Baja California Sur, where MEA is located in Mexico, is by far the least populated state relative to its land area in the entire country. Because we’re in such a rural place, we have so much beauty to behold.

Let's face it, we didn't structure society to connect with people from other generations. CoGenerate founder and co-CEO Marc Freedman, who is teaching at MEA this fall, calls it "age-apartheid." You go to school with people your age, work for forty years with people roughly your age, and then live in a retirement community or nursing home with people the same age.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Futurist Alvin Toffler (more than 50 years ago)

In a recent MEA workshop titled “The Roadmap to Your Soul’s Expression,” guest faculty member Ken Daigle unleashed this quote that felt like a thousand white doves emerging from a gigantic cage. Ken’s superb point was that naming and claiming your soul’s desire is an essential first step to creating your ideal life. Vagueness doesn’t help.

“A narrow escape from danger or disaster.” That is the definition of a “close call.”

As I enter Level 6 in the Game of Life, I’m looking back and taking stock of my life journey and thinking about what has shaped me, who I am, what I have done, and what I am doing to shape my life.

I have just returned home from one of the most spectacular weeks of my life. I was given the incredible opportunity to be the guest teacher at the Modern Elder Academy (MEA) in Baja, Mexico, a place nothing short of exceptional, where people come to learn to navigate the difficult transitions that midlife presents us with.

Reading this article in The Atlantic got me thinking. Maybe understanding the future of work is less about studying Gen Z’s fetish for remote work or Millennials’ desire to be digital nomads. What if a window into the future of work could be understanding the motivations of those who are semi-retired? Maybe understanding how they’re curating their lives can help workers of any age.

Writing has been my flashlight. It’s allowed me to be curious. It’s helped me to see my blind spots. It’s provided me with a salve for my wounds. It’s given me permission to feed my inner introvert (who is not all that obvious to you). I once wrote a post “Why I Write” that could have been retitled “Why I Breathe.”

Somedays, I feel like an idiot. On other days, I feel like our MEA shaman, Saul, with his premonitions. For a decade now, I’ve been saying that the organizational world seems to be unprepared for the emergence of the “modern elder,” someone who is as curious as they are wise. Part of the reason we created MEA was to address the need to mint modern elders.