Learning to Love Midlife
A Q & A with Chip Conley
Be sure to check out all the upcoming events at the end of this email.
Hi Friends,
I’d like to introduce you to my dear friend, Chip Conley.
He’s as sweet as he looks. And one of the most dynamic individuals I have the joy of knowing. In the photo, he’s standing on the grounds of the Modern Elder Academy (MEA) in Baja, Mexico, the world’s first midlife wisdom school, which he co-founded. The Santa Fe, New Mexico campus of MEA is launching any day now and I can’t recommend their offerings highly enough.
I spent a week at MEA in Baja just over a year ago for one of their workshops and was wowed, not just by the curriculum — heavily focused on navigating midlife transitions — but also the way in which the team fostered a deep sense of community among us participants. I remember looking around the circle at our final gathering and feeling like I had a real sense of the 30-some people around me, even those with whom I hadn’t had extended one-on-one time.
Well, Chip has a brand-new book out, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age. As he considers midlife anywhere from 35 - 70 years old, the wisdom of this book applies to many of us. Right now.
Though I haven’t read Learning to Love Midlife yet (it’s on my nightstand and soon to be up), I have read several of Chip’s other books and they’re all wonderful — clear, accessible and full of valuable insights.
Here’s a Q & A with Chip, to give you a sense of his perspective and what themes you can expect to read about in this new book. And check out his recent appearance on The Today Show, so you can see and feel how effervescent he is in real life.
Chip, why do you think most of us struggle to love midlife?
Any life stage attached to a crisis has a problem. One of the challenges is a societal message. Part of that is that early midlife is a tough period. From ages 35 to 50, what I define as early midlife, is that time when the U-curve of happiness is actually sliding to its nadir, its bottom point. And so there is truth in that. What people don't then recognize is that from 50 on, the U-curve of happiness starts going up. And that, quite frankly, people are happier in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and sometimes 80s than they were at half that age.
Why do you think it’s important to shift our perspective on aging?
Becca Levy, a researcher at Yale, found in her studies that if you shift your mindset about aging from negative to positive, you get seven and a half years of additional life. And there's no other thing I've heard of including stopping smoking or starting exercise that actually has a bigger impact on your longevity.
What is the spiral staircase you refer to in the book?
This is sort of based upon Jane Fonda's perspective that we get to a stage in our life where age is a staircase we're going up to wisdom and the idea of it being a spiral because it allows us to see 360 degrees of our whole life. One of the things that's beautiful as we get older is we have enough life experience to see the pattern recognition and to be able to sort of look below and say, oh my gosh, look at all that I've learned. It's hard to do that at 25, or even at 40, but once you're past age 50, you're sort of getting to a place where you can see your pattern. It’s a recognition of how you've lived your life. You can see the narrative of your story, which allows you to have a little bit more influence on where you want to take that.
To you, the ultimate middle age skill is knowing what you want in life?
It's really a simple statement, but I think it's very true. One of the primary reasons why the U curve moves up after age 50 is because people get clear on what they want and what they don't want, the things that aren't serving them anymore, and they want to replace those. And so knowing what you want and not what other people want of you is something around midlife that you start to get clearer on.
So you started a wisdom school. How would you define wisdom?
First of all, wisdom is the metabolization of your life experiences — how you make sense of them. Your painful life lessons are the raw material for your future wisdom. But that’s not all. I don't think it's exclusively just about making sense of your life experiences because wisdom is something you share. To me, wisdom is a metabolized experience, which leads to distilled compassion.
Compassion speaks to this idea that wisdom is something you offer to other people, and you do it in a fashion that feels very almost customized for them. If you're particularly compassionate to a person, you're distilling down your life experience and your wisdom in a way that's actually supporting them.
What are your thoughts on retirement in this day and age?
Today we have more and more knowledge workers who feel like, ‘My gosh, I’m in my early 60s, I'm at my best. I feel like I'm at the top of my game. Why would I want to step away from this?’
Retirement as a word is very triggering for some people. It's not the thing that they're aspiring to because in some ways they have seen other people, or maybe they've even tried it themselves to retire, and they got bored and they felt like they lost community. They lost purpose. They lost wellness. Those are the three things that Dr. Phil Pizzo at Stanford has talked about being foundational for living a longer, better life.
We're going to see more companies creating gradual retirement and more people who are curious and wise and productive in the workplace.
Talk to us about becoming a beginner again.
Growing is about constantly astonishing ourselves. I like the idea of how could I astonish myself? That means that you're actually trying things that you didn't think you could do. One of the challenges with older life is it gets very rote and very boring. Boring because it's just the same old, same old. And so I think that every year, you should say, ‘I will become a beginner at…’ then you fill in the blank.
If you want to engage with more of Chip’s writing, he has a daily newsletter called Wisdom Well that you can sign up to receive. Here’s one of my favorite recent posts, where he talks about dealing with prostrate cancer and how that’s affected his relationship with his masculinity, among other things.
I love his invitation to become a beginner at something. How would you fill in the blank: I will become a beginner at…”
I hope you enjoyed today’s profile and Q & A with Chip. If you want help learning to love midlife, I recommend picking up his book, and considering one of the workshops at MEA.
Here’s to learning to love wherever we are in life, even when we struggle to like it. Sending you all so much gratitude and love.
Scott
Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, January 24th, 8pm EST, via Zoom: Online Breath & Belonging. Come breathe in more of what you want and breathe out what no longer serves you.
Sunday, January 28th, 11am EST, via Zoom: Inward: Writing for Self-Discovery. It’s always a good time to begin, or continue, a self-reflective journaling practice. Join me as we get real, together.
February 7th - 12th, Sayulita, Mexico retreat:
Many of you are likely familiar with my dear friend Jacob Nordby. Well, Jacob invited me and David Gandelman to offer some breathwork and meditation at his upcoming yoga, creative renewal and self-discovery retreat with Amanda Mendez in Sayulita Mexico, and there’s a HUGE DISCOUNT ON REGISTRATION for the event. As he put it in a recent email…
We want to make this an easy(er) YES for you.
You can get $1,300 off the Private Room rate or $1,147 off the Shared Room rate, PLUS we've added a "Hostel-Style" room option for just $1,000.
AND if you choose Private Room, you can bring a travel partner to share that room with you at no extra cost!
See below for the coupon codes!
COUPON CODES
Private Room: MX2024 for $1,300 off (travel partner $0)
Shared Room: MX2024SR for $1,147 off
If you want to grab a "Hostel Style" spot for just $1,000, visit the page now!
Note: coupon codes are case sensitive, so please use all-caps.
GO HERE for information and to register. See you in the sunshine!
May 4th - 11th, Sacred Bali Retreat:
Join me and David Gandelman in stunning Bali in May of next year for a weeklong retreat of meditation, breathwork self-reflection and fun.
Here’s a replay of the recent information call we had to discuss the retreat and answer questions about it. If you’re curious about joining us in Bali, give it a watch.
Also, if you’re a yoga teacher or photographer and want to receive a significant discount on retreat registration in exchange for sharing your gifts, definitely reach out to me.
Great interview, great subject!
Good stuff!