Chip Conley

Many of you who’ve gone through MEA programs are familiar with Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, the famous psychologist who popularized the idea of Flow, a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand that creates almost an ecstatic state.

Glorious! I just spent a few days in the Rocky Mountains experiencing the change of seasonal colors and the sound of the last flutters of the aspen leaves before they tumble to the end of their lives.

A long-time female friend confided in me that she went to her college reunion not long ago and one of her male classmates offered her the observation that serves as today's blog post title. She felt mixed about this as she was a true hottie in the day and had staked her identity on turning heads.

I can be a maniacal multi-tasker. Some of it is due to overcommitting myself. Some of it is the adrenaline rush of seeing how many plates I can spin at once. Of course, if I am completely honest, some of it is an unconscious desire to distract myself from what's really going on in my life.

As a for-profit entrepreneur, I spent the first half of my life focused on Return on Investment (ROI). Now, I’m spending the second half of my life focused on a different form of ROI: Ripples of Impact. I love this phrase coined by our MEA faculty member Justin Michael Williams and mindfulness teacher and author Shelly Tygielski.

This is the first sign we saw on Thursday when we arrived at our rustic Rocky Mountain retreat.

I loved this Washington Post story by Matt Fuchs that outlines the research showing that singing, dancing, improv comedy, writing, and painting all help create more openness in older adults, leading to greater longevity. Of course, creativity is not just limited to the arts. Problem-solving, landscaping, traveling, and advising a friend also can make the same difference.

I know this is a loaded question, but here's what the statistics tell us: 80% of people over 40 say they feel younger than their chronological age while fewer than 10% say they feel older. Is this because we want to be hopeful in our "cult of youth" society?

In the spring, I wrote about the "hermit-age," and this topic continues to be resonant for me, maybe because MEA might buy a former Catholic retreat center and chapel next to a Carmelite monastery in Santa Fe. Or perhaps because I recently visited Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation hermitage south of Albuquerque.

My friends and co-workers know I’m a little obsessive when it comes to being responsive to emails. When I was at Airbnb, I found that some (often younger) fellow employees might take a few days (or weeks) to respond to an email when they could have just jotted a simple one-sentence "I'll get back to you by Friday" to manage expectations.