Latest / The Bold Lounge / Michael Clinton: ROAR Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It's Too Late)

Transcript

Michael Clinton: ROAR Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It's Too Late) · The Bold Lounge

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every week we'll hear from someone who has taken a lead or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they faced challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be free.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have Michael Clinton, and I'm excited to share not only his bold journey with you, but also some of the things that he's been working on that I think you will find very exciting and informative.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Michael.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's so great to be with you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: How are you, Lee?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Terrific.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Good, thank you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So first I thought just start off by doing an introduction and sharing who you are and a little bit about your career till now and what you've been up to.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I spent uh 40 years in the magazine publishing business.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was most recently the president and publishing director of First Magazines, 25 magazines and websites, et cetera.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had the great pleasure with the team of launching Oprah's magazine and Food Network and HETV.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we have, you know, many, many uh titles that I'm sure your listeners are familiar with.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Prior to that, I was the publisher of GQ and the executive vice president of Condi Nast, and I was the chairman of the magazine Publishers of America for several years.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: So deep in the magazine publishing business.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And along the way, probably a lot of bold moments that we'll get into.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd I'd love to start off with the definition of bold and understanding each of the folks that come on the podcast, what their definition is.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, in your definition, what does bold look like?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would give you a couple of answers to that.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: The first is things appear in our lives that we sort of stop us in our tracks.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we can either let them run us over or we can lean into them and push hard in terms of taking a bold move forward.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll give you an example in the magazine business.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: There was major disruption, obviously, with all things digital.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that was a sort of tsunami that hit the print world and had huge impact on the print world.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And either, you know, you retrench and cower or you move forward and learn all about it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: The this happened around 30 years into my career.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was coasting along and this wave hit.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to have the be the bold individual to not only embrace it, but bring along an entire team that had to rethink the whole business model as the digital world became a reality for us.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that's one piece.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: The second one I would say is from a personal standpoint, and that is always how we put limitations on ourselves, especially as we get into the second half of our lives.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of my bold moves was when I was in my mid-50s and I decided to go back to marathon running.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up, uh, and we can talk about this, ran seven marathons on seven continents.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I celebrated my 60th birthday by running a marathon on Antarctica.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And many people say, well, that was kind of bold of you to do that.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: More than kind of, for sure.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would love to talk about just the mindset of that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's one of the things that I also uh speak with with folks around and my clients and different engagements is the growth mindset and that, you know, the limitations that we place on ourselves sometimes because we're sitting in a fixed mindset type of world and being able to kind of take control.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And how long did it take you?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: You decided at a certain point you're gonna run these marathons.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Was it seven in a year?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Was it seven over you know, two years, or how how long did it take you to run seven marathons across seven continents?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because of busy lives uh and and work lives and family lives, he did one a year.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I actually enlisted my sister, who was a runner as well.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we ran all over the world.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were in Africa and Mongolia and Toronto, where by the way, we witnessed the first 100-year-old man cross the finish line uh of a marathon.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a pretty bold thing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: He he didn't start training for marathons until he was 82, ran his first marathon at 82.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's that's a great example of bold.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that I talk about now, so I'm 50 years old and I actually say it a lot.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I tell people how old I am.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of your book, too, in within your book called Roar of you know, being proud of your age and telling people your age.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I still enjoy that people think sometimes I'm my daughter's sister and uh my daughter's 25, so half my age.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the better health I'm in, the better I feel in my skin.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you know, one of the things, whether it's running marathons or changing jobs or taking on something new, I think those are bold moves that a lot of people sometimes don't want to move into, and sometimes they think of their age as being a limit to that.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so when when folks are stepping out kind of into that bold zone, which I think is uncomfortable, most likely, it's the beginning of that, you know, I'm not sure how this will go or how it will be received.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: What have you learned through the stories?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So in your book, there's over, you know, there's 40 stories of different individuals who have in some form or fashion, you know, been bold, in my opinion, uh, with what their lives or had to make some decisions.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: If people are thinking kind of should I, shouldn't I, what would you share as maybe the just the first thing they should think about, or even to make the first move, what's important?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a great question.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I would answer that by the the the astounding realization that people are beginning to have that if they're 50 and healthy, they probably have a good shot of living to be 90, if not 100.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the hundred year life is already here, and many of us will get there, but younger people will certainly have a much better shot.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what's happened is, you know, in the past, when we started becoming 50 or 60, we began to think about the wind down, the quote, retirement syndrome.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what is happening now is people are beginning to realize that at 50, if they have another 40 years ahead of them, that is a completely new kind of landscape.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's no roadmap.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: The the old script doesn't work anymore.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: The old script was written when life expectancies were in their mid-60s.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: The big awakening that people are having is that at 50 or 60, you can have a new career, you can have a new relationship, you can have a new lifestyle.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: You have a whole long road ahead of you that is more than, you'll pardon the expression, retiring playing golf and hanging out with the grandkids.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's just not going to cut anymore because it's not sustainable over a 30, 40 year plus period.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that creates a different kind of mindset that people have to break out of to say, you know, how can I be bold in moving forward?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the 40 people that you mentioned in the book that I interviewed, remarkable people, you know, who started second careers and third careers in a whole new area in in their 50s, they completely pivoted into a whole new direction.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they they're the role models.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I call them the reimagineers because they're the ones reimagining the new script.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they also have taken a step that maybe was unknown, or it doesn't mean they lacked fear and it doesn't mean that it didn't feel uncomfortable every now and then, but they still went for it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think the one thing that's consistent around those 40 people is that they were in the driver's seat, like I said, and and I think they did it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes people just need to hear that, that they are able to do that.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be a micro step, it doesn't have to be a macro.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like my example, and you and I have spoken, I quit my job and started my own business, but that's pretty dramatic, like in the sense of a change.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was one I knew I needed to make and was excited to make, and it has changed my life uh for the good.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now I feel like I can live till 100.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I could have in the in the way that I was working before, which was just extremely unhealthy.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's helpful for folks to understand that you know there are ways to be happier, there are ways to find joy in what you're doing.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's great examples in your book.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that there were two or three similarities across all of the interviews.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: One is that they really went in deep, they went deep inside themselves to really try to understand what is it that they wanted to do, where did they want to change?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: They really did the work.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing is they did this over a period of time.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: This didn't happen in a week or two or three.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: They really, many of them did this over the period of a year plus, where they really started thinking about how they wanted to develop a new path in some part of their life.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the third piece was I would say they all had amazing curiosity and engagement with the world.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: They had a very positive attitude about, you know, I can do anything.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: They they sort of got rid of this, you know, age appropriate moniker and really focused on person appropriate, acknowledging what they could do at any age.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so much research out there now around longevity and what is the the new reality, right?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes there are some stigmas and things like that around age.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really proud to be 50 because I feel like I'm I'm smarter than I was at 40 for sure.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, first of all, we live in a very ageist culture, yeah, and so we have self-imposed ageism, but that's all gonna is beginning to change.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Every day, 10,000 people in America are turning 65.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: By 2030, one in five Americans will be 65, and in 2060, 95 million Americans will be 65 or older.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all going to have a different perspective as more and more people move into that age group.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Becomes more of the majority in in a way.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of excited about that since I'm getting older.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to talk about the actual acronym of the book, Roar.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's reimagine yourself, own who you are, act on what's next, and reassess your relationship.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a definite lover of acronyms.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: How did you come up with that?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and what was it that pushed you?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're in your third printing of this book, and so it's been out and continues to be successful.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: What made you think this is the time for this book and this way?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll go back to this notion of, you know, when we were all turning 50 or 60, you know, we were focused on the wind down, the script that we were given.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to flip the script and really talk about the wind up and the possibilities that people could have in their lives.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was out running in the park in Central Park in New York, where I live.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I wanted to create something that was sort of informative, educational, entertaining.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want it to be homework.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And like you, I'm a big fan of acronyms.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so roar is such a great word in terms of, you know, an attitude of moving forward.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so just on a run, I sort of conceptualized it.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I used it as sort of a last lecture with my whole management team before I was stepping out of the day-to-day of my job.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm now a media advisor to our CEO.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I stepped out of the day-to-day just around the pandemic.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the team absolutely loved it.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Oh my gosh, this is like an amazing roadmap for me moving forward.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew I had a hit a nerve.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's when I conceptualized the book and you know, began the process of publishing it.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd probably done some bold things.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we talked around the marathon.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're also a pilot.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: When did you start flying?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: When I was about to turn 40, I was the publisher of GQ.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had a great career job.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I had a great family and personal life, but I was I felt I was the most boring person on the planet uh because all I was doing was working.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a bit of an adventure gene in me, which is probably a bold gene.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would think so.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did I did three things.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I went to race car driving school.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I went with a group of friends to Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and I took a flying lesson.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I ultimately became a pilot and I uh climbed many mountains around the world, but it sort of created this idea which I call life layering, which is this idea that's create a layer on top of your existing life.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: So my layer was uh adventure.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now I am 68, and 68 is the new 68, is what I like to say.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have to stop saying 60 is the new 40, and we have to own our age and be the role models.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I have 28 years of incredible adventures of you know, chasing lemurs in Madagascar and hiking mountains in Bhutan and running marathons in Mongolia.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: My goal when I turn 70 in a couple of years is to hike to the Everest Base Camp and run a marathon down.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is a yeah, it's an annual fundraiser.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to be able to say, hey, this is what 70 is.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is what 70 can be.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not just for myself and for my peers, but I want the kids in my family and just others to at 40 to say, wow, I can do that at 70.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of, you know, runway ahead of me in terms of things.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm always pushing myself to do the next adventure, whatever that might be.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, in a couple of years, that's going to be a big one.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a great one.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely will be following that along.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's inspiring to others to know that seems like such a big goal, but it's not like you said, it doesn't have to happen tomorrow.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're working up to that, you're preparing for it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that I think people sometimes put pressure on themselves, like, oh, I have to make the decision today, or this is happening to me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hear so many times, I'm so busy, I can't think that far ahead.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those are sometimes very frustrating things that I hear just because of the life that I lived.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I worry about people are missing the day today that they should be actually taking in and appreciating.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like when people say they're busy or they just can't think ahead that far, but they know they need to make a change.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I worry that they may not ever make that change.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's definitely an excuse.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: In a book, I interviewed a psychologist, uh, Dr.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Cantonis, and she spends a lot of time in midlife negative self-talk.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do this, I can't do that, I don't have time, I'm busy, I have kids.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's an excuse.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's really an excuse.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: You have to carve out the time to sit back and identify your priorities and then map those priorities against how you're spending your time and regroup to be able to get to where you want to go.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you said something earlier, which is true.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: People often say to me, Well, I'd like to be a runner, just using running as an example.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never run before.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, well, start by going up to the local high school and doing a couple of laps around the track and then do a little jog and then do a little run.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, you're running one mile, then you're running three miles, and before you know it, you might be running your first 10k.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, build build up to it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a metaphor for anything that you may want to do, whether it's in the creative world of, you know, writing or being a sculptor or painter, or that's in a new job area where you're learning something new, as I mentioned, the digital side of our business.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes those baby steps lead to big steps and strides, and then before you know it, you're running a marathon.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and usually around other people who are, you know, trying or starting.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have a mini try this fall, so nothing probably like you do.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'd run it a couple years ago, and then I kind of got out of shape.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so I'm working on getting there again by October.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm super excited.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a terrible swimmer though.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I need to work on the me too.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've done the I've done the triathlon thing.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a terrible swimmer too.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I like the I like the long distance running.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's my worst leg for sure.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm excited about that.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, like mentally, it was like I don't have to be ready today.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can work up to it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited about that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I could I think also something about running for me, like running solo, is so much different than running together.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I find so much energy actually in running with others.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's some similarities with that too in how we think.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we sit with ourselves and we just in between our ears, we talk ourselves out of things.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's what's nice too about your book is you can read these stories and you can look at the different things that people are thinking through.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a story that connects with a lot of people at different points in their career or their thought process.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, the byline of the book is roar into the second half of your life before it's too late.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So first of all, I was like, ooh, you know, like what does that mean?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it's true.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, too.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's the response I want.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have to honor time, which I think is also in your book.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about being bold and honoring time, and I have a hashtag which says life is bold, like let's just get out there and live it, really.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important to just take advantage of that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're honoring your time or honoring the time that you have left, what are key things that people need to understand about that?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think sometimes people have maybe lived a very blessed life where they may not have experienced loss or may think that tomorrow is always promised.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what one of the a great inspirational book that I read many years ago was called The Five Regrets of the Dying.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's a somber title, but it was written by a hospice nurse who sat with people at the end of their life for 25 years.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: She sat and did this and she compiled themes.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the one theme that always struck me as a profound theme was I wish I had been more true to myself.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I had really done the things that I personally wanted to do.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, we all have roles as employees and parents and spouses and partners, and that's all good.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: But let's put those aside for a moment.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that you as the individual wanted to do in your life?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, oftentimes all of that is put on the shelf and it leads to an enormous amount of regret and dissatisfaction.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so spending the time on your own goals and persona, what you is really driving you oftentimes, and the book has lots of fun little quizzes and exercises and fun things.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have a more good.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I like to say to people is go back to your younger self and recapture something that you left on the shelf in your 20s.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that you really wanted to do, but you were talked out of it by your parents or your teachers or your boyfriend or your girlfriend?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the great example of someone who wanted to be an archaeologist and their parents said, There's no future there.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have to become an accountant.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you became an accountant, which is fine.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you go back and reclaim that early love and that early interest?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: That is a good way to honor time in terms of bringing those back into your life.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So don't spend your life in regret of what couldn't have been.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Spend your life in what could be and how you reboot it is one great example.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as we gain in years, we we do understand that thing that our parents told us about time is precious.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And especially if you've had loss around you, you do know that anything could happen any day.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So what I like to say is, and this is one of the exercises in the book, you've just been told you have six months to live.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna do?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: That puts you on a hyper thought process that when you step away from it and you've identified what it is that you want to do just in those six months, now blow that out over six years.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you get on a journey to get you somewhere that you know you really want to go?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the book, as I said, has lots of little tools and exercises to help you in understanding how you can honor time that is left.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things we share in common, I have the bold framework, which my owe is ownership.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And my ownership's particularly is looking at your experiences and what's worked and what hasn't.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of the times we actually don't think about the successes that we've had or the journey from here to there.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're always thinking about what didn't go right or what I could do more of or what I didn't.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: At least a lot of, I'll just speak for myself.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm always thinking, oh, I hadn't done that.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if I actually sit back and go, where was I six months ago and where am I today?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And where am I thriving and where I concentrate on where I'm thriving?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like more of the positive comes from that versus thinking about where things aren't working.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And your acronym, O, is is really also ownership, but it is actually owning who you are.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean, owning who you are?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's some bold in that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: My focus is at midlife.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you're 50, let's do a self-audit right now.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what is your life all about?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with, you know, owning your health numbers and your fundamentals.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing how many people at 50, and not to pick on guys, but men in particular, are clueless about their blood pressure and their heart rate and just fundamentals like that.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to own your health metrics, you've got to own your financial well-being, because if you're gonna live and be 90, are you gonna have enough money?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's a hard, hard look at where are you gonna have an income and how are you gonna have the money.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, own your age, which we which we talked about, you know, own your last number that you are gonna sometime leave the earth, hopefully at a ripe old age, and also own your failures.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you go through that self-audit, and that also takes time, I always like to say, people, don't think you're gonna do it in a weekend.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Build it out over several months, write it down, put it on paper, really take a hard, hardcore look at where you are right now in your life.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Are you satisfied?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And what areas are you not satisfied in?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And what's your focus on where you want to go next?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: It might be fitness and health and nutrition, it might be a brand new career, it might be that your relationship is is over and you have to face that reality.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: But doing it is hard.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, being a real self-critical person and really looking at your situation is hard, but you have to go into it to move forward.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent advice.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'll end with your last letter, which is reassess your relationships.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something when I quit the job that I had and kind of moved into this different space of owning my own business, I actually found that people weren't happy that I was happy.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of surprised about that.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you've experienced that or you know of it, or even know people who may think that way, but it was interesting for me because I thought like me being happy would make them happy.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But what I realized is where we connected was either in a negative space or challenge, and you know, they actually they're kind of still living in their maybe unhappy place, and I had moved to a different space, and therefore we didn't have anything in common.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I did absolutely reassess my relationships and my my circle became much smaller.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's sometimes hard for people to make a move to, but I think it's something that you may see.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, what advice would you give to people when they're reassessing their relationships?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you have to be brutal with those uh people around you who are on team U, Y O U, and support what you want to do.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I met a woman, she's 55, she wanted to go back and get a master's degree, her kids were grown up, and she said, My kids are giving me a really hard time.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Why?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: How old are your kids?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, you know, 30 and 28.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Why are they giving you a hard time?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you're not doing their laundry.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, she said, it's probably my fault because I'm available to them 24-7.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, there it is.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're worried that mom isn't going to be there 24-7, but you have to have your own life.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to sit down with your kids and explain to them, you know, why this is important for you personally moving forward.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we all know those stories of spouses and kids and colleagues and friends, and especially longtime friends who you might have known since college, who may be stuck in their own way.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to really sort out who's gonna be the one to help lift you and be your support system.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that will mean certain people will have to be edited, you know, out of your life as you recreate and reimagine where you're going next.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's important because our our people, the people around us, are the ones who really give us the ability and the permission to move forward.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to start that process with ourselves first.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of lessons to be learned in that.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you think about a bullseye, the way I looked at it was I used to let everyone in the middle like come all the way into the core.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was trying something new or being bold or, you know, just feeling like I'm not sure.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think what was interesting is when everyone was in the middle, it made a lot of noise for me.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I doing the right thing?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is this okay?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like it would actually stop me from moving forward.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what I realized was maybe some people go to that outer edge, or maybe they fall off.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: But everyone wasn't permitted that access of the bullseye and uh of me.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was a very different way of thinking because I like to be inclusive and I like to help people, but actually I couldn't help anyone else if I didn't help myself first.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a really important message in your book, and also what you just said is you have to start with you and start there and the the relationship out of there too.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think sometimes we have some negative self-talk within ourselves that we have to address and understand some of those shadows why they're coming up.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well said.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's something like you said, and I think I just want to reiterate that this doesn't have to happen overnight and is not something that can happen over a weekend, like, oh, let me get my journal out, and I'm gonna go from A to Z, you know, from Friday to Monday.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think giving permission for folks to understand that that takes a little bit of time to get there, and that's okay, because you'll learn along the way for sure.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the last thing we'll end with as people are thinking about having a bold life and thinking about longevity, is there an unknown that you know people just need to understand?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: You said some some great stats and things like that just a few minutes ago about the possibilities and the numbers that are coming up.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think about longevity, what is something that you think people don't really know about it or would be helpful for us to leave with?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think the key thing is that breaking out of the barriers that you put up yourself.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because what I like to say is look for role models in their 70s and 80s and 90s.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I have some incredible role models who are living amazingly dynamic lives at 90.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: And look at the possibilities that you have.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just met a couple nearby where I live.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're in their 80s and they just built their dream house.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I love it because you know, most people in their 80s say, Well, I'm gonna shrink my life, and they've expanded their life.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so go counterculture to what you're told you have to do and open your mind to what could possibly be.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Look for those role models who were starting businesses in their 70s and going back to school in their 70s, which is happening.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or I love that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just you know, look for those people because I think you're gonna see more and more of those.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And what I like to say is become one of those people, be that reimagineer that allows you to be bold in the way you're gonna go into the second half of your life.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you being part of the Bold Lounge podcast and all the information around the book and contacting and being able to learn more about Roar and what Michael Clinton does is part of the podcast information.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So check it out.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Michael.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate your time today.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a great conversation.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Lee.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be with you.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking the leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.