How Prepared Are You For The Emerging Healthcare Crisis?

I guess by now, many of you know that I spend a considerable chunk of my time waltzing on the periphery of healthcare as a career coach, resume writer and LinkedIn strategist for healthcare C-suite and physician executives.

I’m fortunate to engage some amazing people – smart, committed, high-integrity, and dedicated to trying to make healthcare better.

The ship they are navigating is taking on water – fast.

COVID-19 opened the kimona on many of the entrenched problems in our capitalistic-focused healthcare system. Predatory capitalism (can you spell private equity?) is doing it’s share of destruction of an already ailing system.

I’m truly amazed at how health system executives continue to push on with so much resolve when the news just doesn’t tilt to the positive on so many levels.

I read an article today in Becker’s Healthcare newsletter that spurred me to get back up on my soapbox and ask you again:

Are you in control of your healthcare?

At the risk of again whipping a dead horse, let me remind everyone that what we refer to as a healthcare system isn’t – it’s a disease-care system. Reactive and cure-based rather that proactive and prevention based.

We’ve been conditioned to treat our selfcare as a $35 co-pay experience when the wheels get wobbly or come off the rails. Reactive and after the fact.

It’s doubtful that’s going to change in my, or your, lifetime. In fact, there are signs it’s going to get worse.

That’s what I felt when  I read the Becker’s article.

It was an interview with Dr. Omar Lateef, homegrown CEO of the massive RUSH University Medical Center system in Chicago which is anchored by a 14-story, 671-bed hospital with 10,000 employees providing service to a population of over 600,000.

Amongst his list of challenges facing his organization and healthcare in general, one comment caught my attention and harkened me back to the importance of us individually taking charge of our health and not defaulting to our broken system as the arbiter of our health.

It was this comment about the impending shortage of front line healthcare clinicians. Quoting the 6/5/2023 article (bolding is mine):

When Dr. Lateef talks about another of healthcare’s most pressing problems — its staffing shortages — he does so without a hint of surprise. For years, national projections have shown sweeping deficits of physicians, nurses and other medical professionals.

“Basic math tells you if there’s more people retiring than are graduating and more people are getting old, that’s not a good trend,” Dr. Lateef said. “We knew that pre-pandemic.”

The U.S. faces a shortage of between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034, including deficits in primary and specialty care, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The country may see a shortage of anywhere from 200,000 to 450,000 nurses by 2025, according to McKinsey. These figures are staggering, and only compound other thin spots throughout the healthcare system where demand exceeds supply, including designated mental health professional shortage areas and the exodus of nursing home workers that is forcing facilities to limit new patient admissions.

Offense vs defense.

Are you on the offense with your self care? Or on the defense? This news should have us all asking that question.

Are we doing the things that will enable us to avoid having to contend with these impending shortfalls?

The reality is that if your primary care physician is part of a large health system (90% of them are), he/she is being driven to spend less and less time with you if you do have a problem because of the business model she/he is part of and the growing shortage of primary care physicians.

And they are getting tired doing it. One of the biggest problems health systems face today is burnout – at the physician and frontline caregiver level. More people are getting out than getting in.

If ever there were a time to get real about our selfcare, it’s now. As a country, we’re already sick and getting sicker. We are the sickest of all developed countries on the planet, by far, and becoming a laughing stock with our claim of being “exceptional.”

There’s no magic in all this!

We’ve known like, forever, how our bodies work. We are born with a birthright of good health and allow ourselves to be taught how to destroy it. And, in general, we do a pretty good job of that by the time we are in our 50s as we succumb to our entrenched capitalism-driven comfort, convenience, and conformity mindset.

We know the basic of what it takes to allow our 24×7 immune system to do its thing and enable us to avoid reliance on a broken system. Yet, we ignore it because it takes us a small step outside our comfort zone.

My wife and I have avoided COVID. Maybe we’ve been lucky. But we feel its more due to our health-focused lifestyle.

Aside from some surgery to address a problem with an arthritic thumb, I was in a doctor’s office just once last year, for an insurance-mandated wellness checkup (they used to call them physicals). It was a 20 minute experience.

A simple plan.

I know what to do to maximize my wellness – and I do most of it pretty well. It’s really no more complicated than getting plenty of cardio and strength-training exercise, good sleep, avoiding processed foods, and staying mentally challenged with purposeful work.

Anyone can do it – and many do it much better than me.

But, alas far too few even think about it – until a cataclysmic event happens.  Then it might just end up being a dice roll.

Self care requires self knowledge. I suggest that our healthcare system is not where to go to get that knowledge.

I’m hopeful – –

-that preventive or functional medicine will someday prevail. I don’t expect it in my lifetime. But, you and I can pursue it on our own.

I’m following Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Peter Attia, two leaders in conveying the preventative care message.

Dr. Attia’s new book, “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity” just hit my desk today – a 411 page monster that I can’t wait to  dive into.

Dr. Hyman’s book, “Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life” has had rave reviews and is on order.

If you need a starting point on a new journey that will help you not have to participate in the decline of our healthcare system, these would be good choices.

Have a plan for avoiding our healthcare system? We’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment for us and others to ponder.

Where Do You Go With Your Wisdom? Don’t Waste It On An 88-year Old Retirement Model.

Image by Georgi Dyulgerov from Pixabay

Shouldn’t we, as “modern elders” be marrying our wisdom to others, somehow, someway?

We’ve piled up 30, 40, 50 years of it. Where does it make sense to hoard it, warehouse it, let it go stale?

OK, so you don’t feel like you are wise.

Wrong, dear friend!

You have your own individual wisdom, a mash up of all your victories, defeats, exhilarations, embarrassments.

Personally, I feel I’ve earned a masters degree in screw ups and a doctorate in toe-stubbing.

But, I claim no failures. It’s all just been a long string of research and development.

One of my failures, some would say, was that I missed that road sign that said “Detour 65. Please move to the sidelines, get out of the way, and take it easy.”

I often wonder what it would be like for me today if I had bought the traditional retirement Kool-Aid.

I can only conjecture, but there’s a part of me that still wants to avoid challenge, problems, or leaving the comfort zone. At my core, I’m as likely a candidate as those who succumb to the temptation to grab hold of this semi-entitlement and hop on to an ever accelerating downward curve.

We’ve all got this part in us. In fact, Steven Pressfield wrote a whole book on it: “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.” He calls it “the resistance” and “genius’s shadow” saying further that “- it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.”

I arm wrestle with resistance everyday. Some days it wins, like last week when I failed to post my weekly article for only the 3rd time in 5 1/2 years. OK, it was the day the Nuggets swept the Lakers, so a little slack is accepted.

There is little more gratifying than winning that wrestling match and breaking through the imposter syndrome and doing what is invariably a mix of discomfort, inconvenience, and doubt.

Just know that the resistance doesn’t want you spreading that wisdom around. It won’t get in the way of you letting it atrophy.

 

Genius? Who me?

Yep. You!

We were all born individual geniuses. It doesn’t take long for that to be squashed. Parents, peers, professors, pastors, physicians, politicians, and pundits team up with the media and Pressfield’s resistance to take it away in favor of conformity, comfort, and convenience.

The result is a learned mindset that puts a time stamp on our value.

Retirement by it’s very definition means to “retreat to a place of safety and security.”

Biologically, neurologically, physically – that’s not a good place to go. But, the temptation is great because of the disguise that the resistance puts on an environment that slows the learning process, leads to sedentary lifestyles, reduces social relationships, and encourages removal of a key component of longevity – work!

Don’t be a burned-down library.

There’s an African proverb that says:

“When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.”

What say, let’s spread our library around before it burns down. And, oh, by the way, it is going to burn down.

Keep learning. Keep stretching and pushing the edges. Help somebody. Be a rebel against the stale, illogical retirement model.

Favor us with your genius – it ain’t dead yet!!

 

 

 

 

What Happens When Our Doctors Don’t Like Or Trust Our Healthcare System? Positive Change May Be Coming!

I’m going to step aside and let someone else take center on my little stage this week.

An article appeared in my daily Medium.com feed this week on a topic I’ve riffed on repeatedly across the near six-year life of this blog:

Our hosed-up medical system.

Published in the Nuance publication and written by veteran writer Markham Heid (323,000 followers on Medium), the article is an interview of a cardiologist and medical director of a major American health system who unpacks his take on how the incentives in our health care system are “messed up, meaning they’re not always aligned with patient welfare.”

The physician talks about “the unprecedented and recent drop in U.S. life expectancy, the rise of non-communicable diseases, and the need to take control of our “toxic” lifestyles.”

Topics near and dear to my heart – and yours, I hope.

Finally, someone in the “system” that understands and can spell “prevention.”

Here’s a link to the article. I hope you’ll take the time to read it (6 minute read).

One caveat: you may discount the validity since the cardiologist is not named – and we are now aswhirl in ChatGPT written articles. I trust the author and understand the physicians posture on anonymity. Regardless, the content is undisputable.

I encourage you, dear reader, to absorb and take to heart what we are up against in enhancing our ability to achieve healthy longevity.

A Giant Conflict of Interest: A Doctor’s Views On Our Flawed Medical System and Toxic Lifestyles

 

 

I’d appreciate your views on this. Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.

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

Photo by Julien L on Unsplash

I suspect most of the advice you will get on this will say better “time management.”

At the risk of sounding insulting, let me remind you that 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. You can’t change that a minute is a minute and a day is a day.

You can only manage yourself. 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?”

WTH!

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.

You’d think, after 8 decades on this mudball, that I’d have it figured out.

Go ahead – think again!

Let’s do a hypothetical on the question, granting the benefit of the doubt on some of this. There is some solid priority stuff built-in already – sleep, healthy meals, and the gym.

  • 168 hours (the week we all start with)
  • Less 40 hours of work
  • Less 10 hours commute
  • Less 56 hours of sleep
  • Less 14 hours to fix and eat healthy meals
  • Less 8 hours at the gym (or equivalent)
  • 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 may lie in your 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 5–10-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 get back on track takes discipline. And, without question, discipline is central to good self-management.

The simple fact that we feel the angst about this and ask the question means we are at a good starting point.

Endless battle

I ‘spect I’ll go to my grave still wrestling with this. But there is one thing that I feel supremely confident in advocating and suggesting that will get any of us closest to solving this persistent challenge.

Stop time traveling and bring it down to today.

John Wooden, arguably the best basketball coach ever, coached his player to avoid “time travel” – projecting into the future or reaching back to their past. His mantra was simply “Make today your masterpiece,” something his father had taught him. He focused his players on today – each practice session was as important as a championship game.

Steve Chandler, in his book “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself”  emphasized that Wooden knew something profound:

“Life is now. Life is not later on. And the more we hypnotize ourselves into thinking we have all the time in the world to do what we want to do, the more we sleepwalk past life’s finest opportunities. Self motivation flows from the importance we attach to today.”

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

How are you dealing with battle against time? What’s working for you? Love to hear your thoughts – leave a comment. If you haven’t joined our tribe, sign up for this weekly blurb at www.makeagingwork.com

Three Words That Can Change Life At Any Age: Choice, Creativity, Courage

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Raise your hand if you have found life to flow smoothly, without unexpected twists or turns.

Crickets!

Anyone here been sailing along, everything under control – good work, good health, enough money, things good at home, lots of friends – and then suddenly something knocks you off that plateau.

If that hasn’t happened to you, chances are it will at some point.

I want to talk with you about a three-step process common to nearly all of us when this happens – and how it can work for or against us.

What I just described is a wake-up call – or what I will call a trigger.  A trigger is something that precipitates a change.  That trigger can be a conscious choice – or an external event that disrupts our comfortable status.  The game changes so we must adapt. We must make a choice.

That is me at age 60 when I was offered an “early retirement buy out” at Worldcom.  They wanted me out – and I wanted out because it was obvious the company was in trouble.

It was a trigger that forced one of the most significant life changes I’ve made.  I was faced with an external event that forced an internal choice.

That trigger took me to the next step in that process – limbo.  I was in limbo at that point.  Do I get another job?  Do I leave the industry?  Do I go on unemployment and sulk?  Do I start a business?

In my case, being thrown into limbo forced a positive decision that had been brewing in my mind for a long time.  I started my own business.

I want to stay on this limbo concept for a moment because it is so important.  The trigger pushes us into limbo – an “in between time”.  We may have ended one period of stability but, as we face forward, we may not be seeing another beginning.

That is where, as a career coach for people at midlife, I see people skid off the tracks because the limbo stage is where we are faced with “what’s next”.  Limbo is a critical juncture.  It can be debilitating, a form of resignation, a prison sentence that says “it has to be this way.” It can cause someone to keep living the old story and accept it as the new reality.

Tim is an example.  I remember spending an hour on the phone with him some months back – he was referred to me because he is 61, unemployed, and unable to break back into the job market as a software developer.

Tim was forced into limbo five years ago when his company re-organized and let him go after 15 years. That trigger sent Tim into a limbo that he can’t seem to get out of. His work life since then has been a series of contract position doing less than he is qualified to do at 60-70% of the income level he had five years ago – and with no benefits.

Right now, he is back in limbo, finding it difficult to even secure a contract job because skill-level requirements may have passed him by.

My hour with him was similar to those I’ve had with others in this situation. Tim has discovered that his inattention to the rapid changes in software development has left him underqualified and unprepared for a return to what he used to be best at. He is nearing the end of his unemployment, living off of a trust his wife has, and even admitted to me that the daily cocktail hour is the best part of his day.

Inner kill

Tim could be succumbing to the worst-case scenario of being in limbo –inner kill – or dying without knowing it. The third element.

Inner kills starts when we stop growing, when we give up on ourselves, or when we take the easy, safe way.

Inner kill has recognizable symptoms:  avoiding decisions; daydreaming about early retirement; constant talk about intentions without doing anything; not sleeping at night; irritability as the default personality trait, repeating the same topics over and over again; frequent visits to the liquor store seeking a stronger alcohol prescription.

On the other hand, limbo can be a time for a deeper, game-changing conversation with ourselves.  We accept the limbo, work with it, and get fully engaged with the challenge that limbo presents.

That brings us back around to the three words I had you write down.  The way through limbo and away from inner kill is this simple success triumvirate.  You have a choice – move forward and grow or die without knowing it.

You have creativity within you – you didn’t get to where you are by accident. Resurrect that creativity and look at the limbo as a transition to a higher level.

And be courageous because you will need to be.

Resistance and self doubt will still be  your partner – courage is the antidote.

Choice – creativity – courage.  Three easy-to-remember C’s that can change your life for the better.

Within us at any age.

 

The Truth About Diets – They Are As Sensible As Lottery Tickets!

Raise your hand if you know someone who has gone on a diet at some point in their life (Yes, you can include yourself – I won’t tell anybody).

Hmmm! Most everybody. Thanks for participating.

Now, leave your hand up if that/those individual(s) stayed with it and adopted a change in their way of life.

Go ahead – I’ll wait.

Yo! Where did everybody go?

$71 billion a year spent on diets –

– and growing.

Yep, you read that right. That’s about the same as we spend on pets and lottery tickets, equally questionable outlays (Please, don’t turn me into the SPCA – I love dogs and have had several. I also love that I don’t have one at this stage of my life.)

That diet number is easy to understand since, as a population, we are doing a marvelous job of carrying around major excess weight.

According to this article/video by CNBC, 45 million Americans go on weight loss programs every year. The article states:

“If you’ve told yourself, ‘this is the year I’m going to lose the weight,’ you’re not alone. Each year 45 million people in the United States go on weight loss programs and there’s no shortage of options— from tailored meal plans like Slim Fast and Nutrisystem to high fat, no carb, gluten-free models like Keto and Paleo. Diet and weight loss have grown to be a $71 billion industry, yet according to studies— 95% of diets fail. Here’s how the diet industry grew to be a multi billion-dollar machine.”

Consider this: the average American woman today weighs the same as the average American male in 1960 and the average American male today is 32 pounds heavier than in 1960 – and neither gender has gotten any taller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and by the way – genetics don’t change across a 60 year span. Just sayin’.

How many of those 45 million do you suppose are “repeat customers?”

I don’t have stats, but am comfortable in saying it’s a big percentage. Moving on to the next “fad” diet until they find something that sticks. Except, it doesn’t stick.

We’re suckers for the “new” and the diet industry knows it.

WebMD weighs in with this article about the diet scams. It’s an article that could be written every year with a new set of scams.

Once again, the Greeks had it right.

I was reminded this morning in a LinkedIn post by Dan Go, a very unselfish personal trainer who posts a lot of solid, simple tips for healthy living, that the word diet is derived from the Greek work “diaita” which means: “way of living, way of life, mode of life, lifestyle.”

In our haste and enculturated desire for immediate or short-term results, we’ve distorted the true meaning of the word into becoming an outcome, an event, a project, or a means to an end. Old habits creep back in, the industry thrives, the repeat customers repeat, and lifestyles don’t change.

It’s a gloriously profitable business to be in, largely unregulated and loaded with clever marketers and profiteers.

When will we ever learn?

Unfortunately, it usually takes a calamity to affect a sustained lifestyle change. And sometimes even a calamity isn’t enough. I’m reminded that a sibling continued to smoke for years after being diagnosed with advanced COPD.

One could argue that America is creeping up on a calamity in terms of our general population health. Chip Conley, in one of his daily newsletters this week, unveiled a new study showing the longevity freefall that we are experiencing in American compared to other developed countries:

Conley points out that we –

“- see how one of the wealthiest countries in the world (and the one that spends the most per capita on health care costs) has a full-blown system failure with longevity in freefall, and all at a time when the rest of the world is seeing a post-pandemic recovery.”

I understand – there’s a lot to that downturn. We don’t have universal health care where the other countries do; we have more guns and gun deaths than any country; we have more opioid deaths than any other country; we own more cars, drive more, and die more in traffic that other countries. But the consequences of poor diet still remain the largest cause of premature death in the U.S.

We know something is wrong when we spend $70 billion a year on diets. Yet, we can’t seem to convert that investment into a lifestyle change.

Confession – I’m your poster boy!

At least, sorta.

My bride and I are pretty disciplined about eating the right things.

I’ve stuck to a 16:8 intermittent fast plan religiously for several years now. I exercise seven days a week, three of those 2 1/2 hours of aggressive strength training combined with aerobic.

Yet, my weight creeped up a couple of pounds last quarter. My BMI at 5′ 11″ and 190 pounds (26+) puts me in the overweight category. It’s largely a useless number since it doesn’t distinguish visceral fat (the bad kind) from non-visceral fat. Fortunately, my visceral fat level is in a lower, safer range.

But it also went up a tick last quarter despite increased exercise.

Believe me, I have no business weighting 190 pounds. Just ask my knees and feet!

So I guess I need a diet!

Nope. I need a lifestyle change.

You see, I have a condition and a habit problem.

My condition is an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism). Weight gain is a symptom of hypothyroidism – easy to put on, hard to take off.

The bigger problem is a habit – one called portion control. 

I easily eat 25-30% more than I need for someone my age and size. If I didn’t have the exercise regimen to offset this affliction, well, you can do the math.

Nothing wrong with the composition of the diet, with exception of a tad too much starch.

The problem is all between my temples.

A weight-loss lifestyle change – not a diet.

I’m committing – publicly – to dropping 15 pounds over the next 90 days. My feet and left knee are demanding it.

Solution: one-third less on the plate, fork down after every bite, reduce the starch, and, perhaps, add one full day of fast to the 16:8.

Seem pretty simple, right? We’ll see.

I thought about giving it a name and going public with it for a mere $399. I could find a few suckers out there, don’t ya think?

But I’ve got enough hypocrisy going to stoop to that.

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts? Leave them here with a comment.

We Stopped Listening to the Ancient Greeks. It’s Costing Us.

I’m still working at 81. I blew right past that obligatory “65” retirement stop sign. I don’t remember seeing it.

Some say I’m nuts, not realizing that’s the best compliment you can pay an oddball like me.

I still get asked why I haven’t retired by those in my age cohort. There is a steady decline in the question because the cohort is shrinking.

Maybe there’s a connection. 

I respond to the question with: “Retire to what? What could be better than doing what I like, when I want, for whom I choose, on my timetable, at a price that I control, helping someone, and mixing in leisure at my will.” Oh, did I mention the afternoon power naps?

The response to my response is usually a blank stare rooted in deep dissonance.

Socrates and friends figured it out!

Back in the 1980s, as I began to immerse myself in the growing field of self-development and positive psychology, I observed that many of the longest-living high achievers in a number of fields never removed themselves from the creative process by retiring and ceasing their work – artists, composers, musicians, business owners.

It even stretched all the way back to ancient Greeks who introduced the concept of “eugeria” which meant“a long and happy life of the pursuit of worthy goals.”  To the Greeks, the path to eugeria was work and paying it forward and working for the sake of others.

The evidence of the payback of this philosophy in ancient Greece was revealed as men of distinction typically had the “eugeria” mindset and were discovered to have much longer lives, averaging around 70 years when the normal lifespans were about 35.

For example, Socrates lived to 80; Isocrates to 98; Sophocles to 90. Some even lived to be centenarians.

Recent global research on centenarians, the fastest-growing population segment, has revealed that few stopped doing work of some form.

Work as a villain.

We ignore the importance of work in our western culture and seem to have turned it into a negative four-letter word that we can’t wait to get away from, refusing to acknowledge that work plays a key role in our overall health and longevity.

I love what Wendell Berry, conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet says about work and retirement:

“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.”

Pretty harsh words, but true. We’ve disconnected what we do for 40–60 hours a week from life satisfaction. So many of us toil in jobs we simply tolerate until we collect enough to sail into the “golden years” often to find that the bloom on the rose of traditional, leisure-based retirement fades and reveals itself as a trojan horse with unrevealed downsides in terms of health and longevity.

In his book “Boundless Potential”, author Mark Walton tells the story of when, in 1962, distinguished educator and author, Dr. Mortimer Adler, was a guest speaker before a group of the elite of insurance executives at a million-dollar roundtable. Adler shocked the group, who expected a dose of his highly-touted executive coaching. Instead, he delivered this provocative message, at a time when retirement was a national rage (bolding is mine):

“The retirement age is coming down. But the dream come true is a nightmare. For retirement, conceived as a protracted vacation, is a form of prolonged suicide. It marks the first formal stage on the road to oblivion. Consider the loss to society and the deprivation of the individual involved when a man in the real prime of life, the mental, moral, and spiritual prime, is turned out to pasture at the decree of the calendar – someone who has the most creative and most socially useful part of his labor still in him. Here is greatness wasted on the putting greens of Long Beach or the green benches of St. Petersburg. What is the solution, or is there a solution? Just – work. Work, not to insure your retirement, but to prevent it! You will benefit greatly from any kind of work which is a challenge to that part of you which continues growing.”
Find, instead, a way to work for the sake of others and you will step up, he asserted, “from a lower to a higher grade of life.”

My position on this has won me no popularity contests as I realize I am assaulting a pseudo-entitlement that has become so deeply entrenched that it will fade only slowly as we gradually awaken to the wasted potential that it engenders.

But it is beginning to fade as we now face 20–40 years of extended post-career life phases and realize that multiple-decades of beach, bingo, bridge, backgammon, and boche ball don’t make for a fulfilling life.

We are slowly – very slowly – trending away from off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure retirement, and toward unretirement or semi-retirement. More businesses are being started by people over 50 than any other population segment. More and more “retirees” are pivoting from their leisure-based retirement and finding meaningful work by volunteering or starting non-profit organizations or, in some way, finding engaging work, realizing that their health, energy, vitality, and sense of self-worth depends on it.

My observation, as a career/life transition coach, is that retirement stays a motivating goal because people are functioning, in their work environment, outside of their core talents and strengths, and suppressing deep inner dreams or passions in favor of earning and conforming to cultural beliefs and expectations.

Retirement is thus viewed, as one answerer to the question so aptly stated, as a way to get away from “the politics in the workplace and being accountable to the system every single day for 8 – 10 hours.”

We all want freedom. Retirement seems to offer that. But freedom without purpose has few upsides.

As I engage coaching clients who are approaching the generally accepted retirement phase of life, I encourage viewing the third-age of life – between end-of-career and true old age – as an opportunity for a balanced lifestyle of labor, leisure, and learning that dusts off and pays forward accumulated skills, talents, and experiences in the service of others.

That’s “eugeria” for the 21st century.

FOGO vs LOGO – A Formula for Aging With Purpose

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

A month ago, I wrote about a new acronym that has emerged regarding aging: FOGO – Fear of Growing Old. Allow me to quote myself from the article:

“FOGO is rooted in time travel. By that I mean, traveling to and wallowing in the regrets and guilt of the past or casting into the future where fear is inevitable.

The most effective antidote to our sadness and mood issues is to take today and make something of it using our talents and accumulated skills and experiences to be of service to someone.

Then rinse and repeat.

Fear and regrets cannot exist in the present moment.”

Well, I’ve got another acronym for you to consider: LOGO.

I know – it’s already a word meaning “an identifying symbol” as in advertising.

How ’bout we commandeer it and adapt and adopt it into our thinking as we advance through this second half.

LOGO = Love Of Growing Old

Hey, I get it – that’s counterintuitive, countercultural, counterwhatever.

Who in their right mind would love growing old?

Hang with me for a few paragraphs and let’s see how it just might make sense.

The opposite of fear is – -?

What would you guess it to be? Courage? Braveness? Confidence? Heroism? Faith? Joy?

Nope. It’s LOVE.

The gospel according to Chandler

I said last week that I’m going to immerse myself with a select group of authors/coaches/books. Right now, I’m one with Steve Chandler’s “Time Warrior“ for the third time.

One of Chandler’s constant themes is that the opposite of fear is love and that all fear comes from contemplating the future.

It’s darn easy to tumble into the future as we age: achy knees and backs, observation of others who haven’t aged well, loss of loved ones or friends.

When we contemplate growing old, fear will make its appearance.

Can we love growing old? I agree with Chandler – we can. In his words:

“Love comes from present-moment service. If you are swept up in pure, creative service, you won’t know how old you are. You won’t care. Practice everything you want to be good at no matter what age you think you are. Whether things go ‘according to plan’ is far less important than who you become in the process. Practice taking on ‘problems’ as intriguing and amusing challenges that fire you up.

“How do you get good at playing your life? Practice now. Not in the future. It’s really the answer. It eliminates the whole growing old issue. You’re too swept up to worry about some number that our social convention of ‘aging’ tries to attach to your life.”

Life as a game – not a gauntlet.

Number 81 gets tagged to me next week. I’m getting better at letting it be more important to others than it is to me. Yeah, there are those moments when I ask, “How did I get here so fast?” I don’t know what 81 should feel like since I haven’t been here before but I sense that those around me feel I should be feeling different than I do. I guess they’ve got time to contemplate my future.

I don’t.

I have a choice. Make my aging a game or a gauntlet.

As I get better at living in the moment without too much on my mind, it’s easier to turn it into a game. A game with “24 little hours.”

I  can find LOGO in those 24 hours.

If I stray from present-moment service and pull back from trying to create, I find myself in the gauntlet thinking about how old I am.

Game over.

 

Do you think you are ageing gracefully or is there some work to be done?

Image by G John from Pixabay

I had to stop and think about this question.

What does “gracefully” mean? My dictionary doesn’t have it except as an adverb of grace.

Under grace, we find words like charm, attractiveness, beauty, and ease of movement.

I’ve been on the planet longer than most, having entered my 9th decade (for you Las Vegas Raiders fans, that means I’m in my 80s), and, candidly, there isn’t much about aging that I would consider graceful.

Charming? I can’t think of a single person in my circle of family, friends, and acquaintances that would herald me as charming. I think Webster’s antonym would better apply: inelegant, stiff, unchangeable, nondisposable, gaseous.

Attractiveness? Yes – to my daughter’s two standard poodles. Beyond that, the ranks dwindle to, well, zero.

Beauty? Exit from shower tells it all – it ain’t a pretty picture.

Ease of movement? Not bad for an octogenarian, but only because I take my physical health very seriously, and do serious weight training and balance exercises. Thankfully, the grandkids don’t need me on the floor with them anymore. Half of that playtime went to getting up.

Trying to match graceful and aging is too much work.

I’ve decided not to try to be graceful but rather to move to the antonym side.

There’s an argument for being inelegant at this age. Most of us octogenarians have something to say that’s important. Unfortunately, it requires being inelegant to get anyone’s attention since most have sort of written us off as irrelevant based on the number.

Yeah, I’m largely unchangeable. At 80, we have all the answers hoping that any day now, somebody will start asking the questions.

So, I’m not going to pursue graceful. I’m choosing “audacious” as my adjective of choice and the style that I will finish out with.

I don’t think you will find much graceful in the definition of audacious:

  1. Extremely bold or daring
  2. Recklessly brave
  3. Fearless
  4. Extremely original
  5. Without restriction to prior ideas
  6. Highly inventive
  7. Recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety,
  8. Insolent
  9. Brazen
  10. Lively
  11. Unrestrained
  12. Uninhibited

Some of the above come naturally and were built in when the universe assembled my parts. #8 and #9 are like breathing. Some are coming along nicely. Most still need work.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.” Dylan Thomas

I’m not into poetry, but I’m all in with Dylan.

Better to make a ruckus on the way out than to go silently into the night.

More like this –

 

Than this-

What have I got to lose?

Can You Start Life Over at 60? It May Be the Best Time!

It’s a question that gets asked a lot, especially by men since we’re the ones that inflict ourselves with the pressure to “perform.”

I wrestled with this question at that age two decades ago.

My simple answer is “yes” – but – – – –

– – – you may want to consider “pivoting” rather than “starting over.” “Starting over” is too heavy mentally. It suggests dropping everything you’ve done and your accumulated life experience and starting with a completely fresh slate. That’s pretty daunting and impractical.

A pivot, on the other hand, suggests a change in direction but from a base of knowledge, experience, and understanding.

We see a lot of terms thrown around these days that imply starting over: re-invention, re-careering, re-wirement, renewal. It’s a pretty popular concept as our boomer generation hurtles into their sixties and seventies in a volatile, uncertain global economy.

Reintegrate

When considering a pivot, I favor a more practical term: re-integration. I borrowed the term and idea from Marc Freedman, CEO and President of Encore.org and one of the nation’s leading experts on the longevity revolution.

Freedman makes some very valid points in his argument for re-integration (the bolding is mine):

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

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

Career- or life-pivoting has never been more common than it is today, driven by rapid technological change, increased volatility of corporate employment, global competition, and a higher-than-average entrepreneurial spirit amongst baby boomers.

I have personally “pivoted” three times since turning 60. I left the corporate world at age 60 and started my own recruiting business. That was a major pivot and came close to a full start-over. However, I found that my 35+ years of sales and marketing “integrated” reasonably well with the recruiting business because it’s a difficult business built on the ability to sell.

I then did a gradual pivot to more career coaching as a supplement to my recruiting business as I found I was more effective in a coaching role and enjoyed helping people find their way in their careers.

I pivoted again, at 77, away from recruiting and focusing more on career- and retirement coaching for people over 50. I also have discovered that I have a love and knack for writing.  I write daily and this weekly blog is now 5 1/2 years and 275 published articles old.

That pivot continues as I’m now enjoying being able to combine my ability to write creatively with meeting and helping executive-level professionals – particularly healthcare executives – develop career marketing documents along with providing career transition coaching.

I believe I’m an example of how re-integration works because nowhere along the way since age 60 was it a complete start over for me. I was acknowledging my core interests and talents and bringing forward skills and experiences that support them.

If you find yourself in what you feel is a “start over” situation, here are a few things you may want to consider:

  1. Find your true self. Most people have suppressed their deepest desires and talents in favor of a paycheck, building someone else’s dream. Start your “pivot” with some deep reflection and strive to “re-discover” your true self. What are you really, really, really good at? What do you really, really, really want to do with your life? I would suggest some personal assessments such as Strengthsfinders or Enneagram or DISC to help you discover your true self. And do some serious reading such as Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live” and “Transitions” by William Bridges.
  2. Take the long view. If you are 60 and in relatively good health, you may have a runway of 30–40 years ahead of you with easily more than half of those years having the potential to be highly productive and fulfilling. Above all, don’t succumb to the cultural pressure of needing to be “retired” at 65. That number is a relic established 86 years ago for political reasons when the average life span was 62. Retirement is a killer of creativity and dreams, not to mention bodies and minds. Think about what you have experienced in terms of changes around you in one generation (18 years). It’s staggering but speaks to how much can be accomplished in a single generation. And technological changes are accelerating that. With the possibility of a two-generation runway ahead of you, the possibilities can, and should be, exciting.
  3. Take a hard look at your cultural beliefs. You have some (maybe many) that are holding you back, guaranteed. Tony Robbins has transformed the lives of thousands by helping them understand that much of our lives are driven by our beliefs and many of them are harmful. Here’s a couple that I see a lot: (1) retirement is good, and I’m entitled to it. I’ve heard retirement referred to by high achievers as “the ultimate casualty”, “statutory senility” “a signal to the universe that you are getting ready to send your parts back”. Traditional labor-to-leisure retirement has few upsides and many downsides. It’s an unnatural act that goes against our natural biology; (2) you are “over-the-hill” at 60 and your brain and body are automatically going to atrophy. Totally false. We can grow brain cells until we die by maintaining a healthy lifestyle and continuing to challenge ourselves mentally through continuous learning. And we can maintain vitality and delay frailty through an active lifestyle that includes exercise and a good diet.

People are “pivoting” in large numbers and realizing tremendous successes, even in the face of these volatile, rapidly-changing times. So gather up your talents, skills, and experience and put them to work doing something that you are really good at and that society needs. When that comes together, you’ll forget all those numbers that our culture throws at us and has us second-guessing ourselves.

Good luck – pivot on!

Got a “pivot story?” Love to hear about it. Leave a comment with your story.