Chip Conley

The title of today’s post comes from a great new book by Steven Petrow with Roseann Foley Henry. I’ve recently become friends with Steven and look forward to having this wise man be part of our MEA community. It encouraged me to make my top ten list of the things I will no longer do as I add a few years to my life.

“The problem in most situations is not a lack of calling; but a fear of responding to the call. Besides the issue of leaving everything behind, there is also the fear of being inadequate and the terror of being overwhelmed."

Recently, I was introduced to Dr. Robert Waldinger. He runs the Harvard Study for Adult Development, a seminal eighty-year longitudinal study of humans that tells us a lot about what creates life satisfaction. His TED talk has been viewed more than 40 million times, and one of the key lessons is relevant to those of us in the Modern Elder community.

Happy New Year! Here’s to a flourishing year of transformation.

“The male midlife crisis is the stuff of clichés and Hollywood tropes: red sports cars, leather pants, and perky paramours. The female version, however, is talked about much less. Many of its symptoms—like sleeplessness, sadness, and anxiety—are chalked up to perimenopause. While that physiological transition, with all its hormonal fluctuations, can certainly bring emotional upheaval, a woman’s midlife crisis is often more complex, with cultural forces and psychological triggers at play.” Dina Cheney, Health Magazine

A couple months ago, I wrote a blog post highlighting a new column in the New York Times called "It’s Never Too Late" and I encouraged our Wisdom Well readers to share some of their stories about how you made substantive changes in the second half of your adult life. I also welcomed you to send me your stories.

The night is endless this time of the year, right? It's time for curling up on the couch and letting Hollywood have her way with us. Unfortunately, there can often be a paradox of choice given all the ways we digest film content at home these days: Netflix, Hulu, ApplePlus, HBO Max.

Merry Christmas! My first weeks of college - long before my other Stanford freshmen classmates were to join me on “The Farm” - were spent in “hell weeks.” It was five or six hours per day in the pool for weeks trying to keep up as the slowest freshman on the national champion college water polo team.

I'll admit it. I've been a self-improvement junkie much of my life. In high school and college, I would sit for hours in the library reading books like "How to Win Friends and Influence People," "Think and Grow Rich," and, heaven forbid, "Atlas Shrugged."

Breakdowns are hard, and they often feel quite solitary. It's like you're the only person in the world feeling the way you do. Of course, we all know that's not true, but logic doesn't prevail when we're in that state.