I penned this article 20 months ago on Quora.com before number 80 happened. There’s been about 90,000 “Mikeys” that have liked it so far and since today is, in fact, my 80th birthday, I felt it appropriate to tune it up and share it with this tribe.
I think 80 years earns the right to provide some insight. So here goes.
For starters, my first 80 years are exactly like yours in one respect. It has been an ongoing series of choices and continues to be. I am where and what I am as the result of the accumulated choices I have made over the course of my life. And it will end up based on the choices I make going forward.
I’ve been fortunate to have started life without any “blueprint errors” so I wasn’t encumbered with any physical or mental limitations. Nor did I have a “silver spoon” growing up.
I guess you could say my life has been a low-drama adventure – probably like most lives. Lots of twists and turns mixing tranquility with chaos and considerable unpredictability with more than my share of attempts to control the uncontrollable.
I’m an escapee from rural Wyoming and a town of 800 with a high-school graduating class of 12. I’ve spent more time steering a Farmall tractor in circles, snuck into more drive-in theaters, raided more gardens, killed more rabbits for spending money, and driven more cars that didn’t have turn-signals and seat belts than most.
Pine Bluffs, Wyoming – in all its glory!!
My college experience was stretched over nine years and three different majors, all paid for on my own by working 2–3 jobs. My wife of 51 years liked the way I served her food as a hasher at her sorority house and that I was an entertainer/guitar player on the weekends, that I wore sport coats to class, and didn’t buy the phony frat boy bit.
Oh, and the ’65 Chevy Malibu SuperSport, 300hp, four-on-the-floor helped a little.
So I fooled her into a marriage fully aware that I was marrying way over my head.
Our early married life experienced a hiccup – our first son was born severely brain-damaged from an undetermined pre-natal event and succumbed 16 months later, 11 days before our daughter was born.
It was a major factor in helping us both build resilience that sustains us today.
I forged ahead doing the “getta” thing: getta degree, getta job, getta wife, getta mortgage, getta fenced- yard, getta family, 2.5 kids and golden retriever, getta mini-van, getta title, getta 401K.
I was a poster boy for chasing the “linear life plan” i.e. the 20–40–20 life-cycle model that most still succumb to – 20 years of education, 40 years of work building someone else’s dream followed by 20 years (hopefully) of “nirvana” called retirement.
Some refer to it as the “learn-earn-retire-die” model.
I had begun to question the concept of retirement in my 40s as I immersed myself more in the self-development world where I discovered that retirement was never a consideration for most high-achievers. It appeared to me that most of the longest-living humans remained in the creative process rather than retire – a word derived from the French verb “retirer” which means “withdraw.”
So, I’ve chosen not to retire but to remain in the “creative process” as long as I can. I’ve set the goal of living to 112 1/2 knowing that my chances of getting there are pretty slim because of early marginal health habits. But I know that by setting the goal I have a much better chance of getting there than if I just settle for living out the average lifespan of the American male which is somewhere around 78 and declining.
See – I’ve beaten it already!
I left the 20–40–20 track at age 60 and started my own business as an executive recruiter after 32 years of wandering through the desert of corporate employment. I learned, by starting a business that I knew nothing about and was under-prepared to start, that I’m not the entrepreneur I thought I would be and that it’s not the glamorous world people think it is.
The last 20 years have been the most challenging, enlightening, and gratifying part of the 80-year journey and the part of the journey from which I can draw advice worthy of consideration for a 40-year old.
Here are the cliff notes from the last 20 years:
- I moved from near millionaire status on paper to an embarrassing fraction of that following three market crashes and draw-down to support my business.
- Son and daughter launched, rewarded with three wonderful grandkids.
- Late-life discovery of my core strengths and realization that my 32 years invested in corporate life was a mismatch with my true talents.
- Acknowledged a talent and drive to help people struggling with major life decisions, especially those at or beyond mid-life.
- Became a dedicated student of understanding how our minds and bodies work; read over 900 books on self-development, health and wellness, brain development, positive psychology.
- Resurrected a latent talent as a writer and chose to finish out by putting that skill to work along with my ability to help guide others to better mid-life decisions.
So life today is a mash-up of recovery from mistakes, acknowledgment of innate ability, some victories, and a modicum of acquired wisdom from all of the above. I can honestly say that I experience “eudaimonic happiness” (see this article) and am at the happiest and healthiest point in my life having been able to apply some of the voluminous knowledge and experiences that I have accumulated through my life.
How would I advise a 40-year old?
Let’s think in big buckets – the buckets that are foundational to success, health, longevity, and purpose in life.
Bucket #1: Get serious about and take control of your health. Nothing counts for anything if you don’t feel good. As Americans, we do a pretty shitty job of protecting our health. Candidly, we are surprisingly illiterate when it comes to understanding how our minds and bodies work.
If we did understand, would
- we take 35% of our meals through the side window of our cars?
- we weigh 20 lbs more on average today than in 1980 without being any taller?
- 50% of our population today be pre-diabetic with 70% of those not knowing it (CDC report)?
- would our longevity curve be receding instead of continuing to progress?
We know there is no biological reason that we shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond. Our “whole-life benchmark” has already been set at 122 years, 164 days because Jeanne Calment of Paris made it that far. So we know the body can last that long. Yet, on average, in America, we achieve only 66% of that potential.
Why the gap? In a word: lifestyle. The five major killers in our culture – heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and dementia – have not changed in decades. They are lifestyle diseases and all are preventable.
Our poor diets, sedentary living, and increasing isolation are killing us early – we continue to “live too short and die too long” with late life for many composed of extended morbidity and early frailty.
Become a student of your mind and body and start now to understand how your body works at the cellular level. With that awareness, you will be able to put in place a lifestyle of good health-inducing habits that will bode well for a mid-life and beyond that is energetic, long, and meaningful.
It’s also important to remember that we, in America, are encumbered with a healthcare system that is broken and not exactly an ally in this quest. It operates on the principle of “cure” and not “prevention.” It’s a disease-care system that is trained to “drug it or cut it out” and “mop up the water without turning off the spigot.” It is reactive, not proactive. It’s up to you to be proactive and take charge of your health and partner with your physician and not let him/her be the arbiter of your health.
One of the best pieces of advice I can pass on is to encourage you to read what many consider one of the most transformational books ever written when it comes to achieving good health. It’s called “Younger Next Year”, co-authored by Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry Lodge. It’s a book that has impacted many lives. In fact, Bill Gates, who has read a book a week forever, considers it one of the most impactful books he’s ever read.
Applying what this book can teach you, your life curve can look more like this:
Bucket #2:
Discover your strengths and be the author of your life. Chances are high that you came through your formal education without fully understanding what your deepest strengths and talents are. You were plopped into a classroom with 30 other “victims” and forced to learn what an outdated educational system continues to say is best for you – so that you can fit into and conform to the aforementioned 20–40–20 learn-earn-retire model that still prevails. It’s likely you have gotten this far having not chosen the base materials of who you really are.
We all have within us an “essence”, or what German psychiatrist Carlo Strenger calls our “thus and no other”, a something born in each of us that is “recalcitrant to change.” It’s that inner dream that gets tamped down and barnacled over by the educational system, the advice of the influential “P’s” in your life (parents, peers, professors, politicians, and pundits), much of corporate employment, and the pressure to conform.
I know of what I speak. Although successful by cultural standards of title, status, and income while in the corporate world, it wasn’t until I was in my sixties that I finally acknowledged that I was operating outside of my “base materials” or “core strengths and talents.” I ignored or refused to accept the feedback that I got from several personality- and strengths-assessment tests that I took – because they didn’t align with my belief of what the culture expected. The tests said, in every case, that I should be in a learning-teaching environment where my natural, but undeveloped, ability to write and speak could flourish.
I began to move in that direction in my mid-sixties and the journey continues.
So, if you haven’t, start now to identify and acknowledge your strengths, how you are wired up, what your “thus and no other” is, and move toward it. It’s not too late to be the true author of your life. As NPR journalist and author of “Life Reimagined: Ths Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife” Barbara Bradley Hagerty states:
“- change within the boundaries of your natural talents, proclivities, personality traits, and skills.”
Invest in, and take seriously, assessments such as Strengthsfinder, Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, DISC. Work with a career coach or life coach.
Ask yourself a couple of questions: (1) Would I continue doing what I am doing for no pay? (2) If time and money were not a factor, what would I be doing?
At forty, you are a mid-career professional or close to it. You’ve lived enough years and have enough of a biography of successes and failures that you should know enough about what you excel at, what you don’t do well, what energizes you, and what you dread. All this can guide you to this next stage.
Bucket #3:
Dispose of the retirement mindset. My position on this is, admittedly, controversial. Over the last 5–6 decades, the concept of a “labor-to-leisure”, “vocation-to-vacation” retirement has become so entrenched in the psyche of the western world that to assault it is heresy. But assault it I will – with several things that a 40-year old should consider as they move into the second half of life.
Here are a few simple facts about retirement as we’ve come to know it:
- Retirement is an unnatural act that doesn’t exist in nature and didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago. Have you ever seen a retired coyote or maple tree? This unnatural act started in Europe in the late 1800s by Otto Von Bismark for purely political reasons and was picked up by FDR in the U.S. a half-century later, again for political reasons. The arbitrary selection of 65 as a retirement age (at a time when the average lifespan was 62) established an artificial line that was irrelevant then and even more irrelevant now.
- The statistics behind traditional retirement are not encouraging. IBM determined a couple of generations ago that the average number of pension checks issued was 24. Our Social Security system, in 1995, determined that the average number of social security checks issued was 29. Shell Oil studied thousands of its employees and found that retiring at 55 doubled the risk for death before reaching 65 compared to those who worked beyond age 65. Depression, suicide, and divorce rates are higher amongst retirees than non-retirees.
- With our frontal cortex capability, we have dreamed up a concept that goes against our biology. We have one of two biological choices – grow or decay. It’s in our cellular structure. Traditional retirement draws us to sedentary living, withdrawal from work, increased social isolation, and reduced learning – all things that go against the way we are wired up biologically i.e. our body’s “grow or decay” mechanism. That’s all we need to know to explain why we still “live too short and die too long” in our society when, in fact, we should “live long and die short” or “die young, as late as possible” as stated earlier.
Bucket #4:
Own your career and never stop learning. Continue to refine and deepen your skills within and outside of your career path.
Repeatedly, I have worked with folks in the late 40s or 50s who have struggled to re-enter the job market after being blindsided by a layoff or other type of termination. Often it’s due to the fact that they have made no attempt to continue to enhance or learn new skills throughout their career.
Many of these hapless victims clung to the 20th-century illusion that their company has their interests at heart and will nurture them along. This is a dangerous thought pattern.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that your employer has your interests at heart. They don’t. They are always guarding their own self-interests.
Master Certified Career Coach, Janine Moon, in her book “Career Ownership” emphasizes the importance of career ownership in the face of both the magnitude and the accelerating pace of change occurring in our global economy.
Here are a few “wise” questions that she suggests a 40-year old should be asking themselves:
- When did you last do serious research to educate yourself about the future of your industry and the skills needed to succeed in this changing marketplace?
- When did you last assess your skills, abilities, and goals to determine how you could get the most satisfaction out of the workspace in which you spend many of your waking hours.?
- When did you last write out your 3-year career plan (on your own) along with your 12-month learning plan?
- When did you last devote personal time and funds to upgrade your own skills?
- When did you last consider requesting a job rotation that would help you build a relationship and impact your marketability inside or outside of your organization?
- When did you last review and align yourself with your organization’s top two strategic growth areas?
- When did you last identify a weak area in your skills or performance and take personal responsibility to address the problem?
As Americans, we don’t have a good track record as continuous learners. For instance:
- Approximately 39% of high school never read another book after graduation.
- Approximately 42% of college graduates never read another book after graduation.
- 95% of books read in the U.S. are read by 5% of the population.
Read, read, read. It’s key to avoiding irrelevancy and becoming a dinosaur. Stay in the learning process all your life. You’ll find that it isn’t crowded in that space. But it will bode well for both your career and your mental health.
It’s been an interesting ride – and continues to be interesting. I hope it stays interesting until the universe decides to take the parts back (and that it decides to make that REAL quick – no loitering in extended morbidity for me!).
Any of you “been there, done this?” I’d love to hear your stories. Share ’em with a comment below.
“Suicide By Lifestyle.” Can We Get Any Better At This Art Form in America? Yes- Here Are Five Suggestions.
Image: Flotsam/Shutterstock.com
Suicide by lifestyle.
Now there’s a term that seems appropriate for today’s America considering our lifespan is receding and our healthspan tends to be pretty stinky relative to its potential.
I couldn’t ignore the phrase when I came across it in a new book I’ve just started – “The Body: A Guide for Occupants” by Bill Bryson. (Paid link).
I wish I had coined it. But, alas I’m left with having to steal it.
You’ve probably heard of Bryson. He’s been around a while and is renowned for the extent of the research behind his writing and his incredibly creative style and ability to make huge complex topics easy and fun to read.
It takes a while –
If you’ve been following my diatribes for a while, you will understand why the phrase got my attention. Here’s how Bryson used it:
If he’s anything, Bryson is a realist. He reminds us that 5 of 6 cigarette smokers won’t get lung cancer. Most prime heart attack candidates don’t have heart attacks. Every day, between one and five of our cells go rogue and become cancerous only to be captured and killed by our immune system. He states: “Cancer may be a common cause of death but it is not a common event in life.”
-but we’re getting better at shortening it!
Hey, we’re Americans and not inclined to settle for the status quo. So we are getting better and better each year at accelerating the suicide.
But, we could do even better.
Here are five simple tricks to supercharge this strange mission:
I don’t profess to have a corner on ideas in this area. If you have some other “accelerator” ideas, drop me a note. I’ll make sure you are properly accredited.
You’re Over 50. Heads Up – Your Intelligence Is Crystallizing. (if you’re lucky!)
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
Did you know that we go through two stages of intelligence across our lifespan?
I didn’t either until I came across a conversation between Chip Conley and Arthur Brooks.
As you may recall, I’m a big fan of Chip Conley, entrepreneur, author of “Wisdom at Work” and founder of the Modern Elder Academy. I’ve written about Chip before:
I’ve also been following Brooks, social scientist, musician, columnist for The Atlantic, and past president of the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.
When I learned that Chip was interviewing Arthur, I figured there might be some magic.
And there was.
I’ve included a link to the 49-minute YouTube interview below that I hope you will find the time to watch. You’ll be glad you did. It has life-changing content.
Two intelligences; two success curves
Drawing from his new book “Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life”, Brooks notes that we experience two different forms of intelligence during our lifetime.
Accompanying those different intelligences are two success curves if we choose to pursue them:
The first success curve is the Fluid Success Curve which Brooks describes as when our analytical capacity is highest, our entrepreneurial ability the keenest, our ability to answer questions the quickest. It grows fastest in our late 20s and is most likely highest in our early 30s. Then a decline starts in the late 30s, accelerates through our 40s, and is in the tank by our 50s.
It explains why most successful entrepreneurial startups happen at or around age 31.
Maybe you did something with your Fluid Success Curve – I’m afraid I slept through mine.
But there’s hope for those of us who missed or have moved beyond that curve because there is a bailout.
It’s called the Crystallized Success Curve and it picks up momentum in your 40s, gets really high in your 50s and 60s, and stays high in your 70s, 80s, and 90s, assuming the neurons and synaptic connections don’t go south.
Whew!
In Brooks’ words, when we have crystallized intelligence, we aren’t so good at coming up with new ideas but really good at taking other people’s ideas and bringing them together into a coherent whole, or telling stories that other people can’t see, or teaching, or figuring out what stuff means, or forming teams.
The biggest takeaway: most people don’t know that the Crystallized Success Curve exists.
If we modern elders figure it out, he says, “the world is our oyster.”
Why? Because that’s where the greatest, most satisfying, and joyful success exists –
– and you get to keep it for the rest of your life.
That’s wisdom at work.
And that says we have the greatest, most exciting, most fruitful span of life ahead of us after 50.
Please take the time to view the video and leave us your thoughts.
Growing old or getting old? They’re two different things and you have a choice.
We are all going to grow old – that is inevitable and immutable.
Life is a fatal disease. Once contracted, there is no known cure.
Time marches on.
Getting old, on the other hand, is optional.
That’s between the temples. How we grow old is largely up to us and starts with attitude.
I’ll bet you know a 50-year-old that’s going on 80. And an 80-year-old going on 50.
The difference?
Sorry, you’re wrong if you said genetics. Genetics may determine 20–30% of our longevity at most. Attitude can affect longevity and determines 100% of how we view aging.
Recent research has revealed that people who have a positive attitude about aging live an average of 7 years longer than those who don’t.
We westerners have a fixation on numbers, especially in the U.S. where we seem unwilling/unable to release the number 65 from our thinking as a turning point to the downside slope of our lives.
We couple that with the non-sensical concept of retirement and accelerate the growing old and then die short of our biology’s true longevity potential.
We know there is no biological reason that any of us shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond. But we continue to pull up severely short of that benchmark.
In my experience, the mere mention of living that long amongst my age cohort (80) invites plenty of scorn and invective. Most are repulsed by the idea, failing to acknowledge that we’re designed to last at least that long. We should if we viewed our later years differently and dispensed with the cultural influences that help us accelerate the decline that most people experience in the second half of life.
My 80-year-old body, while in much better shape than even most 60-year-olds, still confirms that the immutable is moving forward. I am growing old and will, just like you, eventually die.
But I’m choosing not to get old despite the external evidence that it is happening, albeit at a slower accelerating pace than for most of my cohort.
I’m striving to give my body and mind what they need to come as close as possible to the 122-year benchmark for longevity set for us by a lady in Paris, France in 1997.
I don’t expect to get there because there is likely too much early life (pre-40) damage done to overcome to make that happen. But, I expect to come closer than most by setting a 100+ year goal than if I just chose to accept average.
I’m already ahead since I just turned 80 and the average lifespan for an American male is around 75 (and declining).
Two things that will help me get closer to that benchmark:
I have no illusions about the fact that it could all be over tomorrow.
Right now, I have this moment.
What is better – having a job or being retired? Let’s think this through.
I’ll apologize in advance for what is a pretty esoteric answer.
I suggest that neither is a good option.
Job
What is a “job?” Some have defined it as “jackass of the boss”, a rather brash definition but, unfortunately, one that applies for many.
A job is a relatable term for most as it’s what we do every day to produce income, the fuel that keeps us on the daily racecourse. The dictionary defines job as “a lump, chore or duty.”
For some, that lump is a “lump of coal.”
Jobs became the thing with the industrial revolution as industry carved things up into chores or duties all focused collectively on enabling the achievement of the company goals.
Fundamentally, we began to sell our time to build someone else’s dream.
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.”
Career
With a step up the work chain, we find “career” which is a word, interestingly, that 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 the pursuit of a true calling.
Vocation
Which leads, then, to the concept of 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’ve convoluted the true meaning of the word and 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 | English grammar, usage, and style blog defines a vocation as:
Currently, we tend to mix vocation in with two other words – career and job – when their distinctions are quite different.
I’m basing this strange answer on a simple observation – one that I made about four decades ago that still holds true.
Highly successful people, world changers, and deep influencers don’t have jobs or careers and they don’t retire.
They have a vocation. They have discovered and are answering a calling. They are honoring their “uniqueability.” They don’t leave the creative process. They tend to “work themselves to death.”
And-
-they live longer than most.
Work – another bad four-letter word.
Retirement is based on a French verb meaning “retreat, go backward.”
We’ve bought into this unnatural, longevity-sapping act which has created an either/or mindset. Work is something to get away from. We either work or we retire – not both.
The possibility of avoiding a “lump of coal” or job and pursuing a life of leisure has a much stronger appeal than considering the possibility of a lifetime of answering a calling and pursuing it to the end.
We all have a “vocation” in us. But it gets covered over, pushed back as we pursue the 20th-century linear life model of learn-earn-relax/retire-die.
Within that model, we will pursue that paycheck at the expense of our calling to achieve an act that has been shown to shorten our lives and create a drain on our society.
We’re waking up.
The no-work, leisure-based retirement model is dying, none too soon. The emerging model rejects either/or and thinks both/and with the emergence of a lifestyle model built around “semi-retirement for a lifetime.”
It’s built around the simple discovery that busting your hump for 40+ years to accumulate enough to do nothing for another 20 years is a failed model. It is nearly impossible to accumulate enough savings over a 40-year work life to support a totally no-work lifestyle for another 20–30 years.
Millennials, GenXers, and even Boomers, are adopting a semi-retired lifestyle built around work following their calling and designed to support a balance of work, leisure, and learning for a lifetime.
Most Americans of Retirement Age Are Not Ready to Retire. That Could Be a Good Thing!
Forgive me for cheating a bit this week. I’m sharing a recent post I put out on Quora recently that kicked up some fuss. You’ve read much of this before, but, as it’s said, repetition is the mother of learning. So, it’s that thought, along with this –
-that has me short-cutting this week. Thumb repair and keyboards make for a painful experience.
Thanks for indulging me.
Help me understand something:
Do we stop and think this through?
We get all wrapped around the axel over a concept that:
I’m one of a still small but growing group of “retirement-aged” people who question the sensibility of retirement as we’ve had it drilled into us for the last 50+ years.
Perhaps you could tell from the above.
I came to that conclusion about 40 years ago –
-as I observed that many of the most successful world-changers were living longer and didn’t disengage from the creative process i.e. they didn’t retire.
Today, in the U.S., we still cling to the number 65 as that coveted retirement age although it was a number established 86 years ago by FDR and his union and business cronies to get older people out of the workforce to make room for rioting younger workers during the great depression.
The average lifespan at the time was 62, reinforcing the fact that it was not a humanitarian move.
Mysteriously, with the help of a powerful financial services industry, we still see that number as the top of the productivity hill and the start of – – – –
-well that’s where it gets interesting.
The roadmaps past 65 are limited. And the financial services folks aren’t trained, qualified, or interested in providing anything other than a financial roadmap – and one that is unrealistic and unachievable for most.
Check out these recent numbers from a retirement study from the Transamerica Center:
So you are a boomer with $200k in the bank and a financial advisor saying you need 5x that to sustain a “pleasurable” retirement. And, if you can’t get there, it’s because you aren’t disciplined enough or working hard enough.
Certainly, they say, the charts and graphs can’t be the problem – YOU are the problem. But, still, 1-2 % of that $200K lines their coffers each year while you get your act together.
Not a bad gig if you can get it and spread it across enough sheep.
An alternate plan with mental, physical, psychological, and spiritual considerations are not part of their program or expertise.
That didn’t matter much if you only lived 3–5 years beyond 65. Beach, bingo, bridge, and bocce ball made sense then. Not today, with 20–30 years of potential productive runway left.
It is unrealistic, in today’s world, to expect very many to reach the saving goals that retirement professionals say are required to sustain a 20–30 year non-income-producing life.
For one, fewer people can save much, if any. For another, most start too late with no chance of catching up to these large numbers.
So, we are on our own negotiating the aftermath of the questionable decision to exit the production mode and enter the leisure mode. It’s understandable that there is more angst today than ever amongst the U.S. population (where I am) about being able to reach the financial numbers that will support an extended non-work retirement life.
Perhaps we should start by accepting the reality that it’s near impossible to expect 40 years of “bust-your-hump” savings to finance 20-30 years of doing mostly nothing.
Comfort, convenience, and conformity.
As Americans, we are notoriously poor savers. We link that with short-term thinking linked to a cultural-driven tendency to seek comfort, convenience, and to conform to those around us.
Add to that the fact that most of us still cling to the 20th-century linear life model of 20 years of learn, 40 years of earn, and 20 years of relax and die.
Your financial adviser isn’t likely to inform you that the chances are better than 50% that 10 of those last 20 years are going to be in poor health and not very enjoyable because of the habits developed during the 40 years of busting the hump to earn, reach their unrealistic saving numbers, and enable a lifestyle that may take you out early.
How many other 86-year old concepts do you still have operating in your life?
We’re seeing a gradual, long-past-due transition away from the traditional retirement model with its onerous savings requirements.
The gradual demise of learn-earn-relax-die is giving way to a model that supports continued working past the normal retirement age. And it’s not just the money that is motivating this movement. There is a growing understanding that having some form of purposeful work – for pay or not for pay – in the latter third of life is a key to healthier longevity.
A balance of a purposeful life mixed with leisure and continued learning is an emerging post-career lifestyle model.
The concept of semi-retirement is growing rapidly, not only amongst those of retirement age but also amongst millennials and GenXers who don’t buy into the linear life model.
Some are semi-retiring in their 30s and 40s into a lifestyle doing what they enjoy and are good at and doing it on their terms with the expectation of doing it well past the normal retirement age.
It works for those well past the artificial finish line, like yours truly.
Think about trying it – you might like it, especially the relief from the aforementioned financial planner guilt trip.
Here’s an article that provides a perspective on this concept:
Exactly What It Means To Be Semi-Retired
Does all this resonate? What are your thoughts, pro or con? Love to have your feedback on this topic. Leave a comment here or email me your thoughts at gary@makeagingwork.com. New articles each week on retirement, aging, or health and wellness at www.makeagingwork.com
Aging: When You Have More to Give and Less to Lose.
Dear reader, if you’ve been hanging with me for a while, you know I’m in total denial.
Yep, still deluding myself into thinking that living to 112 1/2 years makes sense.
As my chronology has moved into my 9th decade, some of my physiology doesn’t seem to have signed on for the trip. Or, at least it’s hinting that it’s gonna be a tough trip.
As you read this, I’m sitting in a recliner coming down from a Bier Block anesthesia of my left arm so a hand surgeon could remove the joint at the base of my thumb and somehow jury rig it so that in 12 weeks I can start playing guitar again and in 4 months grip a golf club again.
You can tell I’m thrilled.
Apparently, it’s a common procedure for my age cohort. Things do wear out.
Ever try functioning with only one thumb? Some things won’t be going that well for the next few months.
The thumb isn’t alone!
In the meantime, some other parts are sending off signals that they may not be signing on for the cruise to super-centenarianism.
Left shoulder, left hip, left foot, left wrist. Don’t ask me to explain – maybe it’s because I voted for Trump (regretfully).
Regardless, the last couple of months have, more than any other time, reminded me that being an older person trying to impersonate a younger person isn’t fooling anybody, least of all my body parts.
Oh, I’m not abandoning denial. I find a strange comfort there. I’ll keep thinking about staying young and not growing old. And I’ll keep the repair thing going until the universe decides it’s time to take all those well-worn and recycled parts back.
Part of the fuel for the denial is the perhaps delusional feeling that what I do – and intend to do until the universe makes that call – brings value to somebody, somewhere, somehow.
Taking the sting out of old age.
Eric Weiner is an author and self-described “Philosophical Traveler and Recovering Malcontent” who writes on Medium.com. A few things in one of his recent posts (see it here) made me stop and think. For one:
People like Mr. Weiner, with their apparent intellect and deep, critical thinking, tend to send me hurtling into that nomadic desert wandering in circles in what is my ADHD-infested mind.
I found myself thinking of how little what I do means much, in the general scope of eternity and life on this mudball.
That kinda stings.
Until I thought about what Weiner says about unfinished business being finished by others. As my future shrinks, other futures grow – and my business may be carried forward by others.
That sets a new bar for me.
Get on it, bucko – and stop wasting time!! Somebody will pick up the pieces. Just go break some things.
Somehow, I tied his thought to retirement (see desert reference above).
Surprise, surprise! Since I seem to have this thing about what this unnatural, illogical concept has become in our lives.
It struck me how so many traditional retirees end up in a swamp made up of boredom, irrelevance, isolation, and declining health. It occurred to me that retirement does become sort of the “ultimate casualty” for many as they stop the business of doing business that can be finished by others.
Doesn’t full-stop retirement stop that train of building on something bigger than oneself? Something that can be carried on?
Doesn’t self-indulgent consumerism keep us from having a chance to fulfill why we are placed on this planet?
I’m reminded of a speech that distinguished educator and author Dr. Mortimer Adler delivered to an insurance Million Dollar Roundtable of the National Association of Underwriters on the Queen Mary in 1962 (bolding is mine):
The protagonist in Weiner’s article is a French woman, Simone de Beauvoir, the French novelist, philosopher, and feminist hero. She once said:
Let’s trade in the 20th-century relic that we’ve succumbed to –
Learn – Earn – Retire – Die
for –
Learn – Earn – Return
Any thoughts on this? We’d love your feedback. Drop us an email at gary@makeagingwork.com or leave a comment below.
How would you describe your last 80 years in this world? Some advice for 40+ year olds (and maybe some other 80-year olds).
I penned this article 20 months ago on Quora.com before number 80 happened. There’s been about 90,000 “Mikeys” that have liked it so far and since today is, in fact, my 80th birthday, I felt it appropriate to tune it up and share it with this tribe.
I think 80 years earns the right to provide some insight. So here goes.
For starters, my first 80 years are exactly like yours in one respect. It has been an ongoing series of choices and continues to be. I am where and what I am as the result of the accumulated choices I have made over the course of my life. And it will end up based on the choices I make going forward.
I’ve been fortunate to have started life without any “blueprint errors” so I wasn’t encumbered with any physical or mental limitations. Nor did I have a “silver spoon” growing up.
I guess you could say my life has been a low-drama adventure – probably like most lives. Lots of twists and turns mixing tranquility with chaos and considerable unpredictability with more than my share of attempts to control the uncontrollable.
I’m an escapee from rural Wyoming and a town of 800 with a high-school graduating class of 12. I’ve spent more time steering a Farmall tractor in circles, snuck into more drive-in theaters, raided more gardens, killed more rabbits for spending money, and driven more cars that didn’t have turn-signals and seat belts than most.
My college experience was stretched over nine years and three different majors, all paid for on my own by working 2–3 jobs. My wife of 51 years liked the way I served her food as a hasher at her sorority house and that I was an entertainer/guitar player on the weekends, that I wore sport coats to class, and didn’t buy the phony frat boy bit.
Oh, and the ’65 Chevy Malibu SuperSport, 300hp, four-on-the-floor helped a little.
So I fooled her into a marriage fully aware that I was marrying way over my head.
Our early married life experienced a hiccup – our first son was born severely brain-damaged from an undetermined pre-natal event and succumbed 16 months later, 11 days before our daughter was born.
It was a major factor in helping us both build resilience that sustains us today.
I forged ahead doing the “getta” thing: getta degree, getta job, getta wife, getta mortgage, getta fenced- yard, getta family, 2.5 kids and golden retriever, getta mini-van, getta title, getta 401K.
I was a poster boy for chasing the “linear life plan” i.e. the 20–40–20 life-cycle model that most still succumb to – 20 years of education, 40 years of work building someone else’s dream followed by 20 years (hopefully) of “nirvana” called retirement.
Some refer to it as the “learn-earn-retire-die” model.
I had begun to question the concept of retirement in my 40s as I immersed myself more in the self-development world where I discovered that retirement was never a consideration for most high-achievers. It appeared to me that most of the longest-living humans remained in the creative process rather than retire – a word derived from the French verb “retirer” which means “withdraw.”
So, I’ve chosen not to retire but to remain in the “creative process” as long as I can. I’ve set the goal of living to 112 1/2 knowing that my chances of getting there are pretty slim because of early marginal health habits. But I know that by setting the goal I have a much better chance of getting there than if I just settle for living out the average lifespan of the American male which is somewhere around 78 and declining.
See – I’ve beaten it already!
I left the 20–40–20 track at age 60 and started my own business as an executive recruiter after 32 years of wandering through the desert of corporate employment. I learned, by starting a business that I knew nothing about and was under-prepared to start, that I’m not the entrepreneur I thought I would be and that it’s not the glamorous world people think it is.
The last 20 years have been the most challenging, enlightening, and gratifying part of the 80-year journey and the part of the journey from which I can draw advice worthy of consideration for a 40-year old.
Here are the cliff notes from the last 20 years:
So life today is a mash-up of recovery from mistakes, acknowledgment of innate ability, some victories, and a modicum of acquired wisdom from all of the above. I can honestly say that I experience “eudaimonic happiness” (see this article) and am at the happiest and healthiest point in my life having been able to apply some of the voluminous knowledge and experiences that I have accumulated through my life.
How would I advise a 40-year old?
Let’s think in big buckets – the buckets that are foundational to success, health, longevity, and purpose in life.
Bucket #1: Get serious about and take control of your health. Nothing counts for anything if you don’t feel good. As Americans, we do a pretty shitty job of protecting our health. Candidly, we are surprisingly illiterate when it comes to understanding how our minds and bodies work.
If we did understand, would
We know there is no biological reason that we shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond. Our “whole-life benchmark” has already been set at 122 years, 164 days because Jeanne Calment of Paris made it that far. So we know the body can last that long. Yet, on average, in America, we achieve only 66% of that potential.
Why the gap? In a word: lifestyle. The five major killers in our culture – heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and dementia – have not changed in decades. They are lifestyle diseases and all are preventable.
Our poor diets, sedentary living, and increasing isolation are killing us early – we continue to “live too short and die too long” with late life for many composed of extended morbidity and early frailty.
Become a student of your mind and body and start now to understand how your body works at the cellular level. With that awareness, you will be able to put in place a lifestyle of good health-inducing habits that will bode well for a mid-life and beyond that is energetic, long, and meaningful.
It’s also important to remember that we, in America, are encumbered with a healthcare system that is broken and not exactly an ally in this quest. It operates on the principle of “cure” and not “prevention.” It’s a disease-care system that is trained to “drug it or cut it out” and “mop up the water without turning off the spigot.” It is reactive, not proactive. It’s up to you to be proactive and take charge of your health and partner with your physician and not let him/her be the arbiter of your health.
One of the best pieces of advice I can pass on is to encourage you to read what many consider one of the most transformational books ever written when it comes to achieving good health. It’s called “Younger Next Year”, co-authored by Chris Crowley and Dr. Henry Lodge. It’s a book that has impacted many lives. In fact, Bill Gates, who has read a book a week forever, considers it one of the most impactful books he’s ever read.
Applying what this book can teach you, your life curve can look more like this:
Bucket #2:
Discover your strengths and be the author of your life. Chances are high that you came through your formal education without fully understanding what your deepest strengths and talents are. You were plopped into a classroom with 30 other “victims” and forced to learn what an outdated educational system continues to say is best for you – so that you can fit into and conform to the aforementioned 20–40–20 learn-earn-retire model that still prevails. It’s likely you have gotten this far having not chosen the base materials of who you really are.
We all have within us an “essence”, or what German psychiatrist Carlo Strenger calls our “thus and no other”, a something born in each of us that is “recalcitrant to change.” It’s that inner dream that gets tamped down and barnacled over by the educational system, the advice of the influential “P’s” in your life (parents, peers, professors, politicians, and pundits), much of corporate employment, and the pressure to conform.
I know of what I speak. Although successful by cultural standards of title, status, and income while in the corporate world, it wasn’t until I was in my sixties that I finally acknowledged that I was operating outside of my “base materials” or “core strengths and talents.” I ignored or refused to accept the feedback that I got from several personality- and strengths-assessment tests that I took – because they didn’t align with my belief of what the culture expected. The tests said, in every case, that I should be in a learning-teaching environment where my natural, but undeveloped, ability to write and speak could flourish.
I began to move in that direction in my mid-sixties and the journey continues.
So, if you haven’t, start now to identify and acknowledge your strengths, how you are wired up, what your “thus and no other” is, and move toward it. It’s not too late to be the true author of your life. As NPR journalist and author of “Life Reimagined: Ths Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife” Barbara Bradley Hagerty states:
Invest in, and take seriously, assessments such as Strengthsfinder, Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, DISC. Work with a career coach or life coach.
Ask yourself a couple of questions: (1) Would I continue doing what I am doing for no pay? (2) If time and money were not a factor, what would I be doing?
At forty, you are a mid-career professional or close to it. You’ve lived enough years and have enough of a biography of successes and failures that you should know enough about what you excel at, what you don’t do well, what energizes you, and what you dread. All this can guide you to this next stage.
Bucket #3:
Dispose of the retirement mindset. My position on this is, admittedly, controversial. Over the last 5–6 decades, the concept of a “labor-to-leisure”, “vocation-to-vacation” retirement has become so entrenched in the psyche of the western world that to assault it is heresy. But assault it I will – with several things that a 40-year old should consider as they move into the second half of life.
Here are a few simple facts about retirement as we’ve come to know it:
Bucket #4:
Own your career and never stop learning. Continue to refine and deepen your skills within and outside of your career path.
Repeatedly, I have worked with folks in the late 40s or 50s who have struggled to re-enter the job market after being blindsided by a layoff or other type of termination. Often it’s due to the fact that they have made no attempt to continue to enhance or learn new skills throughout their career.
Many of these hapless victims clung to the 20th-century illusion that their company has their interests at heart and will nurture them along. This is a dangerous thought pattern.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that your employer has your interests at heart. They don’t. They are always guarding their own self-interests.
Master Certified Career Coach, Janine Moon, in her book “Career Ownership” emphasizes the importance of career ownership in the face of both the magnitude and the accelerating pace of change occurring in our global economy.
Here are a few “wise” questions that she suggests a 40-year old should be asking themselves:
As Americans, we don’t have a good track record as continuous learners. For instance:
Read, read, read. It’s key to avoiding irrelevancy and becoming a dinosaur. Stay in the learning process all your life. You’ll find that it isn’t crowded in that space. But it will bode well for both your career and your mental health.
It’s been an interesting ride – and continues to be interesting. I hope it stays interesting until the universe decides to take the parts back (and that it decides to make that REAL quick – no loitering in extended morbidity for me!).
Any of you “been there, done this?” I’d love to hear your stories. Share ’em with a comment below.
Open Letter to Madison, Who’s 39 and “Feeling old.” Oh, please!!
Photo by Julien L on Unsplash
Madison ??, from somewhere on this planet, tossed out this question recently on Quora.com. I couldn’t resist responding since I’ve passed her by 2x and just might have a few thoughts on the topic.
“Is 39 years old considered old? I feel like I have so much to accomplish. I want to travel and enjoy life more but feel kind of old.”
Seriously, Madison?
I’m sorry. You are not qualified to claim that moniker. You haven’t:
Your “old” is just between your temples.
Old is a state of mind and 39 is just a number with no particular significance other than the one that you may be allowing our culture to load on you.
Against the average lifespan of 80 today, you haven’t reached halftime. But, that is thinking “average” which I suspect you aren’t since you are asking this type of question.
You are at an inflection point.
Our culture would say that you are expressing signs of the classic “mid-life crisis” which is largely a myth. What most people think is a mid-life crisis is more of life delivering you a check-up, a wake-up call.
That’s healthy. So let the questions come.
Ask bigger questions.
Think BIG.
Then go small!
You’re 39 and have forever to make big things happen and enjoy life while you are doing it.
But it has to start with knowing what it is you want.
What is your big life picture?
You’ve already stated you “have so much to accomplish.” What is it? How much clarity do you have about it? What’s it for? Who’s it for? What is the change you want to make? (You can thank Seth Godin for that guidance).
Find that and then go small and bring it back to today and do one thing that will move you closer to that big picture. Do that every day and you will be blown away by what can happen in your life in five years.
I’m not making this stuff up.
Gary Keller, the founder of Keller Williams Real Estate, wrote the classic book on this topic entitled – wait for it – “The One Thing.”
Now would be a good time for you to read it.
One last thing:
Think both/and, not either/or.
You want to accomplish a lot but also travel and enjoy life. Those don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can do both.
One more last thing:
Get healthy, stay healthy. Become a student of your biology, of how your mind and body work, and give both what they need to operate optimally. Poor health dashes more big-picture dreams than anything else.
Thanks for the question. Go big. Go small. But GO!
What do you think about old people?
I like myself.
Since I’m 2 weeks short of 80, I am, by our distorted, number-fixated cultural standards, officially really old.
With the average lifespan for the American male currently at 78.79 (2019) and declining, I’m late for my funeral.
I’ve liked myself best through my late-60s and 70s.
On that score, I may be a bit of an outlier, from what I can observe.
I’m working to avoid being what most people don’t like about “really old people.” My mission is to avoid becoming the grumpy, immobile, stooped over, smelly ol’ fart I swore I’d never become.
(This is not a self-portrait!!!!!)
So far so good. Admittedly, some parts of the smelly thing are not totally in my control (see this popular article).
But, the rest? Those are choices I can make to break from the pack of what most people generally don’t like about old people.
I’m not stooped. I work out 6–7 days a week, aerobically and weight-lifting. I can hold my own with many 30 years my junior. My vertical is still good.
Grumpy? Well, occasionally, when I waste a day not living up to my potential and only with an incredibly tolerant wife of 51 years who mostly ignores or laughs it off and moves on.
I’m not inclined to spend most of my time hanging out with my age cohort. (See this article).
Assembling with my age cohort can be uncomfortable as too often the conversations become “organ recitals” talking about the aches, pains, past and pending surgeries, friends with developing dementia, the sad state of a world that refuses to go back to the norms of the 1950s, etc., etc.
It can get pretty boring and deflating. And a chirpy, opinionated iconoclast like myself can put a quick damper on a sagging dinner conversation since that space between the temples of most 70-year-olds can resemble concrete and isn’t all that malleable.
But, I chirp on hoping that maybe one thought about how to live a longer, healthier life might stick. I’ve resigned to the realization that I have no obligation to change anybody’s life – I’m only obligated to try.
And try, I do – but this cohort is a tough crowd!
So, I try to balance my hanging with my cohort with hanging with younger people – GenXers and Millennials. I’m anxious to learn from them and found, surprisingly, they are receptive to a touch of “geezer wisdom.”
We geezers-in-progress condemn/criticize these “youngsters” at our own peril.
Growing old is inevitable and unavoidable. Getting old is optional.
Bottom line is, how we get old is largely under our control. We choose how we “get” old through our attitudes and lifestyles.
We are all growing old and will die.
Or as Dr. Walter Bortz, retired Stanford geriatric physician and author once stated:
We all have some control over the pace and total control over how we view it.
We all know 50 year-olds going on 80 and 80-year-olds going on 50. The difference is largely choices and mindset.
I love the latter and don’t do well with the former.
How about you?
Why Work Half of Our Life Expectancy? Maybe We Should Work All of It.
Recently, a Quora member posed the question: ” Why work half of our life expectancy?”
I wasn’t sure if he was suggesting that this is too short or too long of a time to work.
I suspect since work today is generally considered a “have to do” and not “a want to do” that he was coming down on it being too long a period to be involved in something many consider inconvenient, distasteful, uninspiring.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I answered coming down on the opposite side asking: “Why do we strive to only work half of our life expectancy? Why not nearly all of it?”
Over the last 50+ years, in most developed countries, we’ve injected this mindset that work is something to eventually avoid or reject in favor of the unnatural concept of “retirement.”
As such, we, of 20th-century origin, have operated with a model built around busting our humps for 40+ years (approximately half our current life expectancy) to be able to achieve that work avoidance – a period which may or may not get us to the average life expectancy.
Often that last 20-year journey is beset with physical and mental issues as a result of the stress and lifestyle habits from the previous 40.
The legacy retirement model that has become so entrenched in the psyche of western cultures fails to acknowledge that work is, and always has been, what we are designed to do.
We’ve strayed from that biological reality and ignored the role that meaningful work can have in health and length of life.
Consider the wise words of Wendell Berry, American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer as he reflects on the prevailing attitude toward work.
Work has long been recognized as a critical component of longevity. A study of 83,000 Americans 65 and older found that being retired or unemployed was associated with a greater risk of poor health.
Our chances of remaining healthy increase if we continue working.
Here’s the rub.
Many of us commit to work that is outside of our true talents and essence and choose the paycheck over being aligned with what we are best designed to do and what truly inspires and energizes us.
As such, work, which can provide us with structure, meaning, connection, and inspiration, often becomes drudgery and a “necessary evil.”
So, we squeeze it into 40 years to reach the opportunity to exist another 20 years in non-work heaven.
It’s an 80-year mindset when, in fact, we have biology that should easily get us to 100 or beyond.
In fact, worldwide research on the lives of centenarians reveals that most continued to work very late in life.
I spoke to this in a previous article:
Semi-retirement for a lifetime.
There’s an interesting trend forming that we should be paying attention to that speaks to the realization that busting the hump for forty years to reach an unpredictable retirement doesn’t make sense.
And it’s coming from the millennials and GenXers.
More and more are committing, in their 30s, to aligning their work with their core talents, what they do best, and what inspires them and to doing that as long as they are able.
Rather than sell out to building someone else’s dream, they are pursuing their own with no designs on a retired life.
It’s a lifestyle built around the concept of semi-retirement for a lifetime.
Rocco Pendola is writing about this on Medium. Here’s a link to a couple of his articles that speak to this concept.
There’s a Movement Forming to a Different Way of Living Life
https://themakingofamillionaire.com/exactly-what-it-means-to-be-semi-retired-e8502292d3e9
What are your thoughts on this topic? Tell us how you feel – leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!