How Not To Waste a Retirement.

“The retirement age is coming down from 70, to 65, to 60 and may, in the course of the next 25 years, go below that.

But the dream come true is a nightmare.

For retirement, conceived as a protracted vacation, is a form of prolonged suicide. It marks the first formal stage on the road to oblivion.

Consider the loss to society and deprivation of the individual involved when a man in the real prime of life, the mental, moral, and spiritual prime, is turned out to pasture at the decree of the calendar – someone who has the most creative and most socially useful part of his labor still in him. 

Here is greatness wasted on the putting greens of Long Beach or the green benches of St. Petersburg.

What is the solution, or is there a solution?

Just – work. Work, not to insure your retirement, but to prevent it! You will benefit greatly from any kind of work which is a challenge to that part of you which continues growing.

It is finally time to distill wisdom from experience and to give of that wisdom.”

Darn! I wish I’d come up with that last line.

The statement belongs to the late Dr. Mortimer Adler, renowned educator and author. Dr. Adler had been invited onboard the ocean-liner Queen Mary to a luxurious meeting facility filled with the creme-de-la-creme of insurance executives who were gathered for a Million Dollar Roundtable of the National Association of Life Underwriters. Dr. Adler was asked to speak to this illustrious group “to aid in their continuing search for self-development.”

The year was 1962, almost 6 decades ago. Adler turned the tables on the expectations of this group by likening the American retirement dream to digging a premature grave.

I found this story in the excellent book by Mark S. Walton entitled “Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond.”

Adler’s assertion rings true today. Walton continues Adler’s message: “Find a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up” Adler asserted, “from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

Our pre-occupation with retirement has turned “work” into another unattractive four-letter word for many. For nearly a century now we have re-categorized work into something we tolerate for 35-45 years with the goal to get away from it so we can hopefully do what we really wanted to do 45 years before. That is assuming we knew back then.

But research tells us that we abandon work at our own peril.

A study of 83,000 Americans 65 and older published in Preventing Chronic Disease, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that being unemployed or retired was associated with the greatest risk of poor health.

Jay Olshansky, a professor at the Chicago’s School of Public Health agrees with the article, saying: “We know that remaining in the labor force is good for us. Not working can lead to overall poorer health.”

Making it the best of four-letter words

In his 1989 best-selling business book “The Age of Unreason”, Charles Handy offered some prescient advice about work and its role in our evolving society. He points out that 50-60 years ago (from 1989) people signed on for work expecting to work 100,000 hours. His formula: 47 hrs/week x 47 weeks/year x 47 years (age 18-65). But now that number is closer to 50,000 hours (37 x 37 x 37) as technology enables companies to do more with fewer bits of our time, as we enter the job force later (avg: 22-24), and with a trend of people retiring earlier.

If we factor in a longevity bonus of 15-30 years that is now becoming more of a reality, I don’t think I’m too far off  Handy’s mark by suggesting that we not only risk our health and longevity when we stop working, but we are also robbing society of 50,000 hours of productivity, creativity, and contribution back to mankind.

In Handy’s words:

“Those unused 50,000 hours can be our opportunity to discover the missing bits of ourselves, to explore new talents, to add variety to ordinary weeks, to meet new people, and to learn new skills.  Those unused hours can add up to a huge new resource for society rather than a pile of unwanted people if we start thinking positively, if we find a way to pay for it, and if, first of all, we start redefining “work” so that it no longer means only a job. It is not the devil who finds work for idle hands to do, it is our own human instincts which make us want to contribute to our world, to be useful, and to matter in some way to other people; to have a reason to get up in the morning.”

Some thirty years ago, Handy put a dagger into the heart of the prevailing concept of retirement with his appeal to his readers to consider work the purpose of life.  He lists “the three P’s at the heart of life – purpose, pattern, people”.  Work provides all three.

Yet, still today, so many can’t wait to abandon work to pursue – – – what? The “what” becomes the rub. For 2 out of 3 retirees, the “what” tends to be shallow and short-term. Garage cleaned and re-organized, golf lessons scheduled, checking off the travel bucket list, alarm clock disabled, pigging out on deferred Netflix series, self-indulgence to the max. One or two years in, those irritating questions surface: “Is this all there is?” “How am I relevant?” “Why am I feeling bored?” “Can I get my old identity back?”

The AgeWave organization confirmed, in their survey of 50,000 retired Baby Boomers that despite 80-90% of pre-retirees being confident they would realize their retirement dreams and goals, only 40% of retirees achieved those happiness and retirement dreams. Vitality, energy, and still-fresh skills are atrophied and productive years wasted.

Active Wisdom

I wrote about the concept of “active wisdom” last year in this article about purpose. It’s a term coined by anthropologist, activist, and writer Mary Catherine Bateson.  She calls it a “new stage” where “wisdom is reaped from years of experience and living.”  She calls it the “most acceptable and positive trait associated with longevity.”

Purpose brings the “why”. Active wisdom brings the “what.”

If you’re past 40 and can fog a mirror, you’ve got “active wisdom.” Our culture needs it spread around, although it doesn’t give a rip about encouraging you to spread it.  It’s more inclined to think of you as a drag on society and prefer that you shuffle off to a warehouse, out of sight, out of the way, out of mind.

Adler had it right:

“It is finally time to distill wisdom from experience and to give of that wisdom.  Find a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

Let’s empty the warehouses!!

Love to hear from you with your thoughts on all this. Leave us a comment below or drop an email to gary@makeagingwork.com with your feedback. I’m doing these articles weekly, so if you aren’t on our mailing list and would like to receive future articles, join our email list at www.makeagingwork.com.

 

Dealing With the Fear and Regrets of Aging

I recently had a reader pose a question to me that I fear may be on the minds of far too many folks.

Here was her question:

What are books for someone with a fear of getting older? I feel scared of aging and having the feeling that time is slipping by and I haven’t really “lived” yet.

–and here’s my response:

Although I don’t think books are the answer to what really ails you, I will recommend books written by life and executive coach and prolific author, Steve Chandler. In particular, consider investing in:
  1. Fearless: Creating the Courage to Change the Things You Can.
  2. Crazy Good: A Book of Choices
  3. The Story of You (and How to Create a New One)
  4. Time Warrior: How to Defeat Procrastination, People-Pleasing, Self-doubt Over-Commitment, Broken Promises, and Chaos.

One of the themes you will pick up from Chandler, if you choose to invest in his writing, is the idea of avoiding “time travel.” In other words, avoid living in the past or the future.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. The main resident of the past is regret; the main resident of the future is fear. Neither can exist in the present moment.

I’m going to take a wild stab here and assume that you are moving through the mid-point of life i.e mid-40s to late 50s. That’s when these types of uncomfortable questions begin to surface. Why am I here? Is this all there is? Does anybody know I’m here? Do I matter? Etc., ad infinitum.

The thought choices you are making are something that is under your control. We can’t control all the circumstances we encounter but we have total control over how we respond to those circumstances. You are creating fictitious circumstances in advance and allowing that to create fear (false expectations appearing real).

One of the circumstances you can’t control is that you will be older tomorrow than you are today. But you can control how you deal with that. You may be surprised that research has determined that the lowest point of happiness for most people is in the late 40s and the happiest periods are when they are in their 60s, 70s, 80s.

Most fear is manufactured

Your fear of aging is an example of a manufactured thought that has a weak basis for existing. It may be based on your observation of people who have experienced health issues in later life. Those people aren’t you and it’s not healthy to project their situations into your world.

Your health in your later years is heavily influenced by the decisions that you make from this point forward. Substitute your fear with action and commit to doing the things that will grant you a better chance of avoiding the things you fear. Diet, exercise, continuous learning, and social engagement are essential components of that doing.

It’s helpful to remember that time can’t be managed. It’s fixed into seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. We can only manage ourselves within the context of inflexible time. That’s why “time travel’ out of the present moment is so wasteful and unhealthy.

One of the gifts that we are all given is imagination. Fear suppresses imagination. Fear generates worry which is the grossest misuse of imagination possible.

Resurrect your giftedness

You were gifted at birth with a level of talent and uniqueness that, like most, has been tamped down by meeting the conformity that is expected of us by our culture.

Let me share a quote from another favorite author, Seth Godin, from his book “Linchpin”:

“Anxiety is needless and imaginary. It’s fear about fear that means nothing. The difference between fear and anxiety: anxiety is diffuse and focuses on possibilities in an unknown future, not a real and present threat. The resistance is 100 percent about anxiety. Anxiety is an internal construct with no relation to the outside world. ‘Needless anxiety’ is redundant because anxiety is always needless. Anxiety doesn’t protect you from danger, but from doing great things. It keeps you awake at night and foretells a future that’s not going to happen. Fear is about staying alive. There’s not a lot of genuine fear here in our world. Anxiety, on the other hand, is dangerous paralysis. Anxiety is the exaggeration of the worst possible what-if, accompanied by self-talk that leads to the relentless ‘minimization of the actual odds of success’.”

Suppose you accepted the fact that the days ahead of you are an opportunity to dust off that uniqueness and put it to work doing something you are really good at and that you really enjoy doing and that makes a contribution to what the world needs.

Do that, live in the present moment and you won’t leave space in your mental bandwidth for fear and worry.

Four Steps to a Bountiful Post-career Harvest

“For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned, it is the season of harvest.” Hasidic saying

I’m curious. Has your financial planner – assuming you are working with one, which I hope you are –  ever dropped the word “harvest” into your conversation as you pour over the charts and graphs and talk “what’s next?”

Let’s look at the word first. Merriam Webster says this:

  • Noun: “the act of gathering in a crop; the product or reward of effort.“
  • Verb: “reap.”

I may be wrong, but I can’t imagine that word getting a lot of play in insurance sales school.

Now, maybe you are one of the fortunate few who have engaged a financial planner or adviser that thinks “beyond the numbers” and pays more than lip service to the non-financial components of retirement. Financial planners are important, valuable, and necessary. But, chances are they aren’t going to lead you into a deep discussion of the four biggest concerns that retirees have beyond money: (1) boredom; (2) loss of identity; (3) becoming irrelevant; (4) deteriorating health.

Planners sell financial products, not psychological counseling.

How can we avoid these four concerns, reap a reward for our first-half effort, experience a purposeful “harvest”, and avoid a retirement winter?

Here are four suggestions that may help.

1. Build a new “friends list.” With your retirement, we can safely assume you disengaged from the largest, longest-lasting, and one of the most important sets of relationships in your life when you left work. No problem, you say. I’ll stay in touch with most of them. Guess again – 90% of them forgot your name as they gulped down a slice of your retirement cake and watched you vacate the building. Don’t expect return calls – they are all entwined in their own sets of issues still building somebody else’s dream.

Start now to build a new list. Who can you add to keep it alive and vibrant? Who do you know casually that you want to go deeper with because, well, they don’t have time for ageist, senior-citizen-type conversations and they light up a room when they enter. Who can you add that would agree to a plan to hold each other accountable for not heading to geezerville?

Don’t let retirement become a winter void of sustaining relationships. Social isolation is a killer – ARRP reminds us that it is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

2. Commit to a holistic self-care plan. Sorry, but your planner didn’t get a lick of training on how your or his/her biology works while in insurance school. Oh, I appreciate that you will be advised to “take care of yourself.” But what about some detail? That’s on you. Now, perhaps for the first time, you need to be the true CEO of your health.

Your self-care plan should include a relationship with a primary-care provider that goes beyond the typical “drug or cut-it-out” mentality and can engage you in a holistic conversation about your bio-markers, general health condition, what to include, and what to avoid – a trained clinician who is willing to partner with you in your self-care plan. Your “back nine” years will probably require making up for some marginal “front nine” lifestyle patterns, so it shouldn’t be treated casually. Those bad first-half habits have an insidious nature that creep up and manifest on an accelerating basis in our 50s and 60s unless accounted for and slowed down or stopped early in the retirement years.

Consider a commitment to learning about the basics of your cellular biology. Can you explain to me how your body works as effectively as you can about how your lawnmower or dishwasher works?  Probably not, if you an American. Why should you when the “fix” is only a $35 copay away? A physician once told me that the biggest killer in our culture is healthcare illiteracy. If we did appreciate how our body works, would we still take 35% of our meals through the side window of our cars? Or spend, on average (as retirees), 49 hours a week one with the La-z-Boy and voice-activated remote.

The book “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond” turned the ship for me eight years ago, particularly Chapter Five. Yes, it was written 16 years ago, but your cellular structure hasn’t changed in billions of years. Dr. Lodge’s chapter will help you understand the consequences – good and bad – of your daily treatment of your 100-trillion-cell immune system.

3. Accelerate your learning. Wait, haven’t I done enough of that? Truth is, you probably had pretty well stopped any kind of serious learning a couple of decades ago. Just as you want that physical self to remain vibrant, you need to work even harder at keeping that 2 1/2 pounds of fatty acid between your temples in even better shape.

Fifty years ago, even neurologists believed that neurological senescence was automatic and unalterable. Fortunately, they are all now dead. We’ve learned tons about the brain since then and know that we can build new neural connections for as long as we want. Yep, it’s slower and harder, but what isn’t after 60? What are you not doing that you always wanted to do because you feel it would be too hard or take too much time? There’s your starting point. Stretch yourself mentally with something that takes you outside your comfort zone. Evidence mounts that doing so is antidotal to dementia.

4.Let your purpose find you and go fix something. Have you noticed that a lot of things in our culture are broken right now? What if you headed off the boredom and loss-of-identity that accompanies full-stop retirement and dusted off your peculiarity, your uniqueness and packaged it up with the skills and experiences of 40 years of work and went out and “made a ruckus” aimed at fixing something. What if you got back in the ring – on your terms, at your pace, doing what you may have forgotten you are/were really, really good at and loved doing? You don’t have to look far to find something that needs fixing. Substitute “re-creation” for “recreation” and go change something. And when that’s fixed, go change something else.

Here’s a quote from a recent Chip Conley blog to ponder:

“While recreation and re-creation are not mutually exclusive, the latter promises the elixir of life. An alchemical cocktail of curiosity and wisdom, garnished with fresh sprigs of a beginner’s mind, creativity, and service. To regenerate is to make new again. To retire is to withdraw into seclusion.”

 

I spent a bunch of my formative years engaged in farming activities. I’ve seen a harvest or two. I’ve also seen what happens if the harvest doesn’t happen. It’s called rot. Rot can be a post-career option. It is for many. But you, dear reader, are a harvester. And society will be better for it.

Chasing “Yet.” Please tell me you haven’t stopped.

My son got me a Samsung tablet for my 79th birthday last month. Probably out of sympathy.  Really an amazing surprise considering he’s endured 44 years of my personality.

It’s a great gift because it’s an upgrade from my cell phone as a feed for my large appetite for YouTube and other video podcasts to overcome the boredom of my daily encounters with the treadmill and upright bike.

I’ve gotten into Matthew McConaughey (MM) lately.  I know, I’m late for that party. He’s been “hot” on the podcast and speaking circuit for a while judging from the number of his YouTube videos.  It may have been the straightforward truth he spoke at the commencement speech at the University of Houston that kick-started all this. It’s worth a watch and a listen.

It’s hard not to like him as an actor. I find it easy to like him even more as a “normal” homo sapien who seems to have avoided the Hollywood varnish/veneer and gotten down to thinking deeply about and sorting out really meaningful life issues – and sharing them for our consumption and benefit.

I’ve also been deep into the “gospel according to Seth Godin” for the last year or so. Seth is considered the master of marketing and goes against the grain on conventional thinking about most everything, especially about meaningful success and achievement.

When I hear a concept from the mouths of both Godin and MM, stated slightly differently, my radar goes up.

Time to pay attention.

Chasing “yet”

MM calls it “chasing yet.” It’s a guiding principle in his life:  that he’ll go to his grave “chasing yet.” As in, I’m not “there yet” but I’m moving in that direction knowing that I’ll never get “there” completely. It’s a fundamental tenet of mastery. Never abandoning the process, not focusing on outcomes. Finding joy in a daily journey tethered to his uniqueness.

Godin, in his latest, and best, book (#19 or #20, I forget which) “The Practice: Shipping Creative Work”, takes the same line in different words, exposing the principle of “so far” and “not yet.” As in (from “The Practice”):

“You haven’t reached your goals (so far). You’re not as good at your skill as you want to be (not yet).

You are struggling to find the courage to create (so far).

This is fabulous news. 

Persistent and consistent effort over time can yield results.

“So far” and “not yet” are the foundations of every successful journey.”

Retirement and “chasing yet.”

OK, I guess you knew I was going here.

Retirement suppresses “chasing yet.”

I wrote two weeks ago about not giving up on our “unrepeatable uniqueness”, about not ignoring those inborn childhood “inclinations.” About considering the hours already accumulated against that 10,000 hours that may define our mastery. About not drinking the cultural Koolaid that says it’s time to shut all that down and just “enjoy life” with the inference that the enjoyment is to be found in ending the chase.

“Chasing yet” puts another layer on the invalidation of traditional retirement as the way to finish out.

Now, I admit, I’ve not heard either MM or Godin comment on the concept of retirement. But I’ll take any bets that say they both are retirement advocates. I don’t think there is room in their mindsets for that dissonance.

Why does Warren Buffett still show up every morning at the office and read financial reports and newspapers five hours a day?

Why does William Shatner, at 88, still perform, travel the world, cut C&W albums, live life like his hair is on fire.

They, along with a growing cohort, all disdain retirement. They are still “chasing yet” finding joy in a journey without concern for the outcomes.

What’s your “yet?”

If you are retired, can you resurrect it?

If you are planning retirement, where does it fit in your non-financial retirement plan? Or does it exist at all?

How far back in your neural circuitry have you allowed your uniqueness and inclinations to retreat in favor of an unnatural concept that goes against our very biology.

We need you to be “more peculiar.”

One of the more unusual and refreshing concepts that Seth Godin touts is to increase your peculiarity. That thought terrifies my cohort and immediate family as I push the limits there already. But Godin is simply saying that your peculiarity is your uniqueness and that it deserves to be deepened and shared.

Your peculiarity may be – probably is – your “yet.”

My peculiarity is writing something every day because that’s how I’m currently “chasing yet” knowing that I’ll never be the best writer and that lots of folks won’t like what I say and that all that is OK.

It’s a goalless “yet” and the outcomes defy definition.  But the journey produces the joy. Reassurance and reliance on outcomes deny the joy.

Our third age, our “back nine” is the time to let our peculiarity flourish. We are called to not deny others the benefit.

What is your “peculiarity?” Are you “chasing yet?” Please share your thoughts – leave a comment below. If you haven’t, you can join our growing list of readers at www.makeagingwork.com. Join the tribe – and bring a friend with you.

So You Think You’ve “Peaked.” Probably Not – Read On!

A question came up recently on Quora.com that intrigued me and motivated me to put the pencil to paper with a response. The question asked:

“At what age is your prime age?”

Fertile ground for thought and opinion, don’t you agree?

So I stepped up with my two cents worth. Here’s an expanded version.

There would seem, to me, to be two different types of prime: physical and psychological.

Physical prime is easier to define. Generally, we reach our physical prime in our mid-to-late 20’s and a gradual decline begins from there. My understanding is that this physical decline in terms of muscle mass and strength really begins to accelerate in the mid-to-late-thirties and picks up serious speed as we approach our fifties unless offset through strength training.

Mental prime may be more elusive as it would seem to be unique to each of us and have so many dimensions. Your psychological/emotional prime is likely to look different and have a different timeline than mine or everyone else’s.

I did some research and found this interesting article on the topic published in 2017 by Business Insider:

Here Are The Ages You Peak at Everything Throughout Life

Here’s the chart that they developed which shows interesting prime ages for a broad selection of phenomena:

As the article emphasized, this is not a controlled study and the points mark the middle of an age range. So these are averages. That’s important for you, my readers, to know because you are all above average on so many levels.

Some things are pretty obvious. For instance, you’re 60 and deciding to learn to speak Russian. Good luck with that. It appears you are 5 decades too late to expect significant results from that worthwhile mental-gymnastics effort.

Double-dipping “Life Satisfaction”

It’s interesting to note, from the chart, that life satisfaction pops up peaking in two spots: age 23 and again at 69 but with psychological wellbeing peaking at 82. This is all according to science.

At 79, I honestly don’t remember what my life satisfaction level was at 23. I was between stints in college and mostly a “wandering generality” into muscle cars and bar hopping. Maybe it’s saying that there is some life satisfaction in wanderlust which was a pretty popular lifestyle with the reprobates I hung with in mid-1960s Cheyenne, Wyoming. Fortunately, sanity returned and I went back for my third and final run at a college degree (P.S. I succeeded). My biggest contribution through that meandering stretch was to the economic welfare of pubs and gas stations.

I will, on the other hand, attest to there being greater life satisfaction at 69 – and in the 10 years since – than all the earlier times in my life. But then, that’s just me. It was in my seventh decade that I grew to realize that my “good spots” came when I stayed true to my birthright of uniqueness and didn’t succumb to other people’s opinions and the pressure of cultural expectations. Unfortunately, it took me that long to recognize and acknowledge that uniqueness – or, as I wrote last week, my “inclinations.”

That discovery, in and of itself, is not an easy or common one. So few of us ever acknowledge and honor our true inborn giftedness. Our culture snags us with our outdated educational system, pounds us with cultural expectations, and hooks us into a life built around comparison instead of our uniqueness.

I’m reminded of the article written by Australian hospice nurse, Bronnie Ware, who spent many years with patients who were in the last few weeks of their lives and who had gone home to die.  In her article “Regrets of the Dying, she shares the five most common regrets that they expressed in their final days. Far and away, the most common regret was:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Age 82 is a head-fake!

I don’t expect anyone in my cohort to claim they haven’t passed their physical peak. They know my bull**** filter, albeit not great, wouldn’t let that one through.

But what about that “psychological wellbeing” peak at 82? Seems kinda early, don’t ya think? Couldn’t we move that one out another decade or two – and make it a really brief peak, like overnight, maybe? As in “die young, as late as possible.” Sort of like the Okinawans have tended to do – live happy and purposeful close to 100 and then check out with virtually no morbidity period. Unlike we Americans with our average 10 1/2 years of morbidity.

What’s the Okinawan magic? Prior to being invaded and infected with western culture, it was mostly a strong sense of purpose built around community and family combined with non-western lifestyle diet and movement choices. Historically, Okinawans haven’t relinquished their identity and sense of purpose to retirement – they have no word for the concept in their vocabulary.

So maybe we move that 82 to 92 or 97 or – heaven forbid – to 102. Rather than hopping off the cliff from labor-to-leisure at the “obligatory 65”, we turn our retirement into a purposeful, service-filled period that is balanced with labor, leisure, and learning. Your thing, built around your “inclinations”, on your timetable, at your speed, in whatever form you choose but with an eye to changing something that needs changing.

Why not? Remember, these are all averages – and you’re not!

Hope you are coming out of this COVID year unscathed. We appreciate you sticking around and giving us a read. Let us know your thoughts on this peak issue. Scroll down and leave a comment or drop me an email at gary@makeagingwork.com

Oh, by the way. I just launched my new website for the other part of my life – my resume writing, LinkedIn presence development, and career transition and retirement coaching. Give us a visit over at www.turningpointcareerservices.com and schedule a call if you would like to discuss any of the services I’m offering.

Don’t Give Up Your “Unrepeatable Uniqueness.”

I’ll bet you’ve heard this before:

  • No two snowflakes are ever the same. You are a snowflake.
  • You are a unique, unrepeatable collection of DNA.
  • You have a genetic makeup that has never happened before and won’t be repeated again.

It’s true. You are “unrepeatably unique.”

 

So what? Am I supposed to do something with that esoteric insight?

 

Hang with me – I think I can make this less esoteric.

For a big chunk of my life, I have been fascinated by this thing called Mastery. For some time, I harbored a resentment that I wasn’t especially gifted, a prodigy, a genius, or born of genius parents, or raised in the right neighborhood (rural S.E. Wyoming is not known for its production of world changers).

I faced a path to mastery blocked by my DNA and heritage – at least, in my mind. I carried that psychological ball-and-chain around for a long time.

That ignorance began to dissolve when I read a book entitled “Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment” by George Leonard. In it, Leonard defines mastery this way:

“It resists definition yet can be instantly recognized. It comes in many varieties, yet follows certain unchanging laws. It brings rich rewards, yet is not really a goal or a destination but rather a process, a journey. We call this journey mastery, and tend to assume that it requires a special ticket available only to those born with exceptional abilities. But, mastery isn’t reserved for the supertalented or even for those who are fortunate enough to have gotten an early start. It’s available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay on it – regardless of age, sex, or previous experience.”

If this is all true, why do we see so few true masters? What was it about Mozart, or Tiger Woods, or Einstein, or Leonardo de Vinci, or Tommy Emmanuel (my acoustic guitar master/hero), or Seth Godin (marketing guru) that took them to the master category?

There’s no magic to any and all of their mastery achievement. None of these people are or were prodigies.

Prodigies almost never become masters. They fizzle out.

What these masters did was to (1) honor their uniqueness and deepest internal drivers and (2) hop onto a path that they never abandoned, regardless of the twists and turns.

Leonard offers up an explanation of why the path to mastery is so rare:

“The trouble is that we have few, if any, maps to guide us on the journey or even to show us how to find the path. The modern world, in fact, can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery. We’re constantly bombarded with promises of immediate gratification, instant success, and fast, temporary relief, all of which lead in exactly the wrong direction.”

In his view, this anti-mastery mentality not only prevents us from developing our potential skills but threatens our health, education, career, relationships, and perhaps “our national economic viability.”

So there I had an answer – I had been conspired against by the very culture I existed in. Who knew?

A “Third Age Master?” Resurrect your inner genius.

In my continued pursuit of an understanding of the nuances of mastery, I dived into a book that’s been gathering dust for a couple of years on my crowded bookshelf: Robert Greene’s “Mastery.” It’s a 300+ page, dense, small-font project with guaranteed nap-generating qualities if you aren’t an off-kilter reader like yours truly. It takes Leonard’s writing to the next level.

Greene pretty well clears up any mystery about mastery using a plethora of real-life examples, ranging from Mozart to Einstein to Buckminster Fuller to John Coltrane.

Honestly, the book started out feeding my frustration at being severely short of having mastered anything other than sitting and thinking about mastery.

But, Greene jolted me out of my drift toward a mid-page nap with the statement that “intensity of effort lies at the heart of mastery” and that:

“-at the core of this intensity of effort is in fact a quality that is genetic and inborn – not talent or brilliance, which is something that must be developed, but rather a deep and powerful inclination toward a particular subject. 

This inclination is a reflection of a person’s uniqueness. This uniqueness is not something merely poetic or philosophical – it is a scientific fact that genetically, every one of us is unique, our exact genetic makeup has never happened before and will never be repeated. This uniqueness is revealed to us through the preferences we innately feel for particular activities or subjects of study.”

I bolded the word “inclination” because, as I read on, it occurred to me that it’s the word that best describes what nearly all of us fail to honor in our lives.

How did yours truly, a wandering-generality from rural Wyoming who relished time alone to think, who liked to read and write, and who most enjoyed his three semesters as a journalism major in college end up selling wood-fiber ceiling tile to lumberyards in St. Louis?

It turns out that this anomaly isn’t all that hard to sort out. Like most, my “uniqueness” and my “inclinations” bowed before the cultural expectations of the “big P’s” in my life: parents, peers, professors, politicians, pundits, paycheck.

You recall the not-so-subtle message, don’t you?

Don’t stand out.

Stay in the middle of that bell curve.

Do as you’re told.

Keep your head down and enjoy a “getta” life: getta degree, getta job, getta spouse; getta house, 2.5 kids, fenced yard, 2 SUVs, and golden retriever; getta title, 401K, gold watch, and retirement cake.

Somewhere along that sorry path, inclinations got buried deeper and deeper into the depths of our accumulated, culturally-influenced neural connections.

Then, we bump up against that artificial finish line called 65, roll a stone and permanent seal over the tomb containing our withering inclinations, and call it retirement.

So, you’re tired and can’t wait for retirement because you bought the Koolaid that retirement is the relief you need from a life and “job” that, on a good day, injects an unhealthy dose of cortisol (hint: stress hormone) and has nothing to do with those inclinations you tormented your parents with at age 9 or 10.

So you bag it – or start planning to bag it – and wander into unchartered territory with a timeline that could be longer than the one spent in your “career.” Chances are good you may jump in armed with nothing resembling a roadmap.

Escape is the operative word. Not relaunch or take-off. Been there, done that, through with it.

And the accumulated skills and experience begin their retreat deep into secluded sections of the brain. The highly developed neural connections you formed over 10, 20, 30 years begin to shed their myelin and shrink, helped along with enchantment with the voice-activated remote, Netflix, and an average of 49 hours/week of TV watching.

You’ve just denied yourself the chance to become a “third age master.”

Our youngers, our off-kilter society need you to honor your “inclinations.” Yes, those inclinations are likely barnacled or crusted over by meeting cultural expectations, accumulating, conforming, fitting in. But, they ain’t dead yet. In fact, they are like the flowers that suddenly blanket Death Valley once a decade when perfect conditions develop.

Your “third age” could be that Death Valley flower experience. Conditions could be perfect for massaging those inclinations back to life. And making-a-ruckus in the world, or in somebody’s life.

Don’t waste your 10,000 hours!

It’s generally accepted that true masters have invested 10,000 hours in pursuing their inclinations. Tiger and Amadeus felt and acknowledged their inclinations at age 4 and were pushed into and nurtured along their journey to mastery by their fathers. They had their 10,000 hours as teenagers.

How many of 10,000 hours might you have that can be supplemented and channeled into bringing your inclinations to life?

You were anything but a slug through those career years. You accumulated skills and experiences that are worth a lot. Just think what might happen if you took those acquired skills, experiences, accumulated wisdom and turn it all loose on your “inclinations” with an eye toward making things better for you, the world, and the people in it.

Somehow that just seems to have a better ring to it than just escaping.

Living a Regret Free Life

I recently came across this post by my friend Susan Williams of BoomingEncore. As we emerge from this scourge, I felt its message was appropriate as we adjust to the new reality of a changing world. Be sure to check out the TedX YouTube at the end – a powerful 10-minute message.

Enjoy!

BY SUSAN WILLIAMS

Over the last year or so I have talked with many people who shared with me that how they currently were living was not what they really wanted to do.

Whether it was pursuing a different profession that would allow them to be more creative or wanting to help other people more or even a desire to feel that they were making a bigger difference in the world – they all had one thing in common.

They were talking about doing something different but were not actually taking steps towards doing anything about it.

It made me wonder – what stops us from pursuing what we say we really want to do?  

Here are just some of the things that I think stops us;

1. Fear

Fear of failure, fear of what other people would think, fear of changing relationships, fear of not having enough time are just some examples of the fear that can stop someone from making a significant change.

2. Financial

In some cases – especially changing careers – I think that facing a potential financial impact may sometimes be even a bigger challenge than facing fear.

As we get older to think about changing from a comfortable lifestyle to possibly something less secure can be a real challenge.  It may not only affect you – in many cases, it can affect an entire family.

3.  Easier Just to Talk About It

Let’s be honest.  It’s easier to just talk about what we would like to do in our lives rather than actually doing anything about it.

If we think about all the people who talk about losing weight, getting more exercise, seeing friends more often – but don’t – this is the same type of thing.  It takes time, work, dedication, and commitment to actually pursue something new.

4.  Support

To make a significant change can often require support – family, friends, colleagues – especially if your decision could impact others.

So why bother?  If we have to get over some of these hurdles is any significant change really worth it?

As I thought about this question, I was reminded of a TED video I watched a while back presented by Kathleen Taylor, a mental health counselor who worked with people in their final days of life.

In her presentation, Kathleen shared what was discovered as the number one regret at the end of a person’s life.  She shared the following thought that was voiced by many in their final days;

“I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life that others expected of me.”

Based on this thought I think the answer to make a change or not make a change is truly a very personal decision.

The “follow your passion” or “pursue your dreams” advice looks great on Facebook and Twitter images but any significant change is a very personal decision with many different facets to consider.

I think the really big question is to ask ourselves how we think we will feel at the end of our lives – will the choices and decisions that we have made allow us the opportunity to live the life we really wanted to live? 

I think if we can answer this question honestly and have made decisions based on this question then the choices as to whether we decide to undertake a significant change becomes easier.

Our lives will then be something to look back on with both joy and satisfaction – and without any regrets.

Here is the TED Talk given by Kathleen Turner – Rethinking the Bucket List;

This article originally appeared on Booming Encore and was reprinted with permission.

Susan Williams is the Founder of Booming Encore , a site that has grown to become a globally recognized social media influencer and expert for baby boomers on retirement and aging and is ranked as one of the top baby boomer blogs worldwide. As a baby boomer herself, Susan was interested in doing something that really made a difference and has dedicated herself to overcoming the limited dedicated resources and information to support this unique time of life for baby boomers. Booming Encore also partners with some amazing contributors who generously share their experience and expertise.

The Size of Your Funeral Gathering Will Be Determined By the Weather. Whaaaat?

I remember how that quote rocked my world a few decades ago when I first read it in my mid-50s. I was in that life phase characteristic of most American males where there is this sinking realization there are more yesterdays than tomorrows and the “is-this-all-there-is” questions start surfacing. 

Am I relevant?

Will I ever be relevant?

What is relevant?

Does anyone care that I’m here? (News flash: Most don’t!)

You would think that by 45 or 50 or 55 that we would have most things about life figured out. But, we don’t. We’ve been too busy being heads-down, meeting cultural expectations.

Maybe the timing of this speed bump is built into the male genetic arrangement. Women don’t seem to bother with it so much. More likely, it’s because we’ve pulled up short of the cultural goalposts expected at that age – image, title, boys toys, neighborhood, retirement account, etc.

And there is that sinking feeling that there isn’t enough time or enough gas left in the tank to catch up.

 

The hour-long funeral procession

Coming across this quote reminded me of an experience I had nine years ago. I was doing my recruiting thing ensconced in my 9th-floor office in a building that overlooked one of Denver’s busiest east-west thoroughfares. I was on the phone with a candidate when I heard the “woop-woop” of a police siren. I looked out my corner window and saw a group of motorcycle policemen blocking off intersections ahead of a funeral procession.

From my perch, I could see a couple of dozen cars behind the hearse winding around a curve a few blocks away. I thought nothing of it and turned back to my phone call which continued for another 15 minutes or so. As I hung up, I glanced again down to the street and saw the funeral procession continuing to steadily stream by with the trail of cars still disappearing around the curve.

I remember thinking that there must have been some dignitary that passed but I hadn’t heard or read of any.

I turned back to the paperwork on my desk and stood up a full 30 minutes later to discover the funeral procession still streaming by.

Over an hour passed before the last car and trailing motorcycle cop passed.

As far as I knew, the governor was still alive, as was the mayor. And I hadn’t heard of the passing of any mega-church pastors. Or any Broncos/Rockies/Nuggets/Avalanche sports heroes. Or any of our small collection of Colorado billionaires.

Who was this person?

I still don’t know. The obits revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

This much I know – –

It was a sunny, warm spring day. But good weather didn’t explain this procession. This person, whoever he or she was, had touched a lot of people in a positive way.

This had “silent hero” written all over it.

The event has stuck with me and is a constant reminder that it’s the “internal” and not the “external” and the “give” and not the “get” that ultimately counts.

That’s a hard part of this mid-life transition for many. It’s a point where some of the hardest career and life decisions are made. I’ve written before about the “happiness curve” and the research that has revealed that age 47, on average, is the low point of happiness for most men.

Having been there personally and listened to lots of stories from folks at this stage, I’ll offer up a few thoughts on what one should know or begin to discover at this phase of the life span.

  • You should know if your life quest is aligned with your core essence. By age 45 – 55, you should feel, at the gut level, that you are, or are not, doing what you were designed to do. For most of us, our decisions up to this point have been largely driven by cultural influences and not by recognition and acknowledgment of our deepest talents, strengths, and dreams. It’s important to take seriously those aforementioned questions that are starting to dog us. They are a sign that there may be a misalignment that, if not acted on, could carry us into a second-half full of discontent and the negative biological consequences that can accompany the discontent.
  • You are now on the “back nine” and don’t get to do the “front nine” over. I love the golf analogy. I borrowed it from pioneer exercise physiologist Dan Zeman (see this article) Dan is on a life quest to raise 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. There is a good chance, as Americans, that our “front nine” didn’t do us any favors, physically and emotionally. More than likely, we have coupled the stress of striving to accumulate and meet cultural expectations with a relatively unhealthy lifestyle of poor diet and immobility in a quest for convenience, comfort, and conformity.

We don’t have to look far for proof of the significance of marginal “front nine” decisions. The “happiness curve” seems to confirm that the mid-40s is a point where “turning point” decisions need to be made as one heads into the “back nine.” It’s also a time when the accumulated effects of poor “front nine” lifestyle decisions begin to manifest in the form of health issues. Most of us enter our mid-40s in pretty good shape but beginning to demonstrate signs that a downturn is underway that needs attention. Most common are weight gain, hypertension, increased cholesterol, arthritis, anxiety/depression.

The CDC has announced that over 60% of American males are overweight and 25% are obese. Nearly 70% of the American population is pre-diabetic and 50% don’t know it. This age and later is when all this begins to show up. That alone is a call to action at this point in life.

A few other things come to mind that we should know if we don’t already:

  • Things are rarely as good or as bad as they seem. Most anxiety is self-inflicted.
  • Most of the things we worry about are out of our control. (Reference the Serenity Prayer as a guide).
  • Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. The treasure is in today and doing what’s important to you. Today is all we have.
  • We will rise to the level of the five people we hang out with the most. It behooves us to be careful of our relationships and not be afraid to glean.
  • Our potential in life is limited not by the external but the internal. Live internally and accept that you are gifted in a special way. Don’t let our culture take it away from you.

It’s possible, as medicine and the biosciences continue to advance and we learn more about self-care, that 45-55 may not even be life’s true mid-point (more on this in a future article).  We can seize the opportunity and couple our inborn talents with accumulated life experiences, skills, and knowledge to virtually explode into your second half, be a world-changer, and have the time to do it.

The only thing holding us back is what we allow to happen between our temples.

Maybe the visual of that hour-long funeral procession will help.

Do you really care if you live to old age or not?

Please forgive me for taking a shortcut this week. We have spent an exhausting week moving to another home and I haven’t had the energy or bandwidth to push any creative content buttons.

 

 

I’m reposting an article I submitted a few weeks ago to a question on Quora.com that has been garnering some attention. Hope you find some value in these ramblings.

The question was:

” Do you really care if you live to old age or not?”

My response:

Sure I care if I live to old age, whatever that is. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been given the gift of life, so why not try to take it to the max. I’m 79, intend to live past 100, and try to gear my lifestyle to doing the things that will enhance my chances of getting there.

Will I get there? I don’t know. My “front nine” lifestyle would say that getting there on my “back nine” might make it tough. Nonetheless, what I do know is that I’ve got today and I’ll live it out and do the same tomorrow. One day at a time trying to do the right things to and for my biology and moving forward with a mission and a sense of purpose.

What is old age?

Can you define it for me? Is it 60 or older as most people would still be inclined to say? Is it 79, like me? To a 50- or 60-year old, I suppose I would be considered old. But to a centenarian, I’m still a “young adult.”

My point is, age is a mindset. It can be either chronological – which is where most people come from – or it can be functional, which is a much healthier perspective.

For most folks, the prospect of getting old is fearful and disturbing. Theirs is a vision of nursing homes, walkers, oxygen tubes, wheelchairs, and drool cups. For others – a minority still – it’s a time of continued growth, vitality, creativity, and contribution, up to the point of true old age where we do a 180 back to total dependence.

Fate vs choice.

There was a time, not long ago, when we considered our lifespan a matter of “fate”, God’s will. We knew little about how to do the things that could affect our longevity. We now know that it’s no longer “fate” but “choice” that can play a big role in determining both the years in our life and the life in our years.

So, I’m going on this ride as long as I can. I know I will need resilience along the way because there will be setbacks, be those losses of loved ones, illnesses, or other calamities. But I know that continued engagement in the form of work will contribute mightily to how well I live out the final chapters.

I started a business at age 60 and am starting another and different one at age 79. I’m truly inspired to get up each morning and, frankly, don’t dedicate any mental bandwidth to thinking about whether I’m old or not. I’m having too much fun.

I’m On My Next-to-Last Mattress – How ’bout You?

In 2019, we moved from our golf-course home of 19 years to a smaller home, deciding to rent for a while. It became a major purging event, including getting rid of our saggy 20-year-old Sleep Comfort mattress. I believe the mattress we slept on before that one lasted about 15+ years.

The other day, I completed the “Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator” that was developed years ago by Dr. Thomas Perls, MD. It’s a pretty “cool tool” and it’s free. Click on the link above and your there. It asks 40 questions, takes about 10 minutes to complete, and in a matter of minutes returns a prediction of how long you will live based on the information you provide.  I recall stumbling across it and completing the questionnaire a few years ago but couldn’t recall how I had scored.

Dr. Perls is no slouch. He’s a professor of Medicine and Geriatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine and is a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center. He also is among the international leaders in the field of human exceptional longevity and the founder and director of the New England Centenarian Study, the largest study of centenarians and their families in the world.

I’m pretty sure I took the calculator before I went public with my hare-brained goal of living to 112 1/2 so I decided to take it again. Not surprisingly, I came up 17 years short of that number with a prediction that I’ve got 17 years left to get to the endpoint of 95 that the calculator predicted. Considering that 112 1/2 is classified as “super-centenarian” terrain and that there are less than a thousand of them worldwide, I guess I shouldn’t expect it to come real close to my goal.

Oh, yes – about the mattress.

I’m now using this as my answer when someone asks my age:

“I’m on my next-to-last mattress.”

The facial expressions are worth the risk of being permanently cast as deranged.

But, wait, Dr. Perl’s tool says I’m on my last mattress.

I refuse to accept it. There’s that denial thing again.

On one hand, I guess I could take some pride in being told I’ll beat the average lifespan for the American male (78.9) by 20%. But that’s not good enough.

I’m holding out for at least 100 which would validate my insolent response. That makes the current mattress my “next-to-last.”

Dr. Perl’s calculator sends a report with a list of suggested lifestyle changes that may help you beat its prediction. (No, choosing healthy parents and grandparents isn’t one of them – he’s serious).

My list of recommendations was pretty short and included a few things that don’t fit for me. Such as:

  1. Try to work fewer hours. The tool doesn’t understand that when you are pretty much a hermit and work and play mostly intersect, a 60 hour week isn’t a threat. His recommendation speaks to the fact that most people don’t like what they do and do it too much and too long for the wrong reasons.
  2. Less caffeine. Really? I believe that coffee-as-a-problem has been solidly debunked. Coffee and I are one until noon at least.
  3. More dairy to fight osteoporosis. NOT! I don’t do dairy and get enough calcium elsewhere.

Try the quiz. There may be a pearl or two in the suggestions that come back with the report. On the other hand, if you are in the large majority that considers the idea of living to 100 as repugnant, maybe just stick with Netflix or Facebook. This won’t light you up.

I’d love to hear how you respond when someone asks your age (NOTE: the mattress response does not work well at the DMV). Who out there has the most creative non-number response? Leave us a note below with your creative (insolent) response.