What was a choice you made that completely changed your life? Here’s mine. What’s yours?

What was a choice you made that completely changed your life?

This question was posted recently on Quora.com. I was intrigued by it and decided to pen out a response.

I had to think hard because, after chewing up nearly all of eight decades, there have been just a few choices along the way.

The first thought that came to my mind was my decision to leave Wyoming and head to the east coast for my first job. It’s when I first discovered there is this natural phenomenon called “trees.”

Certainly, choosing my roommate of 50 years was a life changer. Life got better 50+ years ago (we hit “The Golden” on 12/27/20) when our relationship started.  Not always easy, but always better.

I have to say that for two reasons:

  1. It’s the absolute truth.
  2. She is the final proofread on all of these articles.

Let’s see, what else completely changed my life?

It could be when I quit smoking 41 years ago on June 6, 1979.  That was a significant turning point.

Naaa. Lots of people do that.

Let me go with my decision to leave corporate cubicle-nation and start my own business at age 60 in 2002.

That still remains a popular option for many, so I’m gonna pass on that one.

OK. It’s a tie. My bride of 50 years and – – – – well, this is probably going to sound weird.

I’m including my decision to stop time traveling!

Whaa? Time travel?

Yep. When I decided – with considerable difficulty, mind you – to stop traveling into the past or the future and to kick worry to the curb, life got decidedly better.

You see, with a lot of reflection and study, I’ve learned that the main residents in both of those domains aren’t particularly good for our physical or mental health or success in life.

Regrets, guilt, remorse in the past. And shame – the worst and most powerful.

Fear and the ever-present worry dominate the future.

Not good thought-mates for moving forward in life.

Addicts discover this truth – or they remain addicts. I saw it first hand. Especially the overwhelming power of shame. “Day at a time” and the sense of a power greater than oneself is at the heart of recovery for the addicted. It also is a key to living a healthier, stress-free, successful life.

Dale Carnegie said it years ago:

“You and I are standing this very second at the meeting place of two eternities: the vast past that has endured forever, and the future that is plunging on to the last syllable of recorded time.  We can’t possibly live in either of these two eternities – no, not even for a split second.  But by trying to do so, we can wreck both our bodies and our minds.” 

One of my favorite authors, Steve Chandler, super-coach, prolific writer, and former addict brings credibility and experience to this present-moment idea. His book “Time Warrior: How to Defeat Procrastination, People-Pleasing, Self-Doubt, Over-Commitment, Broken Promises and Chaos” is a worthy read and introduces the idea of linear time, where most of us live, versus non-linear time (day-at-a-time) where we should be living.

From “Time Warrior” (bolding is mine):

“Stay out of the past unless you are dissolving past beliefs that are dragging you down.  And stay out of the future unless you are loving drawing a map of it for yourself to follow. But even that is a present moment activity.  Make today and only today your masterpiece.

Non-linear time management doesn’t allow that line that stretches into the future because the linear thought process always produces stress – unreasonable stress.  Create your perfect day.  Figure out what you have to do in one day (today) to automatically meet that deadline.

Non-linear time management doesn’t ever have a long timeline.  It has two choices: now or not now.”

The past is history; the future is a mystery. The power is in NOW – this very moment.

Learning to practice that and striving to live it continues to be pivotal in my intentional, endless transformation. Even with my awareness, too many days are lost to hopping on my time-travel machine between my temples and wasting the most valuable, unreplenishable resource I have. I’m getting better, but “the resistance” is relentless.

If you’ve got this mastered, I’m all ears on how to get all the way there: gary@makeagingwork.com or 720-344-7784.

Do you have a life-changer you’d like to share? Love to hear your story. Shoot over a comment below or drop me an email. What say we all use the goofiness of 2020 to move toward the acceptance that all we’ve really got is the day we are in?

Escaping Your Cultural Captors – Your Portal May Be Pooping On Your Potential!

Have you ever thought of yourself as being in a “cultural fishbowl?”

News alert! You’re in one!

If you’re 16, you are in a cultural fishbowl with the world watching to see how well you manage your rebelliousness and bone-headedness.

If you are 60, your cultural fishbowl is being watched by a crowd with a bias that favors the young and cloaks you in all sorts of portal-based expectations.

You know the type of expectations I mean. They’ve been pounded into you by the powerful “P’s” in your life: parents, peers, professors, physicians, politicians, pundits.

Expectations like:

  • Act your age
  • Don’t go beyond the pale, stay in the pale
  • Getting old will be difficult
  • Your DNA is your destiny; you’re a slave of your genetics
  • Longevity is fixed, not learned
  • Expect decline
  • Wind down, not up
  • Take it easy, don’t push yourself
  • Don’t start a business
  • Senescence is automatic and guaranteed
  • Don’t over-exert yourself
  • Don’t fall in love again
  • Be silent, be hidden

Portal? What’s a portal?

I first wrote about cultural portals a couple of years ago (go here) referencing the work that neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez has done on the power of cultural beliefs in his two excellent books “The Mindbody Self: How Longevity is Culturally Learned and the Causes of Health Are Inherited” and “The Mindbody Code: How to Change the Beliefs that Limit Your Health, Longevity, and Success.” (pd links).

According to Dr. Martinez, a cultural portal is a “– culturally defined segment of expected beliefs and conduct.” He offers up a list of cultural portal with the following categories: newborn, infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adult, middle age, and old age. With the help of social scientists and clever, exploitation-minded marketers, we’ve moved to seven from the two (child-adult) we had 120 years ago.

Every portal has it’s own degree of acceptance and it’s own set of constraining rules. In the middle-age and old-age portal, the acceptance and the rules can take on a nefarious tone, especially when it comes to self-acceptance.

In Dr. Martinez’s words, the old age portal “— defines what you can longer do in the present and future that was allowed in the past portals. For example, strenuous physical activity, falling in love again, good health, physical strength, good memory, and expectations for a bright future are redefined based on the premise that aging is a process of diminishing returns.”

Dr. Martinez makes the point that we can step out of a portal but first have to recognize that there is life beyond the cultural fishbowl. He evens suggests that a touch of rebellion needs to be applied to overcome what we are expected to do.

Alas, in the sixth and seventh portals, we are not so much into being rebels, more into acceptance and have, perhaps, used up our ready reserve of rebellion.

And that’s where we may just poop on our potential.

We ain’t done yet!!

Here’s a 10-point plan for exiting your “old-age”  cultural fishbowl – and continuing to realize your potential.

With loads of help from Dr. Martinez  – – – – –

1. Be an outlier and defy cultural restraints and move on to self-discovery. Get serious about letting your true self out.

2. Be patient and don’t give in to the admonitions from family and friends that say “it’s for your own good” or “relax and enjoy your retirement” or “you’re not as young as you think.” Remember, they are co-authors of the cultural belief and are, Dr. Martinez reminds us, “responding from their own fishbowl and are unable to see beyond their culturally imposed limitations.”

3. Find co-authors and other rebels or outliers your age and watch how they thrive outside their fishbowl.

4. Refuse senior discounts and other entitlements for being “old.”

5. Bypass family illnesses and don’t let family talk you into believing they are inevitable. After age 65, genetics plays virtually no role in what may afflict us.

6. Move from entitlement consciousness to resource consciousness. Be a font of wisdom and share it with others.

7. Maintain a sense of humor. Don’t take yourself or life too seriously – you’re not getting out alive. Laugh along the way. Make what you have left a game.

8. Look surprisingly younger. It starts with attitude and how we carry ourselves and convey energy. And a consistent dose of aerobic and strength-training exercise coupled with current dress won’t hurt either.

9.Rethink your retirement. Entering the culturally defined retirement portal means embracing the limitations therein i.e. the retirement consciousness, the trap that says not to plan beyond the actuarial tables. We can turn this portal into a purpose-driven, meaningful time that leverages dreams, talents, skills, and experiences into something that impacts the world around us.

10. Explore going beyond the pale. We can seek paths that can lead to our individuation.

Dr. Martinez wisely reminds us:

“Since our biology is influenced by our cultural beliefs, our mindbody conforms to what we are expected to be in each portal”  and that “- we need to be mindful that cultural portals influence our identity and we unwittingly co-author the process.”

Our cultures mold helplessness or empowerment.

Which fishbowl do you want to be in?

Leave a comment below and tells us how you’ve avoided the cultural portal trap. Thanks for being part of the growing “tribe”. Tell your friends about these free weekly articles and refer them over to www.makeagingwork.com where they can receive a free 25-page ebook entitled “Achieve Your Full Life Potential”  for signing up.

 

 

Whew! Good News About Being 60!

My mom didn’t make it to 60. She gave it up to lymphoma at age 57. Dad had a heart attack two years later at 59 and made it to 80, enduring 21 years of extended chronic illness. My grandparents all checked out in their 60s and 70s.

I remember a Parade magazine article a couple of decades ago that claimed that averaging the ages of my parents and grandparents at their deaths would be a good predictor of my longevity. Seemed reasonable at the time.

Based on Parade’s highly scientific naivete, I’ve been dead for about 9 years.

Yeah, times have changed a bit.

But, to think that 60 could be something like a “launching pad” or a “new beginning” is still a stretch for many. As a populous, I sense we’re still encumbered with a 20th-century mindset that says 60 is a time to be thinking “landing” not “take-off” – or “off-ramp” not “on-ramp.”

I’m anything but prescient, or highly imaginative (I’m working on it!!). But at 60, I made the totally illogical decision to leave corporate cubicle nation and start over. Sort of a dimly lit off-ramp to “Oh, s***, what have I done?”

Would I do it again? Yeah!

Would I do it differently? Double  Triple yeah!

I’d do it with better preparation and a clearer definition of what I REALLY wanted to do as opposed to just getting the hell out of the confines and control of corporate life which was never right for me although I succumbed to 30+ years of it because it was what we were taught we should do. Plus I married a woman and had kids that liked to sleep inside and eat warm food!

Well, that pivot-at-60 turned out pretty good, although it has been an 18-year slog. I stumbled, bumbled, and toe-stubbed my way to discovering, in my 70s, what I should have been doing decades ago.  I’m now excited to get up every morning and continue stumbling, bumbling, and toe-stubbing but with a purpose and occasional positive impact.

Science says I’m a bit slow.

Turns out that my purpose discovery in my mid-70s says I was a bit slow at the switch. Scientists at U. of California, San Diego interviewed 1,042 people age 21 to 100 to determine the age at which purpose and meaning peak for we sapiens, on average.

Turns out (drum roll) – it’s age 60!

According to the study, published in Clinical Psychiatry and viewable at this link, “people tend to feel like their lives have meaning at around age 60.”

The study’s first author, Awais Aftab, a fellow at UC, San Diego states this about the study:

“Existing research points to a vital role played by factors such as a coherent sense of one’s identity, authentic relationships with friends and family members, engagement in long-term goals which provide a sense of accomplishment and contribute to the society, and acting with genuine altruism for the betterment of the world.”

There you have it – a scientifically confirmed formula for meaning.

But – there’s always a but—

It appears that we crescendo through our 40s and 50s into this feeling of purpose and meaning, hit a peak, and then the pursuit decreases for a while. After 60, people begin to search for meaning in life all over again.

That’s when retirement, bereavement, and health issues appear, the meaning at 60 may fade and a new search for a different type of meaning may start for some, hinting that the search for meaning in life changes along with you.

Three things, however, remain constant for staying physically and mentally fit through the lifespan: cultural engagement, hobbies, and exercise.

The study is a good reminder that “finding meaning in life has high payoff for physical and mental health.”

Sounds a bit like the drumbeat from this drummer for the last three years.

No, 60 is not the new 40. It’s the new 60. With the prospect of 30-40 years of runway left, hitting 60 isn’t a good time to be thinking landing.

Time for a new takeoff.

 

 

Five Critical Steps to Thriving Within Your Longevity Bonus

You’ve heard it a thousand times.

We’re living longer. Yay!

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

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

Like:

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

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

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

It’s self-inflicted!

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

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

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

Source: AgeWave

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

What’s the lifespan downturn telling us?

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

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

Maybe. Probably.

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

But inconvenient. And sometimes uncomfortable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Renew your library card.

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

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

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

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

And then that curve just might start turning back up.

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

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

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

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

I help raise the average.

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

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

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

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

Can I please have my front-nine back?

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

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

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

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

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

That changed my back-nine choices.

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

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

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

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

Call me “Dan’s Poster Child”!

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

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

Dan reminds us:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Team this book with “Younger Next Year.”

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five “R” Words We Need In Our Life

Resilience – “the ability to recover quickly from setbacks”

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

Reintegrate – “recombining parts that work together well”

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

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

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

Routine – “something unvarying and repetitive”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regrets – letting our past remain bigger than our future.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where is COVID taking us?

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

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

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

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

Dealing with VUCA.

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

The container is V-U-C-A:

Volatility – Uncertainty – Complexity – Ambiguity

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

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

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

We weren’t born with it.

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

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

Purpose – Presence – Positivity

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

The two are strongly correlated and important but very different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learning presence.

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

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

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

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

Adopt positivity

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

I strive to be the opposite – because I can.

Make getting old a game!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boring? Big time!!

My strength-training continues. Boring also.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aging Without Frailty – A Series

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t Be a “Get Off My Lawn” Elder!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Click here to watch the video.

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

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

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

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

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

Online shopping hasn’t changed that feeling.

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

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

Check. I know what size to order.

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

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

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

Ugh! On two levels:

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

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

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

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

Love handles are part of the “metabolic syndrome.”

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

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

Heart.org offer this:

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

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

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

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

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

  • Fasting glucose of 100 mg/dL or greater

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

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

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

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

Temporarily!

40 and 35

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

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

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

COVID is exposing us.

So, why all the drama about belly fat?

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

Obesity = Type 2 diabetes = vulnerability.

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

Yikes!

Here are the culprits:

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

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

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

Stay safe!

Just a quick side note:

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