Unlimit Your Life: A Conversation with Michael Clinton

The Dareful Project

Change surrounds us, says Michael Clinton, author of ROAR into the second half of life (before its too late). And he should know. As one of the longest-serving top executives in the magazine publishing world leading Hearst Magazines, he's witnessed the seismic shifts in that industry. We talk about how he moved from exec to entrepreneur, how to answer the question "what is your favorite future?" and what we can do now to realize our new adventurous life.

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Transcription:

Debra Hotaling (00:04):

Hello and welcome to the Dareful Project. I'm Debra Hotaling. I'm really excited about our guest today. He is one of the longest serving top execs in the magazine publishing world, and I promise you that you have read and loved so many of the magazines that he's been responsible for. I mean, the list is long. Here are a few, the Oprah magazine, GQ Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Men's Health, Runner's World, and the list goes on and on. And now our guest, Michael Clinton, has lit out onto new territories. He's here with us today to talk about the trailblazing work he's doing, thinking about humans over 50. And he has a great new book. Great new book. Here it is. It's called Roar Into the Second Half of Your Life Before It's Too Late.

Michael, welcome.

Michael Clinton (00:55):

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.

Debra (00:59):

So help us understand what you saw in the cultural conversation that propelled you into doing the research that you're doing, launching your new businesses, writing a book. Tell us where you came from on this.

Michael (01:15):

Well, no thank you. It's an observation that we're in the middle of what is a pretty meaningful social movement in the country. The number of people in the United States that are 50 or older is now 35% of the population. The first millennials turn 50 in seven years, which is quite astounding. If you're 50 and healthy, you have a really good chance of living to be 90 or older. And so the whole construct that we've been given, the cultural construct that was handed to us was that you're supposed to be winding down as you start moving into your fifties and sixties. And that script was written a hundred years ago when life expectancy was 62. So you basically did work till 62 and then you sort of retired for a couple of years, then you were gone. Well, today it is a radically different environment because if you are 60, pick a number and you live another 30 years, that's a lot of living that can have meaning and purpose and so forth. So how do you rethink what this is all going to mean for you individually? And it has huge implications globally because many countries are like Japan and Korea and UK and Germany, the US have very big, fast growing population is over 50. That was the aha.

Debra (02:42):

And you personally, where did you come from in all of this? Did you have a personal aha as you were moving through your career?

Michael (02:50):

Yeah, no, for sure. As you mentioned, I had a spectacular publishing career with a lot of amazing people, brands launching many magazines, buying companies, being the president and publishing director of Hearst Magazines, being the chairman of the magazine, publishers of America. I was really full. I had a really full exciting career and I was in my early sixties and I was kind of, okay, I'm kind of ready to go do my next thing and you can close out one career and move into another career or other activities. And that's what was my thought. But when I started looking around and reading things, watching things and talking to people, it was all of the old fashioned script, which was about the wind down, like quote, retire, which we hate that word. We call it refire in the book, move to a sunny state. I live in New York City, I'm very happy in New York City play golf. I don't play golf. So I was like, I'm really, I don't fit this archetype. And so I said, I need to go find my people. So I found a lot of people who thought like me and think like me. And in the book, as you know, I ended up interviewing 40 individuals who we call the imagineers, the people who are really at the forefront of this whole movement. So I had a personal aha in addition to an observational one.

Debra (04:21):

I love that. And I love the people. You did so much research and I want to make sure we will make sure that in our notes, that people have lots of ways that they can find you and find your book because it is amazing. He covers a lot of ground on this, but one of the things I want to double click on is the R word retirement. I love that you hate that word. I super hate it too. But no one else has been able to get to a good word. You did refire instead of retire. Could you talk about that?

Michael (04:49):

Yeah, I mean, retirement is a false construct. Yeah, it was created a hundred years ago by the government. So social security was established in the 1930s, and it was to move older people out because younger people were moving up. And this notion of social security was, at the time there were about seven, 8 million people who were 65 or over. So the government was like, yeah, we can afford this. Well, today it's over 58 million people and the crisis around the social security issue. But what happened is prior to that, for all of millennia, you basically worked until you died. You may have worked in different things, but you were engaged, you were involved, you were making a contribution, you were earning an income, all of that. And so this notion of retirement is what sends people into depression and loneliness and feeling worthless and not having connections in community. And so we like to say rewire into something else because you don't have to do your same first career, go do an entirely second new kind of career that doesn't have to have the same motivations or the same kinds of things you had in your first career. Do something that you really love. It may not include a lot of money, or it may include more volunteer time, or it may include social impact, but rewire into something else that is giving you meaning and fulfillment. And so that's why we banish that word retire.

Debra (06:29):

I love that. And we can all have plans, and you talk a lot about planning, but one of the things that has surprised me is even with all the plans, you can't imagine what life is going to be like until you're sort of living it day to day. And what I realized first after I left a big corporate job is that I was subconsciously sort of building a smaller box, but the same construct. I was just going to do the same thing I did in corporate, but just kind of in a different way. And I've come to realize that that may not be my future and that I have to actually totally reimagine what I'm doing, which is daunting. And again, why I love your book so much because you give some really concrete details of how you kind of start parting out that conversation. Was it a surprise to you when you started launching this?

Michael (07:18):

One of the things that I learned along the way from all these amazing people who I met is you can't replicate many people, as you said, try to replicate what they had in a different form. And what we all have to know is that we have a run in a specific industry or business or career, and sometimes that run ends and then you have to completely reimagine and reinvent. But think about the skills that you've acquired during that long run and how do you repurpose those skills. So as you know in the book, we have a lot of tools and a lot of great fun quizzes and ways for you to get to the bottom of your own re-imagination process. And I think that for me it was completely, I was not interested in being engaged one way or the other in the magazine industry anymore.

(08:12):

It was a great run. What I did is I went back to school and got a master's degree in my sixties in nonprofit philanthropy. I obviously wrote this book. I did a lot of, I'm a marathon runner, I continued to, I ran my seventh marathon on seven continents when I turned 60. So I was like, let's go. And there's a whole chapter about life layering, which is the way you build it from a practical standpoint. So I think enjoy, and by the way, this is not just career, it's also when your kids grow up and are gone, you have to reinvent who you are then because you're no longer as involved as a parent as you was when you were raising the kids, or if your partner leaves you and or you decide to break up with a partner, you're in a different personal stage and you have to reinvent who you are as a single person, whether you're divorced, widowed, all the above. So there's a lot of different ways to reimagine. And those are just a few examples.

Debra (09:25):

And what you're talking about and what your book covers is for any age. I mean, what you're describing is things that happen to us as humans, not just at a certain point in our life. So what you go through, what you tick through in your book, I think has application no matter where you are, beginning, middle, or end. Talk more about layering how you do that.

Michael (09:47):

Yeah. Well, we always start with what I call the three Ps. And the three Ps are your partner. If you're partnered, you're parenting. If you're a parent and your professional life, you're working, you may not have all three Ps, but you generally have one or two of the three Ps. But the three Ps completely define us. Probably when you step back and think about those three Ps, it's probably 90% or more of your life because you're busy working, you're busy raising with your kids, you're busy with your partner, et cetera. And what we like to say is that a cautionary tale, kids grow up and move away. Jobs come and go, layoffs, downsizing, whatever. Hopefully your partner sticks around. But who are you without those three Ps? What is the fourth key in your life? Meaning what are the personas that will define you? And if you talk to a lot of people who are midlife in particular, they have a hard time answering that.

(11:00):

So the life layering process is a way to start building layered personas that define you, reflect you, are you as you move into the second half of life in different ways. I'll give you one example. I was 39 years old. I was the publisher of GQ. I had a great family life, love life, professional life, but I felt I was the most boring human being on the planet because all I was doing was working. I was totally one of these people who self-defined by my job and it was a great job. But as I turned 40, I decided I always had an adventure gene in me. So I decided that I would do three things. I would go climb Mount Kilimanjaro, a group of friends in Africa. I would take a race car driving class, and I would take a flying lesson. So I was really tapping into my adventure gene and I became a pilot and ultimately climbed at many, many mountains.

(12:02):

And I decided that my forties were going to be my adventure years. So I created this idea of what I called the layer of my persona, my adventure persona. And we could do a whole hour on me telling you about all my adventures of climbing mountains all over the world and going to Madagascar and Tasmania and flying all over the world and running marathons and hiking and doing all these kinds of things. So I've got this whole layer of adventure, adventure that is part of my persona today and that have got other multiple layers, but the life layering teaches you. And by the way, as you said earlier, you can start this at any time, you can create a layer at 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and I just met a woman who's 82 and she said, I've just started painting and I'm going to paint for the rest of my life. And I'm like, that's your creative layer. And so how do we build out these other layers that are not part of our three Ps that really give us richness and satisfaction in our lives? And so we do some fun things to help you get to identifying what your layer might be because a lot of people say, well, I don't know what my layer should be, but we give some fun tools how you can claim that. So that's kind of life layering in a short definition.

Debra (13:19):

What's interesting as I'm hearing you say that, is that it's also kind of disruptive. If you've lived your life sort of defined by the three P's, and then you go to the people you love and you say, I'm going to go climb Kilimanjaro, who's with me? That feels like a little bit of a transgressive kind of conversation to have. Tell me, are there bumps to that that you have to overcome?

Michael (13:41):

Well, let's put it probably in a less adventurous way. You have to go to your Aunt Mary's house every year for Thanksgiving, and you have to travel to pick a city to go and spend four days in that city with Aunt Mary and you love Aunt Mary, but you really don't want to do that anymore. And you have to tell Aunt Mary that you're not going to come for Thanksgiving this year because you've decided that instead, you're going to go take a trip and do a four day trip, pick a place. When you lob those kinds of announcements to your family, to your friends and so forth, you have to be bold enough and courageous enough to readjust, reimagine how you ultimately want to spend your time. If going to Aunt Mary's for four days is no longer satisfying you and you love your Aunt Mary, go visit Aunt Mary another time.

(14:40):

But reorient yourself in terms of fulfilling the kinds of things that you want to do to fill your time. And we talk a lot about time audit because we all waste a lot of time, all of us do and superfluous things. And I always say to people, just take two weeks and do a time audit about how you're spending your time and is it bringing you value? Are you spending time and how there are things we have to do, we have responsibilities, but there are a lot of things that are wasted time that we could reimagine that time or regroup in ways that we can use the time in a more meaningful way for us. And for those of us who are over 50, we realize as we live longer, that time is a really precious commodity, and we realize that time is something that should really be used in a really emphatic way. And so take that responsibility. ROAR is an acronym, and the last R stands for Reassess Your Relationships. And it's right in this area that we're talking about right in this area talking

Debra (15:55):

About, okay, let's go through ROAR so everyone knows what it stands for.

Michael (16:01):

Yeah, thank you. Well, the first R is the notion of the re-imagination process and how do you do it? How do you engage in it? How do you make it a practice, a daily practice? How do you focus on it, make a commitment to it? So that's sort of the first R the O is owning your numbers. Everything that is built for your future has to start with good fundamental health numbers. I'm always shocked at how many people, Deborah are 50 years old, and you say, what's your blood pressure? What's your heart rate? And they have no idea. Have you had a colonoscopy? No. How many people do we know? I mean, all the things we have in medicine today that are preventative, that are there to help us have what we call the health span of new longevity, they're all there for us. The tools are absolutely incredible.

(16:54):

So how do you take the responsibility to own your numbers, your health numbers first, then you've got to own your financial numbers. Do you have the financial foundation? How are you going to fund a life if you live to be 80 or 90 or older? How are you going to fund that life? Have you really thought that through and map that out. So own your numbers, own your age. I think that 60 is not the new 40, 60 is the new 60. And embrace it, right? Embrace it. And I look across the culture now and we see Jennifer Lopez in her fifties. Lenny Kravitz is 60, Jill Biden is 72. Martha Stewart was on Sports Illustrated in 82. The pro aging phenomena of men and women claiming their age and saying, this is what it looks like and this is who you can be too, is really a positive force in our culture. And there was just a book written by Dr. Becca Levy, who I've become a real fan of. She's at Yale called Breaking the Age Code that a positive attitude about your age and aging can bring you seven and a half more years of life.

(18:15):

There is a mental issue, mental health issue around thinking positively about living longer. And so owning your age, and by the way, and then the other thing you have to own is that we are all going to leave planet Earth someday, and we do have to own that final number. And what's the legacy? If you're 50 or 60, what haven't you done that is meaningful to you? What do you want to do for the next 20, 30 years? What's important to you? And so owning that end date is important to you. So that's owning your numbers. A is the action plan, which is all about life layering of course. And then R is reassessing your relationships. And you touched on it. It's the people around you that have to lift you and support you. If you decide you want to go through a radical professional change in your fifties, or you have to leave a marriage that doesn't work any longer, or you've decided that you're going to become sober and all your friends are out partying, drinking every night, how do you regroup and understand those are supporting where you want to go, and how do you edit out those who aren't supportive of you and bring new people your tribe into your posse?

(19:39):

And I think that's hard at midlife because we all have that college roommate that we met 25 years ago, but it's kind of turned into a toxic relationship now, and you're kind of hanging on for the sake of hanging on as opposed to time to move on. It's tough, but it's once again, courage

Debra (20:00):

And what you bring up also, I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine who went into extreme friendship making. And so she decided, I can't just lose friends, but I got to work really hard and actively to find new folks. And so I think what you're saying there is that that reassessment isn't just who doesn't serve, but also seeking out those new interesting relationships also. Right?

Michael (20:23):

Absolutely. At all ages, people of all ages of friendships. I mean, I have friends from twenties to nineties and always find the magic of life and you being a human is, you meet people along the way in your journey and you end up saying, how blessed am I that I got to meet you when I was 50 or 60 and you're completely on my wavelength. And yeah, you've got to be open to that and not only in friendships, but you've got to be open to romance and intimacy and the importance of that as well,

Debra (21:02):

Which I want to bring up. You have a press release out on your NRG survey and you say 77% of 50 to seven year olds, your re imagineers are sexually active. Michael, let's talk about sex.

Michael (21:19):

Well, this is the big taboo because there's a lot of perception that people aren't having sex in the second half of their life. The New York Times did a really great cover story of their magazine about a year ago. It was called Sex Over 70. And I thought, what a great story to bring sort of sex out of the closet because you may not be having the same kind of sex you had when you were 25, but people want intimacy. And many people, sex has lots of different interpretations. It's the individuals that are involved. It hopefully starts with a romance and intimacy. But I think that our survey found that people, in this case there were 50 to 70, had very active sex lives. And I think if you talk to people in their seventies and eighties, you would find the same thing.

Debra (22:12):

I would argue better, because you know what your partner wants, you know what you want. And I think a lot. I just think that there's a lot going on. Yeah, okay. I'm quoting you here. 77% of 50 to 70 year olds are sexually active with more than 40% having sex weekly.

Michael (22:32):

Yeah, that was a big number that surprised me. I was like, okay. But what you probably know is a lot of these sex surveys that a lot, this was only one question in a much bigger survey, but oftentimes you have to say, okay, do you think you are or you'd like to be? Or what is really, is it really because you don't want to feel like you're not as active? So I take a little bit of it with the grain of salt, but that's okay. I think the intent is really there, the interest is really there, and I think that's, we are human beings who need that kind of, once again, intimacy and physical contact. I don't think that ever goes away. I was listening to a podcast, he was 107 and she was 105, and they were dating nice. They were a new couple, and she was talking about the intimacy that they were having. She didn't go into great detail, but sleeping in the same bed and body contact and however they were interpreting it, she did have a great kicker at the end, she said. And basically after a really great night's sleep of cuddling and all that, I wake up the next morning, and as long as he's still breathing, I know that we'll have another day together.

(24:02):

I was like, that's great.

Debra (24:03):

God Bless.

Michael (24:05):

That spirit, that should never die.

Debra (24:07):

Oh, I love that. In the research, what else surprised you? What else were ah-has?

Michael (24:14):

I think the one thing, there were several things. There was a point of view that the institutions that serve us like government and entertainment and media and advertising, are way behind the sensibility of this new kind of 50 plus consumer and 50 plus human being. Because look around you, everybody, and look at people who are over 50, who are fit and dynamic and tech savvy and engaged and traveling and globally and all those things. And you go, wait a minute. That's what 50, 60, 70 plus looks like today. And everything that you're showing me and serving me is an antiquated representation. I think everyone resoundingly said that brands and advertising and entertainment is way behind where my head is at as a human being. And so I think the people, it sort of reminds me 50 years ago when the women's movement first started when women were sort of saying the same thing, wait a minute, how are you representing me in advertising? And how are you representing me as a character in a movie? You're only representing me as a mother and I'm much more multi-dimensional. Why aren't you showing me badass women who are warriors? And now today we have that. When you look at the kinds of characters that Helen Maren plays…

Debra (26:01):

Love her.

Michael (26:02):

Gal Gadot plays a superhero. But 50 years ago, young women or women didn't see characters like that. It's the same example today, we need to up our game in representation, and there are some sprouts that are happening across our cultural landscape that are addressing that, but we have a long way to go. So that was a really big topic that we saw in the study.

Debra (26:31):

What sprouts are you seeing? Because we do have, if you have folks who have not yet experienced being 50, 60, 70, 80, I think it's hard to write films that accurately describe it. And if you have the writer's room filled with 20 year olds, it's not always happening. You've got Amy Bear doing Landline Productions, you've got the Geena Davis Institute who's advocating for more accurate representation. But I mean, how do we get there?

Michael (27:01):

Yeah. Well, I'm very good friends with Amy. As you mentioned, Amy's and I are going to be together next week, and as you know, she has multiple movies in romantic comedies for people over 50 with those actors and actresses over 50. I think part of this discussion, and I've discussed this with her as well as in creative round tables, is you have to have people who are in the 50 plus demographic who represent the authenticity. And once upon a time, and this because we earlier were talking about our respective backgrounds, once upon a time there were a bunch of white men sitting around a table deciding what women and people of color and so forth and the table, the creative table got more diversified over time, more women, more people of color, more authentic perspectives. But what hasn't happened is people over 50 are not around that creative table to challenge the stereotypes that are integrated into characters or advertising images to call it out and to say that's inauthentic.

(28:15):

That is a bad representation. That is a stereotypical representation. So the first thing we need to do is to make sure there's a seat at the table all the way through the process so that bad representation can be called out. And I think Amy's a good example of with landline pictures. Someone is doing that. I think L'Oreal is a great brand that is doing it. L'Oreal has been really on the forefront of this. There's a great eyewear company called Caddis. They have a really great product and a great positioning. I was at a conference recently and I showed a great Clos du Bois television ad that was with all people 50 plus, and it was really upbeat and dynamic and great characters. So you're finding a Hoka Silver sneakers. You're finding brands that are emerging that are sort of breaking through the outdated paradigm. But we need more and more. And I would say until I wrote a piece about this for Esquire, I'm writing a lot on this topic for Esquire and Men's Health and Oprah Daily, people go on to roar forward.com and go to our thought leadership tab. You can see a lot of the stories, but one of the stories was around how Hollywood needs to, that they're missing a huge audience by not focusing on entertainment and movies and television shows that the show great representation. One example that I call out is Queen Latifah on her show.

(30:06):

She herself is in her fifties, the character is in her fifties, and the character is an amazing woman who you're just in awe of. We need more of that, we need more of that.

Debra (30:17):

And what would be great is that we get to a point where we aren't even calling out folks who are different ages going and look what a 70 year old can do. The Golden Bachelor all good, but the fact that we are making such a big deal that someone could look good when he's in his seventies and women could look good in their age. It's a step in the right direction, but we got to grow from this.

Michael (30:41):

Yeah, you're right. It's funny you bring that up because at a conference recently, I was asked that question and I said, here's what the end state is. The end state is age agnostic in representation, and you don't even think about it. You just see it. And so there's not the, oh, she looks great for 70. You just sort of see a 70 year old and it's just integrated in a very natural form, and you just assume that that's what 70 can be. You don't even put to your point of name, number against it, but age inclusivity, age agnostic in the right representation of that will get us there.

Debra (31:27):

Do you remember the movie Reds with Helen Mirren? I love that movie because Helen is a complete badass, right? And they don't go, she's a grownup. Seriously grownup woman being a badass. She just is, and she looks spectacular, but she also has really good army boots. She's going to have to run away from the bad guys. And she has intimacy with his other cohort, and I loved everything about it because she's strong, wonderful. And we didn't go, oh, look at us being inclusive with Helen Mirren. It was just there, right?

Michael (32:02):

It's organic. No, it's a great example. It's a great example. I think you will see just by the sheer size of this population bulge that's happening. And by the way, this is not a fad. This is a long trend because you probably know that while life expectancies are longer than they've ever been, there is pretty much a flat to negative birth rate in the developed countries that depending on the country immigration guidelines in countries like Japan, which is the oldest country in the world, really doesn't have an immigration sliver, so to speak, of people coming into Japan to work to fill out the gaps. So Japan, I always say to people, go to Japan and Singapore. That's the future. That's what the world's going to look like. China also. And so the people are going to force this issue in terms of all the things we're talking about.

(33:04):

The other thing that I will point out is that if you looked at America today and you looked at the 50 plus consumer that spends $8.3 trillion in GDP, it would be the third largest country in the world. Now just stop and think about that. The spending power and also 70% of the assets in this country, illiquid assets of home ownership and stocks and bonds, et cetera, are owned by people over 50. Now, not everyone, of course has, we still have a lot of inequality in our country, but the reality is that this generation writ large, has huge spending power, has huge asset base, is dynamic and different than any generation before them. And they're ready to go and they're saying, let's go. And once again, the marketers around them are kind of missing the boat because they're not tapping into them.

Debra (34:15):

I mean, that's the surprise to me. I mean, there's real money. So you've mentioned some brands that are really good. How as consumers of media and products, what can we do to be voting towards better representation?

Michael (34:33):

Well, it's funny you asked. We picked up in the research, and I've talked to some of my advertising executive friends and said, this is a new moment where people are saying, I'm going to step away from a brand if a brand does, if I can't see myself in that brand, and I'll use a great example, the footwear company, Hoka.

(34:59):

And Hoka, not to pick on Nike, but Nike was born for the boomers. That was the Boomer brand because when Nike was born, all the boomers were young and in their twenties and so forth. And Nike has pretty much stuck to their knitting about promoting to younger consumers. And a lot of people over 50 have left Nike to go to Hoka because they think that the brand speaks to them in a lot of different ways in terms of styling, in terms of performance, in terms of imaging. And so I think when people say to me that people over 50 are brand loyal, I say, that's not true. Who's buying Tesla? People who are European import automotive consumers in the past who's buying Apple Watch, people who used to buy traditional luxury watches are trading out into Apple Watch because of biometrics, et cetera.

(36:02):

Who's buying luxury travel Four Seasons. And Ritz Carlton once owned that space. Now there are new players coming in like Six Senses and one and only are coming in above them and capturing that luxury traveler of other different kinds of services. So the 50 plus consumer is no longer brand loyal. That is a real urban myth that needs to explode because they are buying products and brands that are new, that are different, that are serving their interests. I'll go back to Tesla. I mean the whole electric vehicle phenomena, and Tesla is leading in that space, obviously. And we all know a lot of people in their fifties, sixties, seventies, they're buying Teslas.

Debra (36:56):

Well, this is why folks need your research rather than the traditional, I think marketing demographic research, because I think brands unconsciously maybe try to find the data that supports the status quo and that describes that sort of old way of marketing and advertising versus what you are finding and what you're talking about, which is a huge opportunity, 8.3 trillion, but you have to look new at it. Yeah,

Michael (37:24):

I call it the new growth market. Ironically, it's a new growth market that's been reframed by this generational cohort that's reframing it. The baby boomers love them or hate them. The boomers were always the agitators. The boomers agitated about ending the war. They agitated about sex and drugs and rock and roll. They agitated about workplace, and now these boomers are agitating about redefinition of aging, and this is their big last agitation because they're like saying, wait a minute, just because I'm 70 doesn't mean, and so they're agitating. And what's great about it is not only will they agitate for themselves, they, we are all very self-centered. So we'll agitate for ourselves, but we will create role models for the next generation to be able to say, ah, this is what my parents did, or my aunt and uncle or my neighbors. They were doing amazing things at 60 and or 70 and or later.

(38:36):

So I think it has a long tail into next generations. It's the same way that a woman today at 25 can come out of school or at 22 or 23 and can look at the whole opportunity landscape and say, oh, I can be the CEO of a company. I can be on Supreme Court. I can run for president. I can do this. I can do that. Very, very different than 50 years ago when there weren't a lot of role models. We're building the role models of the future of the new longevity lifestyle. That's really what's happened.

Debra (39:12):

I love that. And building on what you just said there, the other thing I'm finding from this podcast and other work thinking about this space is that people in their twenties and thirties now are trying to figure stuff out. And when they see that there are folks in their fifties, sixties, seventies who are going, you know what? It's really fun. I love my body. I'm having great adventures. It gives great comfort even for folks in their twenties and thirties that they're like, oh my God, this gets better. And there are other ways that you can approach the world. So again, from a marketing standpoint, you're not going to be shutting out younger consumers by focusing on this older demographic. In fact, I would argue that it's more inclusive.

Michael (39:59):

Yes, absolutely. Of course, brands need to cultivate younger consumers. Absolutely. But it's a broader this from your own professional experience. Media advertisers stop buying media at 54, so they buy 25 to 54, and so everything else is kind of off the cliff. But that once again, that playbook was written at a time when there was not a lot of elasticity in that 54 plus consumer in terms of brand loyalty. And one of the things we found in our research is that this consumer's buying across every single category In the past, it was like, well, they're going to buy healthcare and they're going to buy financial, and that's all. Well, now they're buying fashion and travel and beauty and home and on and on and on. So yeah, it's an inclusivity thing. I'm on the board at the Stanford University Center on longevity and some of the science, there's a wonderful piece people can pull up called The New Map of Life.

(41:11):

The a hundred year life is here. The science shows that today's five-year old has a 50% chance to live to be a hundred. The life cycles are going to change dramatically. I was with a young 22 year old yesterday who I've been mentoring saying, you have a long runway. You don't to boil the ocean in the past, in your twenties. I've got to find my career. I've got to find my path. I've got to find my mate. I've got to have my child. I've got to the pressures. And now you can have a child later, you can marry later, you can partner later, you can change a career. You're going to have a 60 year career if you're going to look to be a hundred. So it's not going to be a one-stop shop career. You're going to have a lot, build your skillset, build your knowledge, build your experience, and take that long ride that you're going to have. It's a blessing. And Stanford has a lot of great research on this whole phenomena. So I think to your point about people in their twenties,

Debra (42:23):

Final question. How do we begin? What would be the one thing that you would coach folks to just take one little step to be moving in the ROAR direction?

Michael (42:35):

Good question. First of all, take a baby step. What I found with the 40 people who have all gone through this and got to a re-imagination, they spent a year or two really thinking about it and really doing the work is important. You're not going to solve it in a weekend or two or three or go away to a spa and think about it over a few days. It doesn't work that way. You really have to go introspective and really dig deep into what is important to you and what do you really want, and start by prioritizing it and developing what is number one on the list and start to focus on that first. The first step is always the hardest. I always say to people, as I mentioned, I'm a marathon runner, so I'll use running as an analogy. And they'll say, well, I want to start a fitness and wellness program.

(43:37):

And I'll say, well, what's your exercise regimen? Because exercise is the number one thing, the absolute number one thing for good health span and longevity. Genes only play 20% of your longevity, your own personal longevity. 80% of it is lifestyle, and exercise is number one at all ages. And I always say, what's your exercise regimen? Well, I really don't have one, and I really am interested in running, but I don't know how to start. I say, you know how to start. Go buy a pair of running shoes and take a walk around the high school track in your neighborhood. That's your baby step. And then take two walks around, then three walks around, then do a little jog, then do a little run, then do a little this, then do a little that. And before you know it, you might be running a 10 K, so build on it. But the baby step is 50%. Taking the first step is more than 50% of the equation, but you have to do the work. What do you want to do and accomplish and how do you prioritize? So I mean, those would be my sort of top line thoughts on the subject, Deborah?

Debra (44:47):

Well, thank you. Well, we've covered a lot today. And again, I want to make sure that everyone knows to make sure that they get your book. You can see I've got mine totally marked up already. It's really insightful and really easy at the end with all sorts of checklists, so it's very, very useful. Michael, thank you so much.

Michael (45:05):

Thank you so much. It was great to be with you. Great. Have a conversation.

Debra (45:08):

Thanks for listening to the Dareful Project. Please follow, like and leave a review. It really helps. We're on all your favorite platforms, Spotify, apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, audible. Tune in Amazon Music, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and YouTube. And to connect, you can email me at [e-mail]. That's Debra, D-E-B-R-A at Dareful one. That's with the number one.com. Thanks for listening.