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:

  1. What is a “retirement age?”
  2. Who determines it?
  3. How is it determined?
  4. Does it exist everywhere?
  5. Is it the same for everybody?
  6. WHY DOES IT EVEN EXIST?

Do we stop and think this through?

We get all wrapped around the axel over a concept that:

  1. Is an unnatural act that doesn’t exist in nature.
  2. Didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago.
  3. Doesn’t exist in many cultures, many of which also have much longer healthspans and average lifespans than countries enamored by retirement.
  4. Was conceived for political and not humanitarian purposes.
  5. Establishes an arbitrary and artificial finish line based on political decisions made 86 years ago.
  6. Was creatively exploited and packaged up by insurance salespeople to create a multibillion-dollar financial services industry in which it’s only about the numbers.
  7. Promotes a mindset that says work is to be avoided and often establishes lifestyle habits that are contrary to the grow-or-die nature of our biology and physiology.
  8. Has become a deeply entrenched pseudo-entitlement with little basis for existence that has become so deeply entrenched in the western psyche as to be virtually unassailable.

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:

Total household retirement savings among all workers is $93,000 (estimated median). Baby Boomer workers have the most retirement savings at $202,000, compared with Generation X ($107,000), Millennials ($68,000), and Generation Z ($26,000) (estimated medians).

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

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.

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.

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:

  • stubbed your toe enough,
  • screwed up enough,
  • experienced enough crises/calamities,
  • enjoyed enough victories.

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!

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.

“We can say without exaggeration that the present national ambition of the United States is unemployment. People live for quitting time, for weekends, for vacations, and for retirement; moreover, this ambition seems to be classless, as true in the executive suites as on the assembly lines. One works not because the work is necessary, valuable, useful to a desirable end, or because one loves to do it, but only to be able to quit – a condition that a saner time would regard as infernal, a condemnation.”

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:

Work Yourself to Death? Not a Bad Idea!

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!

How does one work a 40 hour a week job, have time to cook healthy meals, sleep 8 hours a night, and go to the gym?

 

Maybe you’ve got this all figured out.

I don’t.

I know – we’re just supposed to get better at “time management.”

But then, we can’t “manage time.” Time is fixed, immutable, and unchanging. It manages itself and we can’t change what exists for us to function within. We can’t change that a minute is a minute and a day is a day.

We can only manage ourselves.

What we tag as “poor time management” is simply “poor self-management.”

I can sense your pain because you are baffled – as we all are – by “where does all my time go? How can I end up killing so much time?”

I’m a pretty organized guy that doesn’t finish a day without saying to myself: “Where the hell did my day go and why didn’t I get done what I wanted to get done?”

Have you tried doing the math on your day or week? I do it all the time trying to get better at not “killing” so much time.

Eight decades and I’m still frustrated with my progress!!

Let’s do a hypothetical and try to break down the question.  I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on some of this.

  • 168 hours (the week we all start with)
  • Less 40 hours of work
  • Less 5 hours commute (five days, 30 minutes one way)
  • Less 56 hours of sleep
  • Less 14 hours to fix and eat healthy meals
  • Less 8 hours at the gym
  • Balance: 40 hours

24% of the week untagged.

Isn’t it freaky how we can’t account for a quarter of our week? Or that it slips through our fingers so easily?

The gold for a fulfilling, happy, purposeful life lies in our 24%.

People who demonstrate productive self-management seem to have a handful of common sense things they have put in place:

  1. A well-defined direction and sense of purpose in their lives. They have clear, challenging, and motivating goals, know where they are going, and have a limited number of lanes they are staying in.
  2. They stay focused on priorities by defining what is most important within those lanes. They have learned to avoid letting the urgent displace the important. (You might find Stephen Covey’s classic book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” helpful).
  3. They are very good at saying “no.” This appears to be one of the most important things to consider to put solid self-management in place. Self-management experts will tell you that saying “yes” is a major killer of getting your time use under control. Whether you say “yes” or “no” will be driven by the clarity of, and commitment to, your goals and purpose.
  4. They have 5 or 10-year plans that are written but flexible. They work backward from those to develop written quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily activity lists.

You can see that the principles of good “self-management” aren’t rocket science. But that’s not to say they are easy. Life just gets in the way. Being able to roll with the unexpected that sucks up so much of that 24% and getting back on track takes discipline. And, without question, discipline is central to good self-management.

Two books to consider.

When I feel myself skidding off the rails on my efficiency, I’ll drag out one of two books that are reminders that this doesn’t need to be the problem that I allow it to become.

Time is our most valuable resource. Once spent it is irretrievable. Treat it with respect and it will reward you in kind.

What works best for you to get your time under control? Love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment or drop me an email at gary@makeagingwork.com

Are you “youthful” or “useful”? (The mirrors at 24 Hour Fitness answer part of that question for me!)

Part of me says it’s unfair to have so many mirrors in an athletic club. They are everywhere – and they don’t lie.

But then if you are part of the tank top, tattoo, tiny testicle, mirror muscle group hanging out with your lululemon-clad girlfriend, mirrors are essential.

For someone approaching geezerdom it’s, well, painful.

Undeterred, I endure the pain ’cause I’ve still got this illusory section in my brain that says that my biceps will grow, the droop over the beltline is temporary, and that the furniture disease wherein my chest has fallen into my drawers is just a myth. (sorry, bad joke!!)

My end-of-day athletic club workouts go 2 hours most of the time. Strength training followed by aerobic. And I usually work in a walk of at least 1-2 miles during the day to make sure I haul my arse out of the chair that keeps me at the keyboard and at 90 degrees too much of the day.

My flesh redistribution plan doesn’t seem to be working too well. No, you can’t fool Mother Nature. Gravity works.

Wrinkles versus wisdom.

Thus, I was challenged recently by a blog post from Chip Conley, entrepreneur, author, and founder of the Modern Elder Academy. I like Chip’s stuff and read most of his daily blogs. In a recent one, he told of reminding a late-middle-aged friend who was lamenting his inability to look younger that “our wisdom is more intangible than our wrinkles” and challenged him with the questions:

“How could you be more useful in the world?”

“Who could use a bit of your wisdom?”

It’s easy to get so caught up in trying to look and feel youthful that we forget that feeling “useful” may be more important than wrinkles in living a well-lived life.

Wrinkles are a given. There’s no stopping them.

Wisdom isn’t a given. It can atrophy and fade away. If couch potato replaces career, wisdom is wasted. It’s one of the traps that full-stop retirement can suck you into.

Dr. Ken Dychtwald of the AgeWave organization reminds us in his book “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age” that the average American watches 47+ hours of television a week and that less than 25% do any volunteer work. 

How can we serve?

Chip reminds us that:

“Ultimately, one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is, “How can I serve?” It’s a question that takes on even greater meaning in midlife and beyond. It is a question that immediately creates a sense of generativity, defined as “the propensity and willingness to engage in acts that promote the wellbeing of younger generations as a way of ensuring the long-term survival of the species.”

That bolded sentence struck home this weekend when I took my 10-year-old grandson to lunch. We hadn’t done the one-on-one thing in a while because of COVID and I was reminded of how quickly time is flying, that we don’t know each other as well as we should, and that my window to help promote his well-being as his “papa” is fleeting. So, too, for his cousins, my two other similarly-aged grandkids.

It was a convicting experience.

Never too late.

As “third-agers”, we all have unlimited opportunities to serve and share our wisdom.

We’re wired to do so.

So instead of riding off into the sunset by retiring, we can ride into the sunrise with a vision and journey to serve.

This sick world needs your wisdom – wrinkles just help authenticate it.

 

I’m 57, have no savings, and am unemployed. Is it too late to turn my life around? An open letter response.

An open letter to a mid-lifer that recently posed this question on Quora.com.

I’m 57, have no savings, and am unemployed. Is it too late to turn my life around?

Absolutely not!!!

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

 

Consider that you may have 20–30 years ahead of you – maybe more if you have been taking care of yourself physically. That’s 1–2 generations. Think of how much we have progressed in that amount of time.

You can make lots happen in that amount of time also.

It’s been said that we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in one year and greatly underestimate what we can get done in three years. Think of it as momentum that develops through planning and compounded effort.

While I don’t know your life situation, I feel safe in saying that you got to 57 with some successes along the way. It’s only in your head that it’s disgraceful to be unemployed and with no savings. It’s no comfort to know that there are lots and lots of folks in this leaky boat with you, but it is a fact.

And, frankly, nobody is thinking about you or really cares – you just think they are.  This will erode your self-image and make the road ahead harder if you concern yourself with that.

So start by reminding yourself of what successes you’ve had and what it was that made you successful at it. All of us have innate talents. Often, we leave them unpolished or unrealized as we strive to meet the cultural expectations of parents, peers, professors, and politicians that take us down a path of conformity and comparison at the expense of allowing these deep talents to flourish.

Ask yourself:

  • What do I really, really like doing?
  • What am I really, really good at?
  • What advice do others seek from me?
  • When have I been in a “flow state” where what I am doing makes time fade away?
  • What would I be doing if time and money weren’t a factor?
  • What would your five closest friends say you are?
  • If I stumbled into my own funeral, what would you like the eulogist to be saying? And who would it be?
  • What does this world need that I can provide?

When you have that figured out, then get aggressive about finding a match for that combination. Let the match with your talents be the guide to your decisions and not money.

When you have your talents aligned with your work, you’ll see the rewards come.

In step with this, it sounds as if a change in self-discipline is in order as well. As in, spend less than you make. With a 30–40 year runway, you have the opportunity to make a solid financial recovery. Plus when you are doing what you love, you aren’t likely to succumb to the social pressure to “retire” and potentially squander a couple of decades of fulfilling, meaningful creativity and production.

Remember, that creativity is not age-dependent. And mental senescence is not automatic. Your creative brain will grow as long as you continue to challenge it.

A future bigger than your past.

So think of it as being 2/3 done with 1/3 left but with the advantage of being able to leverage accumulated life skills, work experiences, and wisdom into a lifestyle of work that can be more gratifying, purposeful, fulfilling, and financially rewarding than the first 2/3.

You are uniquely gifted and far from a slug. Recognize that, change your self-talk, get into motion, get help, and launch your restart. And remember that our society needs you to be a producer and not another “hanger-on” or someone on the dole.

Good luck – and thanks for putting yourself out there.

Beginning is half done!!

Please Tell Me You Didn’t Do New Year’s Resolutions Again!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

OK, I’m betting they may not be on paper, but you plan to:

  1. Lose weight
  2. Eat better
  3. Exercise more
  4. Watch less TV
  5. Spend more time with family
  6. Read more
  7. Go to church regularly
  8. Get more sleep
  9. Take up a hobby
  10. Quit smoking
  11. Volunteer more
  12. Drop Facebook

In other words, become a New You for the New Year.

I know you are exceptional – you’ll make all of that happen. All in the same year and a New You comes out the other end toasting another new year on 12/31/22 and the start of a new list the next day.

We can only hope!

For most people, 13 of those 12 won’t happen.

Just imagine if we were all able to keep that sort of annual momentum year-upon-year-upon-year.

We could own the universe with all that compounding.

But then, who would want to own today’s universe?

I’ll pass.

I don’t remember when, or if, I’ve ever set New Year’s Resolutions. Certainly don’t remember ever putting them to paper. Maybe if I had I would be more of something. I don’t suppose it’s too late but as I prepare to start my 9th decade on this mudball, somehow it seems a little superfluous.

It fits better for me to do the three most important things I can think of today. String enough of those all together and the year should turn out OK.

Why don’t they work?

Setting goals is generally a good idea and is the rationale behind New Year’s Resolutions – except they also generally don’t pan out. It’s kind of a running joke that these resolutions are an exercise in futility. They usually run out of steam about April.

The classic seems to be the exercise resolution. (C’mon – you’ve been there!)

 

Need proof? For a few decades, I frequented an upscale athletic club daily for basketball and weight-lifting.  But I always worked out at home for the first few weeks of each year because it got so overrun with well-intentioned, deer-in-the-headlights new patrons set on a “new me” in the coming year.

 

By the first or second week of February, the decks were pretty well cleared and things were close to normal again – certainly full-on normal by March 1.

The “January Bloom” is the only way an athletic club can make it. They convince people their membership will be “fun” and get their $39.95 on monthly recurring concealing the fact that exercise – especially as a newbie – is anything but fun and knowing that the combination of pain, inconvenience,  and lack of immediate results will soon keep people at home. But still paying their monthly.

Who’s gonna admit they flunked exercise?

I don’t mean to throw water on the entire goal-setting process just because New Year’s Resolutions don’t work.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s something that works better than goal-setting – and eliminates the frustration of unachieved New Year’s Resolutions.

I’m trading goals in for “themes” that are on the path to mastery.

Niklas Göke is a writer on Quora and Medium.com who offers a different twist on goal setting perhaps worthy of consideration:

“-goals were never the reason you didn’t “make it” this year. Goals don’t help you create long-term happiness, let alone sustain it. They never have, and they never will.

From a rational perspective, goals seem like a good way of getting what you want. They’re tangible, trackable, and time-bound. They give you a point to move toward and a nudge to help you get there.

Until we reach them, all goals do is exert pressure from afar. Even worse, when we finally do achieve them, they disappear.

But on a day-to-day basis, goals often lead to anxiety, worry, and regret rather than fulfillment, pride, and contentment. Until we reach them, goals exert pressure from afar. Even worse, when we finally do achieve them, they disappear right away — like a baseball in a home run, zipping out of sight. The burst of relief is fleeting, and we think it must be happiness. So we set a new, bigger goal. Once again, it seems out of reach.”

Goke and James Altucher, bestselling author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and former hedge fund manager, advocate for themes instead of goals. 

Altucher suggests creating a theme of how you want to live your life and then do the next thing that is important to you.

A theme might be a single word — a verb, a noun, or an adjective. “Commit,” “growth,” and “healthy” are all valid themes. So are “invest,” “help,” “kindness,” and “gratitude.”

A goal asks “what do I want?” but a theme asks “who am I?”

Altucher’s position is that our overall life satisfaction isn’t determined by singular events but rather by the average of how we feel at the end of each day. According to him, when you have themes, “you build unbelievable intuition on what is the next thing you should be doing in your life. You’re no longer trapped by a long list of tiny inconsequential things you feel you have to do.”

So, I’m continuing to simplify it for 2022 by envisioning myself on a path to mastery of what I’ve chosen and love to do using today to advance that in some way, fully aware that true mastery is always out of reach.

It’s the goalless journey that matters.

I’ve stolen and adopted this theme from Dr. Ken Dychtwald, psychologist and founder of AgeWave:

Breathe – Learn – Teach – Repeat

It fits who I am. If I stay true to that, on December 31, 2022, I will be smarter, healthier, and maybe will have touched somebody. And I will not be bound up or worried about having missed a goal or having to set another one.

A theme or goalless journey is immune to anxiety and fear of failure.

Here’s a meaningful quote from Niklas Goke:

“A goal splits your actions into good and bad. A theme makes every action part of a masterpiece.”

Here’s to you and I making 2022 a masterpiece – of our choosing – one day at a time.

How do you feel about this argument? Are you a committed goal setter – or do you have themes working for you? We’d love to have your feedback on the topic. Leave a comment or drop an email to gary@makeagingwork.com

What Should You Expect When You Turn 60 Years Old?

Photo by Tim Cooper on Unsplash

I recently answered this question for an obvious younger whippersnapper on Quora.com.

What Should You Expect When You Turn 60 Years Old?

With the 20th anniversary of that age within view for me, I had a few thoughts I’ve accumulated over those two decades.

I hope you won’t expect much more than a cake with a lot of candles on that day, along with a whole bunch of unfunny ageist birthday cards, and a nauseating rash of “over the hill” comments from so-called friends. For example:

Birthday card from my daughter

What is so significant about 60?

Most people get there. How is it more significant than say 50 or 65?

Or any age, for that matter.

As they say, it’s just a number.

Things didn’t start falling off 20 years ago when I turned 60. I was still playing pickup basketball and lifting weights 5x a week. I had to give up the BB at 63 because of a knee issue but still lift weights aggressively 3x per week.

I did notice a slight reversal at or around that time – nose running and feet smelling (sorry – old bad joke!).

Age 60 was a pivotal time for me.

I went against the grain and decided to leave corporate life and start my own business. The idea of retirement didn’t appeal to me then and still doesn’t.

I had grown accustomed to being told that I looked and acted much younger than my 60 years. My response was then – and still is today – that it’s not an accident or genetics. I work at it, physically and mentally. Then and today.

If I tie how I feel or expect to look to a number, I have the wrong mindset. Based on my number and the current average life span of the American male (78.6), well – I missed my funeral.

I am so mystified and miffed at the strange hold that the number 60 and 65 have on us in the U.S. It’s an artificial finish line, an arbitrary number with no particular significance other than the tag the government tied to it 86 years ago and the number the financial service industry keys off of as they help you plan for your demise.

The crest of the hill? The start of the downward slide?

Really? Let’s give it a break and not assign any particular significance to a number, least of all this one.

Willam Shatner didn’t. Do you see what he’s doing at age 90? Or Warren Buffet? Or Clint “The Mole” Eastwood? Betty White will become a centenarian in a few months. It’s a long list of folks who blew past 60, then 65, and didn’t tag any significance to it. Maybe that’s why they’ve been so successful.

What would I do differently at age 60?

Just one big thing.

I’d have a better handle on my essence.

Eeew!! That sounds so esoteric, new agey.

But it’s true. I cut the cord and stepped into the entrepreneurial world totally unequipped and for the wrong reasons. Three decades of corporate life had done nothing to equip me to start my own business. I had never encountered the type of mental challenges that come with putting it on the line with your own business.

I bailed from corporate to have more freedom, to get away from the lack of control of my time and my schedule, and, from self-centered, ladder-climbing bosses. And I bought the Koolaid that said starting your own business in the new world of the internet (yes, it was a baby back then) was going to be easier and more profitable than ever. The work-from-home, control-my-time, t-shirts-and-shorts-wardrobe dream was very alluring.

What I didn’t do was to fully understand what I was really good at and what I wasn’t so good at.

It took me over a decade, a big bunch of stumbles, and an embarrassing slice of a healthy “retirement savings” to come face to face with the fact that I was – and had been for nearly 40 years – operating outside of how my maker had really wired me up and equipped me.

Let’s be real – many of us do the same!

We buy into the 20th-century linear life model of learn-earn-retire and end up with a life spending 40 years busting the hump for what?

FTM – For The Money

-and that nirvanic pot of gold at the end (around 60) called retirement, that unnatural concept that doesn’t exist in nature, didn’t exist anywhere on the planet 150 years ago, was conceived for political purposes, and takes us away from how our biology serves us.

60 is the edge of a golden age!

At 60 or thereabouts, a fork in the road appears. Start the downward slide or relaunch. Is the rest of your life going to be another and different type of takeoff – or a landing?

Your mind and body are not ready for a landing – they don’t want a landing. They are built to last 122 years and 164 days because a lady in Paris set that benchmark for us in 1997. Reaching 60 isn’t even halfway to that biological benchmark. Yet we cash out at an average age of 80 – only 65% of our full-life potential.

Perhaps much of that is due to the mindset and the decisions that we make at or around age 60.

What are you going to do with your “longevity bonus?”

If you’ve checked, you know that we are living longer than previous generations – maybe by as much as 20, 30, 40 years. Turning 60 and facing another 30 years changes the narrative that we’ve lived with for the last 50 years that says you’re done being anything other than a consumer at 60 or 65.

Be a producer, not a consumer. Forget the self-indulgence.

We’re led to believe that we’re “entitled” to a life of leisure in our later years, that we’ve paid the price to “the man” and earned the right to be a self-indulgent and selfish consumer.

There’s a risk in all that because it doesn’t serve our biology well.

Pre- and early-retirees list these as their greatest fears:

  1. Boredom.
  2. Loss of identity.
  3. Becoming irrelevant.
  4. Deteriorating health.

So, at 60, expect your surrounding culture to put certain expectations on you, all based on outdated, irrelevant narratives.

Your choice then becomes buying in or going against the grain. At 60, chances are high that you’ve got lots of gas left in the tank. Resist the pressure and temptation to start the withdrawal and your biology will reward you accordingly.

Consider the possibilities of leveraging decades of acquired skills, experiences, and wisdom to do something the world needs and that is aligned with your innate talents.

I love – and have adopted – a credo followed by Dr. Ken Dychtwald, gerontologist and the world’s foremost authority on aging, that he unveils in his autobiographical book, “Radical Curiosity.”

Breathe – Learn – Teach – Repeat

At 60 and beyond, you are ideally equipped to do just that.

60 yet?  We’d love to hear what it was like for you and what followed. Leave a comment or shoot an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.

Is Your Age a “Jail Sentence?” Or a “Gateway?”

A 64-year old woman recently found me through one of my blogs and engaged me about my career transition coaching services for folks at mid-life and beyond.

She is gainfully employed in her 20th year with her employer, but concerned about some changes that she finds unattractive and unsettling. She’s feeling trapped because her options are to go along with the changes or be asked to leave.

With her having three degrees (two bachelor’s, one master’s) and 20 years of continuous employment with the same company, I assumed this conversation was headed for a discussion about transitioning to retirement.

That was a brief, and dead-end, conversation.

Retirement isn’t an option because she and her husband have less than $40,000 in retirement savings. He has always been self-employed with no retirement savings plan. She has never earned more than $45,000 a year.

As a couple, they are not unlike a disturbingly high percentage of the American population.

As we reviewed her plight, she instinctively understood that her age was a major variable in any plans going forward.

It felt like a jail sentence to her.

I told her that it could be, depending on the choices she makes at this point and the mindset she adopts.

We discussed her options:

  1. Suck it up, stay where you are, and adapt.
  2. Quit and enter the job market to find another position.
  3. Do a hybrid – suck it up, stay where you are but test the job market or other alternatives.

I will cross-body block her if she heads to #2 and the ageism therein.

This is a classic example of how mindset works for or against an individual. The thought of age 64 being anything other than a ball and chain is difficult under her circumstances.

This is a work-in-progress and part of my mission is to talk her down from the ledge that says the future is grim.

I want to expose her to a “gateway mindset.”

Unlocking the jail cell

Her limbic system – lizard brain, if you will – will put and keep her in jail if she allows it. Her lizard brain is there to protect her from things like saber-tooth tigers, warring tribes, starvation. The amygdala was doing it 200,000 years ago and still does, sans the tigers. Possibility thinking will need to do an override of an amygdala that’s just doing its job.

So we’re going to build a gateway through that protectionist biological process. Here are the pieces:

  1. Raised self-awareness
  2. Deep-dive skills inventory
  3. Separate the important from the urgent
  4. Walk to the edge of the comfort zone and peer over the edge using #1-3

Raised self-awareness

At this life juncture, it will be essential for her to reacquaint herself with her essence, her “one and no other.” What is it that she’s exceptional at doing, that lights her up, that makes time disappear as she does it? What would she be doing if time and money weren’t a consideration?

This could be helped along with some personal assessments such as DISC, Strengthsfinder, Enneagram to resurrect and reactive those latent talents and dreams.

Deep-dive skills inventory

Equipped with this raised self-awareness, it’s time to replay the life experience and work history tapes. What has she made happen that she is recognized for? What type of advice do people come to her for? Has she been acknowledged for a “uniqueness” in what she has done over the 20 years?

Separate the important from the urgent

This is where it can get a bit dicey and where an objective mindset is key. The urgent will dominate if you are trying to get out of jail.

The urgent says (with a boost from the amygdala):

  • I’ve got to find another job, quickly.
  • Who could possibly want a 64-year old woman with my narrow experience?
  • I’ll never be able to retire.

The important says:

  • I need to protect my health (she is contending with some challenges in this area).
  • I need to continue to support my live-in daughter and granddaughter while my daughter attends medical school.
  • I need to adopt a new mindset for this next phase built on optimism and confidence in my abilities.

Walk to the edge of the comfort zone and peer over the edge using pieces #1-3.

Very little significance happens inside the comfort zone. Jumping too far out is scary and may not be very productive. Stepping to the edge with full awareness of talents, skills, and experiences and beginning to evaluate opportunities makes sense at this point.

Stay tuned – news at 11:00

As I said, this is a work in progress. I’m going to suggest to her when we next meet that we take a stroll out to the edge of her comfort zone, look over the edge, and do some brainstorming.

  • Maybe we explore the possibility that her perception of this company change is wrong and could, in fact, be a new way for her to continue to gain a new skill, polish her favorable position within the company, gain new favor, increase her income, and avoid having to deal with ageism and a job search. That’s the “suck it up” part.
  •  Maybe we take that talents and skills inventory, polish up her resume and LinkedIn presence and test the job market in positions related to what she does now or that call for the deep skills we know she has – all while she is heads down in her new position with her current employer. That’s a hybrid possibility.
  • Maybe we explore moving her toward a self-sustaining “semi-retirement” or “lifestyle business” while she is employed with an eye toward capitalizing on developed skills, her experience, and her interest in nutrition (her second bachelor’s is in nutrition). Another hybrid.

I’ll try to remember to come back with a report on how this all turns out.

I think of the legions of folks out there who are in similar situations but don’t take action because of fear, laziness, or a pollyannish optimism that it will all work out somehow. The 50s and 60s surface some of the biggest decisions one can make. A turning point with “go to jail, do not pass Go” implications. Or a gateway to the most productive, meaningful, purposeful time of life.

Trust yourself and choose wisely.