EQ

You know I like to get geeky. Well, today is one of those days. MEA’s friend, Dr. Dilip Jeste, occasionally sends me some of his newest wisdom research. Here’s a hot-off-the-presses report on the relationship between the microbiome in our gut and loneliness and wisdom.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m envious of author and professor Adam Grant. The dude is smart as a whip, generous with his advice, responds to emails within minutes, and has written more New York Times bestsellers in the past eight years than I could ever imagine. I was first introduced to him ten years ago when he featured me in his first book, “Give and Take.” No one knew Adam Grant then. He’s not even 40 now, and he has given three TED talks.

Let’s add “cantankerous” to that list while we’re at it. And, yes, I know that’s how many Americans describe people 60 and older. But, it’s just not my experience. There’s ample evidence showing that our EQ grows with age as does our emotional moderation and ability to empathize.

At 15, I was a beanstalk of a kid, with shoulder-length, surfer-blond hair and a free-spirit that loved nothing more than dancing up a storm in my bedroom while listening to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” If the rest of the family happened to be at one of my sisters’ sports matches, there was a good chance I’d light up a doobie and switch over to the Doobie Brothers. Such was my adolescence.

The demographics of our world are shifting. This is nowhere more evident than in the rise of caregiving in families. In the last five years, the National Alliance for Caregiving found that nine and a half million people in the US alone have become carers providing unpaid care to another adult. This growth trend shows no sign of slowing.

Like many Baby Boomers or GenXers, you are probably in the midst of major transitions. If you have retired (or are about to) you may have lost the identity and structure with which to organize your life and relationships that your job once provided. This can be an unsettling time (only magnified by the pandemic).

Chip’s Note: The irony of this post is Susie sent it to me just before we had a mama whale birth a baby directly in front of MEA a week ago. It was sublime and poignant experience as those of us on the Baja beach watching could feel a certain mammalian connection with the mama and her newborn.

One of my co-founders Jeff Hamaoui is a profound teacher, and I’ve been a fortunate student of his (Like Eddie who was profiled yesterday, Jeff was in our first MEA beta cohort the first week of January 2019). He’s a deep listener and a world-class facilitator.

I love Arthur Brooks’ regular column “How to Build a Life” in The Atlantic. In this recent piece, he writes about keeping score and checklists: “She who dies with the most checked boxes wins, right? Wrong.” We know that midlife and later can be a time ripe for fulfillment, the satisfying completion of a life well-lived; but what fulfillment means to one person may be completely different from what it means to someone else.

Happy Valentine’s Day. So many of us are wise in the mind but foolish in the heart. Sometimes we even try to apply to our romantic relationships what has worked in our careers. After all, success in one part of our life must breed success elsewhere, right?