The average life expectancy is 78 years, while the retirement age is 67. We work for 50 years to be free for 11. Does that sound like a fair deal?

 

Most of us over 50 have been “culturally indoctrinated” under what I call the “20–40–20” plan – 20 years of learn; 40 years of earn; 20 years of leisure. It’s a linear life model that still pervades our thinking, co-authored by our educational system and boosted along by a very powerful financial services industry. Retirement has become a pseudo-entitlement, an earned right that we mysteriously feel obligated to do at the risk of being considered “weird” if we don’t.

Alas, that final 20 doesn’t materialize for lots of folks. What I find perplexing is why we refuse to acknowledge that it is the very act of retirement that may keep that final nirvanic 20 from happening.

HELLOOOO!

Perhaps we should awaken to the fact that retirement, which means to “withdraw”, “go backward”, “retreat to a place of safety and seclusion” is an unnatural act that goes against our biology and neurology.

Retirement is an unnatural act. It doesn’t exist in nature (have you ever seen a retired coyote, bear, turtle, maple tree?) and it didn’t exist anywhere in the world 150 years ago. Its origin (Germany, 1880’s; U.S., 1935) was purely political, not humanitarian.

Ever heard the phrase “use it or lose it”? Traditional full-stop, off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure retirement takes us in the direction of “losing it” mentally and physically.

We are made to grow, learn, serve, contribute regardless of age. Our Euro-American concept of retirement says “you’re done” at a certain age. In the U.S. that’s 65, an arbitrarily chosen age that establishes an “artificial finish line” that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that we decided to pick that number 86 years ago for political reasons when the average life span was 62.

So, is it a “fair deal”?

I say “hell yes” – with the caveat that decisions have consequences.

If you decide to fully retire, then be prepared to accept the potential negative consequences of the deal that you struck with your mind and body. Your mind and body will play the cards you deal them.

If you choose to retire physically and become sedentary, your body will respond in kind. If you choose to retire mentally and become one with the La-Z-Boy and TV, your brain will respond accordingly. If you retire and become a hermit and socially isolated, both your mind and body may reward you with early senescence.

We ignore what medical and bio-scientific research has learned over the last 50 years about how we work biologically and neurologically. We will lose some brain size as we age but we don’t lose brainpower unless we choose to. Our bodies can remain strong much longer into late life than we give them the chance to do.

What is a fair deal?

Maybe a better deal is the type struck by those who don’t retire. The world is replete with examples counter to the “unfair deal” that our Euro-American concept of retirement has wrought. Studies of centenarians across the world have revealed that rarely do they retire. The cultures on the planet with the longest average life spans don’t have retirement in their vocabulary nor do they have retirement homes.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the whole concept of retirement. In fact, that time has come. Many are doing just that, recognizing that we’ve been conned into believing that retirement is the “right deal” only to discover that the rewards promised by the concept aren’t always there upon arrival.

There is a growing movement away from traditional retirement into unretirement or to semi-retirement. Many are recognizing that the second-half or third-age of life is a time for a new “take-off” and not a “landing.” Those of us who advocate for this attitude have a battle on our hands, facing rampant ageism, the powerful youth culture-orientation at the corporate level, stupid government policies, and the pervasiveness of the entitlement attitude so powerfully cultivated by the 20th-century indoctrination and financial services industry.

Most centenarians have the real “fair deal”.

They:

  • Don’t retire
  • Keep working
  • Pay attention to their biology – stay active physically and mentally
  • Give back, pay forward, share their wisdom
  • Don’t go with the crowd

Research of centenarians revealed that only 3 1/2% retired and 92% worked for over 60 years. Work seems to be a biological necessity.

Strategic Coach founder, Dan Sullivan, is arguably the most successful entrepreneur coach on the planet and a favorite virtual mentor of mine. He proudly feels he has successfully “disenfranchised” most of the 18,000 entrepreneurs he has trained from the idea of retirement.

He tags retirement as the “ultimate casualty.” In his view, “stopping to retire means you are ready to return your bits back to the universe.”

A retired Stanford psychologist refers to retirement as “statutory senility.”

I’ve heard it referred to as a “shortened path to the ultimate leisure – death.”

A time of trampolines

I’ll share a quote from a favorite book, “Dare to Be 100”, written by retired Stanford geriatric physician, Dr. Walter Bortz. Step #59 of his “99 Steps to 100” is entitled: “Think When, Where, and Why Retire.” Within that step he says:

“Retirement should be viewed not as a time of rocking chairs but of trampolines – try out things that have intrigued you, but were never before open to exploration. Think of retirement not as an end but as a beginning, a graduation, a whole set of new opportunities that can enrich and reward. Retirement is an active – not a passive – process. Anticipate it decades in advance, plan for it, and execute it in a well-rehearsed fashion. Of course, this does not imply that it should be rigid in outline. Keep your options open – give new directions a chance.”

Sage advice from a sage who is 91 years old and still out there advocating for robust aging.

Do you have a plan for your “third age?”

Are you into or heading into that “final 11?” How ready are you for this life phase? Regardless of where you are financially, it’s good to start with a baseline. Here’s a simple tool – let’s call it a Retirement Transition Wheel to help establish where you are in 12 key areas of a successful transition into a purposeful third age. Select your level of comfort or satisfaction for each area and see where your wheel is out of balance. It should provide clues to what work needs to be done to achieve a successful, healthy, and purposeful third age.

Life is simply a series of choices. Nowhere on the full lifescape are the choices more critical than those made during this transition phase. Traditional retirement is a stale narrative and one of those options that we are discovering may not be the wisest choice.

Let us know how you feel about all this? We know that 2 of 3 retirees have entered retirement without a non-financial plan. If you are the exception, we’d like to know what worked and what you would do differently. If you aren’t retired, are you beginning to view it differently? Or does traditional retirement still appeal to you? We appreciate and grow from your feedback. Leave us a comment or drop an email to gary@makeagingwork.com

The Best Advice For Someone Who Recently Turned 60. (P.S. The Best Is Yet To Come!)

It feels weird.

I’m only nine months from the twentieth anniversary of my 60th birthday. OMG, how did that happen?

I was recently asked on a forum what advice I would have for someone turning 60. Granted, they say advice is worth what you pay for it and it was a free forum, but since I’ve been there and done the 60-year-old thing many times over I felt reasonably qualified to riff on the topic.

It’s been a 19 1/3-year journey that has earned me a Master’s degree in Screw-Ups and a Ph.D. in Toe Stubbing. Which forces me to invoke (hide behind?) a fundamental success principle:

There are no failures – only research and development.

The experiences and decisions in my late 50s and early 60s played a big role in developing the roadmap for the rest of my life. I’m sharing some of what I’ve learned in hopes that there may be a pearl or two for those at this juncture to help develop a roadmap for their own “third age” or “post-mid-life-transition” phase of life.

The late 50s and early 60s present us with some of the most critical and significant decisions we will make in our lives.

Here are three pieces of advice to those 60 years old or greater that have been part of my two-decade discovery journey:

1. Reject the conventional, decades-old cultural expectations for what lies ahead. By that, I mean viewing this next phase as a time to “wind down and come in for a landing.” At 60, we are typically carrying forward decades of “retirement indoctrination.” We may be part of the growing number who are unprepared financially for traditional retirement and fearful of the subtle condemnation that our culture lays on us if we don’t retire on or before that sacred number 65. Or we may be financially prepared for this anticipated nirvanic experience and convinced we have earned and are entitled to the self-indulgence it allows.

Either attitude has peril embedded in it.

The traditional leisure-based, “vocation-to-vacation” model for this post-mid-life or post-career phase of life still persists, with the help of a powerful but relatively unchanged financial services industry. It’s a model with 85-year-old legs, conceived for political reasons in 1935 and establishing an artificial finish line of 65 when the average American didn’t make it past 62.

Back then, facing 3–5 years of retirement, it made sense for your parents or grandparents to head to the beach or the golf course or Leisure World. Today, with us living 20–40 years longer, the model doesn’t fit. Thirty years of golf or bingo, bridge and boche ball, and the bulging waistline that accompanies it doesn’t make any sense.

My advice for this life juncture is to re-define retirement. Understand that you may be going forward with a mindset that is out of step with the world around you – not to mention your biology – if traditional retirement is the model for the balance of your life.

2. Take some time to reflect, reassess, and resurrect. Have you had questions like these bouncing around in your head? “Why am I here?” “Is this all there is?” “Is it too late to leave a footprint?” Or my favorite: “Is it true that the number of people attending my funeral will largely depend on the weather?”

If so, you are in a healthy spot. This is the perfect time to respond to those healthy questions and carve out some time – alone or with a supportive partner – to reflect on what your life has amounted to. But, with an eye on the positive.

We don’t reach 60 without doing a lot of things right. We got there consciously or unconsciously using some skills that were wired into us at conception.

There is also a chance that some of those natural, inborn skills or talents were “barnacled over” as you dedicated yourself to “provision” rather than “aspiration” and helped build someone else’s dream with your career.

It’s a good time, if you haven’t, to do some basic personality or strengths assessments (DISC, Strengthsfinders, Enneagram, etc.) to uncover or remind you of how you are wired up.

Chances are fairly high that you have been operating outside of your core talents and strengths.  I certainly was, for the better part of 35 years chasing the 20th-century linear life model (Learn-Work-Retire). We all do it in the interests of providing and meeting cultural expectations defined for us by the “big Ps” in our lives – parents, peers, professors, preachers, politicians, and pundits.

I finally had to acknowledge that fact in my mid-sixties after leaving corporate life at 60, starting my own recruiting business, and realizing that my corporate experience – although successful by monetary and title standards – was never aligned with my core “uniqueness”, my “one and no other.”

I ignored the results of multiple assessments that were consistent in suggesting that I was at my best in a learning and teaching mode. My career in sales and marketing wasn’t ideally aligned with that. Yet I forged on, yielding to cultural expectations and rejecting the input of the assessments.

My venture into the recruiting business gradually moved me in the direction of these core talents and strengths to where now I feel that I am achieving the intersection of what I’m best equipped to do, what I’m good at, and a need that exists in the marketplace.

The Japanese called it “ikigai” – a reason for being. Or a reason to get up in the morning. I’m getting closer to “ikigai” day-by-day. But I had to shed some deep-seated cultural influences.

Based on experience and feedback from others, I’ve learned that the process of reflecting, assessing, acknowledging, and resurrecting latent talents and strengths can effectively put one on a path that will turn this extended period of life into the most productive, fulfilling, and purposeful time of your life.

3. Get serious about, and take control of your health. Let’s be honest – you probably haven’t done your body and brain a lot of favors up to this point. I say this with confidence because (1) I’m guilty; (2) the statistics on length of life and the level of extended morbidity and early frailty amongst our general population in this third age bear this out: (3) we let a culture that isn’t friendly to good health dictate our lifestyles.

Plan all you want for this period of extended longevity. It will be meaningless if you don’t feel good.

Dr. Mario Martinez, in his book “The Mindbody Self: How Longevity is Culturally Learned and the Causes of Health Are Inherited” makes an important point when he says:

“We inherit millennia of wisdom on how to achieve optimal health. Rather than mechanical products of our genes, we are the coauthors of their expression. With few exceptions, illnesses are only genetic propensities, not inevitable disruptions waiting their time to unfold.”

In other words, we start life with a birthright of good health. Our bodies are a collection of 35 trillion cells, or thereabouts, that have somehow been kludged together into this amazing 24×7 immune system that works its butt off to keep us healthy. That’s our inheritance.

Through our culturally-influenced lifestyles, we choose to screw that up.

Excuse my brashness, but collectively we are very healthcare illiterate. We don’t know how our bodies work and what they need to carry us through life optimally.

We succumb to a lifetime of seeking comfort and convenience and conformity. We view good health as the absence of sickness and have turned healthcare into a $35 copay experience with your doc when things skid off the tracks, within a healthcare system that only dispenses medical advice, not health advice.

Rather than adopting a lifestyle of “proactive prevention” we turn to a system designed to provide “reactive cure.”

For example, we know that over 60% of early death in our culture is due to an inappropriate diet. Yet, doctors receive no training in nutrition. So we are functioning within a healthcare system that doesn’t care much about what we eat. Or doesn’t seem to because you won’t get nutrition counseling in our “drug it or cut-it-out” system.

Couple that with a profit-driven food industry that doesn’t give a rip about our health, we are fighting challenging countervailing forces to maintain optimal health.

That’s why, regardless of age – and especially at 60 – it’s important to become the CEO of your health, become literate about how your body works at the cellular level, take charge, and change to habits that will support you with good health going forward.

It’s never too late to start. It’s always too early to quit.

The five top killers in our culture – heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, dementia – have not changed in decades. These are all lifestyle diseases and all are preventable.

We have a “whole-life potential” benchmark already established for us. We know that the body is capable of lasting 122 years and 164 days because Jeanne Calment of Paris lived that long – the longest living human on record.

Yet, on average, we fall seriously short of that benchmark, achieving only 66% of it on average.

The gap is lifestyle.

I was heavily influenced, in my 60s, by two books that helped me deepen my commitment to protecting my health, although I have been a strong health advocate and avid exerciser for over four decades.

“Dare to Be 100” by Dr. Walter Bortz, semi-retired Stanford geriatric physician helped me understand why “there is no biological reason that I shouldn’t live to 100 or beyond” and what I can do to enhance my chances of getting there.

The other was “Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond.” This perennial best-seller helped me understand how my body works at the cellular level and what those cells need to support me with good health.

Let me quote Dr. Henry Lodge, co-author:

“The simple fact is that we know perfectly well what to do. Some 70 percent of premature death and aging are lifestyle-related. Heart attacks, strokes, the common cancers, diabetes, most falls, fractures, and serious injuries, and many more illnesses are primarily caused by the way we live. If we had the will to do it, we could eliminate more than half of all disease in men and women over fifty. Not delay it, eliminate it.”

I’ll also leave you with this guideline, also from Dr. Lodge. It’s called “Harry’s Rules” and it is a simple, hard-hitting set of rules that will enable good health and successful aging.

Harry’s Rules

  1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life.
  2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life.
  3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
  4. Spend less than you make.
  5. Quit eating crap!
  6. Care.
  7. Connect and commit.

Good luck on your journey. You are about to step into the most exciting, most exhilarating, most impactful, and fulfilling time of life.

If you so choose.

How are your 60s – or your post-60s – going? Let us know what you think about these three suggestions and PLEASE add to them. You can do that with a comment below or an email to gary@makeagingwork.com

Beware the Mid-life Default Mode (or How to Avoid Becoming a Pinprick)

Autopilot is death. Flipping the switch is hard.

I’m stealing these words from Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR correspondent and author of one of my favorite books and one I’ve referenced before: “Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife.”

I decided I would just let BBH do most of the talking this week because she makes such a powerful point in her epilogue about the significance of the transitions we face at mid-life.

Living from the outside, headed for autopilot at midlife

She starts by pointing out her observation that morning-time commercials on network news are aimed at middle-aged women to peddle facial creams and wrinkle-shrinking treatments. Evening news is geared to both men and women past their prime, with “Cialis ads and medication for arthritis pain.”

Temporal, surface solutions, trying to hang onto youth.

All devoid of “how you think, how you engage your mind, your marriage, your career.” All that stuff is harder, but it works.

I’ll let Barbara take it from here:

“As I mulled over this observation, I realized that this identifies an unspoken theme of the research on midlife. Yes, autopilot is death, yes, you need to engage life with verve, but please note the fine print. It’s arduous. Flipping the switch from autopilot to engagement demands intention, energy, and effort every single day.

Every idea in this book runs against our natural tendency to want to relax, take it easy, reward ourselves for decades of work and child-rearing. Our default mode at midlife is entropy. But default is not destiny, and on this, the research is unequivocal: For every fork in the road, you are almost invariably better off making the harder choice. Harder in the moment, that is, but easier over the years, as your body and mind remain strong. By resisting entropy, by pushing through the inertia that beckons us to rest a little longer, to slow down just a notch, until your life has narrowed to a pinprick – by resisting those forces, you dramatically up the odds that your life will be rich to your final breath, deeply entwined with family and friends, engaged in intellectual pursuits, and infused with a purpose that extends beyond your self. Yes, it’s hard.

Yes, it’s worth it.”

What does a life “narrowed to a pinprick” look like? Maybe it’s what follows a vocation-to-vacation retirement. Research has informed us that full-stop retirees watch, on average, 49 hours of TV a week. We know, sadly, that the highest number of suicides in our country occur amongst men over 75. Health care professionals are expressing concern about the epidemic of loneliness. Harvard Business Review reports that 40% of U.S. adults report feeling lonely. I suspect that that percentage would be much greater if the study were narrowed to those at mid-life or beyond.

We continue to fill facilities with those seeking autopilot sporting an aging biology that still knows only growth or decay. The biology isn’t done yet, but the mindset is.

Pinprick is a choice

Hagerty is right – it’s a battle to avoid autopilot. The draw is strong. We’ve been told for decades that we’ve earned the right to become a pinprick and convinced that it’s expected and accepted. No warning labels on this life transition. Just do what the masses do and narrow it down. Move to that warehouse, wind down, forget intention, energy and effort.

How do you know when you are headed to becoming a pinprick? If the shoe fits – – –

  • The highlight of your week is MadMen reruns.
  • Your fitbit reported a total of 1,745 steps yesterday.
  • Your grandson called you by his other grandma/grandpa’s knickname.
  • Apollo 13 and the last book you read coincide.

I’ll let Barbara end it:

“Our longevity is both a blessing and a curse. Almost no one can afford to retire at sixty five and play golf. And even if you could, would you want to? So the question is: What will be the texture of those additional years. Investing inward (more stuff) – or outward (more meaning)? We’re given a chance to leave a legacy. What will it be?”

 

 

Are You Fearful of Old Age? What Age is “Old” to You?

I guess I’m supposed to be concerned about my advancing age. I get a daily reminder as I roll out of the sack every morning. But, so far, I’ve been able to keep it off my mental calendar.

Maybe someday, when all seventy-eleven balls I have in the air come down.

I don’t believe in “time travel” so I don’t travel to the future where fear is the main resident. I certainly have the option to sit here, at 79, and be fearful of my aging but to what purpose? It’s an easy trip to take, especially when your body reminds you daily that the feet and back won’t allow you back on the basketball court or your knees prohibit a 5K or 10K run.

I’m old by current cultural standards. Heck, if I were beholden to living the average male American lifespan (78.54 years, according to World Bank), you would have missed my funeral, which is OK because most people will anyhow if the weather is bad.

Early checkout is not on my radar.

I look, act, and feel younger than what I think most people call “old.” It’s not an accident.  Since my 40s, I’ve felt that it wouldn’t be difficult to avoid being considered old before it actually happens, whenever that may be. I’ve worked to be increasingly aware of the lifestyle choices that slow the aging process and more diligent in putting them into action in my own life.

Those center around the acronym D-A-R-E, which I learned years ago from reading “Dare to Be 100” by Dr. Walter Bortz, a transformational book for me.

  • D = diet
  • A = attitude
  • R = renewal/rejuvenation (for me, this is continuous, daily learning).
  • E = exercise

It’s a pretty simple equation but not one to be considered easy, especially the “A” part. It’s the toughest because the other three don’t get enacted unless the “A” is in place and working.

As Dr. Bortz says:

“D-R-E are biological compass points for aiming for 100, but A – attitude – is most important. Within attitude lie all the planning and decision-making that facilitate the biological steps. It is possible to reach 100 by chance, but it’s not likely.”

He also reminds us that chance favors the prepared person.

In my opinion, early old is largely a choice. We’re pretty good, especially in highly-developed (and supposedly more educated and aware) western cultures, at devising ways to bring “old” on ourselves ahead of schedule.

On average we die at an age that is only 2/3 of our current benchmarked full-life biological potential (Google up Jeanne Calment of Paris). Most of that is due to the lifestyle choices we make early in life and carry into mid-life where they manifest into an accelerated downward slope of aging unless compensated for.

What age is “old” to me? I guess I personally would probably have to start giving in to some “oldness” around 95–100. I haven’t, however, programmed that into the 25-year plan that I try to keep rolling in front of me.

Here’s the “die young as late as possible” model for aging I subscribe to that I borrowed from the late executive coach, Ms. Helen Harkness, and that I featured in one of my blog articles.

  • Young adulthood: 20-40
  • First midlife: 40-60
  • Second midlife: 60-80
  • Young old: 80-90
  • Elderly: 90 and above
  • Old-old: 2-3 years to live

At 79, I like the sound and feel of still being in my second mid-life. It feels right since I’m finding a surprising reserve in the old gas tank (knees and feet notwithstanding).

I also like the brevity of the “old-old and 2-3 years to live” except that I favor 2-3 minutes instead of years.

I still envision going face down in a trout stream having just fooled a 20″ rainbow.

At somewhere around 110.

What is “old” to you? Share your view with a comment below.

Retirement: Is Yours Running to Something? Or From Something? Or Just Plain Stuck?

Are you being pulled by aspiration, pushed by desperation, or just drifting in cultural sludge in your third age?

Given that 2 of 3 retirees enter retirement without a non-financial plan, drifting seems to be the default.

“Hey, no problem – what’s the big deal? Retirement will take care of itself”, they say.

Sorry. Guess again, bunko.

Entering retirement can be like an iceberg – 10% we may know about and consider in advance, 90% we may not. Many twists and turns can be expected yet retirement contingency plans remain rare.

I thought about this as I read the following excerpt from Chip Conley’s daily Modern Elder Academy blog. It’s a guest post provided by 80-year old Pat Whitty, a Certified Health Coach and “Modern Elder Whisperer.” He’s a regular attendee at Conley’s Modern Elder Academy (MEA) gatherings.

Pat and I just met this week via Zoom. Wow, do his message and life travels resonate. Maybe it will for you as well.

Two parts of Pat’s story stand out (there is a lot more to learn which I look forward to). One, he lost 55 pounds in his seventies and transformed his health. Two, he decided to abandon the corporate world and start a new business at 78.

Can we all agree that Pat is an outlier in both categories?

Here’s the article. Enjoy and ponder (the bolding is mine):

The Law of Inertia, also called Newton’s first law, states if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. I wonder if Newton was talking about the human condition as well as physical objects. Why is it that so many of us, in the midst of all the information about human potential, remain either at rest or in constant motion in the wrong direction?

I’ve struggled against this law most of my life. I’ve found three things that get me in motion: Inspiration, aspiration, and desperation. Inspiration is fickle. It doesn’t last. I keep looking for another fix. It has betrayed me many times in the past but I keep returning like a jilted lover. Desperation has always set me in motion because I was running away from something. As soon as that something stopped chasing me, I stopped running.

It has taken me a long time to learn that aspiration is the only sustainable way to overcome the inertia of my life. Running toward something is a more sustainable strategy than running away from something. It’s also much less tiring. As I approach my 80th birthday, I may be walking instead of running, but I’m moving in the right direction. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

It would seem that desperation would rule a person who is approaching 80. What does an 80-year old aspire to do? Whatever he or she wants. Mama said we can do whatever we set our mind to do. Mama didn’t say we could do whatever we set our mind to do until we’re x years old. Set our mind! Mama was talking about mindset long before Carol Dweck wrote a book about it. However, at age 80 it might be more like a mind re-set. We need to push that button and go back to the default condition when we left the factory. No preconceived ideas about ourselves, others, or the world. No fear. No concern about what others think about us. We’re filled with wonder, curiosity, and a love for adventure. I think it’s still there even at 80.

I’m grateful that MEA has helped me see these later years of my life as an opportunity for personal growth, happiness, and achievement instead of succumbing to the inertia of our culture. I’m enjoying being pulled into these later years by aspiration instead of being pushed by desperation.

It’s fun having a growth spurt at 80!

– Pat

Drifting into and through the retirement years is the default mode for many, perhaps most. No chance of that with Pat. Retirement isn’t on his radar.

But living past 100 is.

I like his chances – if for no other reason than it’s his aspiration.

Does your third age have an aspiration component? Let us know with a comment below.

How Is It OK That We’re Meant to Work a 9-5 for 40-plus Years Then Retire? Maybe We’ve Been Bamboozled!

Did you ever wonder how we, as participants in the so-called “western culture”, ended up in a 20-40-20 linear life model while other societies, with longer life spans and generally healthier citizenry, don’t?

Somewhere along the way over the last century, somebody crafted a manual that made the default life plan to “work-from-9–5-for-40-years”  and then bail out to non-work.

That makes it sound like work is bad, something to avoid.

How does it happen that we turn work into something to escape from when biological research tells us that leaving work completely is detrimental to our health? We are designed to work, to grow, to learn. Work is known to be a key component of healthy longevity. But today we seem to turn it into a nasty four-letter word that we can’t wait to get away from.

The fact is, western society has been set up this way for a very long time.  It has been since the advent of the industrial revolution and our current educational system. We can easily become pawns in this system which is designed to turn us into “factory workers.” Still today we get sucked into the linear-life plan that looks like this:

A century ago, our culture started building a corporate system designed around hiring the cheapest labor possible and defining the rules by which they can function (i.e. work). The educational system moved into lockstep by dropping us into a room with 30 other pawns to teach a simple formula which marketing guru Seth Godin describes as being taught to become a “factory worker”:

“Do your job. Show up. Work hard. Listen to the boss. Stick it out. Be part of the system. You’ll be rewarded.”

It’s worked for a long time, and most of us still subscribe to the model: getta degree, getta job, getta spouse and 2.5 kids, getta house, SUV, fenced yard, and golden retriever, getta title, 401k, and a gold watch.

But it’s changing because (1) technology has changed the formula and we have many more options and (2) we have awakened to the fact that this model pays little attention to matching innate, unique skills up with the work. This mismatch might just speak to the high level of job dissatisfaction that exists today – and to why most people can’t wait to escape into retirement.

Again, Seth Godin says it beautifully in his book “Linchpin. Are You Indispensable?”

You’ve been scammed. You traded years of your life to be part of a giant con in which you are most definitely not the winner. If you’ve been playing that game, it’s no wonder you’re frustrated. That game is over. There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do.”

So there’s the origin of the “9-5-for-40-plus-years-then-retire” model, helped along with the illogical and unnatural concept of “retirement” that has become entrenched as the escape route from the purposeless, uninspiring work that this 100-year old system creates.

We’re getting smarter – I think!

We are awakening to the fact that we have better alternatives to this model and that we can find ways to put our unique and innate talents to better and more motivating work. The old system doesn’t want our uniqueness and dreams to surface because then we aren’t likely to be compliant enough. But with the advent of technology, especially the internet, and the opportunities that abound therein, the old system has less of a hold on keeping us as factory workers.

Still, most continue to cling to the old model although the work is uninspiring and out of step with natural talents. Why? For the money and the false reality of a happy, carefree retirement and because they see only risk stepping outside that system.

Corporate life today may be the most vulnerable spot to be as our economy becomes more global and as technology accelerates the pace of disruption of entire industries. I see it week to week as I craft resumes and LinkedIn profiles for healthcare executives who have become unexpected victims of today’s corporate volatility. Many are in the twilight of their careers; few were prepared for the “transition” or have given thought to what will follow their career.

Thinking smart in the retirement years.

I remember a presentation by Dr. Ken Dychtwald, founder of the AgeWave organization in which he profiled perhaps the most sensible life model to apply to the retirement years. He calls  it the:

It’s based on the simple principle of mixing education, work/family, and leisure throughout the lifespan. He makes the point that more of our young people are viewing their lives through this lens.

It also makes sense for the retirement years: moving in and out of work, learning, and leisure at the pace and frequency of your choice.

It’s a platform for a healthier third age. Safeguards against sedentary living; living with a sense of purpose; continuing to be a producer and not just a consumer; forcing present-moment living by eliminating the regrets of the past and fears of the future.

Maybe even solving a world problem or two.

Do you have a model like this? Are you spreading your life over more than just leisure living? Does your retirement plan look something like this? We’d love to know – leave us a comment below. And tell your friends about our weekly articles from www.makeagingwork.com.

It’s Not Easy Being a Hypocrite!

I have a confession to make.

This is embarrassing! Really embarrassing.

Look up “hypocrite” in Merriam Webster  – you’ll find my name.

I signed up for Netflix this week!

 

I get it if you hit the unsubscribe button. You are legitimately accurate to claim “said blogger speaketh from both sides of mouth.”

You see, across numerous blog articles I’ve pilloried Netflix as the evil twin that teams with the La-Z-Boy to draw retirees into the dangers of sedentary living, mind-candy, and away from the treadmill and healthy brain activities.

How did it happen?

At the risk of sounding moderately Luddite, we just recently upgraded to a full-on smart TV.  Not surprisingly, it came pre-loaded with Netflix and other black hole apps that need only our credit card number to activate and begin reducing the synaptic connections in our brains.

I will confess to also being less than my own man through this, having succumbed to the insistence of devoted (and now fellow) Netflixers that “you’ve got to watch this or that movie or this or that series or this or that documentary.”

To the credit of those pushing this button, the suggestions have generally been aimed at the 3-5% of Netflix that isn’t wasteland.  So it was that my first venture into the swamp was a good one. I experienced the highly acclaimed and recommended “The Social Dilemma” documentary which should scare the s**t out of anyone whose brain hasn’t already been taken over by Zuckerburg.

But then, I slid into hypocrisy and wasted two evenings on three episodes of “Longmire”, only because my wife liked the books, we are from Wyoming, and Longmire is a sheriff in a non-existent town in Wyoming. He keeps busy staying sober and entwining himself in some pretty cheesy plots. Three episodes of cheese was more than enough and the rest of the series will go unwatched.

Here’s why I’m ranting and feeling guilty:

I have another problem: I’m on a heady personal mission that requires focus while I suffer from a near-terminal case of “shiny object syndrome.”  Those two things, folks, don’t work well together.

As an obsessive learner and accumulator of knowledge (not to be confused with wisdom, the latter of which I’m still waiting to arrive) I’m drawn to every “shiny” article headline offered up by way too many sites I’ve subscribed to. Or to the new book title that somehow enters my attention stream.

Or, now, to Netflix.

I’ve “bragged” about reading over 700 books over the last 15 years (I stopped keeping track three years ago at around 700). You won’t hear that again because that too is embarrassing. I now realize I would be further ahead if I had taken the top 35 “life-changers” and read them 20 times each.

35 x 20 is focused growth. 700 is scattered and diluted attention.

700 books screams “procrastination.” Netflix does too.

This is all kinda raw right now because the Netflix decision happened just as I was finishing a book entitled “Hyperfocus: How To Be More Productive In A World of Distractions” (I’m already re-reading it!). The author, Chris Bailey, had me as his avatar when he wrote it – scattered, unfocused, distracted, diluted, unproductive – and proceeded to bludgeon me with examples of how I’ve allowed today’s world of distractions to slow my mission.

So I did the logical thing and validated Bailey’s research on why we are becoming less productive – I ordered Netflix.

My guilt should be self-evident.

Three hours of Longmire could have just as easily been three hours of sleep, 500-1000 words into one of the three books I’ve started,  a back-patio conversation with my roommate of 50 years, 2-3 more Quora posts, some serious work on the driving range with my 22-degree hybrid.

You get the point.

Netflix versus Resurrection of Purpose

OK, so I’m over-zealous on this topic. Mindless relaxation has its place in everyone’s life – a way to recharge, to unwind, and relieve stress.

My concern – within my mission – is that we’re overdoing it, especially in the retirement years. Mounds of research have confirmed that the American male spends, on average, over 40 hours per week watching television.

Would we, if we put it up against this simple “productivity” graph extracted from “Hyperfocus?”

I understand. As we’ve progressed into our retirement years, we’ve been subtly convinced that we are tired, that we’ve earned the right to be unproductive for the first time in 40 years, that our capacity has diminished, that our brain has shrunk, that our synaptic connections have slowed, that work is something to leave behind in favor of ________ (fill the blank with the poison of your choice).

Netflix and its ilk know this better than we do. What’s not to like about a limitless selection of options for vegging for only $8.99/month? Mix in a voice-activated remote and a $1,000 La-Z-Boy and – voila – we are in neuron-shrinking heaven. It’s so easy, convenient, and comfortable, we forget to ask ourselves, as the credits roll: “How useful was this experience? Did it tilt toward useful or balanced or more to trashy? Did I move anybody’s needle, including my own?”

How much feel-good is there after 6 hours of Ozark?

The issue is bigger than Netflix

The issue isn’t Netflix – they are an easy scapegoat. The issue is losing track of, or failing to pursue, a meaningful purpose in what we’ve defined as the retirement years. The issue is failing to combine accumulated work and life skills and experiences with latent/dormant/suppressed talents and dreams to move the needle positively for generations that follow – or for a society that is off the rails.

Am I going to cancel Netflix and be “squeaky clean?” Not a chance – I’m already too deep in my hypocrisies and you are too smart an audience for that to do anything but backfire.

So, I’m going for “balance.” Veg out to something mindless after a productive day – or catching a documentary or series that will feed my passion for learning and teach me something new.

Yes, I’ll probably pig out on Ozark or do Breaking Bad front to back. And I’ll beat myself up for it. I’m not above confirming deep imperfection.

But I will no longer have to keep coming up with an answer to: “What? Why don’t you have Netflix?”  I will have joined the “in-crowd” and be able to offer up a cogent argument to the next Longmire fan I encounter (if there is one out there).

What Are We Blind To As We Age?

This recently hit my daily feed of questions that I get from Quora.com:

“What are most people blind to in later life?”

I submitted a quick response that kicked up considerable interest so I decided to share it out this week. Hope you’ll find some value. Let me know either way with a comment or email (gary@makeagingwork.com) – or better yet, a suggestion for other things we are blind to that I didn’t consider.

It would seem to me that at the top of the list of things that people are blind to is the long-term effects of short-term thinking, instant gratification, comfort-seeking, and conformity, especially as it applies to their health and self-worth.

In America, for instance, we’ve earned the dubious distinction of having the longest average span of poor health (10+ years) amongst developed countries and a ranking of only #46 of 193 countries in life expectancy, in-between Cuba and Panama. We manage to do that while having access to the most and the best resources and technology.

We are conditioned from childhood to fit in, to conform, and to follow the rules by the “P’s” in our lives – parents, peers, professors, preachers, politicians, pundits. This conformity track succeeds in tamping down the uniqueness, the inclinations, the core talents that we were gifted with at birth in our pursuit of keeping up with and being like the Joneses.

We get our education, our jobs, and then spend half our lifetime building someone else’s dream for the money and in the pursuit of accumulation and the temporal and extrinsic rather than the intrinsic.

We adopt poor pleasure-seeking lifestyle habits being unaware of the slow, insidious damage that they do. Then we wake up at 55 or 65 with a failing mind or body and a realization that those extrinsic pursuits have consequences and there is limited time to right the ship.

In step with this is a blind eye to the potential dangers of retirement and separation from things that give us purpose. Work is an essential component of longevity. However, we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid for over 50 years that has convinced us that we are entitled to retirement, that separation from work is positive, and that rest, leisure, and winding down is a good thing.

We are naive to how our biology works – mind and body. We are blind to the fact that we either grow or decay and, for a host of wrong reasons, are anxious to begin the decay process and accelerate a process that had an early start due to poor lifestyle choices in the first half or two-thirds of life.

We continue to be blind to the fact that continued growth is possible as we move into our 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th decades. Later life, for many, becomes a meandering, purposeless, sedentary, comfort-seeking time where learning takes a back seat, the physical decline accelerates, and regrets accumulate.

We are blind to our susceptibility to prevailing attitudes and platitudes regarding the elderly and adopt the platitudes into our own destructive ageist thinking and self-talk. We may have forgotten the power of “self-fulfilling” prophecy and the words we use.

Heard or used these before?

  • I just had a senior moment.
  • This aging thing is for the birds/is no picnic/sucks!
  • What do you expect at your age? (If this comes from your doctor, change doctors!)
  • You certainly don’t look your age.
  • When are you going to retire?
  • How’s it going, gramps?
  • Whaasup, old timer?
  • Old dogs can’t learn new tricks.
  • You shouldn’t be doing that.
  • Good to see you are still up and around.
  • You’re still working?

– or laughed at jokes like this?

“At four, success is not needing diapers. At 12, success is having friends. At 17, success is having a driver’s license. At 20, success is having sex. At 35, success is having money. At 50, success is having money. At 60, success is having sex. At 70, success is having a driver’s license. At 75, success is having friends. At 85, success is not needing diapers.”

Most of all, we seem to be blind to the fact that it is never too late to resurrect that innate talent, that uniqueness, that essence that we were gifted with at birth and to deploy it, combining it with accumulated life skills and experiences, to continue to produce in an impactful way instead of just being a self-indulgent consumer.

 

Retirement, Entropy, and the Fast Track to Frailty

“The greatest part of human life potential has been wasted by people dying before their allotted time was up.”  Peter Laslett

I know I must sound like a broken record. But, I’ll say it again: we western-culture humanoids are notoriously naive about our biologies and live too short and die too long.  We, with very few exceptions, start life with a birthright of good health and proceed to teach ourselves, with the help of a culture obsessed with instant gratification and a few highly exploitive industries, how to destroy that birthright.

I’ll invoke, once again, the dismal statistics for how that manifests, citing the WHO data which shows us the worst amongst developed countries in our years of poor health. The U.S. is stuck between Cuba and Panama at #46 out of 193 countries in terms of life expectancy – a stat, by the way, that is going backward in the U.S.

Retirement: Solution? Or part of the problem?

I don’t believe I’m a crowd of one thinking that there is a connection between retirement and this dismal display of unhealthy later years? There is little doubt that much of the foundation for this early and extended journey to frailty began decades earlier with our propensity for poor lifestyle decisions in our youth and in our striving, accumulating years. Unfortunately, the retirement mindset that still prevails isn’t generally conducive to slowing, halting, or reversing these first-half damages. Rather, continued entropy by default would seem to be more prevalent than an attempt to use retirement’s extra time and deeper knowledge to get off this track to early frailty.

Taking risks offsets entropy

We persist in hunkering down knowing that it brings on protracted decay and dependency and leads to living short and dying long. I don’t think that’s what we signed on for at birth but we seem to have allowed ourselves to be taught to head in that direction, unaware of the consequences.

Dr. Walter Bortz, author, and retired Stanford University geriatric physician is one of my favorites sources of experienced-based logic and knowledge in this area. In his book “Dare to Be 100”, he states:

“The best strategy to make long life happen is to take risks. Opportunities for creativity vanish when risk-taking is abandoned. Your aging should have as much creativity left in it as possible. Risk taking increases staying alive until it’s over.”

Much of that risk-taking means going against conventional wisdom, advice, and cultural norms. Avoiding full-stop retirement is one of those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How’s your “health space” holding up.

I find it helpful to think about my “health space”, that space between 100% of my health (birth?) and only 30% of my health, below which I’m a short time and a few steps from the crematorium. At 79, I know that I have lots of options to keep my percentage as high in that health space as I possibly can. To do that, I have to “intervene” into the generally expected and accepted lifestyle for someone my age and avoid the “hunker-down/wind-down” that can accelerate my inevitable decline. As the Bortz chart above illustrates, my options are to “intervene” and slow the decline or hunker down and accelerate it.

I’m hearing from some readers who aren’t buying the “hunker down” Kool-aid in their retirement years. Check out the comments at the bottom of last week’s article. My 67- year old friend John is sneaking up on 100 pushups in a minute. Jerry L. is a 74-year-old “gym rat” committed to three intense 2-hour workouts a week. Friend and author of “Retirement Heaven or Retirement Hell” Mike Drak retired once and gave it up and is now on a quest to drop big-time weight and participate in a 2021 Ironman competition.

It’s really just about “guts and smarts,”, especially in our later years.

Here’s some additional Bortzian wisdom to ponder:

We get what we set. Life can be thought of as a game, but one that is won by finishing last. It is a struggle and a contest of skills held over time. It can be won or lost, and by big or little scores. But we all live better if we have a game plan. It’s the person who slows down last that wins! Set the destination and the course, know how far you have to go and then don’t slow down.”

Traditional full-stop retirement = entropy = early frailty

It doesn’t make me many friends, but I’ll stand by the above statement. We don’t need to be dying before our allotted time in a country with our resources and knowledge. We can be making more better-informed decisions.

How Not To Waste a Retirement.

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

But the dream come true is a nightmare.

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

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

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

What is the solution, or is there a solution?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making it the best of four-letter words

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

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

In Handy’s words:

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

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

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

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

Active Wisdom

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

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

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

Adler had it right:

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

Let’s empty the warehouses!!

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