WEBVTT - Thursday Therapy: All the Time in the World 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:05.399 Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heeart Radio podcast. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.440 Okay, this week's Thursday Therapy. We've got Chip conleyon. He 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:11.960 is a New York Times bestselling author. He's got his 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.320 seventh book out now, Learning to Love Midlife, Twelve Reasons 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.560 Why Life gets Better with age. It's about rebranding midlife 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.680 to help people understand the upside of this often misunderstood 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:23.400 life stage. 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.400 Let's get them month. Hi, how are you. 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:27.560 I'm good. How are you doing? 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.800 You know I'm good. I I'm really happy to talk 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:36.720 to you because with your book Learning to Love Midlife? 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.000 What is what are you clarifying them? Age from midlife 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.120 thirty five to seventy five? Yeah, because I'm in it, 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.160 so I definitely feel it. I just turned forty this year, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.479 and you know you said that twelve reasons why life 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.640 gets better with age, And honestly, I'm like, I could 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.760 list you at least six of them why I love 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.080 them right, Why I've liked getting older. But the flip 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.560 side of that, right, the positive Z I feel more 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.120 comfortable in my own skin. I don't take shit anymore, 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.119 I have better boundaries, you know, I know more things. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:13.520 It's the part about getting old that still it goes, well, well, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.720 crap in like ten ten years, I'm going to be 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.840 fifty and then god, fifty is like you know, and 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:20.400 then and then and then I'm gonna be sixty and 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:21.960 then and then so then I you know, had that 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:23.759 small fear of like dying, and then I'm like my kid. 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.399 So it's just like I start to feel a little 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.720 lumpy in my chest and in my throat like okay, 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.600 so it's like I'm embracing forty and I'm embracing what 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.000 that is for me. But then also that the fear 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.479 side of the getting older and and then and then 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.839 my time lessening freaks me out. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.679 Yeah, mid life is the doorway to later life. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.639 Midlife. Midlife is the door to later life. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.120 The doorway to later life. So midlife is a bridge, 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.480 and there is a bridge between early adulthood and later adulthood, 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:00.080 and the longer we're living it becomes a longer bridge. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.440 And that's why some sociologists say midlife is thirty five 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.760 to seventy five now, which is you know, a very 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.280 long bridge. So yes, for some people, for a lot 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:15.520 of people, the idea of midlife freaks them out because 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.639 they're no longer young and they don't want to be old, 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.799 and so like, how do you sort like I want 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.519 to just stay where I am right now or I 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.799 want to be ten years younger. And what I really 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.760 wanted to do with the book, you know, given that 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.920 I've had six years now of having over four thousand 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.360 people from forty seven countries go through our Modern Melder 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.760 Academy MEA program at in Baja on our beachfront campus, 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.960 is I wanted to really amplify the fact that we 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.400 live in an era where anti aging products, which are 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.959 often anti women products, are rampant, and everybody wants to 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.560 stay young. And what I really wanted to do is 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.600 have a pro aging message, not just an anti a message. 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:02.320 I think, yes, I want to stay young too. I 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:03.959 want my body to look like it to you know, 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.880 I'm sixty three when I was forty three, But it doesn't. 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.040 And if I wanted to put more time and energy 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:12.880 into it, maybe I could keep it there. But as 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.639 I say in the book Learning to Love Midlife, a 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.840 six pack gets more expensive as you get older. And 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.240 I don't mean I'm not talking about beer here, I'm 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.640 talking about those abs. It takes more time more energy 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.480 to keep them and so perfectly fine if you want 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.840 to do that. It's just that there's an opportunity cost 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.839 in terms of how much time that takes. So long 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.920 story short is, there are things that get better with age. 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.480 And Becca Levy from Yale has shown that when you 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.440 shift your mindset from the negative to the positive on aging, 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.120 you gain seven and a half years of additional life. 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.120 So this is like a number one way to increase 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.360 your longevity better than you know, improving sleep better than diet, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.720 but exercise better than stopping smoking. And so you know, 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.160 MEA and my book are sort of a laboratory for 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.480 a public service announcement saying, hey, there are some things 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:05.600 that get better with age, which we'll talk about today. 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.440 So and I love that. 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.240 So take take me for example, Right, So how do I, 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.880 because I do know that there are things better with age, 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.680 how do I bridge that gap essentially to get to 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.080 the other side of it, to not worry about the 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.279 other half of the fear? 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.479 You know, first of all, talking to other people. You know, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.160 people your own age, but also people older. So you're forty, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:31.599 are almost forty, and I'm sixty. 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:32.480 I just turned forty. 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:34.719 Yeah, yeah, you just turned forty and I'm sixty three, 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.960 so you know, and also especially talking to women, you know, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.160 in our society, you know, when you get older as 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.600 a man, you become the silver fox, you become Richard 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:50.640 Gear or George Clooney. While things are improving, there's still 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.640 a challenge for a woman getting older because they're the 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.159 silver vixen, and no one talks about a silver vixen. 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:03.360 And the women have a lot of things that sort 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.520 of work against them in terms of age, especially if 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.719 you have been somebody who's been visible and appreciated for 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.760 your good looks and you're you know, you're being swelt 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.159 and and your fashion and all that. Well, you know, 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.039 iris aphl just died at one o two, and I 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:21.760 got to tell you that woman had fashion all the 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.480 way to the end, and she was admired for things 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:31.080 that you normally in the past say, oh wow, you know, sexy, fashionable, 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.279 et cetera, all the way to one hundred and two. 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:42.000 So you can still have a style to you and 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:43.760 you can still stay in shape. I mean, you know, 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.240 Jane Fonda was doing aerobics, selling aerobics videos in her sixties, 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.800 so and she's now eighty five years old, So I 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.560 would say that, you know, life has a death sentence attached. 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.720 So far, you know, the tech bros and Silton Value 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:01.960 are trying to figure out how to solve that and 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.600 you know, defeat death. But right now we all you know, 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.400 we're all going to die someday. The question is what 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.280 do we do with the life we have? And and 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.159 I just a big believer in the idea that, you know, 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.360 learning how to become age fluid, so that we are 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.040 not you're not defined exclusively by your chronological age, your generation, 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.000 but you're all the ages you've ever been. And sometimes 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.719 you're a foolish fifteen year old, sometimes you're a sixty 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.240 five year old who has some wisdom, and you're everything 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.080 in between. And becoming age fluid allows you to not 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.200 constrain yourself based upon your age. And so you know 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:43.920 that's something I talk about in the book as well. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.800 So okay, so what are some tips and or what 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:49.599 are some things that you say, all right, this is 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.880 embrace this in your mid life? 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:54.640 Yeah in your book. 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:56.839 Well let me, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:58.400 to say all twelve. 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:00.560 Oh you're going to give us all of them. 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:02.000 I'm gonna give you all twelve and then I'm going 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:02.960 to focus just. 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.080 Like leave one out so that way that you know, 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.440 the readers can have a I mean, the listeners can 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.280 have a little Okay, you know you're missing the twelfth one. 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:12.000 Okay, So then what I'm gonna do is, I mean, 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.720 I'm going to actually give you there's five categories. I'll 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.680 do one category. So the five categories or your physical life, 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.200 your emotional life, your mental life, your vocational life, and 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.560 your spiritual life. On the physical life, what gets better 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.360 with age. So I'm going to say, I'm relieved my 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.520 body no longer defines me. Now this is a hard 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.560 one for a lot of people because like, oh my god, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.559 my body does define me. But think of your body 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.280 like a rental vehicle that you were issued at birth, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.760 and your job in life is to maintain this rental vehicle. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:46.640 But the longer you've been on the road with the 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.200 mental vehicle, the more dings you have and the exterior, 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.520 the more paint chipping you have, the. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.720 More tattoos you wish you didn't have stuff like that too. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.440 Yes, yeah, yeah, that bumper sticker. You can't take off 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:05.560 that back bumper. So no, but instead like, Okay, what's 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.680 more important as you get older and as you have 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.320 a car longer, is not like what does it look 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:11.960 like on the outside, is what does it feel like 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.040 on the inside. And so one of the key things, 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.040 you know, just as we got comfortable in our own skin, 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.120 it starts to sag. Learn how to have a sense 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.240 of humor about that. Learn also how to maintain the body. 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.800 I mean, one of the things I've learned in midlife 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.120 is that when I was younger, I would maintain my body. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:30.760 I'd go to the gym and swim. I was a 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.320 good athlete, and I did it more for short term 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.760 vanity than for long term maintenance. And I think as 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.760 we get older we realize that the long term maintenance 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.600 piece of this is really important and the short term vanity. 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.600 You know, listen, if you want to be the hot 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.719 thing at fool side at age seventy five, do it. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.040 But as I said before, that six pack is more 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.200 expensive as you get older. So the thing that's nice 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:54.760 and for a lot of women they feel this is 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.040 like to see that your body doesn't have to define you, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.679 and that it's just one quality about you. You realize 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.120 that there are many playing fields in life. There's the 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:07.960 there's the playing field of the body, there's the playing 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.880 field of your heart, and there's the relational playing field 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.040 and this soul and spiritual playfield. So when you realize, like, okay, 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.040 I'm getting older, you know, playing on the playing field 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.280 of the body exclusively, since that's that's the only way 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.360 I see myself in the world and my only way 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.120 of self esteem is sort of silly. So that's one 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.840 one of the twelve reasons. Let's go to the emotional life. 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.880 I'm making friends with my emotions. It's one of the 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:42.160 three in this category. Emotional intelligence grows with age. Yeah, 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.000 and it's this is irrefutable. Now you may have an 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.360 uncle who's seventy five and a pain in the ass 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.599 and and it doesn't have any EQ and no emotional intelligence. 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.920 That's true, but on average IQ doesn't grow with age, 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:03.880 but EQ does. And so learning how to have, you know, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.120 a friendship relationship. I think of my emotions as my 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.960 best my best friends. And so when I when I 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:12.640 have my best friend that sort of pissed off, like 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.880 an angry best friend, you know, I was like, what's 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.480 going on with that best you know? How do I 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.760 how do I learn how to be less reactive with 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.839 my anger and just sort of like tap into like, okay, anger, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.439 you've got a voice. You know what's the Pixar movie 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:27.560 Inside Out. 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:29.920 Oh, that's a good one about. 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.720 All those emotions. That's sort of true. All these emotions 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.240 exist in the eyes. And I wrote a book called 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.520 Emotional Equations that was sort of based upon that movie 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.400 in my own life. So learning how to become less 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:45.360 emotionally reactive is a beautiful thing because not only are 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.680 you more fun to be around with other people, but 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.520 you're less reactive with yourself. Right, So that's something that 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:51.280 gets better. 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.480 With age, and you know how to you can control 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.320 it better too, Like my stuff still comes out that 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:58.640 but I don't. I don't give it as much power 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.280 anymore that I used to give in my twenties and thirties. 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.320 There's a gain in Victor Frankel, who wrote a book 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.920 called Man Search for Meaning about his experience living as 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:10.200 a psychotherapist in a concentration camp in World War Two. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.400 I mean terrible, terrible experience, and he came out of 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.280 it and wrote a book, Man Search for Meaning. And 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.679 if you there's a three sentences in the book that 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:24.079 I think define life. He said, between stimulus and a response, 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:29.600 there is a space. In that space is your power 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:34.240 to choose your response, and in your response lies your 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.480 growth and your freedom. So this is what he's saying, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.760 is like, no matter what circumstances you're going through, you 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.360 have the ability to determine how you want to respond 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.520 or react, and how you choose to respond is what 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.480 gives you growth and freedom. So I think that I 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.640 love that quote because I think that's a quote that 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.199 speaks to emotional maturity, and so it's something that we 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:00.720 get better at as we get older. 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:02.800 Yeah, I agree, all right. 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.600 Third, you were talking about the mental life. I like 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.800 all twelve of these. It's hard for me to pick 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.960 one in each category. But let's talk about wisdom. I'm 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.720 marveling at my wisdom now. I know people who are 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.280 seventy five years old who are not wise, and thirty 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.800 year olds who are. So wisdom is not necessarily always 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:30.320 correlated with age. But the best way for me to 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.080 describe how you become wise is you realize that your 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:39.559 painful life lessons are the raw material for your future wisdom. 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.559 Let me say again, your painful life lessons are the 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.840 raw material for your future wisdom. So the more lessons 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:47.360 you've had, and the longer you've been on the planet, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:51.160 the more lessons you've had, probably the more rawial you have. 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.600 It's like it's like you're a chef and you're in 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.560 the kitchen and you got all these ingredients. As you 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.880 get older, you get better at cheffing. These are these 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.040 experiences of your life and knowing how to turn them 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:14.680 into you know, a beautiful buffet. And so as you 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.920 get older, if you learn how to metabolize your experiences, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.600 make sense of them, and then in the future those 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.120 those that will help you. So let me talk about 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.440 an exercise or a wisdom practice I've been doing now 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.080 for thirty five years, since age twenty eight. At age 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.679 twenty eight, I had been running a boutique hotel company 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.040 for a couple of years that I ran for twenty 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.720 four years, became the second largest in the US, based 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:43.240 in San Francisco, Collegue you want to be, I wan 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.880 fifty two hotels around California. So, long story short is 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.920 I at age twenty eight, two years after starting the company, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.400 I was clueless, and of course I was. I was 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.880 twenty eight years old running a you know, boutigotel company 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.839 at that point with just one hotel. So one day 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.120 I went home at the end of a week. It 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.079 was a Friday afternoon, and I was like, oh my god, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:09.400 I'm getting just bullied by my job as the CEO. 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.880 And so I just took a journal off the wall, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.000 off the bookshelf, and I wrote on the cover of 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.200 my wisdom book. And I started a practice where every 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.360 weekend I would make a list of what I'd learned 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:27.960 that week personally or professionally, and then I went ahead 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:32.160 and would just say, Okay, I learned this, and here's 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.560 how it's going to serve me in the future. So 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:36.560 in essence, what I was doing is I was turning 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.040 my painful life lessons into that raw material, metabolizing the 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.280 experience so that it would serve me in the future 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.560 as my future wisdom. So the process of becoming wise 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:49.440 is not something it's something you earn. It's something you 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.760 learn over time, right, and so wisdom is something that 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:53.880 gets better with age. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.640 So it's almost like, because that's kind of how I 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.200 feel right now in this moment, I'm like, all right, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.040 I love forty because as I've learned so much, and 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.280 I would take this wisdom now over what I have 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.680 when I was twenties and thirties, right, So I hope 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.280 I'm excited to know even more in ten years, in 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.560 twenty years. So I think that is the piece where 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:13.880 I look forward to. 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.800 One of the questions I like to ask people sometimes 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.120 if they feel like, oh, they're in their midlife, they're 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.400 fifty years old, and they feel like I'm stupid now 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.160 or something like that, like do you make better decisions 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.440 today at age fifty than you did at age twenty five? 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.360 And almost always they say yeah. Almost always they say yes. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.200 And I said, guess what, you make better decisions because 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.680 you've built some wisdom along the way, and yes, you 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.400 made some mistakes, and yes, at age fifty you're disappointed. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.440 One of the reasons that people in their late forties 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.000 often hit the bottom point of the U curve of 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:02.400 happiness and the bottom point of life satisfaction is because 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.480 often it's around mid forties that people's like, I had 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.400 all these expectations and then and they're not coming true. 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.640 I had these hopes and dreams, and and you know, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.160 whether it's in our career or in our romantic life, 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.080 or you know, financially, et cetera. And and it just 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.560 hasn't happened my body. And so, you know, Brende Brown, 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.600 who's a friend of mine, said, Chip, Chip, you know 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.440 you understand there's a midlife unraveling that goes on. And 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.240 I said, Brene, midlife unraveling. What are you talking about. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.960 That sounds terrible. Unraveling sounds like something that happens when 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.760 someone loses their mind. And she says, no, look at 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.520 the word ravel in the dictionary. And she said, to 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.120 something that's raveled or is a ravel is so tightly 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.800 wound you can't get it undone. So think of like 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:51.720 a you know, uh, spring, a yarn exactly. So to 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.480 unravel the midlife unraveling is learning how to unravel all 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:00.320 your expectations and all of your obligations. And part of 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.520 the way you do this is you edit. What we 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.080 at MAA at the Modern Aldy Academy call the Great 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.080 midlife Edit. We help people learn how to edit their lives. 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.240 And that is beautiful because what it does the first 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.600 half of our life is about accumulating, and the second 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:17.640 half of our life is about editing. And if we're 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:19.760 really discerning and good edit we get rid of the 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.600 stuff that's not serving us and we instead focus on 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:27.119 what is serving. In clean mindsets, it makes sense. Fourth category, 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.000 which I'll pick is the vocational life for the professional life. 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:37.199 I'm joyously stepping off the treadmill. So in midlife we 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.880 come face to face with the fact that our parents, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.520 or our community, or our family broadly may have defined 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.960 success for us. And we got on that damn treadmill 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.679 in our twenties and we started running, or maybe in 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.240 our teens, and we started running based upon what bas 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.600 upon this sort of definition of successism, success ism being hey, 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.840 you know what defines success in society. And then there's 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.439 around midlife sometimes we sa like, you know what, that 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.520 doesn't matter to me. That's like my parents' definition of success, 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:17.920 not mine. And so there is the opportunity for people 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.080 in midlife to take stock and to look at their 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.399 life and say, like, I don't want to be a 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.720 litigator anymore. I want to be a pastry chef. We 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.400 had a sixty year old woman come to the MAA 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.080 in our Baja campus. We have a campus in Mexico 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.000 on the beach in Baja and then also in the 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.040 Santa Fe New Mexico on a regenerative horse rips twenty 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.199 six hundred acres beautiful. So long story short, as she 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.320 came to Baja and she said, I hate being a 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.760 litigation attorney. I feel like I have armor on all 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:48.879 the time. I don't want to do this anymore. I mean, 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:50.399 midlife and I feel like I don't know what to 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.120 do next. So one of the exercises we did with 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.119 her cohort was the question about purpose. How do you 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.480 find your purpose when we feel like you're not on 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:01.840 the right path. And usually your purpose comes from one 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.879 of four paths. Something that excites you, something that agitates you, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.840 something that you're curious about, or something from earlier in 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.639 your life that you really loved and had a passion 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.399 for but you feel like you've sort of neglected it 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.040 or it just didn't have time for it anymore. In 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.639 her case, she had a dream one night while she 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.520 was at Maa at the Modern Old Academy, and she 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.080 had a dream that came up about around the idea 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:31.439 that she loved cooking pies with her grandmother and being 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.040 in her grandmother's kitchen. And she also then realized when 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.560 she got conscious in the morning, whenever she goes to 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.720 a new place, like on vacation, she always looks in 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:45.120 the map in her digital map for bakeries, and she 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.479 walks into bakeries, she smells it, and then she just 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.800 looks at what they've got, especially if it's in a 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:51.960 different part of the world from where she's normally living. 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.800 And so by the end of the week, she realized 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.600 she was going to get off the litigator treadmill and 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.680 instead she was going to become a pastry chef. And 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:04.760 she's now going to go out and create a bakery 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.920 in her neighborhood. So learning how to get off the 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:09.800 treadmill and learning how to do the thing that you 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.640 really want to do, this is the time in midlife 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:14.760 where you come face to face. 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.840 With that and it's almost like just letting go then too, 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:22.320 of the expectations that yeah, not only parents, but also 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.640 that you put on yourself too, Like what you expected 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.760 would happen, Okay, well it didn't. Now let's reroute in 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.000 a way and not get in a funk about it. 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.000 Right exactly exactly. And the good news is if you 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.240 found something in your twenties, thirties or forties that you 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.440 just love doing and you took a different path than 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.359 what was expected of you. Good for you. And you 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.000 may want to still stay on that treadmill. But there's 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:47.600 something about the treadmill but I don't want to talk 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.720 about for a second. A treadmill is something you know, 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:52.440 you can speed it up, you can slow it down, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.240 you know, but you're not moving anywhere. You're actually getting 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:58.840 to work out, which is great, But the landscape's not 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.000 changing time. Even if you're doing the thing you love doing. 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:04.679 You got to get off that damn treadmill, and you've 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.080 got to be able to see other things because the 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.200 landscape doesn't change than that little screen on the treadmill 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:12.359 that sort of shows you that you're running in the desert. 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.720 Now you're running there on the beach and like, but 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.840 that's just that's a screen that's not life. And so 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.240 getting off the treadmill is also important. And then the 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:25.439 last category of you know, these of twelve, there's five categories, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:31.119