the age thing that I suspect you may have done.  And on the happiness things, she simply said: “When are you going to tell your face?”

Some work to be done there. I’m just not that exciting to be around and not an exuder.  I guess the internal peace and happiness I feel still has difficulty peeking out.

I suspect that you are highly skeptical about the validity of these tests since they’re free.  I get it.  You get what you pay for, right?  Free always has a hook.

You can easily ignore or spit out the hook on this one.  And you might just gain something.

Look at it this way.  How many eight-minute chunks do you waste every day doing something stupid, mindless or unproductive? Some days, my chunks seem to be legion.  So if I pull one little “pearl of applicable knowledge” out of that eight minutes, I’ve got an ROI.

That’s what I felt I got.  A simple activity that added “1%” to my personal growth.  Do something like that every day and I’ve improved my life 365%.  My life has space for all of that improvement!

How about yours?

If you try it, let me know what you think. Scroll down and leave a comment.

Are You Practicing Self-euthanasia?

Self-euthanasia?  That’s a conversation starter, wouldn’t you say?

I came across the term in a recent Fortune magazine article about mattresses.  Well, actually, the article starts off talking about the severe sleep deficiency that exists in the developed world but morphs into a long commercial for luxury mattresses and new high-tech sleep aids.

Who knew that you can sleep on a hand-stitched mattress made with horsetail hair for which you can pay between $10,500 and $125,000?  If you do, would you drop me an email and tell me about the experience (and put me in your will while you are at it?)

If you sleep on that mattress then you probably are also all over the $500 ergonomic headband, Dreem, that “works with electroencephalography sensors to monitor brain wave, heart rate and breathing during sleep” along with “bone-conduction technology to play sounds to help its users fall asleep.”

Honestly, speaking as a mere peasant, I feel sorry for you – with all this help, you probably have few waking hours in which to check in with your financial advisor.

Well, here’s support for your grand commitment to sleep.  The all-knowing, all-seeing World Health Organization (WHO) found time in their cramped schedules to officially declare sleep deficiency a public health epidemic.

But self-euthanasia?  Sleep scientist Matthew Walker at U. of California, Berkeley apparently believes it and coined the term in his book “Why We Sleep”, saying “Our lack of sleep is a slow form of self-euthanasia.”

Apparently, according to the WHO, the majority of the world’s population regularly clocks six or fewer hours a night, thus putting our health in jeopardy.  According to this collection of experts, lack of sleep increases the risk of obesity, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

I like another description used in the article:  “sleep has become an elusive luxury of our own making” by which we tag “busyness, long hours, and early rising as badges of honor.”  Apparently, we’ve become an “underslept” and “underperforming” world population, and proud of it.

Well, alas, it’s all true and they are painfully accurate.  We are killing ourselves early by not sleeping enough.  Self- euthanasia seems an appropriate term.

But, there’s more.

I’d like to suggest that lack of sleep shouldn’t claim exclusive title to the phrase.

I can think of two other shortfalls that we could safely put in this category:  diet and exercise. In fact, I lean toward these two as having greater self-euthanasia capabilities than lack of sleep.

Perhaps you missed my 5/26 blog where I shared these facts:

  • Two-thirds of the American population is overweight; one-third of American men are obese.
  • Type 2 diabetes, which is largely attributable to dietary habits and was virtually unheard of 40 years ago, has now reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. and is now showing up in children.  According to our own American Medical Association, half of our American population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic and 70% don’t know it. 
  • The five major killer diseases in our country remain unchanged: heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and dementia – all highly attributable to what we put in our mouths.

So, we’re pretty good at self-euthanasia.  We can put together a pretty good trifecta for killing ourselves early: poor sleep, Western diet, and immobility.

I think we can euthanize ourselves quicker by being 40 pounds overweight and watching 49 hours of TV a week (the average for the retired American male) while getting 8 hours of sleep than we will if we are thin, active and getting six hours of sleep.

But that’s just the opinion of a thin (175 and holding, down from 190 a year ago), active (six days a week, 45 minutes a day), plant-eating septuagenarian who sleeps about 6-6 ½ hours (20-year old non-horsetail hair mattress).  I tend to make up the sleep shortfall with mini-naps throughout the day, especially when I’m stretching my brain trying to come up with something of value for this blog.  (Note: 10-minute power nap between the opening and this paragraph).

So I’m beholden to Matthew Walker for giving me a new term to use in my arsenal of diatribes about living to our full potential by being the CEO of our own health.  Our food industry, pharma industry, and healthcare system are doing little to prevent our self-euthanasia.  It’s on us to make it happen.

Don’t fall asleep and miss the opportunity.

 

Subscribe to our weekly articles at www.makeagingwork.com and receive my free e-book “Achieving Your Full-life Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier and With More Purpose”.

 

Do You Have An “Ism” Holding You Back?

Paul Tasner is 72 – and a happy, energized, first-time entrepreneur, a late mid-life escapee from the grasp of corporate life.

Well, actually, an “involuntary escapee.”

Paul was fired from his position as an industrial engineer at 64.  He became an entrepreneur at 66 and is having the time of his life today, at 72, with a successful business manufacturing biodegradable packaging to replace the toxic plastic packaging that is polluting our planet.

I found his story on a podcast with Andy Levine of Secondactstories.org where you can hear more of his story – a story that includes a TED Talk that has gotten 1.7 million views.

Here’s a link to the podcast and one to Tasner’s TED Talk.

An elevator pitch of “isms”

Tasner’s story is a cool one, alright.  His elevator pitch is built around three ism’s; entrepreneurism, environmentalism, and ageism.  Two provided motivation and a path, the third he overcame.

Through with corporate life and uninspired by a couple of years of consulting, he defied conventional wisdom and ageism to become an entrepreneur pursuing a life-long passion.  Today, with one full-time partner and a network of virtual and contract employees and vendors, he has a thriving business mostly operated from home.

Many of us, facing this type of forced transition in our late fifties or early sixties, would enter into a deflated-ego, finger-pointing funk and consider entrepreneurism at that age undoable or, at a minimum, impractical.

I’ve witnessed the usual path taken under these circumstances: an attempt to re-enter the job market with the expectation that one can return to the stature and income just exited.

Ain’t gonna happen!

Hello youth culture, ageism, and a rapidly changing job market.

It’s a time when we face the reality of some “isms” we have operating in our lives.

The biggest and the first to come on stage is our old, persistent friend – ageism, “the last socially sanctioned prejudice.”  Those are the words of Ashton Applewhite, writer, activist and author of a seminal book on the topic entitled: “This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.”

Applewhite makes the point that all “isms” – sexism, racism, feminism, ableism, nationalism, fascism, et.al – are socially constructed ideas.  Few carry a positive feel.  In fact, the dictionary refers to an “ism” as an informal, derogatory noun and defines it as “a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy” often “denoting a basis for prejudice or discrimination or a pathological condition.”

Maybe that’s what makes Tasner’ use of “isms” as inspiration so unusual.  Usually, they are in the way, holding us back, being used as excuses or just blocking us from open-mindedness.

I can think of a few beyond ageism that might fit the roadblock category :

  • Egoism
  • Nihilism
  • Perfectionism
  • Pessimism
  • Privatism
  • Collectivism
  • Communism
  • Fatalism
  • Hedonism
  • Socialism
  • Cynicism

But not all isms are negative.  Here are a few that might work for us:

  • Realism
  • Positivism
  • Self-determinism
  • Skepticism (Caution: use carefully.  It can morph into cynicism)
  • Capitalism
  • Conservatism
  • Idealism
  • Libertarianism
  • Nativism

Need definitions?  This site www.phrontistery.info/isms.html has 234 different “isms” and definitions.  Seriously.

I like that Tasner didn’t let “isms” get in his way and that he went against the grain.  He probably could have taken another “settle-for job” at 40-60% less than his last salary.

Or he could have defaulted to an early, under-financed, life-style restricting retirement.

Instead, he developed a “tude” – he refused to let the lack of role models for what he wanted to do get in the way. He fought through a long list of administrative and bureaucratic obstacles to stand his business up. And he is now passionate about wanting to start conversations about the successes happening in this age group.

Go, Paul!!!

He reminds us that:

  • The largest number of new businesses started each year in the U.S. are started by folks over 50
  • 64% of jobs created in the private sector come from small businesses
  • Businesses started by older entrepreneurs have a 70% success rate vs. a 28% success rate for younger entrepreneurs.

I agree with Tasner on another point in his TED Talk.  You’ve probably seen the lists for “30 Under 30” or “40 Under 40” in mags like Forbes or Fortune heaping accolades on Gen Y high-achievers for their commercial accomplishments.

What’s not right about having a “70 over 70” or “60 over 60”?  Especially, given the aforementioned statistics.

Even mags like Forbes and Fortune make their own subtle contribution to ageism.  I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to change.

But I get it.  An old fart building a successful business making biodegradable packaging doesn’t have quite the pop or glamour of an Uber, AirBnB, SnapChat, Whatsapp or whatever latest killer app your progeny just downloaded on their phone.

Plus, we don’t look quite as good with a stubble beard and in skinny jeans and t-shirts.

But all that doesn’t matter.  Tasner is happy, energized, giving back and combining his accumulated skills and experience to bring a passion to life.  A model for the “third age.”

When we are in the “third age of life”, that period between the end of middle-age and true old-age, the “isms” we carry forward can play a big role in filling that age with meaning and purpose.

Just ask Mr. Tasner.

 

Tasner faced up to quite a few “isms”.  What isms might be holding you back?  Or which ones have served you well?   Scroll down and share your thoughts.

 

 

 

Time For a New Cultural Portal

 

“We either ease into age or we’re disrupted by age.  I don’t like the fact that I’m 82, but I can’t fight it – it’s better that I am 82 than I didn’t make it to 82.  I keep going.  I’m not going to stop.  I still go to work every day.  If I didn’t have to sleep, I’d work 24 hours a day!”

********

“You can be old at 30 or young at 90 – it’s all up to you.  I’ve always been in a hurry. I know I’m racing against time, and now more than ever. But I have not lost my competitive spirit, and, in some ways, it’s personal. I still keep an active office and go there every day. Retirement isn’t an option for me. When you retire you have time to do what you love, and I love to work. “

The first quote is from Ken Langone, the billionaire businessman, investor, philanthropist and one of the founders of Home Depot during his appearance in a podcast with James Althucher.

The second is from a recent LinkedIn article posted by T. Boone Pickens, also a billionaire business magnate and financier, hedge fund chairman and former corporate raider, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Different capitalistic routes to fame and fortune – one central late-life message:

Don’t stop – retirement isn’t an option.

Well, if we are going to splash around in the billionaire pool, then shouldn’t we see where the daddy-of-the-elder-billionaires, Warren Buffett, stands on this retirement thing?  Now 87, he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down.

A little Google research reveals Warren’s “playbook” on the topic of retirement.

His clarifying position on reasons to avoid retirement is simple:

  1. You’re healthy
  2. You won’t have a fixed income
  3. You stay engaged and productive
  4. You’ll continue to mentor
  5. You can leverage your knowledge

We can all agree that not one of these three “elders” needs to work to subsist.  They all could have stopped at the traditional retirement age, but blew past it completely ignoring the signpost.

So what? They’re billionaires!

I personally don’t know any billionaires – never have, most likely won’t, ever.  Like you, it’s difficult for me to relate to what it must be like to be a billionaire.  Also, like you (I’m assuming), it’s not a pinnacle that I will experience.

But what I can relate to is a late-life stage of continued work,  productivity, and contribution and the effect that has on the individual and society.  I don’t see billionaires having a corner on that.

But it is this kind of story that just adds to my amazement at how pervasive and deeply rooted the concept of traditional retirement remains in our culture.  These billionaires represent but a tiny sampling of the vast evidence we have that work is a key factor in longevity and good health.  Given that, where is the sensibility in striving to hasten away from it at an age where natural talent, acquired skills and valuable experience can be mixed together and deployed for the greater good of society?

Time for a new portal?

In previous articles, I’ve referred to traditional retirement as adherence to an outdated, politically-inspired artificial finish line, the model for which has no relevance to our current world.

Permit me to coin another term for it: Wasted Cultural Portal.

Cultural portal?  Whaasat?

Neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez defines cultural portals as:  “culturally defined segments of expected beliefs and conduct.” Martinez offers up a cultural portal list that includes: newborn, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adult, middle age, and old age.

Quite a contrast.  One-hundred-fifty years ago, we had two portals: childhood-adulthood.

Changing technology, longer lives, creative social scientists and enterprising capitalists have stretched the portal list, in Dr. Martinez’s eyes, to seven.

But something happened on the way to the 21st century.  Baby boomers and technology came along and started redefining the gap between portal six and seven, presenting a strong argument for the need for another portal between middle age and true old age along with a clearer definition of true old age.

This new portal is where we find Langone, Pickens, Buffett.

They aren’t wasting it.  Most of us, as we enter or move through this new portal, will.  It’s called traditional, vocation-to-vacation retirement.

They are outliers.

We are safely within the confines of our comfort zone of conventional wisdom, cultural expectations, and comparison.

They have chosen to push all those aside.

A simpler portal concept.

Perhaps rather than expand the portals to eight we should simplify the portal concept altogether.  That’s what Marc Freedman, founder of Encore.org and author of a seminal book on this topic, “The Big Shift, Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife”, advocates.  Drawing from his relationship with and studies of the 1990’s research done by Peter Laslett, eminent British demographic historian, Freedman has championed Laslett’s solution to “the oxymoronic years, the longevity paradox and to much of what ails us today.”

Laslett predicted, because of declining births and longer lives, an emerging life stage he called the “Third Age.”  With it comes a much simpler and appropriate four-portal alignment which Freedman advocates:

  1. First age – childhood/age of dependence.
  2. Second age – adulthood and mid-career jobs.
  3. Third age – new territory between the end of mid-career jobs and parenting duties and the beginning of dependent old age.
  4. Fourth age – age of dependency and ill health, the doorstep of demise.

It’s important to share Laslett’s prescient view on this.  Laslett foresaw a need to clean up some fundamental mistakes resulting from failure to recognize this third age. Mistakes that impact you and me.

“In his view, lumping everyone with grey hair under the same umbrella, and assuming this population in the future will look like and live like those of that age in the past, produced both a miscasting of reality and miscarriage of justice.  And it led to everything from damaged lives to bad policies.  Laslett saw the conventional wisdom – that this population would be a vast burden to society, a huge drain on the medical establishment, an unproductive class inevitably focused on their own narrow needs  – to be a result of ‘the persistence into our own time of  perception belonging to the past.’ In other words, it was scenario planning through the rearview mirror.” (extracted from Freedman’s book).

Voila!! Yet another definition of traditional retirement

There you have it.  Another appropriate definition for traditional retirement:  planning through a rear-view mirror, following an 80-year old script applied to a hugely changed longevity and promoted by an industry largely unchanged from a late-1970’s model of insurance and securities salespeople promoting a labor-to-leisure retirement model based purely on dollars and cents and insensitive to the wastefulness that model encourages.

Beware of being consigned to “mass indolence”

Laslett’s “third age” represents a liberation of those of us in our (in Freedman’s words) “ – sixties, seventies and beyond from the psychic strain and misclassification and from the very real  consequences of being assigned to ‘mass indolence.'”

Laslett writes: “The waste of talent and experience is incalculable.”

We need look no further than to our cratering healthcare system, the massive expansion of elder warehouses, the unchanged message of the financial planning industry, rampant ageism, and our youth-oriented media and culture to realize that Laslett was spot on.

What’s your third age going to look like?

At 76, I’m about five years into my true “third age”.  Yep, about a 20-year late start following 40+ years of thrashing around in mismatches in the corporate and self-employment world, operating according to cultural convention instead of my essential self.

Not recommended.

There are days when the regret over a late start and thoughts of what more I could have done will occupy more mental bandwidth than I should permit.  But with a strong belief that my fourth stage will be beyond 100 (see my earlier blog on this topic)  and each day functioning at a higher energy level and with more motivation than I recall from any other stage of my life, I feel my third age holds much promise as it slowly unfolds.

At this age and stage, you learn that today is what you’ve got, nothing else – and that success in life ultimately emanates from gratitude, a quality you will hear expressed frequently by the aforementioned billionaires.

That stirring you feel might just be your third age trying to move from cocoon to butterfly.  My encouragement to you is to listen, not hasten it, or cover it over with cultural constructs, comparison, and comfort-zone living and thus kill the butterfly.

We are anxious to hear what thoughts you have about a “third age” sequence in your life.  Email me at gary@makeagingwork.com or scroll down and leave a comment.

You can still access my free e-book “Achieving Your Full-Life Potential” by subscribing to my weekly newsletter articles at www.makeagingwork.com.