Wealthy? Check! Healthy? Not so much!

Maybe you saw the news article in your local paper this week from The Washington Post announcing that for the first time in a decade, the United States was crowned the world’s most competitive economy by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

I wasn’t on their invitation list so I didn’t know it was going on, or who makes up the forum.  Without my help, they scored the U.S. at 85.6 out of 100 against metrics that included infrastructure, information and communications technology, macroeconomic stability, health, skills and labor market.

Whew!  So glad we were able to claw our way back to the top.

But wait.  Three paragraphs later we see that the Forum also pointed out that the U.S. “is far behind most advanced economies in health, with life expectancy six years behind competitors Singapore and Japan.”

Maybe if we knew how to get healthy, that 85.6 could have bumped up against 100.

The fact is, we do know how to get healthy but it’s apparently just not a priority for most of us – until it is.  That’s usually after the fit hits the shan.  Then we are “all in” – and desperate to catch the horse long after it left the barn.

We know all we need to know

OK, I’m going to sound like a broken record so I hope you’ll forgive another rant or two.  Repetition is still the mother of learning last time I checked.

Fact:  The five major killers in the U.S. are heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and dementia.  That hasn’t changed in decades, other than some repositioning in the stack ranking.  Diabetes is now slowly working its way to the top as the biggest health threat.  Our own American Medical Association recently announced that half of our American population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic and 70% don’t know it.  OUCH!

Fact:  All five are, for the most part, lifestyle diseases and are subject to intervention.  Genetics plays, at most, a 30% role in the development of these diseases.  In the words of Dr. David Katz, a physician at the Yale School of Medicine, and founder of an organization called the Academy of Lifestyle Medicine:

“We already know all that we need to know to reduce, by 80%, the five major killers in our country.  We don’t need any more fancy drugs or equipment or more Nobel Prizes.  We know all we need to know today.”

 Fact:  the meteoric rise in U.S. average life expectancy appears to have peaked, actually going backward in 2015.   We’ve gotten very good at finding ways to kill ourselves early in the face of all that we know about how to do the opposite.

Fact:  We’re getting bigger, but not any taller.  This at the same time that Americans now spend more eating out than they do cooking at home.

 

Fact: The Standard American Diet (SAD) is deplorable and is killing us early.  According to the website Forks Over Knives:

  • 63% of America’s calories come from refined and processed foods (e.g. soft drinks, packaged snacks like potato chips, packaged desserts, etc.)
  • 25% of America’s calories come from animal-based foods
  • 12% of America’s calories come from plant-based foods
  • Unfortunately, half of the plant-based calories (6%) come from french fries. That means only 6% of America’s calories are coming from health-promoting fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.

There’s a good reason we abbreviate standard American diet to S.A.D. The standard American diet leads to standard American diseases that lead to standard American deaths.

Fact: Our healthcare system cares little about what we eat and our food industry cares little about our health.  Need proof?  (1)  Has your primary care physician ever initiated a conversation with you about what you eat? Not!  There’s no box to check for that category in his electronic medical record.  (2) Burger King just confirmed that meat and cheese cause nightmare diseases.  The fast-food chain just launched the “Nightmare King” sandwich – a quarter pound of beef, a chicken filet, cheese, bacon mayonnaise and onions –  which they openly claim is “clinically proven to induce nightmares.” 

Fact:  We’ve gotten very sedentary.  The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics just this year announced that only 23% of Americans meet national physical activity guidelines which, for adults, are 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.  Do the math:  that means we can’t find .007% of our week to get our heart rate up.   But we can find, on average 49 hours (29%) to veg out in front of the TV or on social media.  A lack of physical exercise is now being equated to the equivalent of having a major disease.

What Can We Do?

Few things are simpler and more impactful than taking charge of our own health.  The biggest overall killer is healthcare illiteracy combined with complacency and lethargy, all of which are addressable.

The formula is simple – but not easy, considering the deeply ingrained habits we function in.

Here’s an optimized plan as offered up by Dr. Henry Lodge, co-author of the best-selling book “Younger Next Year.” It’s referred to as “Harry’s Rules”:

  1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life
  2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life
  3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
  4. Spend less than you make
  5. Quit eating crap!
  6. Care
  7. Connect and commit

Simple, but not easy.  SAD if we don’t.

How To Make Aging Work

I added to my hero list this week.

During another boring 24-Hour Fitness workout this week, my aging I-pod Classic served up a James Altucher podcast interview with William Shatner of Startrek, Boston Legal, and Priceline fame.

Now 87, Shatner looks 20-years younger and is living like his hair is on fire (yes, he still has plenty)  – writing books; doing a country-western album, a blues album, and a Christmas album; touring internationally; producing, directing and performing on NYC Broadway stage; speaking.

It’s obvious Shatner doesn’t spend much time thinking about his endpoint. He’s too busy.

He subscribes to George Burn’s viewpoint on dying:

“How can I die?  I’m booked”

And

“As long as you’re working, you stay young.”

One of Shatner’s opening comments was that “all the 87 year-olds I know are dead. They didn’t follow my advice – I told them ‘don’t die’, but they died.  Why did they die?  Because they changed their mind about living”.

No mystery to him about it.  “They decided they were through.”

He’s far from through.

Try the schedule described above and see if you could make it happen, at any age, let alone 87.

It strikes me that Shatner epitomizes the merits of refusing to retire and of continuing to work. He validates what we need more of to sustain – in fact, build – our vigor and vitality as we enter and move through the third stage of life.

For example:

  1. Doing something we’ve never done before. Just a few Shatner examples: c&w, blues and Christmas album; interview and dinner with Stephen Hawkings shortly before Hawking’s death; writing a book.
  2. Staying physically active e.g. touring globally. I’m sure he does more physically – he appears to be in better shape than the loose-cannon, Denny Crane, in Boston Legal.
  3. Challenging ourselves mentally. Shatner is no slouch here.  Honestly, I bailed on the podcast when Altucher added world-renowned theoretical physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku, to the conversation and the three of them went off into “woo-woo” land talking about quantum physics, string field theory, hyperspace and the “physics of the impossible.”  Shatner’s mental acuity and ability to not only engage in this type of dialog but to lead it, was amazing.  What happened to the myth about declining brain-power as we age? (BTW, Kaku is no spring chicken – he’s 71).
  4. Always having something that isn’t complete. It’s apparent from Shatner’s conversation that he doesn’t hesitate to start something new while he has other things going.  He’s not concerned about each activity being perfect – in fact, admits to a number of stinkers in his prolific list of projects.  For him, it’s just constant forward movement. No living from the rear-view mirror for him.

On this last point, I’m reminded of one of the principles espoused by world-renowned entrepreneurial/business coach Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach.  Sullivan opposes completing one’s life.  He argues persuasively that our culturally-infused notion that it’s important to “wrap up one’s life” and “leave a legacy” is like planning for a funeral and is counter-productive and life-shortening.

This leave-a-legacy mindset is a product of what Sullivan calls one of the many “general narratives” that our culture instills in us that rob us of the potential we can bring forward into this third stage of life.  It’s a general narrative that says “I’ve only got 70 or 80 years on this mudball so I should start winding down as I approach that period of my life.”

That’s giving up on one’s uniqueness and on one’s self as a creator.  It’s apparent that Shatner and Sullivan don’t buy into that general narrative.

At 74, Sullivan’s whole idea for his future– and for the professional and personal lives of his coaching students – is an “ever-expanding incompleteness” as opposed to bringing life to some sort of legacy.  He teaches “always expanding one’s present into a bigger future” with “each tomorrow starting at a higher level.”  Any legacy – if it were important – will take care of itself.

We waste energy worrying about when the end is coming. It’s not for us to determine – nature owns that and has her own unpredictable timetable.

Sullivan intends to leave a total mess of in-process creative projects for his team to straighten out or complete when he checks out – a rather refreshing new spin on the concept of a legacy.  I suspect this is a concept that resonates with Shatner as well.

Shatner, Sullivan and probably hundreds or thousands of other third-act participants are busting several myths (or “general narratives”) that need busting.   To name a few:

  1. That creativity dies as we age.
  2. That brainpower deteriorates as we age and senescence is automatic.
  3. That “labor-to-leisure” retirement is good for the body and the soul.
  4. That unhappiness accompanies growing old. (NOTE: the nadir of unhappiness is age 47 – see this article.)

Fascination and motivation lie available for the taking for all of us by creating every day; by striving to make our future bigger than our past regardless of age.  It starts with rediscovering what we are uniquely gifted to be able to do and linking that with a vision and sense of purpose for this third act.

I’ll wrap by adding to the overuse of an overused but important cliché:

It’s never too late to start, but always too early to quit.

Do you have a unique giftedness deep inside that cultural expectations/general narratives have stolen or covered over – one that you can resurrect and apply against a vision for your future that is bigger than your past?  Does the concept of an “incomplete life” versus a “legacy” resonate with you?   Your thoughts on either or both are welcome – scroll down and give us your thoughts.

Retirement: Where Good Habits Go to Die and Bad Habits Flourish.

 

 

For starters this week, click on and read this humorous article “What Day Is it? The Muddled Confusion of a Recent Retiree.” 

New blogger and recent retiree, Howard Fishman, takes a very refreshing swipe at the realities of transitioning from labor-to-leisure, vocation-to-vacation.

Fishman makes a seminal statement in the article (the bolding  is mine):

“Since retirement, I find myself awash in days bearing little difference from days that came before. Few benchmarks punctuate time. Though busy with a hundred things on an inexhaustible “honey-do” list, nothing seems particularly celebrated if compared to the highs experienced by successful career accomplishments. There’s no discernable movement on my emotional Richter scale.”

I’m reading between the lines on Fishman’s article. This is a guy with an exemplary track record in executive management at the Fortune 500 level. Could we agree that he is whimsically lamenting a lost identity? From Richter scale strokes to no Richter scale. From a schedule with substance and impact to a – hmm, what schedule?


Many enter retirement because they’ve somehow been convinced to want to get away from having their personal Richter scale moved, even though, in the long run, positive Richter scale movement is certainly healthier than no movement.

 

Let’s be honest, most people retire “from something”, rarely “to something”.

Unless, of course, the interpretation of “to something” is sleeping-in, marathon TV, garage cleanup, dog walking and golf with the same un-benchmarked cronies every week.

As a culture, we are deeply brainwashed to believe that retirement is a life-portal entitlement – or obligation. To not retire is to be tagged as “unfortunate”; to retire early is to be tagged with a “badge of honor.” To admit that you are “flunking” retirement will rarely leave the lips of a retiree, especially from the male-type.

To denounce retirement is blasphemous. It’s an attack on one of the strongest – and biologically/emotionally/physically unsound – mindsets in our culture. Take this from a seasoned blasphemer.

Lost identity may be one of the most common, most unplanned-for, and most devastating of the myriad downsides to a traditional retirement.

Six months ago, you were:

  • “Somebody” to a large group
  • Titled
  • Respected
  • Turned to for advice
  • Tightly scheduled with deadlined projects
  • Learning something new continuously to thrive in your job
  • Bringing in a paycheck as a sign of achievement.

Today:

  • You are “somebody” to spouse and progeny, and not much more.
  • Your title? Retired – which derives from the French verb “retirer” that means to “retreat or go backward”.
  • Still respected – but, as with “somebody”, that circle of respect has shrunk mightily. Face it, the people who respected you at work forgot about you 60 minutes after the last piece of retirement cake was served. They are moving on. And, to your surprise, they aren’t calling you to “stay in touch” which they promised to do as they sucked down your retirement cake.
  • The advice you are asked for now? Probably not brain stretchers. Things like “what’s the best way to clip the dog’s toenails” or “who do you recommend for a tree-trimming service?” or “would you recommend a 20-degree or 23-degree loft hybrid?”
  • You’re mostly unscheduled. After all, that’s why you retired, right? For the freedom of controlling your own time. The honey-do list is done by noon, and you find yourself wandering through the garage looking for something to break so you can fix it. No magnitude, no hard deadlines to challenge your talents, lots of open time to be sucked into intellectual pursuits such as the 49 hours-per-week the average retiree spends zoning out in front of the TV.
  • Learning? Be honest, you’re taking a sabbatical from learning, which, for many, becomes permanent. A been-there, done-that attitude prevails.
  • No paycheck – and the question “what am I worth now?” It’s all going out, nothing coming in.

The emerging dark sides of retirement that are the consequences of the above are well documented. I’m not going to bother you with them again. Click on my May 14 blog “Avoiding Retirement Chaos” for a refresher.

BEWARE the free time.

A study from Taiwan said the key to a happy retirement isn’t how much free time you have, it’s how you manage whatever free time you have. Free time -the very thing we covet in moving to retirement – is a Trojan horse. Free time can lead to loss of good habits which in turn, over the long term, can lead to early mental and physical deterioration.

Good habits like: regular exercise; social engagement; healthy diet; continued learning; service to others, spiritual development.

An unplanned, no-purpose retirement can move us to the “live short, die long” lifestyle that pervades our society, where post-retirement health and vitality gradually fade away and prolonged frailty sets in. It’s largely a choice resulting from the misuse of our time and true talents during this period between middle age and true old age.

 

A new prestige

As Boomers move into and past middle-age, we are seeing a gradual shift away from the notion that retirement makes sense. I predict that no-retirement/un-retirement or, at a minimum, semi-retirement will become the new prestige.

Howard Fishman perhaps illustrates the new model – one unwilling to “go quietly into the night nursing home.”

Six months into his “traditional retirement”, he admits to needing a “do-over” and a “decompression from the whirlpool of work.” He has realized that “it’s less about how to fill the days and more about self-fulfillment to be found in those days.”

And his do-over will include “finding that old box of Crayolas and start to draw outside of the lines – just for spite and just once, for kicks – like that crazy Kindergarten kid who imagined that the sun and planets all revolved around him.”

Ah yes – resurrecting the innate creativity siphoned off by 30+ years of meeting cultural expectations.

For the Howard Fishman’s, it’s more likely to be a third-act lifestyle filled with:

• Mentoring, not movies
• Teaching, not TV
• Learning, not Lazy-Boy
• Biking, not bingo
• Philanthropy, not pickleball
• Vocation, not vacation
• Contrarian, not conformist
• Playground, not park bench

Good habits, leaving no room for bad habits.

Retired? Relative to the above thoughts, how has your retirement gone? What can you share for prospective or early retirees that can help them make this “third act” life portal the happiest, most fulfilling and productive time of life? Scroll down and leave us your thoughts – or email me at gary@makeagingwork.com. Or better yet, call me 720-344-7784 – I’d love to chat with you about this.

Regain Your Brain – for $79!!

Would $79 and 12 hours be too much for you to spend to avoid Alzheimer’s?

If so, kill this blog and return to – whatever.

Too close to home

Alzheimer’s recently became a reality for my wife and me when the wife of a dear friend, half of a close 40-year friendship, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

We feel fortunate that it hasn’t occurred in our immediate or extended family, and that, so far, this is a single incident within our reasonably normal-sized circle of friends.  Nonetheless, this single incident has validated all that we’ve read or heard about the devastating impact of this brain disease – and more.

The speed with which this has transformed a beautiful, wonderful woman into one that we can’t recognize or who can’t recognize us has been stunning – and deeply saddening.

Following this development, I have had my radar up for any information related to answers to solving this devastating disease.  What I have found, until very recently, has been pretty grim.  This summarizes some of what I’ve found:

  • It’s generally accepted that 1 in 3 of us will develop Alzheimer’s in America.
  • While medicine has made significant progress against heart disease and several types of cancer, progress against Alzheimer’s has remained elusive. Time after time, a “promising” new drug has failed to come through.
  • Industry-research service EvaluatePharma revealed in a 2017 study that of the 20 most promising future drugs coming to market, none are aimed at Alzheimer’s.
  • Many of the major pharmaceutical industries are reducing or eliminating entirely their departments in the area of Alzheimer’s and dementia research!
  • In January of this year, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals ended their research to discover new medications for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. They laid off over 300 scientists in their labs and closed down the entire division.
  • In an interview, one recently laid-off neuroscientist said, “The current medication for Alzheimer’s disease is approved, essentially, because it’s better than nothing. There’s nothing else at the moment.”
  • The reason? Shareholder value.

There’s much more I could share, but I realize that I only have people’s attention for about 1200 words/six minutes if I’m lucky, even on a life-and-death issue.  So let me cut to the chase.

We’re getting answers

About 10 days ago, a promo-email hit my mailbox that my radar picked up immediately – a “free” 12-episode video series entitled “Regain Your Brain: Awakening From Alzheimer’s”. 

Being cheap and a knowledge-accumulator, I was all over it.  I just completed about 20 hours of watching and taking extensive notes from this series.   It’s a collection of interviews with some of the top neurologists, psychologists, neurosurgeons and functional medicine physicians in the country.

I’m going to try to summarize my key takeaways from the series below – a tough task because there are so many.  Just let me say first that we are getting answers to solving the Alzheimer’s puzzle, but they aren’t going to come from your doctor’s office or from your local pharmacy.

More on that in a moment.

Invest in your healthy future

Here’s the deal.

The free version of the series went away – they left each video up for 24 hours.  But the entire series, plus a plethora of other supplemental information is available in three different packages ranging from $79 to $189.  It’s all explained here.

At a minimum, own the DVD of the video series ($79 package) and find twelve hours at your leisure to digest the information therein.

Disclaimer: 

Please know, that I have no affiliation with the producing organization, nor do I stand to benefit one nickel if you purchase the series.  With very few exceptions, I found it highly credible and thought-provoking.  It unveils a lot of information we aren’t going to hear from our hospital-system-ensnared, insurance-company-directed primary care docs.

It addresses some questions a lot of us may be asking ourselves, such as…

  • Why haven’t I heard of these therapies before?
  • Why have I been led to believe we’re hopeless in the face of these diseases?
  • Why hasn’t my doctor made me aware of these methods of prevention and recovery?
  • Why does the media insist that there’s “no cure” for Alzheimer’s or dementia?
  • Why do the drug companies ignore this research, coming up short again and again?

Sadly, the answer to all of these questions comes down to money.

My takeaway

I’ll try to briefly summarize my take away from this experience.  You may draw different conclusions should you invest in the series.

  1. Dementia and Alzheimer’s, in particular, is a preventable disease. Reversal of advanced stages of Alzheimer’s remains out of reach, although the series references examples of reversal of early onset.  The central message is that Alzheimer’s is preventable because we now know, through extensive brain research, what brings it on.  The brain is susceptible to the very same lifestyle-initiated pathogens that keep heart-disease our #1 killer and diabetes as the greatest threat to our national health.   Namely, poor diet, lack of exercise, hormonal imbalance, vitamin deficiency, exposure to toxins, amongst other factors.
  2. Your primary care physician doesn’t (care to) know this stuff. I respect my primary-care doc – I’ve been with him for 25 years.  But he’s a traditional “drug it or cut it” doc.  He’s never initiated a conversation about my homocysteine levels, asked me about my diet, suggested I visit a Vitamin Shoppe for some key missing vitamin supplements, had me tested for toxins in my system, or for hormonal imbalance.  The blood tests he is authorized to authorize by his hospital system and covered by my insurance is cursory at best.  He and his hospital system are paid to cure, not to prevent.  Prevention doesn’t pay.
  3. Big pharma isn’t likely to help. As noted above, Big Pharma is bailing out. And that’s a good thing.  The industry only knows to try to catch the horse after it has left the barn, not preventing the horse from leaving the barn.  Functional/Personalized Medicine is beginning to demonstrate that there are myriad of effective natural remedies that Big Pharma won’t bother with because of, well – no shareholder value.
  4. Functional/Personalized Medicine is the future. A growing segment of our healthcare system is Functional Medicine – referred to also as Holistic Medicine or Personalized Medicine.  It is within this emerging area of medicine that analysis and testing are taking place that isolate the pathogens, toxins, hormonal deficiencies and lifestyle habits that result in Alzheimer’s.  You can learn more about Functional Medicine at this site.
  5. We control our “dementia destiny”. Twenty years ago, the brain was considered a fixed, unalterable organ that was destined for deterioration over time.  We now know, unequivocally, that this is false.  Our brain is a “use or lose it” organ that can grow new cells at any age (neurogenesis) and is alterable (neuroplasticity) based on lifestyle decisions that we make.  WE CAN DIRECTLY AFFECT OUR CHANCES OF DEVELOPING ALZHEIMER’S.

I think I hear what you’re thinking.  OK, I’m 55/60/70 – isn’t it too late?  Maybe.  But, as with many things, it’s never too late to start but always too early to quit.  If you are reading this and making some sense of it, then I say it’s not too late.  This series helped me appreciate the fact that there are now ways to know if we are headed toward this disease and to take the steps to head it off and even reverse the early symptoms.

The research has been done, the treatment pathways for prevention have been laid out.  But we will have to go outside our traditional disease-care system to participate.

I hope you’ll invest in this series.  If you do, drop me a note or scroll down and leave a comment with your impression or with any thoughts that you have along these lines of dementia prevention.

I plan to dig more into this area of Functional Medicine and to publish more articles in the future on this emerging dimension of healthcare.

 

 

 

The Thief Called “65”

I had phone conversations this past week with two middle-aged (50-ish) divorced professional women that had eerily similar undertones having to do with a critical life inflection point.

These were two talented women who were facing similar challenges in re-entering the job market after an unexpected change in their professional employment status.

It wasn’t surprising to hear their rants about the rampant ageism, the age-biased corporate job application process, the HR-black hole that applicants in this age-range disappear into.

What did surprise me was a very powerful underlying fear both expressed as we went deeper into our conversation.

Both were terrified of the number “65”

Adding to their anxiety of trying to re-enter the job market was a deep-seated concern that they were seriously behind on being able to retire at the expected retirement age.

Yes, for both, the number that underscored their fear was “65”.

For both, the prospect of only having 15 years or so to get “where they were supposed to be financially at 65”not only terrifies them but seems to be driving some employment decisions that were clearly outside of what, deep down inside themselves, they really wanted to be doing.

They are making employment decisions based on a “need” to be able to retire instead of an employment decision based on what they truly “want” to do.

The number 65 is robbing them of their “essential self.”

They both are the rule, not the exception.

It reminded me once again of the power of cultural expectations.  Both of these talented ladies were demonstrating a fear of the cultural-imposed stigma of not being able to “retire on time and in good shape” and were turning their back on their dreams.

It remains a “badge of honor” in our culture to retire on or before 65.  To not do so says “failure” or, at a minimum, to cast one as an “unfortunate.”  Take my word for it.  I know I’m viewed this way by those who inquire of my status and find that, at 76, I’m not retired.  I encounter few who subscribe to my outlier position of never intending to retire.

For both ladies, a key criterion for their next employment was a good 401K.  I didn’t have the heart to suggest that to try to recover and build enough retirement savings in fifteen years to support another 15-30 years of “retired life” is, well – impossible.

With both ladies, I posed the coaching question:  “If we were to take away time and money as a factor, what would you be doing?”

Both expressed something radically different from the employment they were pursuing.

One said she would be running a “doggie daycare”, a dream she has been carrying since childhood.  She is deeply passionate about animals and only partially satisfies that passion by having two dogs.

The other said she would like to coach people on finding their true potential but struggles with what it takes to start a coaching practice part-time that would eventually support her.

Both are tabling things that excite them to try to fit the cultural mold of retirement at 65.

Thinking about their thinking.

I asked both to think about what was so sacred about retirement at 65.  Neither had a really good answer other than one that dripped of unwritten cultural expectations.

I reminded them that 65 is an invalid, artificial finish line established 83 years ago for political reasons and at a time when the average lifespan was 63.  It was never meant to provide for a lengthy “life of leisure and bliss” as it’s marketed today.

When I injected the notion that retirement is an unnatural act and, for most, the beginning of phasing out and moving toward societal irrelevance, the tone of the conversation changed a bit.  That a productive life beyond 65 is not only possible but potentially the most productive and fulfilling time of life was a concept they instinctively found difficult to get their brains around.

For them to envision a re-launch or re-acceleration of life at 65 or thereabouts was laden with dissonance – as it is for most at this point in life.

Did our conversation “rock their world?”  Will there be a fruitful shift in attitude and perspective?  I can’t say.  I just know that, for the animal-lover, the idea of removing 65 as a cultural guidepost seemed to take pressure off.  The idea of not having to ever retire seemed to re-open some new possibility thinking – more of an open-mindedness to the remainder of her life as opposed to one restricted by cultural timelines and the expectations of others.

The childhood dream very suddenly re-emerged and she literally transformed on the phone – her voice changing from one coming from fear and concern to one of excitement and passion.  She reached back to childhood conversations she had with her father, who supported and encouraged her dreams but was sadly taken from her life early by a fatal heart attack.

Her story is like many – she suppressed the childhood dream to pursue a more “sensible” livelihood.  It served her well – until it didn’t.  Fifty, divorced, a single mom with a teen, sudden unemployment followed by severe under-employment, fear of not “measuring up” on several fronts.  All a toxic brew crawling with ANTs – Automatic Negative Thoughts.

Both/And, not Either/Or

I hope this talented lady will understand that, with the removal of a culturally dictated timeline, that she needn’t give up on her childhood dream which likely is an expression of an unacknowledged or suppressed “essential self” or “unique ability.”

The reality of her circumstances requires that she stay outside her essential self some of the time to meet her obligations as a provider.  To think of it as “either-or” will only increase frustration.  “Both-and” works for lots of people.  She needn’t give up on her dream but rather may find a way to cultivate it, perhaps as a side-hustle, while succeeding as a provider.

Regardless of the road traveled, I believe she can now move forward without the stigma of thinking she “has to” retire or that “65” holds any significant relevance.  I believe she is beginning to see how this thinking is robbing her of an opportunity to re-open her dreams, passions, and creativity.

I’d bet you know someone like this – or perhaps you look at one every morning in the mirror.  I can tell you, from my own personal journey, to crawl out of the thick shell of cultural expectations, to shed the barnacles of sailing in someone else’s seas is tough.

I’ve found Martha Beck, author of “Finding Your North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live” to be a great source of inspirational reminders when I beat myself up with the frustrations of pursuing my essential self.  Here’s one of those gems I hit this morning in my re-reading of the book:

“When you’re doing what you’re meant to do, you benefit the world in a unique and irreplaceable way.  This brings money, friendship, true love, inner peace, and everything else worth living; it sounds facile, but it’s really true.”

Do you have a story about finding your “essential self” or “unique ability?” Scroll down and tell us about it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Am I the only one that feels like 2018 just started yesterday?  It’s crazy to wake up and realize almost 75% of the year is gone.  Especially when you put it up against all the grand plans you had back in December or January about what this year was going to be all about.

Well, for me, some of it happened, some didn’t, some still might.

What did happen that I’m grateful for is that I completed a full year of blogging – something that I wouldn’t have believed would happen 15 months ago.

This issue is my 52nd. 

And it will be very brief.

It’s a THANK YOU for being a subscriber!!  I am grateful that you have hung in with me and provided me with feedback on my content.

I hope you’ll stay tuned in and continue to let me know what I can do better and what other topics you would like to have me research and write about.

My most popular articles

I scanned my 51 articles to see which was the most popular and wanted to share that info with you so you can check them out in case you may have missed them – or re-read them if you didn’t.

Here are the top three most popular over the last year.  Enjoy!  I look forward to providing information that you find valuable.  Please let me know if I’m not.

Your Second Half Should Be Filled with These Four-letter Words

The Dirty Dozen of Accelerated Aging

Are You a Fugitive From Yourself?

Do You Want an ELF or HALF Retirement?

 

My thanks to Joe Polish of Genius Network for the acronyms.  I’ve heard Joe refer to ELF and HALF repeatedly in his podcasts at 10xTalk.com as part of his teaching mantra for budding entrepreneurs.

Joe simply asks them: Do you want your business to be Easy, Lucrative and Fun (ELF)? Or Hard, Annoying, Lame, and Frustrating (HALF)?

It occurred to me that maybe that is an appropriate question to ask of those who are contemplating a jump into the retirement pool – or those already in the pool but still in the shallow end.

Why the question?  Retirement is always ELF, right? 

Easy?  What can be hard about doing little or nothing – on my own schedule?

Lucrative?  The lucrative thing is done.  That’s why you retire, right?  You ’ve earned the right to “spend” your lucrative.

Fun? It’s bound to be fun.  It’s the 20-years of fun at the end of the 20th-century, 20-40-20 plan that we’ve been indoctrinated with.  How could it not be fun after 10,000 days of the un-fun of commutes, bad bosses and building someone else’s dream?

So how could it possibly be HALF?

A reasonable question, considering how entrenched traditional retirement is in our psyche and the “golden years” expectations we have going into it.

How could 35,000 financial planners be wrong or misleading?  There are no conversations of Hard, Annoying, Lame and Frustrating as we go over the charts and graphs and talk about the vacation home, world travel, and improving golf handicap.

Well, if we peel the onion back a bit on traditional retirement we see that HALF retirements are a bit more prevalent than we expected.  We have a few indicators that maybe ELF isn’t what all retirees are experiencing:

  • The National Institute of Health reports that of the 35 million Americans 65 or older, approximately 20% suffer from moderate to deep depression.
  • Men older than age 65 take their own life at more than double the overall rate.
  • Retirees with alcohol and other drug problems will leap 150% by 2020.
  • Divorce rate surged 50% in the past 20 years for 50-plusers

The AARP Foundation has unveiled that:

  • 17 percent of American adults 65 and older are isolated.
  • Research shows a 26 percent increased risk of death due to the subjective feelings of loneliness.

Another indicator of the fact that retirement isn’t the nirvana we’ve expected was revealed in the research conducted by the Age Wave organization, the world’s leader in understanding the effects of an aging population on the marketplace, the workplace and our lives.

In a study in which they polled 55,000 Boomers, they concluded that there are five stages to retirement.  You can find these stats enthusiastically presented by AgeWave founder, Ken Dychtwald at the 26-minute point of this YouTube video along with other interesting thoughts having to do with the significance of our aging American population.

  • Stage #1 – Imagination
    • 5-15 years before retirement where mid-lifers begin to imagine positive visions of retirement
    • 88% expect to be happy
    • 76% expect to achieve their retirement dreams
    • 44% feel “on track”
  • Stage #2 – Anticipation
    • 5 years before retirement; excitement builds; financial prep intensifies, post-retirement careers begin to coalesce.
    • 91% expect to be happy.
    • 80% expect to be able to achieve their dreams.
    • Retirement is seen as a remedy for unhappiness. (Uh oh!)
  • Stage #3 – Liberation
    • Begins on retirement day; anticipation realized!
    • Average duration: one year
  • Stage #4 – Re-orientation
    • 1-15 years into retirement
    • Critical life questions surface: Who am I? What am I doing? Who do I want to be? Am I really meant to be “leisurely” for a quarter century?
    • Post-partem depression is common
    • The realization that retirement is more challenging and less satisfying than anticipated
    • Growing concerns about health problems and insufficient lifetime savings
    • Feel a little “used”, bored, unstimulated.
  • Stage #5 – Reconciliation
    • Late 70’s-80’s
    • Trying to come to terms with who they really are
    • Losing friends, family
    • Money and health concerns intensify
    • Turn toward spiritual
    • Concerns about leaving a legacy

Hmmm.  There seem to be some components of Hard, Annoying, Lame and Frustrating in there.

We shouldn’t be surprised

A retirement based on a 20th-century model and an arbitrary and artificial finish-line of 65 or thereabouts with only a financial plan driving it can set one up for a HALF retirement.

The reality is, many people approach retirement having only invested in their careers and retirement savings, and now they need help investing in themselves.

The charts, graphs, and numbers of a financial plan ignore the fact that retirement is much like an iceberg – most of what goes on is below the surface and rarely part of financial discussions.

Estimates are that 2 of 3 retirees approach their retirement with little or no attention to the critically-important social, mental, physical and spiritual components of a HALF-avoiding non-financial plan.

If you are close to taking the plunge into retirement or are 1-5 years into your retirement, here are some critical questions to address across these four important pillars of a fulfilling, purposeful retirement:

Social:

  • What am I doing to avoid isolation and loneliness and maintain a high level of social relationships, especially amongst family and friends? The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which tracked the lives of 700 men for over 75 years, determined that those who are more socially connected to family, friends, and community are happier, physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.

Mental:

  • What am I doing to stimulate my mental capacity and keep my brain healthy and vibrant? Use three “C’s” to keep you vibrant and healthy mentally and reduce the possibility of dementia or Alzheimers – Curiosity, Creativity, and Challenge.  Being curious and seeking novelty in retirement releases feelings of bliss and well-being.  Being creative in the face of a challenge discharges a hormone that elevates mood, increases concentration and improves memory

Physical:

  • Does my lifestyle include daily physical exercise, including strength training? Exercise is easy to avoid in retirement.  TV and the LazyBoy are a powerful draw.  Both kill us slowly.  When we were in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, exercise was optional.  In our 50’s and beyond, it is imperative. Exercise plays a key role in brain health and reducing the chances of contracting Alzheimer’s.  I’ll share this quote from the book “Younger Next Year” that has inspired my commitment to aerobic exercise six days a week, three of which include aggressive weight-training:  “Aerobic exercise will give you life; strength training will make it worth living.”

Spiritual:

  • Do I have a quest to find meaning and purpose and a way to connect to something bigger than myself? Connecting to the deepest values and truths by which we want to live is a component of healthy spirituality.  When our action and behaviors don’t match our personal values, life can be awkward, “out-of-sorts”, stressful and full of internal conflict.  Adjusting to a fulfilling retirement means developing a plan and lifestyle that honors one’s values.

Attention to these four important pillars will help avoid a HALF retirement.  Will it guarantee an ELF retirement?

No guarantees.  Life’s twists and turns make that guarantee impossible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is It Too Late to Be Amazing?

I recently read a veteran career coach’s advice for displaced or dissatisfied middle-agers wishing to re-enter the job market or make a late-life career change.

His advice:  In today’s changing workplace, you will have to come across as – AMAZING!

That’s worth pondering.

What makes up amazing?  The reality is, most of us don’t think of ourselves as amazing, although deep down we can be – or should be.

Honesty can hurt here – truth is most of us at this mid-life point are coming off of extended stretches at or near the top of the bell curve – neither slug nor superstar.  Comfortable, convenient, middle-of-the-road, don’t-rock-the-boat, needs-based existence.

So now I’m suddenly expected to move to the far right of the bell curve and be amazing?  Uh, I think I’m gonna need some major help here.

This coach’s message has to do with image, personal branding, positioning, preparedness, self-confidence, energy – the components necessary to conduct a successful job search at this stage of life where the challenges are magnitudes greater than what it took 20,10, even 5 years ago.

His point is that every component of the job search process needs to be, well – amazing.  The resume needs to be a Picasso in terms of content and structure; presence on LinkedIn and other social media must be top-notch; commitment to, and energy for, an effective networking strategy must be beyond the pale; elevator speech development, interviewing skills practice, attitude maintenance, self-management discipline – all need to be – amazing.

This coach’s advice is spot on – for the mechanics of a job search.  Question is – is it realistic?  How many can get there?

Pretty tall order, especially if your ego just took a hit because of an unexpected termination.  It’s pretty hard to think amazing when you feel like a slug and that the whole world is “a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes.” (my thanks to long deceased comedian George Gobel for that – doubt that he cares).

My experience in coaching folks in this position is that getting to amazing with all this requires more sustained effort and attitude adjustment than most are willing to undertake.

Why?

Because they don’t see themselves as amazing.

In their mind, all this effort may seem fraudulent, sort of like putting lipstick on a pig.  Twenty-plus years in the grinding corporate world tends to bury our most amazing qualities.

Be your true amazing self at work, and you will either (1) bump up against a manager who will be threatened by you and find a way to remove the threat or (2) be seen as an outsider that doesn’t fit or belong or (3) you will realize you need to take your amazing self outside of the confines of a job.

Needs vs wants

Re-entering the job market or making a corporate career change is typically a needs-based move.  It’s mortgage/groceries/college tuition/orthodontics/golf club membership/luxury car payment/retirement savings/home repair coverage.

Rarely is this type of move a “wants-based” move that acknowledges and satisfies a deep interest or passion and resurrects and ignites one’s uniqueness or essential self.

Certainly, there are exceptions, but working for someone, building someone else’s dream makes it difficult to get to the true amazing self.

By the time we have 15, 20, 25 years of this, it seems pretty late to try to be the true amazing self that one’s unique ability or essential self can produce.  It’s pretty well stamped down and covered over – maybe even forgotten.

So is it too late?

There is plenty of time to be amazing, regardless of age.

Let’s just do a “what if?”

Suppose you are 55 and in good physical shape.  You have a better than 50% chance that you will live to 90.  That means you’ve got 42% left.  With the right attitude and continued good health and wellness habits, you probably fit the “live long, die short” model – that is, your morbidity period should be short, at least shorter than for most. So, we’ll need to take a couple of percentage points off to account for your brief period of dementia, drool and Depends.

There it is.  Could you make “amazing” happen for yourself with 40% – 30+ years – left?

Well, yeah!!

This is the point where most personal development pundits inject the over-worked examples of Colonel Sanders, Grandma Moses, and Ray Kroc.  But I won’t do that to you.

OK bunko, tell me how to be amazing.

OK – here are five steps that will help – in order of priority:

  1. Protect your health. Amazing doesn’t happen if you feel like s__t!  Become health care literate. Know your body; learn your biology; understand your biomarkers; take control of your health and don’t turn it over to your doc – co-partner with him/her but stay in charge; get your heart rate up every day and stop eating crap!
  2. Adopt an attitude of gratitude and altitude. Much of success emanates from an attitude of gratitude.  You are gifted.  Start each day with a mental list of the good things in your life that you are grateful for.  And then think lofty thoughts, dust off the dreams and be grateful that you are now a masterpiece-in-the-making.
  3. Find your “essential self” or your “uniqueability”. Invest in and digest Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live.”  From that, you will learn how to identify your essential self and how to:  “- stop conforming to the pre-designated patterns offered by your cultural environment.  Instead, you will turn your life into a work of art – an absolutely original expression of your unique skills and preferences.”

  Or understand the concept of “uniqueability”, the success principle taught by the planet’s most successful entrepreneur coach, Dan Sullivan of Strategic      Coach.  It’s that unique giftedness that all of us have that we’ve yet to manifest.  You can learn all about it and how it leads to “amazing” by listening       to podcasts #137-140 at 10xTalk.com.

  1. Dust off the dormant/suppressed dreams. What were you drawn to and got you most excited when you were 6, 8, 10?  There is likely a link between that and your essential self/uniqueability.   What passions or deep interests have you tabled in favor of dedicating yourself to a paycheck and mortgage coverage?  Think on these things, let them resurface – they are a path to realizing “amazing.”  My July 9, 2018  article featuring the story of a successful late-life entrepreneur is a good example.
  2. Find a mentor or coach. Being your amazing self will take time and commitment.  You can get the journey started and benefit from the low-cost/no-cost coaching available online and in books.  And these are essential tools but, by themselves, extend the journey.  Engaging an experienced life or career coach in addition to these tools will accelerate the process by helping remove the clutter, build your confidence and hold you accountable to the steps on the journey.

We’d all be amazing if it were easy.  But being amazing doesn’t so much fit the way our culture thinks and works.  We need a lot of non-amazing and conformity for our system to work – a lot of folks that are content at the top or to the left side of the bell curve.

But if you got this far in this article, that’s not you.  You’ve already said, “I’m amazing.” And now realize it’s “never too late to start but always too soon to quit.”

Or, to paraphrase the late, great Zig Ziglar:  “You don’t have to be great (amazing) to start, but you have to start to be great (amazing).”

Let me know if I can help you get your journey started.  Email me gary@makeagingwork.com or call my office at 720-344-7784 and let’s chat.

If you are on that journey now, tell us how it is going – leave us a comment below.

 

 

OK, 24-Hour Fitness – Can the News!!

I have a couple of confessions.

First, I’ve fallen into a bad habit of reading the newspaper in the morning over breakfast. For me, it’s the Denver Post, a newspaper that has become a shadow of its former self, considered by some as best used for bird-cage bottoms instead of news.

Second, I always come away from the experience (a) having LEARNED NOTHING HELPFUL and (b) having set a marginal tone for the rest of the day.

My lizard brain/amygdala loves it.  That’s what it thrives on.  It’s looking for bad news – like the lion behind the bush – so as to enact my fight-or-flight mechanism for my protection.  But, I’m not hearing of too many lions-in-the-bushes here in suburban Denver, so it’s an unnecessary activation of cortisol injection into my system through largely unnecessary drivel that has virtually no impact on my life.

So why do I even have it delivered?   

Because it encases the sports page and the crossword puzzle and soduko my wife does every day.

I gotta have the sports page because I’m a Broncos/Rockies/Nuggets fan (in that order), plus I find that sportswriters are well above average writers – certainly better than the reporters at the news desk who are trained under the guiding light of “bad news sells” and “if it bleeds, it leads.”

I was reminded of the senselessness of this morning activity – and of tuning in the evening network news –  in an article by Ryan Holiday in Medium.com today: “Why Everyone Should Watch Less News.”

Holiday is a strategist and author with quite a cult following in the business and sports world.  As one might expect of an author, he suggests watching less news and reading more books because “just about anything bound between two covers will teach you something more than the latest headlines – and will do far more in regards to settling your soul.”

I recall doing a Toastmaster speech on the state of reading a number of years ago.  In my research, I discovered that the average number of books read in the U.S., at the time, was around 15 and the median (midpoint) number of books read was around 4.

That average is pulled up by the gonzo readers like myself.  I’ve averaged 60+ books/year for the last 10 years with only two novels in the mix.  Yes, I know – pretty weird.  It’s the way I’m wired and when the weirdness of it all starts nagging me, I remind myself that Bill Gates averages a book a week, Warren Buffett reads five hours a day, and Teddy Roosevelt reportedly read a book a day.

Think 60 books a year is overwhelming?

Not so much. Think on this formula

60 books x 50,000 words / book (avg size of a typical non-fiction book) = 3,000,000 words

3,000,000 words / 300 wpm (slightly above average reading speed) = 10,000 minutes

10,000 minutes / 60 = 167 hours

167 hours/52 weeks = 3.3 hours/week

Average time spent by Americans on (see this article by Charles Chu: “The Simple Truth Behind Reading 200 Books a Year):

Social media – 608 hours/yr = 11.7 hours/week

TV – 1642 hours/yr = 31.6 hours/week

I won’t insult you by going further and doing the math for you.

 

 

 

In that speech in 2013, I reported that reading is declining in this country.  No doubt, it hasn’t gotten better.  I parsed out some stats for that presentation that really caught my attention along with a couple of stats that are the consequences of this decline:

  1. % of U.S. adults who are unable to read at the eighth-grade level – 50%.
  2. % of U.S. high school students who will never read a book after high school – 33%
  3. % of college graduates who will never read another book after graduating from college – 42%
  4. % of families in the U.S. who did not buy a book in 2012 – 80%
  5. % of adults who had not been in a bookstore in the past five years – 70%
  6. According to the NEA, the average 15-24-year-old watches 2 hours of TV and does 7 minutes of leisurely reading each day.
  7. In a U.S. population of over 300 million, popular movie gems in 2013 such as “The Matrix” and “Fast and Furious” sold one million DVDs while the 2011 top-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel only sold 135,000 copies.

What about the consequences of all this.  Again, some revealing facts:

  1. 2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare.
  2. 80-85% of juveniles who face trial in the juvenile court system and over 60 % of prison inmates are functionally illiterate.
  3. Low literacy directly costs the healthcare industry $70 million every year.

Need more reasons to read?

Holiday continues (bolding is mine):

 “While research has shown that visually shocking and upsetting news can contribute to anxiety, sleeping trouble, raise cortisol levels and even trigger PTSD symptoms, a University of Sussex study found that just six minutes reading a book can reduce stress levels up to 68%. A study done by former journalist turned positive psychology researcher Michelle Geilan found that watching just a few minutes of negative news in the morning increases the chances of viewers reporting having had a bad day by 27%, while Barnes and Noble just reported soaring sales for books that help people deal with anxiety and find happiness. Life Time Fitness, a gym chain with locations in 27 states, recently decided that tuning their TVs to FOX News and CNN was antithetical to their mission of making people healthier, so they’ve banned the news from the gym.”

So, I’m going public. 

I’m giving up the morning newspaper (except for the sports page) and avoiding TV news altogether.

You are welcome to hold my feet to the fire on this.  Stop by for breakfast or an evening beer anytime to check me out.

And since I work out there 5-6 days a week, I’m going to suggest to 24-Hour Fitness that they block Fox and CNN just like Lifetime Fitness.  I’m not sure the Lululemon or the tattoo, tank top, and tiny-testicle crowd pays all that much attention, much-preferring mirror-viewing.  But I think it would be a good symbolic gesture, don’t you?

Maybe they could upgrade their equipment and replace all the burned out overhead lights while they are at it.

Help Wanted: Revolutionaries

 

I’m hanging out a “Help Wanted” sign.

Position?  Revolutionary – or rebel will do.

Pay? Don’t inquire – there isn’t any.

Benefits?  Intangible, personal, internal, mental.

Qualifications?  Middle age or later; mostly pissed-off at our culture; contrarian-by-nature/nurture; thick-skinned; immune to derision; Master degree or Ph.D. in toe-stubbing; audacious ager.

Requirements:  Stand in the breach; take a stand and some serious body blows in exchange for promoting a culture change.

Mission: Help straighten out a world that is “out of whack!”

In 2017, the 50-85+ age demographic in the U.S. reached 32% of the population.  That’s the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.

You’d think a group that large and growing would deserve a little more respect.

Not happening!  Have you noticed?

So I’m up for seeing if we can turn that around.  Wanna join me?

Oh, you’re not feeling disrespected?

Great!  You are either already a revolutionary – or you’re in the waiting line for the disrespect – or maybe you’ve never felt any other way and don’t recognize it.

What’s the disrespect?  Our culture disrespects (or ignores) our biology i.e. our natural life processes.

That’s an argument posed by neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez in his book “The Mindbody Self.”  His research is debunking the myths that view human biology “as mechanistic processes void of cultural influence in the causes of health and longevity.”

He advocates that it’s possible to “reweave our cultural fabric to release what no longer serves you and reclaim the personal excellence you were taught to ignore.”

He refers to the work in this area done by anthropologist Margaret Clark who advocates that anthropology and gerontology would benefit by working together.

Specifically, she proposes: “—that aging is a series of adaptations to the social systems embedded in cultures.  In other words, aging is strongly affected by how we adjust (adapt) to the constraints of our cultures.”

Some of the constraints that Martinez and Clark refer to that are present in our culture today are:

  • Defined retirement age
  • Age limits for hiring
  • Gender restrictions
  • Family authority and expectations
  • Medical biases
  • Rites of passage to elderly status

Martinez goes on further to remind us of other cultural influences, most of which can go either way in terms of benefit or detriment to our health and longevity:

  • What we eat
  • Our level of activity based on age
  • Where we live
  • How much risk we take in our lives
  • Life expectancy
  • Rituals that enhance or diminish our immune system’s defense against foreign bodies

We’ve had many “cultural editors” and “cultural co-authors” to help us down this path of cultural captivity – parents, peers, professors, pundits, politicians, policies – to name a few.

Martinez makes this seminal statement elsewhere in the book:

“Growing older is the passage of time; aging is what you do with your time based on your cultural beliefs.  (my underline).  Middle-age is one of those portals where culture will tell you how to behave, dress and what to expect – all without biological evidence to support that stage of your life.”

Centenarians are revolutionaries

Martinez’ research has included extensive study of centenarians worldwide.   There were a number of things about centenarians that stood out which he refers to it as the “centenarian consciousness”:

  1. The so-called “longevity gene” was found in only 35% of centenarians and there was only a 25% correlation between their advanced age and their parent’s longevity. In other words, a genetics mindset went out the window.
  2. They are contrarian in their view of what their culture expects of them.
  3. Resilience is a core attribute. Setbacks, major illnesses, losses of loved ones and other major challenges are common with nearly all centenarians.
  4. They are devoid of envy, replacing it with an attitude of appreciation and gratitude.
  5. Very few of them retire.

Although Martinez doesn’t allude to this, I suspect that centenarians had adopted this contrarian attitude early in life in response to an awareness of the restrictive nature of many of our cultural influences.

It needs to be our time

– before we are completely run over.

Marc Freedman, in his excellent book “The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife”, articulates well what we are facing.  He humorously references the orthodoxy that has developed and continues to mount, helped along by the media, academia, youth movement, et.al:

“America (and much of the developed world) is hurtling toward a situation in which tens of millions of people, arguably the biggest group in society, and a mighty political force to boot, are about to dominate the scene.  At somewhere around age sixty, they will, pretty much overnight, become the elderly, pass out of the “working-age population,” become incompetent and incontinent, bankrupt the health care system, vote for hefty increases in public spending on their retirement at the expense of everyone else, turn the Sun Belt into a giant golf course, and ignite a war that will, in the subtitle of the 2010 book ‘Shock of Gray’, pit ‘Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation.’”

His conclusion – which I agree with and which underscores my posting a Help Wanted appeal – is this:

We’re becoming “ – a nation in which the largest segment of society is at loose ends and under-engaged –  consigned to a kind of identity oblivion, fighting age discrimination, facing foreclosed opportunities, mired in personal stagnation, and bereft of purpose.”

Ouch!  Count me out!!

Ready to sign on?

I hope all this p_____s you off just a little.  I hope being viewed as “incompetent and incontinent” at any age stirs you up a little.  I hope you are concerned that going forward from middle-age that your accumulated skills, talents, and dreams are underappreciated and expected to go to the sidelines.

Short on revolutionary experience?

No marches, no signs, no confrontations for this role.

Training manual?  Yes – see above: centenarian consciousness

Slow?  You bet!

Sticks and stones? Yep!  Your culture-infused friends, family, and co-workers will be viewing you skeptically from their cultural fishbowl and may be unkind in their attitudes and/or comments.

Gratifying?  Absolutely, especially if you like going against the grain.

We best affect change in others through our own example.  That’s the route to a cultural change.  Gandhi provides a guidepost: “Be the change you want to see in others.”

I look forward to having you in the revolution.  Scroll down and leave us your thoughts.  Are you a contrarian, swimming upstream with your aspirations and goals?  How do you deal with the resistance?  What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced?