Chip Conley

We’re a crispy society. We’ve burned hot the past few years, full of uncertainty, polarity, and complexity. And as a result, we see burnout as the explanation for why people aren’t returning to the workplace or are “quiet quitting.”

“There is nothing you know that you haven’t learned from someone else. Everything in the world has been passed down…if you understand it as I do, mentoring becomes your true legacy. It is the greatest inheritance you can give to others. It is why you get up every day - to teach and be taught.” - John Wooden, “A Game Plan for Life”

So many of our beliefs about aging come from a social narrative full of myths. The National Institute on Aging recently featured 10 commonly-held misconceptions about aging. I decided to grade myself from A-F on how well I could myth-bust these misconceptions. I gave myself an A if I was aware enough to myth-bust the misconception entirely and an F if I believed in the myth hook, line, and sinker. I recommend you do the same.

We have so much fresh goodness coming your way next year with new thought leaders like Esther Perel, Dan Buettner, Kathy Smith, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Russ Hudson, Light Watkins, Marc Freedman, and Lynne Twist (none of whom were on our 2022 workshop calendar). Of course, we also have many of your favorite regular MEA faculty. You can check out our full 2023 workshop calendar at this link.

Ever seen the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Two teenagers used a time machine to collect historical characters for the ultimate history class presentation—a “show and tell” extravaganza. They brought in Napoleon Bonaparte, Billy the Kid, Socrates, and more. A great adventure indeed.

Recently, I heard the line that is today’s blog post title, and I realized I’d heard a lot of people saying that lately. Makes me wonder why we have such a fraught relationship with retirement.

The older you are, the more expensive a 6-pack.

“If you had to choose a moment in history to be born, and you did not know ahead of time who you would be - you didn’t know whether you were going to be born into a wealthy family or a poor family, what country you’d be born in, whether you were going to be a man or a woman - if you had to choose blindly what moment you’d want to be born, you’d choose now.” - Barack Obama, 2016

As I learned at Airbnb at age 52, where I was twice the average employee's age, you can become an elder at virtually any age. A pro athlete, a software engineer, a digital marketing whiz kid, and a fashion model all might be an elder in their 30s. Of course, a "modern elder" is a special kind of elder who is as curious as they are wise, and requires a whole new range of skillsets.