{"id":20553,"date":"2024-01-26T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T22:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=20553"},"modified":"2024-01-26T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T22:45:00","slug":"midlife-from-crisis-to-chrysalis","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/midlife-from-crisis-to-chrysalis\/","title":{"rendered":"Midlife: From Crisis to Chrysalis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Hello, friends. My name\u2019s Tami Simon, and I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True. And I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast, <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True\u2019s new membership community and digital platform. It\u2019s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows, including a video version of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> with an aftershow community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you\u2019ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us, and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at SoundsTrueFoundation.org, and in advance, thank you for your support.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this episode of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, my guest is someone that I consider a soul friend, a hugely accomplished human being, Chip Conley. Let me tell you a little bit about Chip. Chip has disrupted the hospitality business, not once, but twice as the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the United States, and then as Airbnb\u2019s head of global hospitality and strategy where he was named the \u201cmodern elder\u201d on the staff, someone equally wise as curious. In January of 2018, Chip cofounded the Modern Elder Academy, which is the world\u2019s first midlife wisdom school. They have one of their retreat centers in Baja California and then a new center opening this year in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Chip is a <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i> bestselling author of seven books and a new book. It\u2019s called <\/span>Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age<\/span><\/i>. Chip, welcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chip Conley:<\/b> Oh, Tami, thank you. It\u2019s great to be here. I\u2019m realizing that I\u2019m actually staring out a window here in San Francisco where it\u2019s getting dark now, so my image may just get darker over the course of the next hour, but other than that, I\u2019m feeling relatively light, even though I\u2019m going through a lot of different changes in my life right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> We\u2019re going to talk about that. We\u2019re going to talk about your new book, <\/span>Learning to Love Midlife<\/span><\/i>, and this capacity that you have. And ever since I\u2019ve known you, Chip, I\u2019ve seen this in you. It\u2019s almost like this power of regeneration, power of renewal. You go through some kind of, I\u2019ll just call it in plain English, total system meltdown, or somebody might say\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Clusterfuck.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> You could call it that, something like that, like, \u201cOh my god, huge destruction of your life-form as it was,\u201d and then\u2014this is the miracle part\u2014something new and brilliant and fabulous and unbelievable and generative and helpful comes forward. And I want to learn more about what you\u2019ve come to know about that pattern in your life and this capacity of regeneration.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> It\u2019s interesting you say that, because my very first hotel as a boutique hotelier, I called this pay-by-the-hour motel that I was turning into a rock-and-roll hotel that now you pay by the night, it was called The Phoenix, and it\u2019s a well-known rock-and-roll hotel here in San Francisco, and the Phoenix rises from its own ashes. And I\u2019m a Scorpio, and Scorpio has sort of a life-death kind of thing going on. So it\u2019s woven certainly into my history in this lifetime, but I have a feeling it\u2019s coming from past lives, too, the fact that I have a tendency to have to manifest a transformation in my life, and often in a transformation you have to go through something dying, so yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I want to talk about\u2014we\u2019ll just call it the \u201cPhoenix phenomenon\u201d\u2014and I want to talk about it because I think a lot of times when we\u2019re in the death throes, even though we\u2019ve heard about it, we think, \u201cWell, that renewal, that rising again of the Phoenix that might happen for somebody else, but at this moment, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen for me. I\u2019m out. It\u2019s not happening for me.\u201d And I want to help our listeners and I want to learn more about how we activate that renewal capacity when we can\u2019t see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Well, I think that one of the things I\u2019ve learned in the last few years since taking a real fascination with midlife is the idea of the three stages of any transition you have in your life, and we call it the \u201canatomy of a transition\u201d at our Modern Elder Academy, MEA. And this is based upon rites-of-passage initiation work, Joseph Campbell\u2019s work, William Bridges\u2019s, who wrote the book <\/span>Transitions<\/span><\/i>, work. So there\u2019s these three stages to a transition. If you know these three stages, it does give you some comfort that there are coping mechanisms through the hardest parts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the first stage of any transition that you\u2019re going through\u2014whether that\u2019s a divorce, changing your job, deciding to live in a new place, going through a health diagnosis that\u2019s difficult\u2014is you need to end something, and you need to actually then ideally ritualize that, whether that\u2019s ritualizing that with other people or by yourself, being able to say, \u201cThat period of my life has ended, and I\u2019m ready to move to the next stage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And for the caterpillar, that\u2019s getting ready to plump up as it does for the last two weeks before it actually spins its chrysalis, and then it goes into the chrysalis and the chrysalis stage of life. What I like to now call the \u201cmidlife chrysalis,\u201d not the \u201cmidlife crisis,\u201d is that stage where it\u2019s messy middle, it\u2019s gooey, and in that goo it can feel dark and solitary and confining, and yet that\u2019s where the metamorphosis happens, the transformation happens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the coping mechanism in that second stage of letting go of something and then going in there? And the two things that you really need during that time are social support, no doubt. We need that for all the phases of any transition, but especially when you\u2019re in the messy middle, because in the messy middle, it liquefies. And so you can feel very awkward because of the fact that the ground that you have tread on in the past is no longer there.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so number one is social support helps you to have objectivity, but also have love, and then the other coping mechanism for that second stage is seeing the through line of your life, being able to see the themes and to understand what\u2019s going to happen on the other side of this. Viktor Frankl famously wrote in <\/span>Man\u2019s Search for Meaning <\/span><\/i>about the people who did not make it through the concentration camp. And it was often those who had actually lost a hope and a sense of meaning from this terrible experience of being in the concentration camp.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when the kids in Thailand, the soccer players who got stuck in the cave, in the back of the cavern when the rains came up, and it\u2019s been made into a movie, what the people who saved them had to do was take a rope and take it through the cavern, through all the water that had come up because of the rain. And it\u2019s like that rope that you can understand the through line of your life, the thread that helps you to see where you are and where you might be going. That\u2019s actually how they got the boys out of the cavern is having that rope. We need that rope in our own life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then the third stage of any transition is the beginning of something new. So it\u2019s like, \u201cOK, the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, then it becomes a butterfly,\u201d but when a butterfly actually emerges from the chrysalis, it\u2019s got wet wings and it\u2019s often on the ground before it\u2019s flying. And so a growth mindset, a willingness to be a beginner, a willingness to look awkward, a willingness to laugh at ourselves because a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset means we\u2019re more focused on improving ourselves than proving ourselves. And we\u2019re not trying to win; we\u2019re trying to learn. So long story short is that\u2019s the framework I use in my own life, and it\u2019s the framework we choose to use at MEA when people come focusing on how do they navigate their midlife transitions.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Now you introduced this phrase in <\/span>Learning to Love Midlife<\/span><\/i>, the \u201cTQ,\u201d transitional IQ. Now, that\u2019s very clever. I guess we can have all kinds of intelligences. So you\u2019re describing here what the components are of having a high TQ.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> So the reason\u2014and the reason we need a high TQ, Tami, is because both of my grandparents, both my grandfathers had the same job for 40 years. That\u2019s crazy that both of them had\u2014not the same job. They had their own jobs, but they had their own jobs for 40 years. One lived in Denver, one lived in Southern California. But if you look back in 1960, the average person had in the course of their lifetime three jobs. Today, we have 12 or 13. We also live in a world in which the world is changing faster and faster. So the idea that somehow we don\u2019t have to get smart or wise around mastering transitions is silly. We really need to understand, how do you build your transitional intelligence in order to handle both the changes you make in your life volitionally, and then the ones that are thrust upon you?<\/span><\/p>\n

And so especially for people in midlife, because one of the challenges we have often as we go into our 40s and 50s and 60s, we get calcified a little bit and we get stuck and we feel stuck based upon the mindset we have, our expectations of what we wanted in our lives. And we got to free ourselves from those things. Bren\u00e9 Brown talks about midlife being a time of unraveling, and I asked her, \u201cBren\u00e9, that\u2019s not\u2014I don\u2019t want to unravel. That sounds like you\u2019re losing your mind.\u201d She said, \u201cChip, have you ever looked in the dictionary under the word \u2018ravel\u2019? And something that\u2019s raveled is so tightly wound that you can\u2019t get it undone.\u201d And that\u2019s often how we feel in the middle of our lives. And so to unravel means you create some spaciousness, and in so doing, you create the opportunity for some new growth to happen. And you have to have some faith in this process too, because if you don\u2019t have the faith, then it\u2019s going to be really hard to go into that chrysalis in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I want to talk a little bit about each of the three phases of transition. The first one, because OK, this is over, and what I realized recently in a transition that I\u2019m going through is somebody said to me, \u201cYou haven\u2019t fully accepted, Tami, that your reign in this capacity, R-E-I-G-N, is over. It\u2019s over, period. It\u2019s over, period.\u201d And I stared at that sentence for a long time, and I was like, \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t fully accepted that. No, I have not.\u201d And I thought it sounds a lot easier sometimes to say something\u2019s over, but all of us, 100% of us isn\u2019t with that. And I\u2019m wondering what you\u2019ve learned about that. How do we get all of us to admit this X, Y, Z thing, it\u2019s over?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> I\u2019ll tell you what I did when we took out my prostate seven months ago. I had a prostate removal ritual with a few friends, and partly because I was lamenting the fact that\u2014I won\u2019t go into the gory details of what a prostate does, but there were a lot of bodily functions I was not going to have anymore. And so rather than sort of become comatose to it, instead I had a dinner with some friends and we talked about the value of our prostate in our lives. And that sounds ridiculous, but I think women do it when it comes to menopause more and more. This is not true five or ten years ago as much as it is today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I joined Airbnb after having been 24 years the CEO of my own company, the first two or three months were agony for me because I was reporting to Brian Chesky, the CEO, who was 31. And I was 52, but he was my mentee. I was mentoring him on being a CEO. For me, it was really hard to let go of being the person in charge of the company, even though it wasn\u2019t my company that I\u2019d started, but it was really hard. So I had to have a ritual. I had to have a dinner again with a few friends to say like, OK\u2014we did a little exercise where each of us wanted to let go of something. For me, it was letting go of having to be the CEO, having to be the sage on the stage, and instead learning how to be the guide on the side. So what I did is I wrote a bunch of things on a piece of paper. We talked about it, and then I wrote on a piece of paper some of the character qualities that I needed to let go of if I was going to be successful at Airbnb. And then I also had to think about what I will replace those with. So for example, I am no longer the control addict. I no longer am the person who\u2019s going to get all of the press around the company. I no longer am going to be the one who is managing meetings. And so as I started to get clear about the things that I used to do that I now was going to give up, and I put them on a piece of paper, and then each of us said, \u201cHere\u2019s the things we\u2019re letting go of,\u201d and then we lit the pieces of paper on fire in a little bowl, and then I actually said, \u201cHere\u2019s what I\u2019m replacing it with.\u201d That process was very valuable because it allowed me\u2014a ritual allows you to see that transitional era, that period of time that is before and after.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so from that point forward, I can\u2019t say I was perfect at all those things, but I actually now had embraced them and I had spoken them out loud to other people. So you don\u2019t have to do the exact ritual I\u2019m talking about. We at MEA call this the \u201cgreat midlife edit,\u201d and we think you need to do it maybe once a year. It\u2019s better than resolutions because at the end of the year, let go. Let go. At the end of the year, let go of whatever it is that you\u2019re just ready to let go of, because don\u2019t take that into the New Year.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Why do you call it the \u201cmidlife edit\u201d? You\u2019re editing certain things out, or you\u2019re putting things in as well?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> So the great midlife edit came from some of my scholarship with studying Carl Jung, but also long deep conversations with Richard Rohr. So Richard is an MEA alum. Amazingly at 78 he came to MEA, and he\u2019s on our faculty. He\u2019s teaching at our Santa Fe campus in July. And both of them said that the first half of your life is about accumulating, and the second half of your life is about editing. And one of the key talents that we need to learn in midlife is how to start letting go of the things that are no longer serving us, whether they\u2019re mindsets, identities, roles, a narrative, a story that isn\u2019t serving you anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be able to let go of those and just move on gives you the space for new things to come in, and so I don\u2019t think just letting go alone is enough. I think actually then you say, \u201cI\u2019m going to replace it with such and such, and here\u2019s the habits I\u2019m going to put in place to do that.\u201d But the reason I think why it\u2019s important in midlife is because that\u2019s sort of the era where you actually feel overburdened, and it\u2019s 40s, 50s, 60s especially. No one says a 25-year-old\u2019s downsizing, but you do say a 55-year-old or a 65-year-old is downsizing, and there\u2019s a lot of reasons for that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> In your blog, the <\/span>Wisdom Well<\/span><\/i>, you quote Father Richard Rohr, and you wrote this piece that really got my attention about the dark night of the ego, not the dark night of the soul. And I\u2019m bringing that forward here in terms of this first phase of our transitional wisdom of being able to say, \u201cOK, these things are ending.\u201d And often what\u2019s ending is some ego clinging of some kind, some ego framework, some ego identification. And I love the \u201cdark night of the ego\u201d because so many times I\u2019ve heard people say, \u201cI\u2019m going through a dark night of the soul,\u201d and I\u2019ve had the thought, \u201cOh no, actually they\u2019re just going through a dark night of the ego.\u201d They\u2019re having to let go of some of their big, cool accomplishment stuff or claims to fame or whatever, things that looked good. They\u2019re basically in front of other people; things aren\u2019t looking so great. This isn\u2019t really what St. John of the Cross was talking about at a soul level, bare naked; it\u2019s something else. And I was curious how you came up with that dark night of the ego. I thought it was really brilliant, Chip.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Well, thanks. I looked at my own life. I looked at the times in my life where I felt things were the darkest. And at times it was circumstantial, at times it was, \u201cThis shit\u2019s happening to me,\u201d but a lot of it was really my perspective on it. And it had a lot to do with the things I was attached to, and especially my ego was attached to these things. I think that\u2014gosh, who was it? I can\u2019t remember the person\u2019s name right now, but they said the key things, the \u201cI am\u201d statements that define us up through midlife often is \u201cI am what I do,\u201d \u201cI am what I own,\u201d \u201cI am what others say about me,\u201d and \u201cI am what I control.\u201d And these are \u201cI am\u201d statements that are very egocentric.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I believe that what\u2019s really happening, and Richard Rohr again speaks to this as well, is that there\u2019s a primary operating system change that\u2019s happening around midlife. You\u2019re going from the ego to the soul, and the way I look at it\u2014but no one gives us the new operating instructions for the soul, and so we\u2019re sort of attached to the ego. The metaphor that I use now to think of this is that it\u2019s like dancing in a sort of traditional hetero kind of way where the male is leading the dance, and through most of our first half of our life that is the ego, and the soul is really sort of following in heels and going backwards, and then it\u2019s around midlife that all of a sudden something starts to stir inside of us. And we don\u2019t have words for it often, but having had 4,000 people from 47 countries come to MEA and being there to observe and be an enlightened witness of them over the course of a weeklong workshop, I have seen it over and over again.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what is going on is that the soul is starting to lead the dance, and the ego is a little awkward. The ego is not used to being the one in heels and going backwards, but over time, if the ego can learn to laugh at itself and the soul can actually use the magic of its connection to something much bigger than itself, miraculous things start to happen. Now, that sounds very woo-woo, but I will say that the research on a social science basis in terms of the kinds of transformations people go through often in their 40s, 50s, and 60s around ego to soul, there\u2019s a lot of data on it and research work on it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I just love it because it described my life. I didn\u2019t have language for this. I was going through a very difficult time, a dark night of the ego, in my late 40s. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. My long-term relationship was ending, not by my choice. My African American foster son who was an adult was going to prison wrongfully. My company was running out of money during the Great Recession. I didn\u2019t want to be CEO of that company anymore after running it for 22 years. I lost five friends to suicide, all of them men age 42 to 52. I had suicide ideation myself. And then I had a flatline experience at 47. I had a broken ankle and a bacterial infection in my leg, and I was on a strong antibiotic. And quite frankly, I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. And after giving a speech onstage, signing books, I slumped in my chair, and by the time the paramedics showed up to put me on a gurney and take me to the hospital, that was the first of nine times in 90 minutes that my heart stopped. So they had to get the paddles out, and they paddled me back to life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So do you have to actually die like I did and come back to life\u2014an NDE, near-death experience\u2014to be able to make a transition or a transformation in your life? Of course not, but that one shocked me back into life. It was the classic hotelier\u2019s wake-up call because I didn\u2019t want to be a hotelier anymore. And so one of the good things about having an experience that puts you face-to-face with death is it radically shifts your thinking about how do you want to live your life?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So death is an amazing organizing principle for life, and there\u2019s a bunch of work by Laura Carstensen from the Stanford Center on Longevity that has shown that when people have a shorter amount of time left to live, surprisingly on average, they feel happier. And part of the reason they feel happier is because they\u2019re more in the moment and they\u2019re not focused on the future. Future allows us to mind trip. And so for me, I all of a sudden went from, \u201cOh, future, future,\u201d to like, \u201cOh, no, I\u2019m in this moment. Every single day matters to me.\u201d And it was in that kind of thinking that allowed me to wrestle control\u2014I don\u2019t want to say \u201cwrestle\u201d\u2014but to surrender control from my ego to the soul, because I really felt like my ego had been not dancing very well, not leading very well. Does my ego still want to take over at times? Of course. I have a book coming out on Tuesday, and I want to have it do really well and et cetera. Those things still come up, but I can laugh at it now. And I don\u2019t allow myself to get hijacked by my ego like I used to, or not as much. It still happens, but not as much.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> A couple questions here. When I imagined that a figure dancing backwards in high heels\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Did you ever do that, Tami? I want to just understand\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I\u2019ve worn high heels on Halloween like once or something, and I kicked them off. I would say metaphorically, right here with you, I am definitely dancing backwards in high heels. And my question is, what happens when it comes up and you go, \u201cI\u2019m not sure everything\u2019s going to be OK. Actually, I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s going to be OK. In fact, I think I could fall. I can\u2019t dance very well like this. I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s going to be OK.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Well, I think then the question is like, what\u2019s the biggest fear? What are the top three fears that are\u2026 Are you going to die? Are you going to lose your reputation? Are you going to have a financial meltdown? Are you going to lose a best friend? I think one of the things I\u2019ve learned\u2014I wrote a book called <\/span>Emotional Equations<\/span><\/i>, and one of the key things around anxiety is that it really comes from what we don\u2019t know and what we can\u2019t control. And so bringing to the forefront what it is that we have a fear is really an important piece of settling the anxiety.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I guess what I would say is\u2014so let me use an example. So MEA has a campus in Baja. We are opening a campus in Santa Fe, as you mentioned, a 2,600-acre regenerative horse ranch with two retreat centers on it. We have one retreat center down in Baja, now we\u2019re going to have two on this ranch, and then we have another retreat center in the town of Santa Fe, an old Catholic retreat center in a seminary next to St. John\u2019s College. So we\u2019re growing big-time, and thank god there\u2019s a lot of demand for midlife wisdom schools today, and we\u2019re the first one. But this is the thing, but Tami, I will tell you, when I had my prostate taken out in June and found out I have to stay on this hormone depletion therapy so I have 1% of my normal testosterone, and I\u2019m going to have to do seven and a half weeks of radiation right before the book comes out, right before the ranch opens, I was in the ego freak-out mode of like, \u201cOh my god, I\u2019m going to have the last career I ever have in my life. I\u2019m going to be a public failure, and I\u2019m going to lose all my money,\u201d and et cetera.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I gave the ego some time to reflect on that, because it\u2019s like, \u201cWhat are you fearful about?\u201d And then I really stepped in and just said, \u201cSo how can I reach out for help?\u201d My archetype that defines me is my hero, and the hero has to go out and fucking do it by themselves, and that rugged individualist that was sort of drummed into me by my Marine captain father. And I came to realize like, \u201cMy god, I don\u2019t have to do this by myself.\u201d I can be a little bit more vulnerable in my blog about what I\u2019m going through. I can be more open about saying, \u201cI need your help.\u201d And I can build relationships with people who are going to step up, and they just need a little bit of help on the front end.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I feel so much better now. Oh my gosh, I was really in a dark place six months ago, but if I look back on it, it was really very much ego identified. And it was identified based upon an archetype of how I show up in the world, and I felt like I didn\u2019t have the energy to show up in the way I have historically shown up. So the hero is something that I\u2019ve had to dose down, not get rid of. It\u2019s like I can be the hero occasionally, but I don\u2019t have to have that be my primary archetype. I can be the jester occasionally, et cetera.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I think you\u2019re making such a good point because I think picking up the phone and calling people that we know love us, they love us for who we are, but we\u2019re going to tell them, \u201cI know you think I\u2019m hugely successful in this way or that way, but the truth is this thing, it might not be working as well as I thought it was working and you guys all thought it was working.\u201d And I don\u2019t know, maybe that could be for some people about their relationship or something in their career or something about their money or something like that, and now we\u2019re actually sharing with our friends the real struggle, and it\u2019s like, \u201cIt\u2019s OK for you to know me as this person who\u2019s really struggling, even though you thought so highly about this aspect, and I\u2019m willing to sacrifice that for you to know me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> And it\u2019s beautiful because you open the door for them to be vulnerable too. And I\u2019ve been doing a little bit of work with Dick Schwartz, who I know works with you, and his parts work, IFS. He\u2019s actually on faculty; he\u2019ll be teaching in Santa Fe this spring. And I came to see that I have many parts, but the three that I\u2019ll just talk about for a second are I have Mr. Ambition and Mr. Ambition shows up because that\u2019s really\u2014when I came out as a gay man at 22, the number one thing my dad worried about, other than me getting AIDS, which I came out in 1983 at a time it was like, \u201cWow, not good timing,\u201d was that I would want to be a hairdresser or a flower designer. I was the oldest child in the family, I was the only son, and I\u2019m Stephen Townsend Conley Jr.\u2014chip off the old block. So my dad\u2019s biggest worry was that I wasn\u2019t going to be ambitious, so there\u2019s a part of me that\u2019s just like, the part of me that is the ambitious one, and I get a lot of love and support for that. I am an admiration addict because I want you to love me for my ambition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I have the creative part, and creativity really is something that I was very\u2014I was charmed by my creativity when I was young, and I was very much a loner and a bit of a shy introvert, and I really appreciated that. And yet then as I moved into adolescence, I got this feeling like, \u201cOK, that creative thing, maybe people think I\u2019m gay if they see me as an artist, and so I got to be careful with that creative thing.\u201d But as I came out at 22 and then got into boutique hotels and did all this and started to write and oh my god, those two together, ambition and creativity, like, \u201cWhoa, that\u2019s a potent combination.\u201d But it can be a potent combination still full of ego.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s this other part, and I call this other part the \u201clittle one.\u201d And the little one is just that little boy that\u2014I felt timid, didn\u2019t feel particularly lovable. And that little one quite frankly has been neglected my whole adult life. And so learning how to take these three, Mr. Ambition, creativity, and the little one, and give each one of them a voice and to see that maybe there\u2019s some collaborations that can go on amongst them. And so for me, in my process of the last year, freaking out about what was on my plate at the same time I was dealing with a major health issue, stage III cancer, I had to let the little one speak more. And so the little one ended up speaking through me in my vulnerable <\/span>Wisdom Well<\/span><\/i> daily blog posts, and I\u2019ve got one tomorrow for people who are listening. Go to MEA website or meawisdom.com or chipconley.com. Sign up to subscribe\u2014it\u2019s free\u2014and take a look at my blog post tomorrow because tomorrow\u2019s my last day of radiation.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the blog post tomorrow is, \u201cIs Cancer a Blessing or a Curse?\u201d So it\u2019s freaking my parents out, who are 86, and they\u2019re like, \u201cChip, you are\u2014way too much information.\u201d But I guess there\u2019s a part of me that feels like, \u201cIf I had in my childhood been able to express myself in this way, the little one had a voice\u2026\u201d I grew up in a family where children are seen but not heard, and that was sort of how I lived my life until I became much more extroverted in my teen years. I\u2019m sorry that was long.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> No, first of all, I\u2019m very happy to name these parts of you that, of course, from the outside I could see them. And from the outside, even our friends and everyone who we think we\u2019re suddenly being very confessional with, they know what\u2019s going on.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> They know, exactly.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> But we think we\u2019re being so vulnerable to call and share and say, \u201cI really need social support right now,\u201d for whatever\u2019s going on. People know it anyway. They can sort of smell it, which is\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> What are your parts?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Whoa, whoa, whoa. We\u2019re not going there right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Oh, OK.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Well, to be honest, I\u2019m sorting it out. And I\u2019m in a huge transition, and I think it would just take too long in our conversation for me, and it\u2019s not as tidy as the way you presented it. But I\u2019m definitely working through feeling good when I\u2019m in control, and how do I feel good when I\u2019m not in control, which is why I brought forward the high-heeled female figure dancing backwards. And you said, \u201cWell, you have to admit to yourself what it is you\u2019re afraid of.\u201d Are you afraid of not being alive? I think was the first one you used, of dying, and I thought this is one of the things I want to learn more about from Chip because you had your flatline experience, which you shared with us, and now you\u2019re going through treatment for stage III cancer for a difficult kind of cancer diagnosis. And I\u2019m curious how you\u2019re finding your way to dance backwards in high heels with your current health situation?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> So I\u2019ll take it, I don\u2019t have the blog post for tomorrow right up in front of me, but if I see cancer as a teacher and I don\u2019t have to be the gladiator, the hero who\u2019s going to kill cancer, but instead cancer is in my life for a reason, and the reason it\u2019s in my life is because I\u2019m supposed to learn something from this experience. We run a wisdom school, so I\u2019m a big believer in understanding what wisdom is, and I believe that wisdom is our painful life lessons that are the raw material for our future wisdom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what I look at with cancer is being out of control is how am I supposed to learn from cancer? What are the key lessons? And some of my lessons have been things like I\u2019m a pretty multidimensional person in terms of my interests. I\u2019m not just Mr. Workaholic. I work workaholic hours though, and I have a calling, but I want to reinvest in the multidimensionality of my life, and so that\u2019s one lesson. Another lesson was my body is a rental vehicle, and over time I care more about the inside of that rental vehicle than the outside, but I\u2019m in harmony with my body. My body\u2019s my best friend, and it is the rental vehicle that\u2019s going to take me all the way to my death. And so how am I treating my body a little bit better? Of course, that\u2019s a natural thing that would come from a cancer diagnosis. Another one is learning how to ask for help, and so cancer\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was interesting that Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, had a prostate cancer diagnosis, didn\u2019t tell his bosses\u2014this is not political, this is just sort of interesting socially\u2014and he not only did he not tell his bosses, but then he had some side effects of the radical prostatectomy that led to him being in intensive care in the hospital. And he wasn\u2019t asking for help, and given the position he\u2019s in, maybe he didn\u2019t feel comfortable being public about it, but man, our shame that we have and things around sexuality and whether it\u2019s breast cancer or prostate cancer or ovarian cancer or whatever it is, these are in some cases cancers that strike at the root of our gender relationship. And so when you have your prostate taken out, oh my god, there\u2019s all kinds of things, the side effects of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

All I can say is for myself to be able to be open to all of the emotions that I\u2019m going to feel of having only 1% of my testosterone that I used to have, that can come back once I stop the ADT, but to not have some of the functioning that I used to have, man, these are things that I\u2019ve had to just say, \u201cHow am I supposed to transition my romantic life? How am I supposed to\u201d\u2014and fortunately, I\u2019m in a long-term relationship\u2014but how am I supposed to transition my perspective on masculinity? And it\u2019s been beautiful, and so for me, cancer has been a teacher. I am ready to graduate from this school, but it\u2019s\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Let me ask one clarifying question. When you said, \u201cMy body is my best friend,\u201d because I can imagine that when people have any kind of disease diagnosis of something like that, there\u2019s a feeling that your body has \u201cbetrayed\u201d you, not it\u2019s my best friend. So how\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Or you have betrayed your body. That is where I was\u2014Tami, you\u2019re so good at this. That\u2019s exactly where I was. My diagnosis got me to a place of saying, \u201cMy body\u2019s betraying me,\u201d or then, \u201cOh, I\u2019ve betrayed my body,\u201d as if they\u2019re two different entities.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so to get to a place where I say, \u201cI am at one with my body, and my body and I have a beautiful friendship, relationship, in such ways that I am trying to be thoughtful about how I treat my body,\u201d whether that\u2019s drinking far less or at times not at all, whether that\u2019s the kind of food I put in my body, whether that\u2019s having a regimen of acupuncture and massage. And I don\u2019t run as much as I used to, but I\u2019m just a really avid walker and swimming and there\u2019s all of that. But the one thing I want to say sort of as an adjunct to this is we are living in a culture right now that has the tech bros from Silicon Valley all focused on biohacking, as if somehow our body, if we just do the right things to it like a machine, it will live forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the thing that\u2019s so fascinating about this, Tami, is that the number one variable for living a longer, happier, healthier life based upon Blue Zones research, Harvard, Stanford, et cetera, is how invested are you in your social relationships in your 40s, 50s, and 60s? The people who are living late to 80s, 90s, and 100s are the ones who actually invested in their social relationships in their midlife. And so \u201cillness\u201d starts with the letter <\/span>i<\/span><\/i> and \u201cwellness\u201d starts with the letter <\/span>we<\/span><\/i>\u2014letters <\/span>we<\/span><\/i>. And I deeply believe that that\u2019s another part of the healing process for me is that sense of social wellness and allowing myself to be vulnerable enough and out of control to friends who are there to be my safety net.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not something easy for me to do, that\u2019s for sure. I\u2019m there for other people in their way when they\u2019re going through their stuff, but when it\u2019s for me, I want to go into my little chrysalis, in my little cocoon, and hide away. And I\u2019ve done that this time, too, but I am just trying to break new ground and be that much more open to just saying, \u201cWill you just come and take a nap with me?\u201d Which is what I did yesterday with someone, because I didn\u2019t really want to talk to them, but I actually wanted to just be in bed taking a nap with someone.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Beautiful. I love that, Chip. Now, you shared with me these three phases of a transition, and we talked about ending and now we\u2019re in the goo, for me, in the conversation, the gooey part. I think you\u2019ve done a terrific job, really, of explaining the importance and the research behind social support. And then you said the second factor in getting through the goo is seeing the through line in our life, and you\u2019ve shared a little bit about, by talking about your own parts, finding the through line. And then you asked me, and I was a little bit like\u2014because I\u2019m finding the through line, Chip, I\u2019m finding it. What kinds of questions help people when they\u2019re in the goo find the through lines in their life?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Let me tell a story first, and then we can maybe go to some questions around that. So trying to learn how to let go of the way you\u2019ve done things in the past. If you\u2019re just letting go of it, but not actually replacing with something else, is like the classic person who\u2019s retiring <\/span>from<\/span><\/i> something but not <\/span>to<\/span><\/i> something. And the problem for people who retire from something and not to something is they end up couch potatoes watching, on average in the US, 47 hours of TV a week. So that process of being in transition has got to be, yes, letting go, but also welcoming in.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what I was able to do when I was at Airbnb, when I knew that I couldn\u2019t be the CEO there, I didn\u2019t want to be the CEO, and I didn\u2019t want to be competing with Brian for that role\u2014that\u2019s what he was doing\u2014is when I could finally see the through line of like, \u201cOh, you\u2019ve called me the \u2018modern elder\u2019 here.\u201d That was a gift, someone who\u2019s as curious as they are wise. My role here is to learn how to be a master mentor and to be a \u201cmentern,\u201d a mentor and an intern, not just the person [who\u2019s] Yoda or Dumbledore, whomever, but instead be the person who\u2019s learning as much as he or she is teaching, and wisdom dispenser and seeker.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so when I could actually get to that place of seeing the alchemy of curiosity and wisdom, that lit me up, because all of a sudden my role was not to have my photo on the cover of <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i> magazine. My role was to make sure that these three founders had their photo on that magazine and that when they do their IPO and are ringing the bell that they\u2019re very successful. And Brian, over three years after the IPO went live and during a very difficult time of\u2014Brian Chesky, that youngster who went to Rhode Island School of Design and had no business background at all, he\u2019s still running one of the largest travel public companies in the world, and he\u2019s the only Fortune 500 CEO who has a creative background.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I would just start by saying, how do we look for the thing that takes what we have learned in our lives and allows it to have an evolution into something new? And so one of the questions we need to ask to get there is, clearly, what is the archetype or identity or role that has defined us that would not serve us moving forward? And we have to get rid of that, and we\u2019ve talked about that. But then it\u2019s actually literally doing a bit of a deeper dive of, what is it that\u2019s your gift? The purpose of life is to find your gift, to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. And the meaning of life is to give it away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the exercises we do at MEA is to help people try to find their essence, like what\u2019s the gift? It starts from something that Peter Drucker did for companies. He used to say, \u201cThe most important question any organizational leader can ask is, \u2018What business are we in?\u2019\u201d And ask it five times in a row, with the person who\u2019s answering not being able to answer the same way twice. So we do that same exercise for people and we say, \u201cWhat mastery or gift can you or do you offer?\u201d And you can choose, like if you want to say, \u201cAh, I like the word \u2018mastery.\u2019\u201d So what mastery can you offer? It would be perspective. And do you offer it? It would be like right now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So if you could be asked that same question five times, \u201cWhat mastery can you offer, Tami?\u201d And then you would answer it, and I would say to you, \u201cThank you. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes, open the channel. Be the conduit, not the can-do-it. Let something, be the conduit, come through you. Let me ask you again, Tami, what mastery can you offer?\u201d And I can\u2019t say that by the fifth time you answer that question, you have the light bulb over your head.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I actually\u2014the third time I ever did this exercise, I got to the fifth one saying, \u201cI\u2019m a social alchemist,\u201d and like, whoa, that was it. I\u2019m a mixologist of people. I love mixing people. That\u2019s what MEA is all about, is how do you create the collective effervescence of a cohort coming together? And it\u2019s a potent cocktail. And so it has helped me as a filter to understand how I\u2019m living my life moving forward. So trying to understand your gift, getting it down to some language that allows you to see that, and then to say, \u201cThat\u2019s the flashlight that is going to help you out of this messy middle, this dark place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Because actually what is often the case, and this may be the case for you, is you\u2019re clinging to something that has worked for you all the way up to now, but it may not work for you moving forward. And it\u2019s partly because you\u2019re not using your imagination. And in the chrysalis, the literal biology of it is there\u2019s these imaginal cells that were in the caterpillar that are also in the butterfly. And so it\u2019s the imaginal cells, imagination in the chrysalis, imagination in midlife, that allows you to say like, \u201cOh, OK, I\u2019m letting go of that and now I\u2019m going to go to this.\u201d And it\u2019s not easy, but that\u2019s why the social support\u2019s helpful in that era.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Let me just be dark for a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> That\u2019s fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> People use the butterfly metaphor all the time. At one point I heard, \u201cNot all of the caterpillars who turn into goo make it out as butterflies. Some goo just dissolves into goo and stays goo. Period.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> And that\u2019s a dark thing to learn when you\u2019re studying a metaphor like this. I liked it better when I didn\u2019t understand it that well, and I thought, \u201cEvery single caterpillar comes out as a butterfly.\u201d It\u2019s like, \u201cNo, some don\u2019t make it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> That\u2019s true. So there\u2019s no guarantees in life. The metaphor is helpful as a way, especially when you\u2019re in the most challenging place, which is moving from the ending to the middle, going from caterpillar to chrysalis, that there can be hope. But not all those people in the concentration camp that Viktor Frankl was hanging out with made it to the other side, and again, those who did, from Frankl\u2019s perspective based upon what he wrote in <\/span>Man\u2019s Search for Meaning<\/span><\/i>, were those who were able to find the through line, the hope, and the meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n

So despair equals suffering minus meaning. So suffering is an ever-present part of our life, especially in the first noble truth of Buddhism. And despair and meaning are sort of inversely proportional\u2014yeah, inversely proportional, exactly. So I am not trying to be a Pollyanna here. There are going to be butterflies that never make it out of the chrysalis. There are going to be butterflies that end up on the floor and get squished. So don\u2019t use the metaphor if it doesn\u2019t work for you. At the same time, I do believe the three stages make sense, and for a lot of people who get into that dark place and get stuck in the goo, they are in that second stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Now, when I asked you about TQ, you said, \u201cYeah, is something we\u2019re all going to have to get good at because of the time that we\u2019re living in.\u201d And in your new book, <\/span>Learning to Love Midlife<\/span><\/i>, you define midlife as a really large age range. I think at one point it was between 35 and 75, potentially you could be in the midlife passage. And I thought, \u201cThat\u2019s such a long period of time.\u201d It almost makes it seem like what? That\u2019s like\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> When I was researching the book, I spent a lot of time talking to academics. First of all, midlife as a life stage is so under-researched. There\u2019s just been not a lot of research on it. There\u2019s a lot of research at later life, a lot of research for early life and adolescence, and now emerging adulthood from 18 to 30, but not a ton around midlife. So talking to the scholars around midlife, what people said to me sort of over and over again was, \u201cIf we are living in an era where people are living longer\u201d\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

And let\u2019s be clear, in the US, longevity is in a really big rut right now. We have the same longevity today that we had in 1996. That is not true in the rest of the world. We are pretty much the only country that is at the same level as 1996. The rest of the world is flourishing in terms of its longevity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So if we are living longer on average globally, and the percentage of people who are centenarians in the world is growing fast, it is possible that midlife lasts maybe as long as 75, because a lot of people are going to be full career into their mid-70s. And the 35 is sort of a function of the fact that there\u2019s a growing number of people who are fearful for their jobs being obsolescent because of digital intelligence and technology, but now especially artificial intelligence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So 35 to 75 is a long time, but let me break it up into three pieces of midlife. And again, I worked with academics on this, so Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Yale. 35 to 50 is sort of early midlife. And what\u2019s notable about this early midlife period is it\u2019s a time when you feel a bit overwhelmed. You are in the early stages of maybe feeling some disappointment. You may feel like you are stuck on a treadmill that was not your treadmill; it was your parents\u2019 treadmill. And you are afflicted by success-ism, thinking success will make you happy. And so 35 to 50 is actually a really rough period. The U curve of happiness research, social science research, shows that that\u2019s really the least happy time for adults.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then 50 to 60 is core midlife, in my opinion. Core midlife means you have started to do a major transition. And whether that transition is spiritual or it\u2019s cultural or it\u2019s emotional or it\u2019s career-wise, vocational\u2014physical for sure. Menopause for women often is 45 to 55, but it can be all over that, and perimenopause, all of that, is happening during this era. And so core midlife is a period where you start to realize from 50 to 60 that you\u2019re in the afternoon of your life, as Carl Jung would say. And Carl Jung said, \u201cYou can\u2019t live the afternoon of your life based on the rules of the morning,\u201d and the rules of the morning is maybe early midlife and earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then later midlife, in my opinion, is 60 to 75. And I\u2019m 63, and so I\u2019m in that period. And what\u2019s going on in later midlife is you\u2019re starting to realize you are preparing for your senior years. And who knows what we call those senior years. I\u2019m going to call them \u201csenior years\u201d now because I don\u2019t have a better name for them. But from 75 on, there is some evidence that your happiness starts to plateau and maybe in your 80s it starts to decline. Now, if you talk to the U curve of happiness researchers, they disagree with me. But I see my own parents, so I know that they were at peak level of happiness in their late 70s, and their 80s have been tough because you start being more infirm and things start to break down more. But if you listen to Laura Carstensen at Stanford, she\u2019ll tell you, \u201cHey, again, the shorter amount of time you have left in your life, the more you\u2019re in that moment and you\u2019re not focused on the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my perspective on midlife is that there\u2019s three stages of it, and there\u2019s sort of a general prescription of each. But I\u2019m also a believer in age fluidity. When you\u2019re age fluid, there\u2019s no age or generation that really defines you. You are all the ages you\u2019ve ever been and ever will be, and I sort of like that, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> So in terms of this notion of the midlife chrysalis, from crisis to chrysalis, it\u2019s possible that you could have a midlife chrysalis, going through that experience in each of the three phases, or you could have it multiple times in the phases. I think previously I thought like, \u201cOh, you go through your midlife crisis once,\u201d but after reading your book, <\/span>Learning to Love Midlife<\/span><\/i>, and reflecting on my own life, where I am now, et cetera, I thought, \u201cGod, how many of these chrysalis experiences am I going to go through in my life?\u201d Obviously several.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Bruce Feiler, who wrote the book <\/span>Life Is in the Transitions<\/span><\/i> and is on our MEA faculty, calls that the \u201clifequake,\u201d when you\u2019re going through maybe multiple transitions at once or you\u2019re going through a series of them. And one of them, you might be in the ending period, like a divorce. And another one, you might be in a beginning period where it\u2019s a new career or you\u2019re moved to a new place or you\u2019re an empty nester for the first time. So the reality is each of these three stages are relevant to each kind of transition you\u2019re going through. And when you\u2019re going through multiple transitions at once, it\u2019s a little complicated. But yes, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s all linear.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I do love millennials and Gen Zers who have taught me that the tyranny of the three-stage life that I was sort of brought up with, and you were too, was you learn till you\u2019re 20 or 25, you earn till your 60 or 65, and then you adjourn or retire till you die. No more of that, because let\u2019s take a sabbatical at age 40, if you can afford to. Let\u2019s go back and go to graduate school at 45. Let\u2019s become polyamorous in your marriage at 50. And let\u2019s be open to the idea that you can be an evolutionary being that is constantly learning something new. The number one question we need to ask ourselves is, what in our life are we a beginner at today? And that is a more important question to ask in midlife and beyond than it is even earlier in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> You write beautifully about how you started surfing.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> A question that we need to ask ourselves is, what is it that we know now or have done now that we wish we\u2019d known or done ten years ago? And then once you know that\u2014what is it that I will regret if I don\u2019t learn it or do it now? And at 57, living in Mexico, living in Baja, starting the MEA campus there\u2014I didn\u2019t learn Spanish growing up. I learned French, hence the name Joie de Vivre for my company.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so as I was thinking at 57, \u201cWell, at 67, it\u2019s going to be harder to learn Spanish and harder to learn how to surf,\u201d because I live on a beach where there\u2019s a surf break. \u201cWhy don\u2019t I learn now?\u201d Because anticipated regret is a form of wisdom, and to be able to look out there and say, \u201cAt 67, ten years from now, I will regret if I don\u2019t do this now,\u201d that\u2019s what got me off of my butt and helped me start to learn Spanish and start to learn to surf. I\u2019m not very good at either, but the fact that I started to try is a form of a growth mindset, and we need that. We need curiosity and an openness to new experiences our whole life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Here\u2019s the last thing I want to talk about, Chip, because you mentioned how when we let go and we let die these ego investments and we\u2019re able to make it through the goo, there are these new beginnings, new birth. We could call it our \u201csoul life,\u201d this journey we\u2019ve been talking about from ego to soul. And I\u2019d love to know, here you are, having gone through just recently this huge health travail that you\u2019re in the middle of, when you think of, \u201cThis is what my soul life is, this is what springs forth that is so genuine for me, that\u2019s filled with newness,\u201d what comes up for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> So what comes up for me is something\u2014I mentioned earlier Erickson and \u201cI am my work\u201d and et cetera. What he also said was, \u201cAs we turn to this age, the \u2018I am\u2019 statement is, \u2018I am what survives me.\u2019\u201d That\u2019s what, for a while, my soul was saying to me, \u201cI am what survives me. What will survive me?\u201d But then I had a hard time with that on some level because I was like, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want my name on a building, and I don\u2019t want to feel like there\u2019s an ego attached to legacy, for example.\u201d So the thing that speaks to my soul today is \u201cI am how I serve.\u201d I am how I serve. And I\u2019m not suggesting that has to be somebody else\u2019s \u201cI am\u201d statement. But when I get connected to that language, \u201cI am how I serve,\u201d it allows me to get to a place of humility and to a place of wanting to give back. And that\u2019s when I know my soul feels well adjusted. I have opened up this channel that\u2019s supposed to come through me, and my role here in life is to serve.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you know if you\u2019re on the right path? You feel the goosebumps. You notice people out there that you might not have noticed in the past, because they are a role model for you. You hear something or you\u2019re attracted to something that wouldn\u2019t have been interesting to you in the past. And so for me, I\u2019ve been really fascinated by talking to nurses and teachers who they\u2019re in the serving profession. And I\u2019m a hospitality guy, so of course we were in the serving profession, too. But when someone\u2019s a teacher or a nurse, often it\u2019s a calling for them that came from something really from childhood, and I just love listening to teachers and nurses. If you\u2019d asked me that 15 years ago, I would not have enjoyed that. I would\u2019ve asked the question, \u201cSo how\u2019s that serving me? How is it serving me to listen to teachers and nurses?\u201d And now I just realize that they are my role models. And so I know the goosebumps are the physical reaction to the sense I\u2019m on the right path.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I\u2019ve been speaking with Chip Conley, someone who carries the medicine of the Phoenix, the power of the Phoenix, very high TQ, intelligence to go through all kinds of transitions. He\u2019s the author of the new book, <\/span>Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age<\/span><\/i>. The founder of the Modern Elder Academy. Chip, I always love being with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Thank you, Tami. I love being with you, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> You make my heart swell. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC:<\/b> Well, we learn from each other. You and I have such phenomenally similar stories in certain ways, and so I appreciate that we are on this learning journey together.<\/span><\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> And if you\u2019d like to watch <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> on video and participate in the aftershow Q&A session with our guests, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community featuring award-winning original shows, live classes, community learning, guided meditations, and more with the leading wisdom teachers of our time. Use promo code PODCAST to get your first month free. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-20553","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nMidlife From Crisis To Chrysalis - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Midlife From Crisis To Chrysalis. 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