The Science Behind a Better Midlife | Dr. Margie E. Lachman

[00:00:00]I really think it's important for us to focus on why is it that middle has such a negative connotation and I think with regard to the middle of the lifespan [music] many people associate it with aging and we have a very negative view of aging in our society. So I think when people get to midlife they think of their lives is [music] maybe it's half over and I think it's so important for us to change the narrative. Welcome to the Midlife Chrysalis [music] podcast with Chip Connley, where we explore how midlife isn't a crisis, but a chrysalis, a time of profound transformation that can [music] lead to the most meaningful chapter of your life.

[00:00:41]Welcome to the midlife crysis. This is Chip Connley. A few years ago, I think it was actually five years ago, five or six years ago, I wrote a white paper, my attempt at trying to be academic called the emergence of long life learning with a PhD who uh was an MEA grad. And I cited I read all kinds of white papers and other uh scholarly journals and I cited one person in the in the white paper more than anybody else and that was this woman who is with us right now, Margie Lackman. She is a Brandeise professor. She's in almost in her mid70s and she has a new book out called Prime Time, a new vision for midlife. Uh this is a great book. Uh it it is a really it's it's taking a lot of what she's learned in the academic setting and making it mainstream. So we're going to talk a little bit about uh why uh midlife is such a pivotal period. The decisions we make in midlife have a huge impact on the rest of our life. There's no uniform age in midlife. You know, someone at 50 could be very different depending upon whether you have, you know, you're an empty neester or you all of a sudden have a 2-year-old and a four-year-old at home. She'll talk a little bit about MIDAS, MIDUs, which is the number one uh study ever done on midlife um in the world and in the US. So, um for those of you who are geeks like me, you're going to enjoy it.

[00:02:04]We also we get start with started in this episode with her personal story which is her mother passing at a year a very very young age which sort of opened her the door to her on the idea of you know why not study this life stage that her mother really never got to experience so I hope you enjoy it at the end I'll tell you my three key lessons Dr. Margie Lackman, welcome to the midlife crystis, not the crisis. You and I have said very similar things. 99.9% of the world you say the word midlife and what do they say? They say crisis, but I'm hoping in the future they'll say crystals. Welcome. You are just a remarkable and esteemed expert on midlife.

[00:02:44]>> Chip, thank you so much for having me.

[00:02:46]I'm really delighted to be with you. I have your book here prime time uh a new vision for midlife that is uh lessons from lifespan to psychology from your work at Brandeise and your work with the Midas program which we'll talk about MIDUs. You in the book you actually talk about your mom. I'd love to start with that if that's okay. Not so I not because I want to break you down to cry but because I want you to sort of like say like your origin story for what got you so interested in midlife. uh because you lost your mom when she was 43.

[00:03:20]>> Yes. So that's actually part of the last chapter, but it is a good place to start because it certainly did have an influence on my whole life and it is a poignant part of the book I will say very much.

[00:03:32]>> And it really is in many ways a sad thing that my mother didn't make it through midlife and it was very difficult. She had three children. and I was the oldest. But it was really a tragedy in many ways. And I always think if she had had the breast cancer today, she would have lived. But they didn't really know as much back then. So unfortunately, uh, it progressed and she passed away. But I think I did take many lessons from it. Now, I didn't realize it at the time, but as I started to work on adult development and aging and midlife, what I realized is that I really had a fairly positive view of aging and I didn't worry as much about some of the negative things that happened with aging because I think she missed out on so many things and I thought I was just lucky to be able to be alive and to experience aging. So, I think that's probably the biggest impact that it had on me.

[00:04:28]>> And so, your career, um, you've you've been focused on midlife and and middleage for more than 30 years, if I'm not mistaken, maybe even more.

[00:04:39]>> Yes.

[00:04:40]>> Yes.

[00:04:41]>> So, you start the book, Welcome to Prime Prime Time, with the introduction. I'm going to read for about a minute or two here the this the the first uh few paragraphs of the book because I think it really captures this sort of weird relationship we as a culture especially the US has with midlife and middleage.

[00:05:02]So these are Margie's words. It's not quite a full-blown porative full-blown porative but the term middle could certainly use a better publicist. The middle seat in a car or airplane, uncomfortable. The middle child, overshadowed. The middle ages, barbaric.

[00:05:21]The middle man, unnecessary. Being middle of the road, wishywashy. Each of these middles has a negative connotation. Not to mention, in today's world of striving in status, no one wants to be merely average, which is what being in the middle feels like if we're talking about money, fame, success, health, and happiness. It's perhaps no surprise then that when we talk about middle age, the first word that comes to mind is crisis, followed by talk of gray hair, reading glasses, achy joints, and a whole host of other things we'd much rather avoid. But here's the butt. By focusing on all those familiar badals, it's easy to forget that in plenty of context, being in the middle has its advantages. It can be desirable, a genuine asset. After all, middle means central, a pivot point with the option of moving in different directions, up and down or from side to side or or even around. The middle is flexible. It can be an ideal position or location. The middle of the fairway is the golfer's aim. The line drive up the middle of the baseball field is a promising play. Sitting center stage in the middle of a theater or a sports arena offers some of the most desirable seats in the house. The middle child has old older siblings to learn from and younger siblings to teach, potentially giving them an advantage in cognitive and social development. But no one seems to focus on that. Unfortunately, this lopsided look at the middle generally aligns how we feel about middle age.

[00:06:55]That is mostly negative. What a great start to the book. although depressing at time as well, but in some ways the book really speaks to this idea of the societal mindset we have on aging and I'd love to have you unpack that a little bit further.

[00:07:13]>> Yes. Uh thank you for reading that. It sounded nice to hear someone else read it. But those are my words and I really think it's important for us to focus on why is it that middle has such a negative connotation. And I think with when with with regard to the middle of the lifespan, many people associate it with aging and we have a very negative view of aging in our society. So I think when people get to midlife, they think of their lives as maybe it's half over and they get really concerned that there's not much left that they can do.

[00:07:49]And so that's really part of it. And I think it's so important for us to change the narrative as I know you're doing in a lot of the work that you do to think about you really you have half of your life left. Your life is still half full and there's many things you can do. You can go in different directions and make changes and there's so many good things to look forward to.

[00:08:13]>> So one of the things we do at MEA at the Modern Elder Academy is we help people to understand that they have a lot more life ahead of them than they think. You know, the average age of the person who comes to MEA is 54. The average age they think they're going to live till is 90.

[00:08:26]And 54 is exactly halfway between 18 and 90.

[00:08:30]>> So there's 36 years behind you at 54 of adulthood and there's 36 years of adulthood ahead of you. What are some tips that you might suggest someone whether they're 45 or 55, what are some suggestions you would have for them to actually look at the bright side of midlife or of aging? Mhm. So, it's interesting that the people that you say come to your MEA do think they're going to live a lot longer. So, they almost in a way are self- selected to a certain extent that they're the ones who really do have a positive outlook and then they're really wanted to make the most of those remaining years. But I don't think that's true in the general population. I think many people don't think of the remaining years as so many opportunities for full development and growth and change. And that's what I'm trying to really focus on and as you are as well, but there are so many things that we could talk about in terms of things that improve with age, opportunities for people as they get older to go in many different directions. And we do find a lot of positive changes when we look at some of the personality changes and mindsets and beliefs that people hold really do increase after midlife. Mhm. So, would you recommend people make a list of things they get better with a after midlife or in midlife and beyond or what are what are some specific things that they could do? Well, one of the things that I've done in the book is I talk about something called a midlife review.

[00:10:02]>> And I got that idea really from the gerontologist uh Robert Butler who first came up with this idea for older adults towards the end of their lives to do a life review and to come to terms with how their life has been lived and then make the most of the remaining times.

[00:10:18]But in midlife, it's very different because you're not only are able to look back and see where you've come and what you've learned and what you've done, but you have, as we said, half of your life left to go in different directions and changes. So, I think it's really helpful to do this kind of a life review. And in the book, I suggest maybe you could do it every five years. There seems to be in our society when you change decades.

[00:10:44]So turning 40, turning 45, turning 50 seems to be a natural reflection point and that seems to be an opportunity for people to reassess where they've been and where they would like to go, what things they want to change. They don't necessarily have to make changes if they're happy where things are, but most people think about other things that they would like to do if if you take the time to reflect. I think that is one of the issues that many people are so busy and on automatic pilot in midlife that they just keep on going and don't really stop and and think about where they could go.

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[00:12:13]I'm looking. What chapter is your life uh midlife review in? Remind me.

[00:12:18]>> It's in the first chapter towards the end.

[00:12:20]>> Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. So, yeah. So, the life the lifespan perspective. By the way, I love the fact that you uh you you told us about Freda Rebelski who was one of the first academics who started studying the idea of you know what is what is this life stage that you know is sort of a modern contraption um that really >> exactly >> emerged in the 20th century. Okay. So I do see I do see that so there's a lot of there's a lot here in the first chapter about this. Yep. So uh this life review the idea of trying to make sense of something you know we one of my definitions of wisdom is metabolize experience mindfully shared for the common good and so this idea of a life review is a form of metabolization how do I make sense how do I reflect upon what I've learned along the way so that I can make it useful to me in the future but also maybe I share it with others um because that's really what wisdom is meant to be is it's meant to be a common good. So let's let's explore a little bit further. You you talked you talk in the book about the midlife is a hinge point which is a really interesting idea. The idea that you know at midlife this and maybe the review process helps with this. You've got a hinge. There's a there's an element of the decisions you make in midlife are going to influence the rest of your life. You make you make some good or bad decisions at 75. it doesn't have as much of an impact because you make those decisions at 50 like oh wow you know you have you get 25 more years to 75 around that. So do you want to talk a little bit about that about how the decisions we make in midlife are have a profound impact on the rest of our life?

[00:14:03]>> Yes, that's such an important point. I think about midlife as a pivotal period.

[00:14:09]I've written about this and in some ways it's really like a like the hinge that you mentioned is that you can go in different directions but also it's taking what you already have done.

[00:14:23]You've lived say 40 years and you've learned a lot. you've gone through many different experiences, maybe different crises, different things that you've experienced, but you've been able to adjust to them and learn from those experiences. And so that is something that's really important in terms of how you move on to the rest of your life.

[00:14:45]And I think about the pivot in two ways.

[00:14:48]One is in terms of your own life. Uh so what you do in midlife is really important for what happens in later life and this is both in terms of your psychological health and your psychological well-being but even more so in your physical health and I can talk more about that later if we want to but what you do in midlife is really critical for health and longevity later on.

[00:15:15]>> Yep. And then the second aspect of it really is in terms of your relationships with other people. So people in the middle typically are literally in the middle generation and you are really responsible for or caring for those who are younger and those who are older in the family but also in the workplace and in society in general. So it's really a very important hinge in that regard between yourself and what you do for those who are younger and older.

[00:15:47]>> Yeah. That sandwich generation that we hear about. Um you also say that one of the great opportunities of midlife is we can close the gap between who we are and who we want to be. And why is that? Is that because we are clearer on [snorts] who we are at 50ish? Or is it because we don't care as much what other people think about us around that age? Or is it what what is it that makes this particular time an the maybe the most opportune time in your life to actually create the the to close that gap between who we are and who we aspire to be?

[00:16:24]>> All of the above but those are very well said. Uh yes, as you reach sort of for I think it's more 50s I would say 40s we're still I think really trying to establish our identity and to really think about what we're happy with what we're not necessarily happy with as you get towards 50 and of course >> I don't want to pinpoint it to a certain age because there's so much variability >> but but 50s is really when things start to stabilize what we find when we study longitudinally that is following the same people over time. What we find is that personality characteristics and identity really do start to stabilize in the 50s and people kind of accept who they are and be comfortable in their own skin, if you will, and do feel that they uh are better able to make decisions and to make changes if needed, but to also accept oneself for who you are.

[00:17:24]>> How about you? How how how did you approach turning 40 43 the mother the the day the year your mother passed or you know or 50 I mean how did your identity how did your how did you shift in your 40s and your 50s in a very personal way >> so I'm looking back on midlife I'm no longer in real life as you know and I have very fond memories in the midlife you're still in midlife but that's okay I have a very wide expanse of midlife, you know, which is >> actually I do too. I do too. I mean, I say I say 40 to 60 plus or minus 10. So, in that sense, I guess I am still in midlife.

[00:18:05]>> How old How old are you, >> Margie? How old? I'm 73.

[00:18:10]>> Good. Wait, you look great. Look at you.

[00:18:13]Thank you.

[00:18:14]>> You have no wrinkles. You're 73 years old. Oh my god. Yeah. So, I think midlife is 35 to 75. And And you'd say 30 >> 30, you know, who knows? It has poorest values.

[00:18:26]>> Yeah. Well, I have I I'm lucky that I still feel good. I'm still healthy. And I don't know if I did everything right in midlife, but I did try because as I was studying it, I learned about the important things to do in midlife, but you don't always do everything you know you should do. So, but that's okay if it's never too late. But I would say that in my 40s I really started to my career really started to materialize and to be I became more confident in my career. Uh I also had children and it it was you know really tough to balance both you know career and family at that time. But I think once my career was established and I really was able to feel confident in my abilities as an academic and I was able to get grants and lots of publications, I really did start to focus on other people more.

[00:19:20]They became more important. So I really think this idea of generativity became much more central to my own life uh as I started to enter the 50s. explain what generative okay yes so generativity it stems from Eric Ericson's theory of of psychosocial development he was a famous psychoanalyst and he talked about each stage of life has an important thing that you need to address an import he called it a crisis which I think may be partly why people think about crisis when they think about the different parts of the life course but we won't blame Ericson for it >> the uh crisis that he had or I guess I say the task is a better way to say it.

[00:20:01]The task that he identified for midlife was generativity versus stagnation. And what he meant by generativity was being concerned for the next generation and really focusing on making younger generation helping I guess I should say helping the younger generation to develop. And you know as a professor we do that our whole lives. That's really what we're doing. We're training younger generation. But I think it wasn't until my 50s that I was really able to remove the focus on developing my own career and focusing on my students careers. And I will say that one thing that I really feel so proud of is that I received two mentoring awards for uh being a good mentor. And that really made so much difference to me. really made me feel so good that what I did for my students was really valued so much and so I think that was really an important part of my identity uh in midlife and it continues to that day in fact even more so I would think because now I'm toward getting towards the end of my career really and I really do focus primarily on helping uh my colleagues junior colleagues and students to develop their own identities and their own career.

[00:21:24]>> So what makes a great mentor?

[00:21:27]>> Well, I could look back to my own mentor who was very famous lifespan psychologist Paul Baltis who unfortunately died young as well. He died in his I believe in around age 69 I think was when he passed away. But he was an amazing mentor in the sense that he was brilliant and he just took so much time and effort to to transmit his knowledge and enthusiasm for the field of lifespan psychology to his students.

[00:21:59]And so I really took that away from from him. I will say he was a little bit tougher than I am. He he really had uh he was unrelenting in his uh well I guess I called it constructive criticism uh at the time and I did take that from him in the sense that I don't just tell everybody oh what you're doing is great.

[00:22:22]I do give constructive feedback and I think that's really what makes a good mentor in part is not just saying everything is rosy everything is great but why don't you think about it in this way or think about it that way uh or maybe consider this and so really giving ideas for them to latch on to and to develop for their own >> in [clears throat] their own way but just try to help people to uh figure out what it is that they're interested in what they want to do and then give them useful feedback.

[00:22:55]>> So more than 30 years ago, you were deeply involved in the MIDAS program um MIUS which is probably the biggest study ever done at least in the United States on the topic of midlife. Can you talk about that study and you're an investigator for that study if yes what does that mean and and what did you learn?

[00:23:16]>> Okay, so the John D and Katherine T.

[00:23:19]MacArthur Foundation funded this innovative idea that midlife was the last uncharted territory of the life course.

[00:23:29]>> And this was really the case when as a developmental psychologist when I started out I started out studying children and then I got swept up into the lifespan perspective and the main focus was on old age and we really compared older adults with young adults and that was really what developmental psychology was all about. Well, when the MacArthur Foundation gave us funding to explore this territory that was had previously not been investigated, I was so fortunate that I was invited to join this network of 12 scholars from around the world really to investigate midlife.

[00:24:06]And we started a study. We didn't know at the time that it was going to be longitudinal. The funding we had from the MacArthur Foundation runs out after 10 years. So we started this study where we sampled people from 25 to 75. Now you ask why if you're studying midlife?

[00:24:24]Well, there were a couple of reasons.

[00:24:25]One is we really didn't know what constituted midlife at the time.

[00:24:30]>> And we wanted to understand what happened as people moved into midlife and what happened as people moved out of midlife into later life.

[00:24:40]And so we we had this wide age range that we sampled a nationally representative sample of over 7,000 adults in the US. And we asked people all kinds of questions. And the good news is we're continuing to do this study today. Uh it's been over 30 years.

[00:24:58]We now have funding from the National Institute on Aging. And we've been adding additional samples to the study.

[00:25:04]And we focus on the psychological aspects, the cognitive aspects, the health aspects, physical changes, cognitive changes, social changes. It's a very interdisciplinary study and we have been learning so much. And it's not I've been one of the original investigators, but we have thousands of investigators all over the world who are able to use our data because we make it publicly available. And what are two or three of the biggest lessons that you learned that were maybe a surprise even?

[00:25:36]>> So I love that question. On the other hand, I get really um diff it's difficult to answer because we have so many findings. We have thousands and thousands of publications.

[00:25:46]>> I guess what I would say is number one, we realize there's just no one story about midlife. There are so many different stories about midlife and it's the complexity that's makes it difficult to study in a way. There aren't these necessarily uniform things that happen to everybody in midlife and so it makes it interesting but also challenging for us to be able to characterize midlife.

[00:26:15]So that's one thing. The other thing that I'm particularly interested in is how many things we can change or modify.

[00:26:25]We focus on modifiable factors that really can have a major impact on your health and well-being. And I look at things such as psychological well-being. And we can look at cognitive changes and physical changes and and health and mindset. your attitudes make such a big difference that I just find that so fascinating that we can actually demonstrate how people with different attitudes, different mindsets, different beliefs really do age differently and the viewpoints that you have can be changed and we under we're starting to understand more about how these mindsets actually can affect your even your longevity. Yeah, Becca Levy's work we we both know and correct it's a it's a core part of our MEA program. So, one of the things that that came out of the Midas program was the idea of subjective age and subjective age comes down to how you perceive the gains relative to the losses you have in your life. Satchel Page, the famous pitcher who became a major league pitcher at age 48, said something like, "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" Um, talk a little bit about subjective age because it's um it's an interesting idea. I feel like there's a good there's a positive and a negative side to it potentially >> when someone, you know, the positive side being someone thinking of themselves as, you know, youthful and, you know, still having a lot of life left and curiosity and some of the qualities that we tend to think of when we're younger. But the other side of subjective age is that I can see some people who are like living as if they're they were 30 years younger and pretending that they're 30 years younger. So, I I'd love to unpack what subjective age means to you. A career chapter closes, the kids leave, a relationship ends, or you wake up one morning and realize the person you've been for the last 20 years isn't who you want to be for the next 20. These are the moments midlife is built out of. And there's a real craft to moving through them well. For nearly a decade, MEA has been teaching that craft. four or five days in Baja or Santa Fe at one of our campuses with a small group of people in the same chapter of life and a method developed with researchers from Stanford, Harvard, and Yale. More than 8,000 people from 60 countries have done this work with us. [music] If you're between chapters, scan the QR code on your screen [music] or visit meawwisdom.com to find a workshop that fits.

[00:29:04]>> Well, this is a very interesting area that I've studied for many years. In fact, I did an one of my earliest studies was on subjective age across the lifespan. And we identified this notion that people tend to feel younger than their age after age 40 essentially. And this has been replicated many many times. So first of all, I would say that your chronological age really doesn't say much except how long you've lived essentially. So take two people at age 50 and you really don't know much about them. It's really incredible. There are some people at 50 who are really very healthy and they have children who are maybe leaving the they're leaving the nest and they're maybe getting close to retirement. And then there's someone else at 50 who has health problems.

[00:29:58]they're having a lot of difficulty with their mobility and maybe they also have young children. So there's just so many differences based on chronological age that it's not a very useful indicator of anything and therefore what other measures are there? There's other measures that people are starting to look at that are more biologically based but I actually find subjective age to be really interesting. So, as I noted, people when you ask them how old they feel, they will typically feel up to 20% younger than their actual age. So, a 40-year-old might feel like he's in their he or she is in their early 30s. A 40 a 50-year-old might feel like they're 40. And that gives you some clue onto how things are going because feeling younger basically means you are able to do the things that you want to do that you're feeling good you're feeling healthy and I I don't think it's always this defensive thing is that that people want to be younger. I think they really just can't believe that they are this particular age. And maybe that's in part because people think you know 50's old and you shouldn't be feeling so good.

[00:31:09]And so I think subjective age it actually predicts health pretty well because people are pretty good at knowing how good they're doing. Uh how they know their their numbers. They know their blood pressure or their cholesterol and they know how many miles they can walk and things like that. So I think the subjective age really does give you a lot of informative. I would say subjective age does give you a lot of useful information. Is there a potential slight amount of agism built into it? Because someone's sort of saying, "Oh, the qualities of, you know, that I feel good about in my life are all younger qualities." Um, as opposed to leaning into like what gets better with age.

[00:31:55]>> Absolutely. In fact, I can give you some data that I recently looked at the Midas study. people from their 30s and up over 90% of them when we asked them what is the ideal age what would be the age you desire to be 90% of them picked an age younger than the age that they actually are and even younger than their subjective age so I absolutely agree that a lot of this viewpoint has to do with people not thinking that their current age is the right age to be that they would rather be a younger age. And I was surprised that even people in their 30s said that the ideal age was younger than they actually are. And I think when I noticed that when people are approaching 40, they'll they'll find out, oh, you study middle-aged. Am I middle-aged? They really don't want to be middle-aged. They don't want to be considered middle-aged. Yet at the other end of the life course, if you're in your mid60s or early 70s, say, they would love to still be considered middle-aged because they don't want to be considered old. That's really what it comes down to is they don't want to call themselves old. And I think that's okay because what that basically means is they don't feel like they're not able to do the things that they want to do.

[00:33:15]what's happening in the in the field right now in terms of academia related to mid midlife. We had Frank Inferna who you know you and I both he was on the the program recently and in fact in some strange way I think of you and Frank as slightly opposites even though you are both your his point of view based upon especially some of his recent research that's gotten some press shows how challenging midlife is in the United States. your new book which let's be clear everybody this is Margie has written tons of studies tons of research projects tons of white papers is this your first book >> it's my first trade book or book for a general audience >> it's your first book for a general audience and you're 73 years old I love you um so your point of view versus Frank's Frank's has looked at some of the negatives yours has been like no let's look at the positives do you and Frank occasionally usually mud wrestle or anything like that to figure out who's right.

[00:34:13]>> So Frank and I are colleagues. We're working on the same projects together. I I get along very well with Frank. He's terrific. What a great colleague he is.

[00:34:22]And he's leading the project where we are looking at the differences across the world really or mainly in Europe versus the US but other countries as well uh of people in midlife. And so some of the recent work that has come out really does show how those who are in midlife in the US look worse than some of the other uh countries. So that's an absolute truth that we do find. And when we look at MIDAS, we actually have two cohorts. We have uh an earlier cohort that's mainly silent generation and baby boomers and some Gen X. And then the more recent cohort is old is the uh younger baby boomers and Gen X and some early uh millennials. And that group the the more recent cohort does not do as well. They don't look as good on most of our measures. So there is something about newer generations not doing as well. But just to get back to Frank for a minute, I think you're absolutely right that Frank, who's in the thick of midlife right now. He's in his early 40s and he has three young kids and he's really facing a lot of the stresses and strains associated with midlife and that's front and center for him. And I'm looking back on it and uh I think that's really can explain a lot of the differences in terms of uh where we are. But we get along really well and we work it's really a great marriage in a way to for our research to have these different perspectives.

[00:35:54]>> Well, two last questions. You know a little bit about the modern Elder Academy MEA. Um in fact I I quoted both you and Frank in a white paper that I did with a PhD called the emergence of long life learning. Do you think the idea uh I'll I'll you know maybe I'll send it to you. I'll I'll I'll I'll >> I'd love to see it.

[00:36:13]>> Yeah, >> I'd love it. Um, what do you think about the idea of midlife wisdom schools? What do you think about the idea of schools that help you to understand the upside of aging to because in an ages culture we almost need to double down on personal education. Do you have any thoughts about it or any questions for me about it?

[00:36:32]>> I do. So I think the first thing that comes to mind is what I mentioned really in the last chapter of the book about what to do as you are approaching retirement or you're retire you're retiring and it's really important to focus on really three things. One is learning new things so cognitive stimulation and the second is interacting with other people and the third is is physical activity. So my guess is that all of those things are met at your academy. Yeah.

[00:37:04]>> And those are the things that really keep people healthy and doing well in in later life. And so whether you're learning new things about yourself or learning about other things, new things that you don't know about, that's really what's so important. It's this cognitive stimulation, the social interactions, and just being physically active. not necessarily going to the gym and running marathons, but really just moving around is so so so important for your health.

[00:37:34]And and it's important in midlife because what you do in midlife does have long-term implications for your for your health in later life >> and it's also important after midlife to maintain your functioning. So I I mean my book is called Prime Time and I think what's most important is not only that I think midlife is prime time but I think the information in the book is meant to also help people maintain their prime as long as possible.

[00:38:02]>> Beautiful health span over lifespan. I mean you maybe even more important than lifespan.

[00:38:07]>> Last question for you. Someone younger than you, maybe it's Frank, comes to you, Frank and Fernhe, and says, >> "So, you've learned a lot over the course of your life and career, Margie."

[00:38:18]Yes.

[00:38:18]>> What's a If you were to take, you know, all of your wisdom and put it on a bumper sticker that >> helps to succinctly state something you you've learned through the school of hard knocks potentially. What's that wisdom bumper sticker? And is there an origin story of it? Okay. So, there's probably many things I could come up with, but here's the first thing that comes to mind is, >> yeah, >> don't forget to stop and smell the roses. Now, maybe that's in my mind because I just sent somebody some flowers. But I think it's also because I think what happens in midlife is people are so busy and they have so many things are on automatic pilot as I mentioned earlier and they don't necessarily realize how wonderful a period of life it is and how many opportunities and things there are for you to really learn and grow and prosper. So that's I think what I would start with is just make sure that you really are able to enjoy that period of life. It's it can be so stressful. There's, you know, taking care of kids, trying to work, the economy is is difficult. There's so many stresses out there and I think it's important to be able to reflect and make sure that you make the most of that period of life.

[00:39:40]>> Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for the great work you have done, continue to do the the fact that you're taking a topic that is now some academic um credibility. Back when you started working on this, didn't have as much and you're making it mainstream and you're getting a lot of press. Uh girlfriend, I'm seeing you in the Guardian and >> you know the UK Guardian, all kinds of newspapers and magazines and things like that. So, I appreciate, as I said at the start of the the uh episode, we are on the same team.

[00:40:11]>> We really are. Thank you, Chip, for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation. And you're doing great work, too. So, in a way, maybe between us and Frank and the others, we can really make a big difference.

[00:40:23]>> That'd be great. That'd be great. Thank you.

[00:40:25]>> Thank you. Take care now. Bye-bye.

[00:40:28]>> Well, that was fun. It's fun to, you know, part of my job in life these days is to be a constant learner, a lifelong learner, and a long life learner. And Margie's one of those people I I continually learn from. Three key lessons. Number one is the greatest opportunity in midlife is to close the gap between who we are and who we want to be. That's really interesting. Think about that for a moment. You'd think that frankly in in our teen years or in our early adulthood, we would be closing the gap between who we are and who we want to be. But for a lot of us, we don't really understand who we are until we get into our 40s. As she said, your identity is in the constant uh process of being formed through roles and identities through roles and and activities that you're doing. And then, you know, by your mid to later 40s, you have a pretty good sense of who you are.

[00:41:17]And that's part of the reason why the whole midlife crisis trope is is there because quite frankly sometimes people wake up in their late 40s and say like, "Oh my gosh, I'm I'm living someone else's life." So it is around midlife and around 50. 50 can be a very pivotal uh birthday for people because it's the time when you say like, "Okay, um I can see the future. I can see the past. Um I want the future to be different than the past." And this is why again the crisis premise is is sort of overblown but it can sometimes have some truisms to it.

[00:41:50]People want to do a complete shift. It's also a period of life where we start to not care as much what other people say about us. In my book, Learning to Love Midlife, um the 12 reasons why life gets better with age. One of the 12 reasons is you have no more Fs, excuse me, left to give. It doesn't mean you don't care about things. It just means you care less about what other people think about you. So a really important thing about midlife is we close the gap between who we are and who we want to be. Secondly, she talked a little bit about making a list of what improves with age and the idea of a midlife review. One of the things that's really important, you know, why wait till the end of your life to do a life review, which is what a lot of academics have have done uh with with their their study participants, but why not do that at midlife? Why not why don't we have a a a a global point of view which is at 50 you do a midlife review in which you ask the big deeper and bigger questions if you want to understand that more her book prime time is a good place to go for that but you could learn that from designing your life those guys you could learn it in many of our MEA workshops is how do you actually do a life review a midlife review and how do you actually make sense of what you've learned up to that point so you can apply it in the second half of your life. That is what wisdom is. Wisdom is metabolizing your life experience and learning something from it and then adjusting your life accordingly. So midlife review makes a lot of sense. And then finally, last thing is this idea of subjective age.

[00:43:24]It's it's probably one of the things that Margie's most known for is the idea that people have a point of view. If you asked them what age do you feel again that satchel page quote quote of what uh what age would you be if you didn't know what age you were if you had no idea what age you were what age would you think you are it's an important question because the the younger a person says they think they are the more likely they feel like they have youthful qualities about them which have some of those youthful qualities have a huge impact on living longer but having said that I still do have this little asterisk here which is like well if We think of all the health healthy qualities of youth of youth as being what we're aspiring to then there's a potential agism built into subjective quality subjective age such that if we say like oh I feel like I'm 25 years old then it's like okay does that mean you should be dressing in a speedo chip connley at age 65 probably not so sometimes people actually have a subjective age and then they have a they have an age like okay it doesn't look that subjective age is not looking good on you so I would say you So, the fact that 90% of people 30 and older say that their ideal age is an age younger than them, that is probably one of the ultimate definitions of agism. The fact that your best years are behind you. So, all I can say from this episode is your best years are probably ahead of you.

[00:44:48]And there's a reason why we focus on the U curve of happiness at uh at MEA. Now, it does have its challenges and and in the book Prime Time, Margie talks about some of the challenges with that, but the fact that actually people tend to get uh happier as they get older um up to a certain age, that is true across the globe. So, go get happy. Go uh focus on what gets better with age. Go do the three things that she talked about that are really important as we get older.

[00:45:16]Cognitive stimulation, social interaction, and phys being physically active. Don't forget to go smell the roses as well. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the Midlife Chrysis. We'll see you on the next one.

[00:45:29]>> Thanks for listening to the Midlife Chrysis. [music] This show is produced by Midlife Media. If you enjoyed this episode, help us spread the word by subscribing [music] and leaving a review on your favorite platform.