Five Critical Steps to Thriving Within Your Longevity Bonus

You’ve heard it a thousand times.

We’re living longer. Yay!

We extended our average lifespan more in 110 years than we did in the previous 100,000 years. That’s quite a hockey-stick performance.

Makes you wonder why we waited so long. What was so magic about the 20th century? I guess you could say that a few folks woke up and started picking low-hanging fruit that was killing us early, and let it accelerate from there.

Like:

  • Washing hands before surgery. DUH!
  • Better sanitation.
  • Finding cures for most of the infectious diseases that dominated the early part of the century.
  • Improving education – availability, methods, and content.
  • Better food – quality and distribution.
  • Cleaner water.
  • Safer work environments and implements.

Medicine and technology teamed up and hockey-sticked it for us.

Then we hit a wall. It turns out that the progress stopped – and that longer doesn’t always mean better. The average lifespan in the U.S. has turned down each year since 2016.

It’s self-inflicted!

There’s only so much that medical science can do to maintain the acceleration. The fruit is now high in the tree and hard to get to.

We know that longer isn’t always better because Americans spend an average of ten years in ill-health, more than any other developed country. That’s a long time to feel bad – and it’s incredibly expensive.

It appears that it can only get worse as our population continues to shift to a higher concentration of over-65:

Source: AgeWave

As I wrote about last week, many of us get to the back-nine of life having double- or triple-bogeyed the front-nine with our marginal lifestyle habits and facing an accelerating downward slope that results in “living too short and dying too long.”

What’s the lifespan downturn telling us?

Could it be that we don’t give a darn about this gift of potential healthy longevity brought on by research, science, medicine?

Do we still buy the 20th-century myths, models, and messages about automatic senescence, fate versus choice, genetics versus habits?

Maybe. Probably.

But the scoreboard doesn’t lie. We still seem to choose not to flatten the back-nine slope and live longer in health and shorter in chronicity. Rather, we seem to be given to waiting and hoping for government, science, big pharma to find more miracle life-extenders when the best life-extenders have been around forever and are free.

But inconvenient. And sometimes uncomfortable.

Here are five things to consider while you wait for the next scientific/pharma miracle.

You’ll feel and look better while you wait. Oh, and BTW, you might save yourself and our society a lot of money.

  • Adopt WFPB instead of CRAP. Yes, my needle is stuck on the record – and you’re tired of hearing it. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is killing us slowly – and now, more and more of the world. It’s simple in concept, tough in practice. But we know moving to a Whole-Food-Plant-Based diet and away from Calorie-Rich-and-Processed will slow the slope.
  • Cancel Netflix. Or Hulu. Or Prime. Or whatever may have you, along with the average “down-sloper/retiree”, watching 49 hours of TV a week. Divert 15% of the 49 hours to getting your heart rate up and your muscles stronger. That’s only an hour a day of slope-flattening activity.

  • Get connected – and care. Don’t be a hermit.

Here’s an untold secret of longevity. Mary Zaraska spells it out in her powerful new book “Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100.” (paid link). It’s called having a strong network of family and friends as we age.

Zaraska states that what she learned through research and personal experience is:

” – building a strong support network of family and friends lowers mortality risk by about 45 percent. Exercise, on the other hand, can lower that risk by 23 to 33 percent. Eating six servings of fruit and veg per day can cut the danger of dying early by 26 percent while following the Mediterranean diet by 21 percent. For volunteering, it’s 22 to 44 percent.”

We already know that social isolation is a significant killer, equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to AARP.

  • Renew your library card.

Did you know that 40% of college grads never open another book after graduation? It seems still too many of us have decided that those first 20 years of learning were enough, failing to acknowledge that our brains are like a muscle that we’ll lose if we don’t use.

Research is making a direct connection between continued learning and dementia. Curiosity is important for mental health. We’re fully capable of high levels of creativity during the “retirement” years. Never stop learning. Stretch your brain.

  • Unretire. It’s happening a lot. Many who bought the “full-stop retirement” Koolaid are experiencing the downsides and altering their retirement lives back to something more than relaxation and rest. Leisure-based, self-indulgent retirement has exposed itself as detrimental to long-term physical and mental health – a definite “slope accelerator.”

Simple, but not easy. The jury has returned with a verdict that our lifestyles are guilty for the deep slope and the big pile at the bottom of the hill. For us “back-niners” it’s a choice between a fence at the top of the slope or an ambulance at the bottom of the hill. We can wait for government, science, or big pharma to build a fence or we can be knowledgeable about our biology, team with our doc, and take charge.

And then that curve just might start turning back up.

Thanks for being a reader. Please scroll down and leave a comment below.

You’re Over 50 and On The Back-Nine. How Are You Going to Play It?

For the last few summers, I’ve been playing golf in a senior men’s league at a local muni. It’s a mid-week event, so this group is mostly retirees mixed with a few business owners who can step away from their businesses for a day.

This is truly a geriatric bunch – the average age is probably mid-70’s.

I help raise the average.

I truly believe, on any given Wednesday morning, it is the biggest concentration of 50″ waistlines and artificial knees and hips in the Denver metro area. Oh, and perhaps, the highest overall golf handicap average on any given golf course in the area at that time of the week.

A few of us walk the course.  Most of the fellas ride, turning a non-aerobic experience into a deep non-aerobic experience.

It definitely is a collection of guys well into the back-nine of life.

Since the groups change each week, there isn’t an opportunity to get to know individuals on a deep level. Plus, COVID prevents us from the 19th hole experience where a personal connection can develop. So, I’ve gotten only a few snippets of front-nine stories from weekly playing partners.

Can I please have my front-nine back?

This week I found myself thinking about life as two nines. I was helped along with the idea after a one-on-one Zoom conversation with exercise physiologist and author Dan Zeman and while reading his book “You Are Too Old to Die Young: A Wake-up Call for the Male Baby Boomer on How to Age with Dignity.” (paid link).

Dan was on the front edge of the exercise physiology profession, an early pioneer in the world of health, fitness, and sports medicine.  He has worked with notable athletes and sports organizations, including Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, the Minnesota Vikings and Timberwolves, and with professional athletes in the National Hockey League.

Dan aims his book at MBBs – male baby boomers. He’s on a life quest to raise the awareness amongst male boomers of the health and wellness impact of decisions made in the back-nine or second half of life, reminding us that we don’t get to play our front nine over.

His “front nine” reminder was poignant for me. I’ve shared in previous writings about my “wake up call” in 2015 at age 73 when I had my first-ever heart scan that revealed I was in the high-risk category for cardiovascular disease (CVD) despite having been a gym-rat and avid aerobic and strength-training exerciser for 3 1/2 decades.

I’m very lucky. Following normal nuclear- and echo-stress tests, we concluded that the calcium build-up in my arteries is spread around so I don’t have any significant blockage and can continue my aggressive exercise regimen.

That changed my back-nine choices.

My doc made it clear that the CVD was likely the result of front-nine choices. He didn’t use those terms but that was the message. My front-nine was pretty deplorable from a health and wellness perspective. As a child of the 40’s and 50’s, I grew up in a world void of health and wellness knowledge and interest.

Doctors, athletes, and celebrities advocated and advertised smoking. I started smoking seriously the minute high school sports were done (truth be known, I smoked the same day I competed in the half-mile run at the state championship track meet – I came in 16th out of 16). DUH!

Diet back then was pretty much what you killed and grew so it was meat and potato fare. Exercise stopped once high school was over.

My smoking habit continued for 18 years until age 37 and then gave way to the gym rat. But the diet didn’t evolve except to take full advantage of the more ubiquitous, tasty, junk-style C-R-A-P (calorie-rich-and-processed) food. The diet didn’t shift to plant-based until the heart scan wake-up call.

Call me “Dan’s Poster Child”!

I’m the poster child for Dan’s message.

The back-nine begins the down-slope as age accelerates its processes. The decisions during the front-nine highly impact the type and intensity of the decisions that need to be made during the back nine. We can’t stop the slope, but we can do a lot to slow it and reduce the severity.

Dan reminds us:

“It is never too late to change an unhealthy habit because the human body is capable of recovering from self-imposed trauma.”

My equivalent to “self-imposed trauma” showed up on that heart scan report.

My decisions to change to a more plant-based diet and to further intensify my exercise with increased emphasis on strength-training, along with continuing to stretch myself intellectually through my work, is my slope-flattening strategy.

Is it fun? Not so much. It’s about awareness of the importance of the upside of action and dread of the downsides of inaction.

Dan raises a global concern that we all should take seriously. Our devotion to seeking conveniences that make our lives easier and more comfortable and sedentary come with a price.  Have I mentioned Netflix, voice-activated remotes, and the fact that retirees now watch 49 hours of TV per week? Combine that sedentary, convenience-seeking lifestyle with poor diet, the #1 cause of early death, and we have a country headed for a financial calamity.

Over 60 million boomers are on the back nine, many carrying forward a really bad front-nine wellness score. Graphically, it looks like the “live short, die long” graphic I’ve included in articles before.

Suppose you are 45,50,60. An important question to ask yourself is: “How steep do I want that slope and how long do I want to stay at the bottom of the hill?” With chronic-illness treatment costs skyrocketing and assisted living/nursing home care already at $120,000 per year on average, it’s a question that merits early back-nine consideration.

Recent research by the AgeWave organization on post-retirement healthcare costs revealed this sobering news:

The evidence is already upon us. That same AgeWave research report revealed that the World Health Organization has flagged the U.S. with the longest average years in poor health of any developed country, despite spending more per capita than any other country.

That all validate’s Dan’s message and his encouragement to consider that our decisions at mid-life can flatten that slope and minimize – or eliminate – that time piled up at the bottom of the hill in the care of $13/hour orderlies.

Team this book with “Younger Next Year.”

As I’ve shared repeatedly, I have been heavily influenced by the book “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond” (paid link). I believe Dan’s book is a great extension and supplement to the YNY book. Dan provides a solid 12-step “dirty dozen” plan for avoiding an extended and expensive time at the bottom of the hill. It’s no-fluff, deeply-experience-based advice that every MBB should be taking seriously. Check it out at www.iamdanzeman.com.

Consider adding both books to your library. It could lead to this:

To my many female readers: thanks for listening and tolerating this male-oriented message. If you have one of those MBBs in your life, I sympathize with your having to deal with a fragile ego.

Buy him both books and be patient with his slow understanding of the consequences of his front-nine lifestyle decisions – and his unwillingness to admit to them. Please understand that it’s hard for us to admit that you get it and we don’t and that until we do, you will always live at least 5 years longer than we do.

We welcome your comments – leave us one below or drop us a note to gary@makeagingwork.com. Oh, BTW, you’ll see “paid link” with each book mentioned. I have an Amazon Affiliate account and earn a paltry sum if you buy the book – or anything – after clicking on that link. It doesn’t change the price to you, it just earns me about 5% of the cost of a cup of Starbuck’s awful coffee.

 

Work Yourself to Death? Not a Bad Idea!

I happened across an old article recently about “the oldest working CEO in the United States.” It was about Jack A. Weill, founder and CEO of Rockmount Ranchwear, a Denver-based manufacturer of western wear. Jack died in 2008 at 109. He was working as the CEO of Rockmount at 106, showing up daily for four hours and then retiring home to watch Andy Griffith reruns. He was admired and respected for his philanthropy and service to his community and became a Denver institution with a street named after him.

It reminded me that there may be something to this research telling us that work is a major factor in longevity – and that not all careers give in to a culturally-dictated endpoint.

I wrote about this idea almost three years ago when my subscriber list was mostly friends and family – with only 1/3 of them paying attention. I still think it’s a pretty good article so I’m reprinting it this week, with a few tweaks.

George Burns was guilty of some really fabulous quotes, most of them quite funny, some deadly serious. Many had to do with his advancing age (he died in 1996 at age 100).  Here are a few:

  • Retire? I’m going to stay in show business until I’m the only one left.
  • People are always asking me when I’m going to retire. Why should I?  I’ve got it two ways – I’m still making movies, and I’m a senior citizen, so I can see myself at half price.
  • How can I die? I’m booked.
  • As long as you’re working, you stay young.

Michelangelo died at 89 – at a time when the average lifespan was less than half that – still working as the architect for the replacement of a 4th-century Constantinian basilica that became St. Peter’s Basilica, called by some as the “greatest creation of the Renaissance.”  He also worked on a sculpture (the Rondani Peita) up until six days before his death.

Steve Jobs was widely reported to have worked up to the last day, yelling about something not being exactly perfectly correct.

 

Einstein never stopped.

 

Revisiting vocāre

Today we treat folks who choose to “work themselves until death” as some sort of wunderkinds or anomalies when a mere 150 years ago that was the norm.  That was before the Industrial Revolution changed the landscape of work and injected the concept of the artificial finish line called retirement.

In the process, it seems we’ve redefined, convoluted, and distorted an important word.

That word is “vocation.”

Vocation is rooted in the Latin vocāre, meaning to call, which suggests listening for something that calls out to you, a voice telling you what you are.

Today, we relate vocation to specialized training into a “career track” or a “job” via a vocational or trade school. Not likely the pursuit of a “higher calling” but more a decision based on need and what may be trending in the “job” market.

Grammarist.com defines a vocation as:

 “a calling, an occupation, or a large undertaking for which one is especially suited. It can be roughly synonymous with career or profession, though vocation connotes a seriousness or a commitment that these words don’t always bear.” 

Today, we tend to mix vocation in with two other words – career and job – when their distinctions are quite different.

Career

A quick look at the definition of “career” shows a big difference. Career has its origin in the Latin word “carrus” or “wheeled vehicle” denoting a “cart” and then later from the French word “carrier” denoting a road or racecourse. The dictionary defines career, as a verb, to mean “move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction.”

Careers for many are just that – a mad rush for a long time that ends up going nowhere with that disappointment coming late in life. Or maybe it’s going somewhere in terms of provision and accumulation, but not in a way that fits the definition of a “calling”.

The checkered flag at the end of this racecourse is that coveted pot of gold called retirement, a finish line the desire for which may have impeded pursuit of a true calling.

Job

A job is the most immediate and relatable term as it’s what we do every day to produce income, the fuel that keeps us on the aforementioned racecourse. The dictionary defines job as “a lump, chore or duty.”  For some, that lump is a “lump of coal.” Consider that the average job is around 3.2 years and that during the average lifespan, most of us will have had a dozen or more “jobs.”

 

Does sound like a racetrack doesn’t it?  Perhaps that old word denoting a calling is what is missing.  As we zip past mid-life into our second half, it would be a good time to re-evaluate, resurrect, and reapply vocation in its true, traditional meaning.

 

But I’m passing 50 – isn’t it too late to find my “calling?”

It’s a pretty common question amongst mid-lifers. There’s that uneasy stirring going on deep in the gut. More days behind than ahead; lost enthusiasm for the chosen “racetrack”; a growing sense of aimlessness and emptiness; accumulation no longer important; the “who am I and why am I here”, “is it too late to make a difference?” questions that won’t go away.

It’s a critical fork-in-the-road time of life. One road gives in to the “social self” that has indoctrinated us into an artificial age-related culture and encourages us to remain a part of the crowd and stay-the-course to a landing called retirement.

The other road acknowledges a long-suppressed “essential self” that is insensitive to age and puts us on a trail that can enable a new takeoff rather than a landing.  Only this time the takeoff is launched through a re-discovery and resurrection of our deepest dreams and desires but applied using our deepest talents and acquired skills.

Warning!

The second fork may mean you could willingly work yourself to (until) death.

Second warning!

You may:

Evidence has been in for a long time. Work is necessary for longer, healthier living.

Polls of centenarians have revealed that an astonishingly high percentage of them continue to work and that they rank working alongside being able to walk as one of the keys to their longevity.

The universe doesn’t want your parts back yet

I’m a fan and follower of Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach,  considered to be the most successful entrepreneurial coach on the planet. In a  podcast from a series entitled “Exponential Wisdom” that he does with Peter Diamandis, Dan stated that he feels he has successfully “disenfranchised” most of the 18,000 entrepreneurs he has trained from the idea of retirement.

He and Diamandis have tagged retirement as the “ultimate casualty.”

Together, they emphatically emphasize that “stopping and retirement means you are ready to retire your bits back to the universe.”

Not sure about you. I’m in no hurry.

“R” Words Are Important – Here’s Five That We Need For Our “Second-half”

In June 2018, I posted a blog that became one of my more popular posts. It’s entitled “Your Second Half Should Be Filled With These Four-letter Words” – click on it and become enlightened (How’s that for a dose of arrogance?)

It even became one of the more popular blogs on Next Avenue for several weeks.

Ah, the power of words. Words have meaning. They count. We often treat them too lightly and fail to acknowledge the damage they can do if the wrong ones become a part of our continuous self-talk.

Lately, I’m conscious of a lot of “R” words in my world of reading, study, webinars, Zoom sessions, etc.

The most common, as you’d expect,  is RETIREMENT. One, because that’s a world I’ve immersed myself in – as in, don’t, or at least rethink or redefine it (see, there are those “R” words again). Second, because retirement remains one of the most prevalent words embedded in the middle brain of members of our western culture. As illogical and irrational as it is, it stays firmly entrenched in our psyche.

It occurred to this scattered brain that it might be helpful if we took a look at some of the “R” words I see a lot and position them relative to their merit or lack thereof.

So, here goes. One man’s opinion of five “R” words we should incorporate as we move through the second half of life.

Five “R” Words We Need In Our Life

Resilience – “the ability to recover quickly from setbacks”

  • A trait of healthy centenarians is their ability to not only overcome trauma and travails but actually thrive and find gratitude in the midst of adversity and expect a better future following it. In the words of neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez who has done extensive global research on centenarians: “Despite the initial physical and emotional pain of trauma, they maintain a sense of humor and hope for recovery.  More important, their positive expectations enable them to learn from the negative experience.” I take from all this that being a “cultural outlier” with a “centenarian consciousness” can position us to compress our morbidity, delay our terminal frailty and thus live a longer, healthier and happier life while saving our society billions in late-life healthcare costs. The tough part is to shake off the cultural expectations and be an outlier.  It takes some thick skin and a strong self-image.

Reintegrate – “recombining parts that work together well”

  • I was tempted to suggest reinvent instead of reintegrate because reinvent is so omnipresent these days, especially in the self-help world and particularly when it comes to those of us in the second half of life. I’m rolling with reintegrate after considering the position taken on this by Marc Freedman, CEO and President of Encore.org and one of the nation’s leading experts on the longevity revolution. In a Harvard Business Review article “The Dangerous Myth of Reinvention”   Freedman makes the point that reinvention is too daunting and not practical because it infers discarding accumulated life experience and starting over from scratch. He writes:

“Isn’t there something to be said for racking up decades of know-how and lessons, from failures as well as triumphs? Shouldn’t we aspire to build on that wisdom and understanding?

After years studying social innovators in the second half of life — individuals who have done their greatest work after 50 —I’m convinced the most powerful pattern that emerges from their stories can be described as reintegration, not reinvention. These successful late-blooming entrepreneurs weave together accumulated knowledge with creativity, while balancing continuity with change, in crafting a new idea that’s almost always deeply rooted in earlier chapters and activities.”

Routine – “something unvarying and repetitive”

  • Lots of research on this. Certain repetitive actions benefit our physical health (such as regular exercise, meditation, nightly flossing), but they can also improve our mental health by reducing our stress levels. In the work world, there was an element of routine ( get up, shower, dress, eat, commute, work, etc., etc.). One of the downsides of retirement is that structure and routine can be too flexible and mundane.

Relevance – ” having some sensible or logical connection with something else”

  • It’s my scary guess that a large number of us get up in the morning and go to bed at night without being necessary or relevant at all. If so, why live? One of my favorite wisdom sources on the aging process is Dr. Walter Bortz, retired Stanford geriatric physician who, in his book “Dare To Be 100” advises us to “be necessary.” He points out it doesn’t have to be an elite role. Being older and having the gifts of experience to offer makes it easier to be necessary or relevant to someone or something. His tough but sage advice is clear:

“When we stop mattering in this world, our continued consumption of resources becomes senseless.”

Renewal/Rejuvenation – “to restore something to make it more vigorous, dynamic, and effective”

  • Writer and coach Steve Chandler, in his book “17 Lies That Are Holding You Back & The Truth That Will Set You Free” offers this insight on renewal as we age:

“It’s not your age that determines what you can learn, it’s your energy. Your energy does not depend on your age, it depends on your sense of purpose. It comes from a self-generated sense of necessity. What needs to be done?”

It occurred to me that maybe we should consider some “R” words that we can do without. Here’s a list that immediately came to mind.

Retirement – as in the traditional, self-indulgent, leisure-based, beaches, bungalows, bridge, bingo, and bocce-ball type. It’s dying – none too soon.

Resistance  – to change. To not change is to die.

Regrets – letting our past remain bigger than our future.

Rigidity –“that’s the way it’s always been; it’s the way I’ve always done it.”

Remorse – continued growth has no room for self-condemnation.

Scroll down and leave a comment or email me at gary@makeagingwork.com. If you aren’t on our weekly email list, you can join at www.makeagingwork.com.  It’s free – we publish a new article every Monday.

Post COVID, Can We “Be Better Than Before?” Yes! Here’s How.

Last week was an interesting and somewhat grueling week for me, attending back-to-back, multi-day virtual conferences for two separate organizations I’m affiliated with. These were high-level conferences that one would normally fly to and pay dearly for hotel, meals, et. al.

Both were amazingly effective – the technology, with a few minor hiccups, worked amazingly well considering there were around 200 attending one and over 80 attending the other.

This is not news that a resort hotel wants to hear. Or the airlines. Or the liquor industry. Or the – well, you get the point.

Perhaps my biggest take away was that I experienced a better learning experience as a result of this being virtual than if it were across the country in a (typically) frigid hotel ballroom. The individual sessions were recorded and made available for further review. The participants provided .pdf’s of their presentations. In all, an opportunity to take the learning deeper than being live.

The obvious downside is the diminished ability to develop relationships with other attendees, although we did the best we could with “breakout rooms” the conferencing technologies provide.

The conference attendees were resume writers, LinkedIn strategists, coaches of all sorts, writers, wellness practitioners – a mix of folks dedicated to providing some level of service to others, all with the same thing on their minds:

Where is COVID taking us?

In the end, I believe everyone came away, at worst, neutral about what the COVID impact will be. Many, including myself, came away still enthused, encouraged, and unchanged in our commitment to get better at our craft, whatever that may be.

COVID doesn’t mean we can’t be “better than before.”

I want to share one little snippet of content from one of the conferences that I hope will be helpful and encouraging for you. It came from a young lady, half my age, who is a Master Certified Coach with a Master of Positive Psychology degree. She runs a very successful coaching business at The Flourishing Center.

Her name is Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, henceforth just Emiliya for obvious reasons.

Dealing with VUCA.

Trained in the powerful principles of Positive Psychology, Emiliya provided a “container” or a “framework” into which we can put what we are experiencing along with the suggestion that having this framework can help us move forward.

The container is V-U-C-A:

Volatility – Uncertainty – Complexity – Ambiguity

This is the first exposure I had to VUCA and it made a great deal of sense, not just for COVID, but for the changing world we are trying to negotiate.

The concept of VUCA goes back to 1987 with military origins as a strategy for operating in the cold war environment. It was later adopted by business and continues as a framework today.

Emiliya used VUCA to illustrate the need for resilience, for the ability to overcome the challenges we face as the pace of change accelerates and our world becomes increasingly unpredictable.

We weren’t born with it.

Resilience isn’t natural – it’s a mindset, a learned skill. Generally, most of us do pretty well with our resilience, but these are times calling for even more.

The field of Positive Psychology – and Emiliya – teaches that there are three internal skills that can help us get to resilience and beyond:

Purpose – Presence – Positivity

There is much talk these days about “finding your purpose.” What Emiliya revealed is that purpose without meaning is equivalent to “wheel spinning.”

The two are strongly correlated and important but very different.

In simple terms, meaning is the “why” of life. It is in her words:

“the subjective experience of feeling that life fits into a larger context and has significance; it connotes a sense of comprehension and that life, as a whole, makes sense. 

On the other hand, purpose is the “what’s next” of life:

“an overall sense of goals and direction in life and has to do with directionality.”

This may sound a little “woo-woo” and new age, but it isn’t – it’s backed by substantial research.

I don’t want to take this into the weeds, so let me summarize just as Emiliya did. I think there is substantial fodder for some serious deep thinking surrounding this for all of us as we continue to look VUCA in the eye.

  • Meaning is what makes us resilient.
  • Purpose, once we are at baseline (i.e. with meaning), is that thing that makes us grow and flourish.
  • Meaning is about comprehension e.g. “I can get my head around my life.”
  • Purpose is about action e.g. “I know what I am about and how I can make an impact in the world.”

Before we can get to purpose, we need to get to resilience through meaning, answering the questions “why is this happening?”; “where am I?”; “where do I want to be?” That’s the baseline – then we can move to purpose and set goals.

Learning presence.

With a sense of meaning and purpose, the next important skill is being present, being “in the moment.” We’ve all heard how important it is – and if we’ve tried it, we’ve discovered how it seems nearly impossible. Emiliya reminded us why.

We are equipped with a “meaning-making brain” which, left to its devices, will be ruminating about the past or the future. It goes into the past to comprehend the future. When COVID or other disruptions hit, that “meaning-making brain” goes into overdrive reaching forward and backward trying to figure it all out. Being in the present moment can be a very frustrating experiment.

Mindfulness, or surrendering to the present moment, however, is an important internal skill that VUCA forces us into. It’s a superpower that narrows the gap between stimulus and response.

It’s an important component worthy of attention – be it through meditation or prayer or whatever device works best for you to get there. Without some way to be in the present, we face struggles brought on by being caught up in future-thinking and past-thinking and will likely experience knee-jerk responses to things going on around us.

Adopt positivity

Emotions impact us differently but this much we know from positive psychology research:

  1. When we are in a positive emotional state, we tend to be more “broadened” in the way we think about things, how we come up with ideas, how we notice more good things around us. Positive emotions create upward spirals.
  2. When we are in a negative emotional space, we tend to be more narrowed and more focused. Fear and pain narrow and focus us. Negative emotions create downward spirals.

As we face COVID and future VUCA, we should strive to broaden and build and get into a more positive state where we can be more creative.

I was reminded this week in my reading that order exists in all chaos. Order will return. What it looks like is hard to say, but resilience is how we prepare.

 

Thanks to Emiliya for this awakening. Please take the time to check out her website at https://theflourishingcenter.com/. She has great resources. We’d love to hear your thoughts about this as well.  Leave us a comment below or email me at gary@makeagingwork.com.

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How Would You Answer the Question: “What Does It Feel Like To Get Old?”

 

Someone asked me online recently how I felt about getting old. While I was tempted to launch into another of my characteristic snarky-style responses, I exercised uncharacteristic self-control and provided the following:

At 78, I guess I qualify for the “old” category.

Occasionally, there are days when I wish it weren’t so but I settled into being “the oldest in the room in most situations” some time ago.

I actually kind of relish it these days – to try to emulate what “old” doesn’t have to be i.e. the grumpy, immobile, smelly ol’ fart most people think of when they think of someone my age. Like this:

I strive to be the opposite – because I can.

Make getting old a game!

As I reflect on it, I realize I’ve turned it into sort of a “game” – a rather high-stakes game in some regards.

I know that I am going to “get” old. But that doesn’t mean that I have to “grow” old. I’ve learned that I have considerable control over the pace and the way that I age.

In my 50s, I began to realize that I was often being acknowledged as “younger than my age” because of my physical appearance and the types of activities that I was involved in. The appearance was assisted with a bit of genetics (full head of brown hair, even today) and a slender build but it was mostly about what I was doing to maintain that appearance.

When I came to my senses at age 37 and quit smoking (an 18 year trip of insanity), I became a “gym rat” and active exerciser, starting off doing long-distance running. In 1987, at age 45, I joined a new athletic club and got back into one of my favorite activities – basketball. But I also began to get active in the club’s weight room, doing aggressive free weight work in addition to the basketball.

I played basketball 5–6 days a week until age 63 when my left knee (and my ortho doc) said no more. For years, I was always the oldest player on the court.

Since I’m now not supposed to run or jump and should not have both feet off the ground at the same time, I’m relegated to an elliptical, treadmill, and upright bike.

Boring? Big time!!

My strength-training continues. Boring also.

That’s why I make it a game. Because I realize the stakes if I choose not to play the game.

For decades now, I have held to an exercise regimen of six days of 45–60 minutes of aerobic each week and 3 days of 30–40 minutes of strength-training, still mostly free-weights.

It’s built into my lifestyle and the driver is the realization that not much else matters if I don’t feel well.

The other parts of the “game” are a largely plant-based diet and being a constant learner.

Are beans, carrots, and almonds boring? Yes – but then so is six months recovering from a triple bypass.

I try to learn something new every day and have read over 700 books over the last 15 years.

I have no illusions about the possibility that something can come along and take me out in a heartbeat. But I’m learning that carrying regrets from the past and fears of the future are horrible use of the imagination and I’m getting better every day at “seizing the day” and living in the moment. Because it’s all I’ve got. I think that attitude is affecting how I age.

It sounds nutty, but I’ve set the mental goal of living to 112 1/2. I set that at age 75 because I wanted to have 1/3 of my life left to make up for what I didn’t get done in the first 2/3.

Candidly, that will happen when you can buy snowcones in hell.

But I feel that setting the target will allow me to come a lot closer to the century mark than if I simply accept that I will live to the average American lifespan – which is 78.9 for men which means that I will be out of here around Christmas.

All this is to say that, with regard to age, I choose to be a total outlier. I ache mentally when I see people I know that are my age or younger that are stooped, arthritic, in pain, suffering from chronic debilitating diseases as a result of previous and ongoing bad lifestyle decisions.

With regard to aging, I subscribe to Gandhi’s famous saying (paraphrased): “Be the change you want to see in others.”

I’ve learned that I can’t talk people into doing what is right for their health or successful aging. They are going to do what they are going to do – and as a culture, we face tremendous challenges in preserving and extending our good health and longevity. A broken “cure-based” healthcare system, food industry that doesn’t give a rip about our health, and a general cultural attitude oriented toward seeking comfort and instant gratification all take way too many of us to premature aging, extended morbidity, and early frailty.

I just choose to not be part of it – and hopefully, change a lifestyle or two with my example.

Here are a few previous articles that provide a perspective on the above.

Aging Without Frailty – A Series

Extend Your Healthy Longevity – Twelve Things That May Be Accelerating Your Aging – A Three-part Series.

The last point I want to make about my aging is that I’ve reached a stage where I can’t wait to get up in the morning and do what I do (here’s a link to my LinkedIn profile which will provide you a quick view of what I do). This only came after a long period of self-discovery through my 60s where I finally acknowledged what I was really wired up to do but that I had avoided with my 35-year investment in the corporate world.

With this deep self-discovery, I have more energy and drive than at any other stage of my life. It’s one of the reasons that I am not an advocate of traditional retirement as we know it in the U.S. because it takes us in the wrong direction relative to how our natural biology works. Meaningful, purposeful work mixed with leisure and continued learning is a magic combination that takes my mind off my age and, I believe, will bode well for me getting closer to that 112 1/2 than most people believe I can.

So, all that said, the bottom line is that I feel good in this aging game that I’m playing and having the time of my life. And hoping to bring some others with me.

How would you answer the question? I’m really curious – share your thoughts with a comment below or email me your thoughts at gary@makeagingwork.com.

Don’t Be a “Get Off My Lawn” Elder!

If you are at mid-life or beyond and reading this, do yourself (and me) a favor and spend 34 minutes, 23 seconds and watch this video.

Marc Middleton (on the left) is CEO of Growing Bolder which is described as ” –  a team of award-winning journalists, broadcasters and creatives all focused on sharing the inspirational stories of ordinary people living extraordinary lives — men and women who are redefining the possibilities of life after 50.”

I’ve followed G-B for a few years and feel they are doing wonderful things. There’s much to be gained and nothing to lose by subscribing and becoming a “Growing Bolder Insider.”

In keeping with Marc’s commitment to addressing the issues surrounding ageism and “growing older but bolder,” he has produced this interview with what many consider he ultimate authority” on aging, Dr. Ken Dychtwald. founder and CEO of AgeWave and author of 17 books on aging.

I will confess to having been heavily influenced by Dr. Dychtwald’s research, writings, and public presentations.

This video brings Dr. Dychtwald to us as truly “one of us” as he has just turned 70.

I won’t steal any of the thunder from this interview except to say it speaks positively to the opportunity that we have, as folks aging into our second half/third age. to address ageism and contribute mightily to influencing where our culture and society are going.

Please click on the link to the video below the picture and absorb some of the content offered by two of the most influential “third-agers” available to us.

 

 

Click here to watch the video.

Managing Yourself Into Your Second Half – Three Critical Steps

“When work for most people meant manual labor, there was no need to worry about the second half of your life. You simply kept on doing what you had always done. And if you were lucky enough to survive 40 years of hard work in the mill or on the railroad, you were quite happy to spend the rest of your life doing nothing. Today, however, most work is knowledge work, and knowledge workers are not ‘finished’ after 40 years on the job, they are merely bored.

We hear a great deal of talk about the midlife crisis of the executive. It is mostly boredom. At 45, most executives have reached the peak of their business careers, and they know it. After 20 years of doing very much the same kind of work, they are very good at their jobs. But they are not learning or contributing or deriving challenge and satisfaction from the job. And yet they are still likely to face another 20 if not 25 years of work. That is why managing one-self increasingly leads one to begin a second career.”

I stole the long quote from a short Harvard Business Review booklet entitled “Managing Oneself”  by the late, great,  and revered management/business guru, Peter F. Drucker.

Drucker suggests that there are three ways to develop a second career:

  1. Actually start one.  It may mean moving from one kind of organization to another,  or perhaps moving into a completely different line of work. Like a close friend of mine who took his sales skills from the high-end furniture industry to the automobile brokerage industry and thrived.
  2. Develop a parallel career.  Another close friend and investment banking executive prepared himself for a parallel career in Christian counseling by getting a Master of Divinity on top of his MBA. He functions in both roles with a thriving counseling business where heart and wisdom team up to change lives one at a time. With the changes and volatility taking place in the banking/brokerage world, his decision may prove prescient.
  3. Be a social entrepreneur. These are people who have been successful in their first careers but are no longer challenged.  Very much like my friend Ron Benfield who I wrote about in my 3/2/20 article. Ron fit this scenario. Unchallenged and passed over in his large hospital CFO role, he started his own healthcare consulting firm which thrives two years later providing services back to hospitals solving the same problems he solved as a successful CFO. But now he provides employment to a team of skilled professionals who were also escaping the corporate handcuffs.

Option #3 appears to be alive and well – –

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the self-employment rate among workers 65 and older (who don’t incorporate) is the highest of any age group in America: 15.5 percent. In sharp contrast, it’s 4.1 percent for ages 25 to 34.  We’ve known for some time that more businesses are started by people over 50 than any other age group.

– – but the majority still don’t plan for their second half.

Drucker comes to a conclusion similar to my observation as I connect with mid-life professionals.

He says:

“People who manage the second half of their lives may always be a minority. The majority may ‘retire on the job’ and count the years until their actual retirement. But it is this minority, the men and women who see a long working-life expectancy as an opportunity both for themselves and for society, who will become leaders and models.”

Why is it that the majority fail to plan for the second half?  Perhaps it is not accepting the fact that living longer will inevitably include some level of a major setback in work or life. Whether it is being passed over, being a victim of a downsize, a marriage breakup, loss of a child, a second major interest – beyond a hobby – can make a huge difference.

How do I do this?

Let me share three suggestions that should help:

1. Start early. Drucker suggests beginning long before entering the second half, noting that all the social entrepreneurs he knew began to work on their chosen second career long before they reached the peak of their original careers. Much of this can happen through volunteering, pursuing one’s curiosity, experimenting while at the same time expanding awareness of opportunities and needs in the world. Drucker makes the point that “- if one does not begin to volunteer before one is 40 or so, one will not volunteer once past 60.”

2. Get reacquainted with your real self. We all start with an “essential self” and it sticks with us until we are no longer. Martha Beck, author of the seminal book “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live” describes it as:

“–the personality you got from your genes: your characteristic desires, preferences, emotional reactions, and involuntary physiological responses, bound together by an overall sense of identity.”

Unfortunately, career pursuit, conformity, building another’s dreams, and chasing the paycheck can push that essential self to the background. Beck suggests it is the formation of  a “social self” or “– that part of you that developed in response to pressures from the people around you and was shaped by cultural norms and expectations.”

The aforementioned major setback has a way of bringing that essential self forward.  Rather than wait for the setback, mid-life is a time to reflect, reassess, and resurrect that core, essential self and commit – through experimentation – to finding a way to apply it in the second half.

Kick start the process by asking yourself:

  • What am I really, really good at?
  • What do I really, really want to do?
  • What does the world need?

3. Grow, learn, expand, be curious. Now is a good time to not only rediscover your essence but also beef up your skills. Discovering your essence should reacquaint you with your talents. Now is a good time to burnish those talents with deeper skills and turn them into deeper strengths. Take some classes; go for a new or another certification; volunteer and learn something new.  It’s easy to flat-line intellectually at this mid-point, stay stuck in old ways, and be unprepared for the unexpected.

Be the CEO of your second half.

I’ll wrap with another quote from Drucker:

“Every existing society, even the most individualistic one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: that organizations outlive workers, and that most people stay put.

But today the opposite is true. Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile. The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.”

I hope this may help you join the revolution.

Share a comment below. Thanks for actively participating in the discussion.  Join our email list if you haven’t already by going to www.makeagingwork.com. You’ll receive our free ebook “Achieve Your Full-live Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose.”

Stay safe!

 

 

It’s Never Too Late To Be A Genius. Don’t Forget – You Were One Once!

Einstein was told he was stupid.

Yours truly was stupid – for the better part of 55 years.

Not because anyone called me stupid – other than a little demon in that fatty-acid clump between my temples.

It all started with my mistaken interpretation of a standard IQ test taken somewhere along my high school journey – I don’t remember when exactly.  Somehow I interpreted – or was told by someone – that my score was substantially below average. In other words, I was kinda stupid.

And a little demon was birthed.

That’s not a good thing when the hormones are raging as an adolescent. It’s just not a great combination.

It leads to a “personality.”

Sure, we all have a personality. As life coach Steve Chandler reminds us, we fundamentally stay what we became in junior high school. Then we operate out of that personality, play the life game, and forget we were once geniuses.

Do you remember when you weren’t a personality? When you were in your genius years. When you enthusiastically, unabashedly tapped into that thing called “creation.” Even at my age, I remember spending whole days as a child – sometimes alone, usually with others my age – making stuff up, acting things out. Maybe it was made up games on a vacant lot with an old abandoned shed; or a new mound of dirt at a construction site, or a house of blankets and sheets stretched across furniture, or trying to build a tree house – or just turning whatever you could get your hands on into something.

Kinda like this – when my 7- and 8-year old grandsons get together and tap “nana’s” toy bin or my 10-year old granddaughter decides to go into premature domesticity in a box house.

We didn’t have or need Disneyworld growing up. We did our own Disneyworld where we were with what we had. We were geniuses.

Until we weren’t.

What happened?

Grown-ups happened! Parents, peers, professors. The “P’s” – those ahead of us whose creativity had been suppressed and now felt compelled to continue the culturally-defined suppression.

As Chandler writes:

“Grown-ups project their own lack of creativity on their young children and take them places like Disneyland or Chuck E. Cheese constantly to over-stimulate the child. They are projecting their own emptiness on the soon-to-be spoiled child. Children don’t need all that. Children can (and will) create anywhere with anything.”

How do we lose that creativity? Chandler nails it:

“- by assuming personalities and then defending those personalities with our lives. No more creativity, just defense. Now I’m afraid I won’t get a job. I’m afraid my spouse won’t approve of me, and I’m afraid of my employer, and I’m afraid I won’t raise my kids right. And soon, I’m out of energy. Because nothing takes more energy to maintain than a fear.”

I’m not into victimology and don’t point fingers. Except at my own thinking – the thinking that produced that little demon. Perhaps it had a bit of a nudge from a parent or peer or professor/teacher.  But I owned it and nurtured it into my 60s. My personality formed around it.

My little demon persisted despite the fact that I survived pretty well in light of my perceived deficiency.

  1. Graduated high school, popular (not hard in a high school of 90 kids).
  2. Finished college (OK, three tries and nine years post-high school – the demon loved it).
  3. Did above-average in career and ladder climbing, pulling down some OK jack.
  4. Married way over my head to someone much smarter and with far fewer blind spots.

Still, my little thought demon had me convinced that I should be intimidated and be rendered speechless in the presence of someone I perceived to be of higher intellect, ability, title, and status. No way I could measure up, look smart, or leave an impression. So, best to just avoid the encounter.

With the persistent help of she who is “smarter and without many blind spots” and a gradual rise in my self-awareness, I started retiring the demon in my 60s. It wasn’t going willingly. Remnants still surfaced.

Until my 50th high school reunion, ten years ago.

The reunion was a big deal. Half of my class showed up! All six of us had a ball. (Yes, you read that right – 12 in my graduating class. No, it wasn’t a one-room school!)

One of my enterprising classmates had rifled through some school records that were about to be thrown out as the state announced they were going to preserve our high school as a state historical site.  She found files of high school transcripts for each of us in attendance at the reunion.

And there it was – the record of my IQ test. Along with old test papers, report cards, teacher’s reports (deportment was not one of my strong suits).

My IQ test graded slightly above average!

The demon exited!

Now, a conversation with someone who I would have perceived as of “higher intellect, ability, title, and status” is easier because I know most are operating from the defense of a personality that mostly isn’t real.  Just like in my world.  Despite their intellect/ability/title/status, I know the defense of their personality is at the expense of creativity that never really left them.

It just got “P’ed” on.

That’s why I like working with folks entering the “second half”. It’s about then that personality defense and 35 years of catering to cultural expectations become tiresome, energy is in shorter supply, and there’s a concern that there’s a limited time period in which to “make a difference.” It’s a “turning point” in which one can operate from purpose and not personality and re-connect to core creativity and bring it back even stronger than in childhood.

It’s why I’ll be adding a new company over the coming months – “Turning Point Career Services” –  with the intent of offering coaching services and other resources designed to meet people at this second-half juncture and help them move forward from there with purpose in the lead, not personality.

That creativity and spirit we all had as 7-year-olds didn’t leave. It just got barnacled over, enculturated, and tamped down. But it can come raging back if we’ll set it free.

That’s what the second half of life can be all about.

Maybe some of you can relate. We’d love to hear about it. Scroll down and leave a comment or drop us a note at gary@makeagingwork.com.

Beware the Furniture Disease! I Have It – My Chest Has Fallen Into My Drawers!

I  can’t deal with it – having an untucked shirt touch my midsection when I stand up.

It’s a condition that has added to my indigenous grumpiness for the last few years.

I’m venting because it reached a new peak of seriousness this last week when I decided to order some new T-shirts from “Nordy” (for you Oakland Raiders fans and residents of Douglas, Wyoming, that’s suburban WASP-speak for Nordstrom’s). It’s their annual “customer appreciation” sale.

I have always hated shopping, especially for clothes. Those who have had the misfortune of live, personal contact with me can attest to that.

Online shopping hasn’t changed that feeling.

Committed to the mission of replacing tattered, ten-year-old T’s, I found some Nike and Adidas (cheap) T’s that looked good but then faced the decision of sizing before hitting the “buy now” button.  So I referenced the sizing guide offered by both manufacturers which suggest sizes based on a range of chest sizes.

Forever, I’ve been “XL” but have lost a little weight so decided to drag out the cloth tape-measure from my bride’s sewing box (which came as a wedding gift 49 2/3 years ago and has been opened four times since) and measured my chest.

Check. I know what size to order.

But, since I was standing there half-naked, I seized the opportunity to drop the tape to the “part that can’t stand to be touched” and measured my waistline.

It hasn’t been pleasant to be in the same area code as me since I made that mistake. It would have been better around here for the aforementioned bride if I hadn’t taken that second measurement.

Chest: X inches. Waistline: X+3 inches.

Ugh! On two levels:

  1. Ego, vanity, arrogance – really bad post-shower frontal and side view in the mirror.
  2. Health, metabolic-syndrome concern.

That little T-shirt event spurred me to go back and refresh my memory on the downsides of those prevalent “love handles” so many of us walk around with these days. With 65% of us American males overweight and 24% obese, we’re showing our naivete about what that collection of mostly white adipose fat (WAT) can mean for us long term.

I wrote about this topic on 1/13/2018 – click here to read that post. 

You see, if it’s showing up around the middle, it’s likely present around vital internal organs – like the liver, pancreas, and others  And that’s not a good thing.

Love handles are part of the “metabolic syndrome.”

You’ve probably heard of the “metabolic syndrome.” Mayo Clinic defines it as:

“- a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. These conditions include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels.”

Heart.org offer this:

Metabolic syndrome occurs when a person has three or more of the following measurements:

  • Abdominal obesity (Waist circumference of greater than 40 inches in men, and greater than 35 inches in women)

  • Triglyceride level of 150 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dL) or greater

  • HDL cholesterol of less than 40 mg/dL in men or less than 50 mg/dL in women

  • Systolic blood pressure (top number) of 130 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or greater, or diastolic blood pressure (bottom number) of 85 mm Hg or greater

  • Fasting glucose of 100 mg/dL or greater

I’ve been aware and watchful of the components of the syndrome for decades and watch each component carefully. That is until I didn’t – and let the “abdominal obesity” slip through my calorie-rich-and-processed (C-R-A-P) food-stained fingers. Along with a little help from COVID isolation and no access to the late, great 24-Hour Fitness.

In my refresher trip, I was reminded, at the site Healthfully.com, that the waist-to-hip ratio and body-mass-index (BMI) were more important than the chest to waist ratio.  When you click on this site, you’ll find a very simple BMI calculator.

It didn’t get any better when I did the waist-to-hip ratio. Or the BMI calculator.

Disclosure: Normal BMI is under 25 on the index. I’m solidly in the overweight category at around 27.

Temporarily!

40 and 35

Those are the maximum waist size numbers for men and women respectively to avoid having that extra white visceral fat create cardiovascular or cerebral problems down the road. That’s tougher to do past age 50. But vital.

Oh, and don’t play games with this and say that you are good because your pant size is under 40.  Doesn’t work that way, fellas. Your waist size is going to be, at a minimum, 3″ larger than your pant size. I still can squeeze into my 36″ jeans with a waist-size 4-5″ above that.

Do you have the visual I look at every day now? Not pretty.

COVID is exposing us.

So, why all the drama about belly fat?

I wrote two weeks ago about how 40% of people who died with COVID-19 had diabetes. Among the deaths of those under 65, half had the chronic condition.

Obesity = Type 2 diabetes = vulnerability.

For the last 3-4 decades, we’ve been heading in the wrong direction. Collectively, we are 20 pounds heavier than 20 years ago but no taller. Wikipedia states that as of 2015, there were approximately 392 million people diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes compared to around 30 million in 1985 – tenfold plus.

Yikes!

Here are the culprits:

If tying your shoes has become an aerobic event, it’s time to shift some lifestyle.

I’m shifting mine because it’s way too close to an aerobic experience.

Share a comment. It’s great to hear from you – thanks for actively participating in the discussion.  Join our email list if you haven’t already by going to www.makeagingwork.com. You’ll receive our free ebook “Achieve Your Full-live Potential: Five Easy Steps to Living Longer, Healthier, and With More Purpose.”

Stay safe!

Just a quick side note:

Exactly three years ago today, 8/17/2017, I began this weekly diatribe. A few of you have hung in for 152 blog posts. I hope you know that I deeply appreciate that.