Michael Clinton on Achieving Your Dreams by Reimagining Your Life

Living a life in full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk, or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode is sponsored by our new video course, how to Publish in the New Millennium. From Scientific Journals to Best Sellers, it's an asynchronous course offering so you can watch it when it's convenient for your schedule. It's based on eight video lessons and provides three hours of material with new concepts, stories and examples, and it includes several attempts at humor. You'll learn about the best ways to submit a manuscript to a peer reviewed journal, the mechanics of book contracting, what publishers are looking for, how to evaluate and negotiate a contract, royalties, advances, copyright and ownership, why to never first submit a manuscript to a publisher when you need an agent and when you don't, and the differences between publishers. You'll learn about ebooks, print on demand, Amazon's CreateSpace and KDP programs and other non traditional approaches to publishing, along with how to tell if a platform is of high quality or not. We do a deep dive into marketing, how to create media kits and what goes into them, along with examples how to create a great Amazon author page, how book signings work, and how to be invited to do library talks and the economics of both, along with developing speaking engagements, promotional tours and being a podcast guest, as well as a number of other publicity aspects. We cover blogging and provide additional resources to help you in crafting your work and making it better. This is a rich, fun and fact filled course that covers everything you need to know from a practical and actionable perspective. It's for anyone wanting to get their written work into the world, be it academia, popular media, or both. Join the Masterclass in Getting Published. To learn more, please visit tinyurl.com getting publishedcourse thanks welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. The pandemic has awakened us to just how fleeting and precious life is, and if you're facing midlife, now is the time to assess your career, lifestyle and relationship goals, to challenge the direction you may have set years ago, and to courageously shape your best life today. This is quite fitting to living your life in full, no matter what your age. And Michael Clinton is the person who not only has done so himself, but now helps others to do so as well. Professionally, Michael is the former president and publishing director of Hearst Magazines and now serves as special media advisor to the Hearst Corporation CEO. He was part of the team responsible for o the Oprah Magazine, the Food Network, HGTV, and in publishing over 20 other magazines including Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. He's also an author and photographer who believes that everyone should strive to live their fullest life possible, particularly in life's second half. An avid traveler, Michael has also experienced 124 countries and has run marathons on seven continents, which really impresses me, man. He's a private population. He's part owner of a vineyard in Argentina. He started a non profit foundation. He holds two master's degrees and still has a long list of life experiences that he plans to tackle. He resides in New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Michael, it's great to have you on the show.

It's so great to be with you and thank you for that lovely introduction. I'm exhausted just hearing this.

Oh, man, me too. Everybody take a breath in the audience. You've accomplished a number of things that I want us to do a little bit of a deep dive and circle back to. But listeners may think with this kind of an intro that you were kind of born with the proverbial silver spoon, but that really wasn't the case, is it?

No, that is absolutely not the case. I came from a very poor working class family, inner city Pittsburgh, no education in family history, no real advantages. And so, you know, it was from a very, very humble beginning that I found my way and found my journey. And, you know, I would, as I say in the book, the linchpin for me was really all about education. And fortunately, I had two parents who were very, even though they were only high school graduates, they, they exposed us to so many great things. Culture, art exhibits, museums, every Friday, the family trip to the library to get books. So, you know, it was some, we had some good influences in that regards.

That's great. So then you were the first in your family to go to college. You went to New York with a whopping 60 bucks in your pocket. And then in just 10 years, you became publisher of GQ magazine, which literally is sitting like 10ft from where I'm sitting right now. Big fan of that, Esquire, et cetera. And you were the youngest, if my research is right, to ever do that, have that position at that time. So tell Us a little bit more about, you know, between the time of leaving with 60 bucks to winding up as being the youngest publisher of gq. How'd you do that?

You know, I came to New York City to pursue a publishing career because I was the publisher of my university newspaper. And I just got very excited and sort of said, this is something I want to do. And so it's true. I arrived with no contacts, no, you know, 60 bucks, literally. And yeah, I mean, I had a couch. I had a couch to sleep on. I had a couch to sleep on for six weeks. And that was sort of my window. And I started doing some NBC News polls and I was doing, you know, some odds and ends until I really landed my first publishing job. And I was just. I had a vision and I had a focus and I had a determination and ambition. And I just knew that this was the right path for me. And so I jumped in headfirst. And yeah, I, in a very call it a short period of time, 10 years or so, did become the youngest publisher of a major magazine in the country with being the publisher of gq. So it was a combination of luck, timing, skills, talent, right place, right time, grabbing the opportunity as they arose. So, yeah, it was really great. It was a really terrific first part of the journey, the career journey.

What a way to start out. Gosh, I mean, the gumption and the grit to be able to do that and then to be able to take the victory lap in that. And now kind of at this point in your life and in your career, to be able to take that probably very satisfying look back to things. And I guess this is maybe a good segue into your book. But before we get into your book, I have to say what a lot of other people I'm gonna give little sampler of what others have said about it. So Michael Sebastian, who I presume is a good friend of yours at Esquire, editor in chief, said about your book, Roar is a delight. The wisdom it offers working adults of all ages is compassionate results driven and eminently actionable. Whether you're making a midlife career change or seeking purpose after retirement, you couldn't pick a better roadmap for your next chapter than Roar. It will teach you how to approach the future not with fear or worry, but with passion and purpose. Kate White, who is former editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, in a New York Times best selling suspense author, said, are you yearning for the best second half of your life ever? Well, here's the secret sauce you've been waiting for. Michael Clinton's Roar is chock full of absolutely terrific real life inspiration, wisdom, strategies to make it finally happen, starting now. And just, just one more. There's a bunch, but this, these are my, my highlight reel for you. Nina Garcia, who's editor in chief of Elle magazine, said, I am not exaggerating when I say this book will change your life. Drawing on Michael's own story, as well as an array of motivational midlife transformations, Roar is the closest thing to having Michael as a life coach and an inspiring reminder that it is never too late to reinvent yourself. So those are all just fantastic and well earned. Kudos, Michael. So the full title of the book is Roar into the Second Half of youf Life Before It's Too Late. And it's been described editorially as an actionable roadmap for anyone at a professional or personal crossroads. And it urges readers to reimagine their lives before a disruption. It's a manual for these times. And you know, it's, it's titled Second Half. But I really found your book to be quite fitting for adults of all ages. What do you think?

Well, yeah, thank you. I mean, it was really targeted to sort of 45 to 65 year olds, but I have been hearing from a lot of 30 somethings and even folks in their 20s who have said, you know, this gives me some great insight into how to build out my life and build out satisfaction and fulfillment. And so that was really great feedback that I was getting from, from young adults as well. But this moment of there is a phenomenal moment happening in our country where the enormous amount of people who are in the 50 plus age breaks now and they are all interested in rewriting the script because they're beginning to realize that if you're 50 and healthy, you have a really good shot of living to 90 or 100 even. And yeah, this is changing everything. And so people are rethinking new careers and new lifestyles and new relationships. It's going to be a very, very different next 10, 20 years as all of this really begins to manifest itself.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I want to circle back to some of those and unpack them. And before we do, let's maybe even just take a look at the back to the title. Roar is actually an acronym of Reimagine, Own, act and Reassess. Can you maybe start off with an unpacking of what those are all about?

Sure. I wanted to make this a very practical book as well as a inspirational book. So the inspiration part is I interviewed 40amazing individuals. I call them the re imagineers. These are people who really, really, completely are shaking it up as they're at midpoint in midlife. But there's an enormous amount of practical advice and how to. And how you can do it to get on the road. So I didn't want it to be some, you know, esoteric academic approach. I really wanted to give people tools. And in fact, a newsletter was just launched, which will be monthly, which will extend those. Those tools.

Excellent.

Yeah.

Good. Yeah, we'll get that in the show. Notes that sign me up. That'll be great.

Thank you. In fact, it's. It launched at the end of January, so it'll be the last. The last week of every month. And so, roar. The first R is reimagine yourself before others do it for you. Because we all know that life takes twists and turns, whether it's being laid off from a job or a spouse leaves you or whatever. And so always be proactive in answering the question, what does your favorite future look like? And how do you always build on that? The O is, you know, own where you are right at this moment. The reality is, if you're 45 or 50, you've lived 25 years as an adult. And I don't call it a midlife crisis. I call it midlife awakening. Because you know a lot about yourself at this point. Right? So how do you build off of what you've learned about yourself? So own where you are, own where you came from, own your health numbers, own your wealth numbers. Own that's a tough assignment for a lot of people, but you have to dig deep before you can move forward. A is the action plan, and there's a part in the book around a formula that I call life layering, which has been a formula I've used for 25 years and a very successful way for people to build on an action plan. And the final R is reassess your relationships, because it's the people around you who are going to be sort of the facilitators to help you get to where you want to go, whether it's going back to school in your 50s or leaving a career and launching a new one or starting an entrepreneurial, you know, new kind of business. You need support from your family, your spouse, your kids, your friends in order to, you know, really make that. Make that dream come true. So that's the acronym.

Got it. So in addition to those stories, which really, it's sort of like, you know, thinking of it, like, with a sports analogy of having the score but also having the color commentary. You've got the tools which might be kind of, you know, analogous to the score, but then the stories really are, you know, these folks that have done what you're talking about and you've kind of aggregated and associated and analyzed them in a way that I think, you know, makes into this roar model. But you also kind of quant too. You hired Qualtrics research and did a survey of hundreds of working adults to kind of see, you know, kind of what's what with that too. What, what were some of the key findings from that?

Yeah, no, we did a swath across the country. We had about 600 plus respondents from all different backgrounds and educational levels, race and gender, et cetera. To sort of get a sense snapshot is what is on the minds of people in mid, mid career. You know, there were some interesting findings. One of the most interesting findings for me was 76% of people said if they could redo something in their life, they would. And there was then it was the only question in the survey that had a write in aspect to it, which, what is it that you would change? And 40% of them said, I would rethink my marriage.

Wow.

Yeah. Would I marry the same person? Would I change my marriage in a different kind of way? It was a big, that was the big number one. The number two was I would have rethought more about my education to maybe give me more opportunity. But what I like to say is if you're 50, you can go back to school and you can relearn something and in multiple years you can launch a whole career. One of the interviews in the book was a woman who was 52 who decided she wanted to become a medical doctor. She was a book editor who would study English in college. And she went on the journey and she tells her story. She's now in her early 60s, she's a doctor. And she said, I can spend the next 20, 25 years practicing medicine and it doesn't have to be a 50 year career, it can be a 20 year career. And I think that's really the, you know, people stop and put limits on themselves because they say, well, I'm too old and I can't go back to school. And that's just not true. And by the way, there's an enormous amount of money available for people. This particular woman had her whole medical education paid for through, you know, looking up scholarships and fellowships and things of that nature. So there's really no excuse. There's Lots of pathways to get there if you really want it.

I so agree. I remember there's a psychologist who started off as a journalist, and she had been writing for decade, 15 years, I forget how long. And she sort of had this itch she wanted to scratch of going back to school and get a PhD in clinical psychology. And most of her friends were a little bit naysayer and, you know, saying, well, you know, my gosh, you'll be 45 or whatever it was, you know, by the time you graduate. And she said, you know, I'm going to be 45 anyway, you know, so I might as well do what I want to do and take those paths. And to your point about the data speaking to, like, relationships, I mean, while at some level it's sort of, you know, it's shocking and sad, but, you know, I'm a clinical psychologist, work with lots of couples that had issues, you know, and sometimes worked out and sometimes didn't work out. But there's a book, oh, gosh. Scott Connolly wrote called the Algebra of Happiness, and in it he focuses on life satisfaction. Really does oftentimes boil down to who you do partner up with. And we think about divorce rates. Divorce rates are what, plus or minus around 50%. But second marriages can be even higher. So I totally see and agree with. While it might seem shocking when you kind of look under the hood of that, it does make a lot of sense. And then for people to say, you know, I'm not done yet to have that horizon of, you know, not kind of drifting off on the iceberg, you know, and setting sail that way in a negative way. So that's great. And, you know, and I have to say, too, one of the things reading your book really resonated with me was that where I'm at in my life. So this will be a little personal psychotherapy session, Michael, for you to do with me, but I really dislike the word retirement. And with our life circumstances and situations, which I won't go into, it was sort of like I left what I was primarily doing, and now I'm kind of doing what I enjoy doing. And people said, oh, you retired? And it's sort of like, well, you know, no, but you, you don't like that word either. And you say rewire. Can you say more about that? And yeah, sure.

I mean, retire is a toxic word because first of all, retirement is a false construct that was created in the 1930s to, you know, move people out of the system to bring in younger, the, the younger people into jobs. And you Know, at the time, life expectancy in around 1940 was in the low 60s. So, you know, people would sort of quote, retire the concept that we know, and they wouldn't live much longer. They would then pass on. And what has happened is that construct moved through the decades, but our life expectancies got longer and longer and continue to get longer. Even with the dip in the pandemic. The life expectancies now are in the late 70s. If you retire at 62, you've got 15 years of that life. But more importantly, people are living. More and more people are living to be well over 77. So you could have a very long period post traditional, quote, retirement. So I say Rewire at 62, 63. Pick a number, find out what your next gig is going to be. What do you want to do? Do you want. I went back to school. You mentioned I had a second master's. I did a second master's degree in my 60s because of a topic I wanted to spend time on. Go back to school, you can take courses, you can start a new business, you can create a new work model within your company because people want to retain older employees because of their skills. Use your imagination to say, you know, I don't want to play the proverbial golf game for the next 20 plus years. I want to have a more fulfilling experience. And what can that be? It's very personal.

Yeah. In an upcoming episode, I'm going to have Morgan Housel on. He wrote the Psychology of Money. And again, I think he would be a kindred spirit to you and I and maybe a number of listeners in the show. He had a quote in the book where he talked about, like, most able bodied, smart people wake up most days and kind of think to themselves, you know, I want to do good work today. I want to put my brain to work. I want to put my muscles to work. You know, I have things to offer. I want to be, you know, productive and in society. And it's not just, again, kind of being put out to pasture from the, you know, the historic context that you drew. So I really want to emphasize and underline that.

You know, I would add too, one of the things that is an interesting statistic. And not everyone, of course, has this because we still live in a country where there's a lot of inequity and inequality, but the baby boomer generation over the next 20 years will have the largest generational transfer of wealth in the history of the world. $60 trillion worth of assets. And, you know, that's all Assets all in. And so what I say to that group, if you're fortunate enough to have accumulated assets over a lifetime, is, what are you going to do with all that money? I mean, why don't you put it to work? Why don't you put it to work? And having social impact and in creating, you know, your passion programs that you can really contribute to to help solve some of the issues, whatever your. Your issue might be, don't be obsessed with just passing that money on to your. Your kids. You know, use your clout, use your leverage. I like to say, go back to your activist roots. The boomers were the original activists.

Yeah.

You know, they protested against Vietnam, they marched in the streets, they embraced, you know, Earth Day, they embrace civil rights and women's rights, et cetera. I mean, become the activists again. There you started out and put some of that money to work because there's a huge opportunity there for a very dynamic way to live another chapter.

And is that like what you've done in your own personal life with your foundation?

Well, certainly the foundation that we started 12 years ago was called Circle of Generosity, and our goal was to grant random acts of kindness to individuals and families in need. In a desperate moment, we just funded. We just gave two grants to two families who lost everything in the Colorado fires that just happened, and they literally lost everything. And so we gave two grants to them. We work with people who've had disaster hit or, you know, had a bad turn and fundamentals. We, in the last year, we've given over $100,000 in food insecurity to food kitchens and to, you know, as you know, during COVID a lot of people lost their jobs. And so food insecurity has been a big initiative of ours. But, yeah, so. And this master's that I went back to school to get was in nonprofit philanthropy. So it's an area where I personally am trying to say, you know, how can I consistently give back in any way, shape or form?

That's great. And you've. Let's maybe double click on this because you've kind of. I would kind of classify you as sort of like having kind of three different careers. I mean, and you've been successful in all of them. And a lot of people, like, have now started to call this. I wrote a piece in LinkedIn a while back called on the Portfolio Career, and April Renney has a whole chapter in her book Flux on and Portfolio Portfolio Careers. So tell us about yours and dig down into that.

Well, well, my, you know, I did have a 40 year magazine publishing career. So I was probably unusual in that I was, you know, as I continued to have success in the industry, I stayed in the industry. I ultimately became chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America. And so I was very involved in the industry in lots of different ways. So I was probably a bit unique in that. But in the book, this concept of life layering that I mentioned earlier was, how do we add layers to our lives without giving up other layers to make ourselves have a fuller and a more enriched life? I would spend a few minutes explaining what that means about life layering. When I was 39 years old, I had a very successful career. I had a wonderful family life. But I thought that I was the most boring human being on the planet.

I doubt that.

All I was doing was working. It was like one of those syndromes. Right, right. And I said to myself, the classic thing, I gotta get a life. So when I turned 40, I decided to take a flying lesson because it was a boyhood dream and also go to Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa with a group of friends and climb to the top of the mountain. And I had this. I have an adventure streak in me. And I decided that my 40s were going to become my adventure years. So I added this layer where I did once a year, we did a trip, a group of friends, we went to some exotic place. We went mountain climbing and hiking and skiing and all those kinds of things. And I've been doing that adventure layer now for, you know, 25 years. And that included the running, the marathons on all seven continents and including Antarctica. And I have this incredibly rich layer of adventure travel and experiences that was on top of my career life. And then in my 50s, I added what I called my creative layer, because I took all of my photography, which I had done on all these adventure trips, and I ended up having some photography shows, and I ended up publishing a book of. Had a book of photography published, which has turned into eight books of photography that the publisher has published.

Wonderful.

And so my. My creative layer was on top of adventure, on top of career, et cetera. So now I've got this big, delicious layer cake of all these things. Yeah. And, you know, and I say to people, you know, I didn't do all this stuff in a year or two. I've done all this stuff in a lifetime. So pick a layer. Pick something that excites you. Really dig deep into it. Layer it onto your life. Make it a lifelong pursuit. The beauty about creativity is you can do it for your entire Life, there's no time stamp on it. Continue experimenting in writing or painting or photography or whatever your creative thing is and build a layer on your life. And so what happens, Chris, is the perception is that I've got this extraordinarily multifaceted life, which is true, but the life layering process is what got me there. And so I share a lot of the logistics, if you will, is how you can do it. And you can do it at any age, you can do it at 30, you can do it at 80.

Yeah, that chapter really an aspect really resonated with me. I really liked that. And I can't imagine you just said that you thought you had a boring life, you know, and man, did you turn that around with the things that you've done. Did it take, was it, were there aspects of any anxiety or trepidation with doing that? Like, holy smokes, what have I gotten myself into? Or what was it emotionally experientially like for you in flipping that switch and starting this layering process?

Yeah, no, thank you. I think, first of all, I've always been very proactive as a human being. So I think that's a, a nice character trait for people to have. Yeah, but you know, one of the things is you have to do the work to think about what is it that really excites you, that becomes a very individual thing. Because for me it was adventure travel and adventuring. But that's not for everybody. So do the work. All, all of these reimagineers that I interviewed, they spent one to two years really thinking about what was going to bring them satisfaction and fulfillment. And you notice I didn't say happiness, I said satisfaction and fulfillment, which brings, brings, you know, you the happiness that you want. And so you have to do the work. I mean, it's really because people always say, well, where do I start? I say, well, A, you got to do the work and B, why don't you start by going back to your young self and asking yourself, what did you leave on the shelf? What did you leave on the shelf in your younger life that you might have wanted to pursue but left on the shelf that was creative or career or something of that, of that, if you see what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, I did. In the non profit work that, that I've been involved with a lot of times people sort of have that same kind of hesitation of, you know, I'm, I'm too busy, I'm too old, I'm too young, you know, I'll wait, I'll Wait until I graduate, until I get married, until I get divorced, until, you know, I refer to it as. Because from a kind of a medical genre, I refer to it as the pox of the intellectual untils. You know, people are plagued with this, oftentimes that, until this or until that. And then all of a sudden you kind of, you know, the clocks run out. You know, there's not. Not quite that time.

So, yeah, I'm going to tell you about a great book that I use as a reference in in Roar, which was a book written called the Five Regrets of the Dying, which has got a very somber title. But it was a nurse, a hospice nurse who listened to people at the end of their lives and she aggregated it into five categories and exactly what you just said. People keep putting things off, putting things off, putting things off. And then all of a sudden they're. They're at the end and they say, why shouldn't I have? I should have, you know, done that sooner. The number one one that I liked was, I wish I had been more true to myself.

Wow.

And do things that were right for myself. I apologize for my beautiful Vi Schla barking in the background.

This is not npr. This is a conversation amongst friends. So no worries. That's fantastic. Well, just the whole aspect of these things, I also start. I'm seeing this trend and theme in our conversation that's also in the book, which is, I would imagine with the adventure travel that, you know, the fact that, you know, you're a marathoner and stay in good, you know, healthy condition makes, you know, whatever kinds of challenging adventure travels, mountain climbing or skiing or whatever, you know, kind of all the easier. And, you know, to the point of regrets, not everybody, like you said just now, like, not everybody want, maybe wants to do these kinds of things, but whatever the kinds of things are, oftentimes they don't require, you know, big fat checkbook or winning the lottery or anything. And just it's that initial getting over, getting past, getting through that. I think your book is very helpful and inspirational in being able to do that. Does this kind of like have a carryover too? You talk about in the book about reimagining yourself. Is that what we're talking about? Or is there another aspect to that that we haven't discussed yet?

Yeah, no, I think that is correct because I think that reimagining becomes a lifelong process. It's not a one off or a two off. Think about if you become an empty nester and your kids have left and all of A sudden you're sort of sitting there saying, now what am I going to do? That is a reimagination process. And the reimagination process, there are natural life moments that, that create that, like being an empty master or, you know, leaving your first career. Those are natural things. Or you might have gone through, you know, a health crisis, or you might have gone through a divorce, or you might have gone through a natural disaster. And, you know, those things all are things that happen to you. But I like to say that you should be rethinking constantly where you want to go. And, you know, everyone knows in their mind when there is something that is really gnawing at them, where they know they need to reimagine and move on to another place in one way, shape or form. And you mentioned it at the top of the conversation. The pandemic, I think, has really amplified that because we've all been so introspective and we've all been so isolated from each other and we've all been so working from home. And it creates. It's created a lot of rethink that I think people. And rethink means reimagine. Am I living in the right town? Am I in the same right company or the right career or with the right person or all those things?

Yeah, it's. It's sort of caused this whole kind of simultaneous universal looking at these kinds of things. Yeah, you know, my wife and I did. We're in our 60s. Our kids did. They're in their 20s, you know, and regardless of different life experiences and, you know, circumstances and stuff, I think, you know, everybody has kind of taken that, you know, that, that breath and that existential pause to take a look at these kinds of things. So, you know, and I think you've tapped into a vein that I think other people are also interested in. I did a crazy thing a few years ago with Jesse Itzler, who, like, has this whole life resume kind of thing going on where he rents a mountain for a weekend and people climb up and down it to the, to the tally. You would love this, if you haven't already done it, to the tally of 29,029ft, the height of Everest. So, yeah, and in the midst of it, you know, you're having conversations with other people. He has, you know, like, really engaging speakers. It's very healthy, clean eating and food. You can get a massage, you know, kind of anytime that you. That you want. And it's. But it's, you know, it's sort of like this, you know, challenging yourself and kind of getting out of your comfort zone and growing. But there's also people like, you know, like Chip Conley and Modern Elder, you know. Yeah, it's a perfect, you know, kind of. I think people like you and Chip and Jesse are looking at these kinds of things. So you, in your book, you have a colleague who, David Carey, who talked about a year of intellectual tourism. I just loved that. Can you. Can you share that with our listeners?

Yeah. He, you know, was in his late 50s and he wanted to rewire. He had also been a magazine executive for many years, very successful. And he. The time clock on him was in his brain that he was, you know, ready to reimagine, and he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do. So he had this notion of a year of intellectual tourism where he was going to go and do different seminars and maybe go to different conferences and maybe. And he landed on something at Harvard called the Advanced Leadership Course, and he went to that. And it is designed for people who are at this point in their lives to rethink who they might want to be. And by the way, many state universities have these programs, too. It's not. You don't have to go to Harvard. You can go to the University of Nevada in Reno, you can go to University of Minnesota, you can go to Notre Dame. You know, there. There's a 401C3 called the Nexcel Collaborative, and they sort of have the list of schools who do this. And you can go and spend a term a year just sort of helping them. They help you mine your own self. You know, what are you good at? What do you want to do next? What are you passionate about? And so he did that program and it left him. It took him onto a journey of focusing on ESG and other kinds of social impact programs. And so it's a great. It can be formalized like that or it can be informal with just, you know, I always say to people, talk to your. Talk to your family and friends. Ask your family and friends, what do you think I'm good at? What do you think I'm best at? And how do you then take that and maybe turn it into something. There's a great story in the book of a woman who was an elementary school teacher for her whole career, and everyone kept telling her she was the funniest person they knew. And her daughter finally said, let's go to an open mic session in Atlanta. And she was. She said, I don't even know what that means. And she went to a comedy club open mic session. She was 55, 56. And she said she just got up on stage and she started riffing. And she got phenomenal reaction. She ended up taking comedy classes, hired a comedy coach, and she now her name is Patricia Forehand, and she does comedy acts all over the southeast where she lives. And so she became a comedian in her late 50s. But it was her family and friends that kept saying to her, you're so funny, you should do something with that. And there you go.

I love that. That is so great. And imagine the anxiety and gumption to put yourself out there and do something like that is just wonderful. So you, you also talk about in the book knowing your numbers, you've kind of made reference to it here too. I want to dig into that. I, you know, there's, I think there used to be like a Charles Schwab commercial or something of like, what's your number? And people were walking around in the commercial, you know, with some digital, you know, set of numbers, you know, ticking above their head. And you do, you know, obviously there's finances to this aspect of it too. But you also talk about maybe some that are more kind of to, to a person. So what are those? Not necessarily what are the actual numeric numbers, but what are the kinds of things that you recommend people take a look at in addition to finance?

Well, the first thing is it truism when we say if you have your health, you have everything, right? And I hate to pick on my gender, but men tend to be oftentimes overlooked issues that create health problems. And it can be something as basic as your blood pressure, your heart rate. You know, I'm, I'm shocked when I asked the average 50 year old what's your blood pressure? And I have no clue. And you know, also just taking care, like I've had skin cancer twice. And so, you know, you have to pay attention to things that are on your skin. And you know, many men go, yeah, you know, it's just a little bump. Well, a little bump can become a melanoma, which can lead to, quite honestly, death. So, you know, fundamentals, your numbers, your health numbers, because all of that is sort of the table stakes for having a productive life. You know, the other thing, of course, is you mentioned finances, especially since longevity. And we're all going to hopefully live long, healthy lives. How are we going to fund that long, healthy life? You have to think about that and really do the work to figure out. Now, most financial advisors will take you to 90 when they're doing the analysis. And so what does it look like for you and, or your family, you and your spouse, your partner, whatever. So that's important. And then the other number which I talk about is the final number because we're all going to have a final number whether we like it or not. And you know, what are you doing to prepare yourself for it? I mean, do you have, it's amazing to me, I'll meet 60, 60 year olds and they don't have a will, you know, or, you know, who's your, what is your wish? Do you want a do not resuscitate or do you want to be kept alive at all costs? You know, who has your power of attorney, who has your power of health proxy? There, there's a lot of people who don't like to think about it because, you know, it's not a, you know, exciting subject. You have to prepare, you have to prepare yourself for that final number. What are your, what are your wishes? You know, we lost my mother. She was 89. She died a couple of weeks before the pandemic lockdown. She fell, she died in her sleep, which was actually her, her reimagined wish for herself. And you know, her wish was that we spread, you know, her ashes in New Mexico. She loved Santa Fe as well. But, you know, we were able to honor her because she told us what she wanted. So do, do the work. And that's all around the numbers.

That's good. You, you also talk about maybe this is a good segue, like writing your own eulogy. I did a piece for LinkedIn a while back called Ask Yourself How Long have I Got? And in doing my research on it, Kevin Kelly, who you probably know from Wired and elsewhere, was on this American Life. And he talked about his friend Stuart Brand, also well known whole earth catalog, etc. And Stuart talked about, I don't know when he talked about this and actually also part of the obviously long now famous foundation, talked about thinking about projects and the projects that he would engage with. He felt like if he was going to do almost kind of universally, no matter what the project was, an engineering project, a writing project or whatever project would take about five years. So he thought, you know, how many five years. Like with Kevin Kelly, there's like Kevin has like a freaking calculator on his computer that says he did the math of like saying, well, epidemiologically in my family I should probably live to age X and therefore I'm age Y right now. So what's the Z delta? Between those two numbers. And I thought, oh, that's kind of a morbid way to think about it. But, you know, you also, again, you don't want the clock to run out. So for thinking about that with, you know, your own person's own circumstances and thinking about the Stewart brand model of it takes about five years, I kind of combine those in my head of thinking about when something does come along, you know, how much, you know, it's sort of like the Derek Sivers thing of, you know, it's either a hell yes or it's no. But it's also thinking about, you know, making that kind of commitment to, you know, having the time now, hopefully for most folks to kind of go deep, you know, go wide, whatever it might be, into projects and saying, okay, I've probably got 10 more projects, 20 more projects, 30 more projects that I can commit myself to. You know, I think is a real good way to think about it. But having said all that, I want to circle back to like, your, your point about writing your own eulogy. I think those things kind of overlap. But can you say more about that?

Yeah, yeah, no, I think, you know, I always say to people, here's a great exercise. You know, go to 90 and work. What, what have you done? What have you accomplished? What is your legacy? What is your contribution? What do you want people to have said about you? And that sort of pegs a future moment where you can say, if you're 50 or you're 60, okay, I've got 30, 40 years. What do I want to accomplish in my life? And rid yourself of this notion of you're on the big wind down. I like to say you're on the big wind up. You know, rid yourself. Yeah, rid yourself of that notion of age appropriate and be person appropriate. I mean, we all know people are becoming parents for the first time at 50. They're making those choices and, you know, they're launching businesses at 60, 65 or older. You know, go for it and, you know, really think about it. But what's, what's your, what's your end game? What's. What do you want people to have said about you? You're not just your, your family and your children, your friends, but your community at large. And so work towards, work towards that end. It's really a great. And, you know, you mentioned the projects. You know, Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to master something. You know, I use the life layering concept as the way to build on that project. I always have, you know, multiple Things out there that I want to continue to do on my existing layers, you know, in particular, because I've got half a dozen layers now that I've been working since, you know, I'm in my 30s.

I love that. And you know, too, all of those things, even though, like, maybe at a certain point in time might seem very specific and, and looking at them in aggregate might all seem very disparate, but when you put them all together, they make Michael Clinton and they inform you about what you can do and running, you know, marathons in Antarctica and, you know, all these kinds of things. So I think people need to, you know, it is kind of nice to periodically do that list little satisfying look back, you know, in saying, okay, well, I don't think I can do this. And then maybe if you look back and you go, well, oh, actually I did, I did do something like that before, and I think, you know, that was kind of fun and maybe I want to revisit that. And you've also made.

So one of the.

Go ahead.

As you say, one of the tools on that that I write about in the book is I ask, go and ask 12 people, family and friends, to give you five words that describe you and then do the cross check and, you know, see how many. Because we all have a number, a word that we like to say. My word that I like for myself is generous. I want to be viewed as generous of my time, my spirit, my money, my. All the above. And When I asked 12 people, nine of them said generous. And I was like, bingo. Yeah, because sometimes our own self perception is off.

Right?

Right. I was like, okay, that works for me. You know, that was the number one response, which means I was putting out there the notion of being generous and generosity and all of its, all of its forms. And you know, that is also a great way people say, well, how do I find meaning? And I say, well, pick a word that's important to you. Like for me, it's generous. Somebody else it might be empathy. Somebody else it might be, you know, whatever your word is. And then build, Build your. Your interface with people in the universe around that word. And that will create the meaning for you, because it will mine what's important to you.

That's great. I know I'm being cognizant of. You've got a hard stop. I have just a couple of other things if you don't mind. Are you good for time?

Yeah, I just, I said 12. 10 was probably, probably a maybe another minute.

Okay, well, so I just, maybe to. To Wrap up with you write about and you've also mentioned about age being a social justice issue and you know, like maybe the battle cry is for each of us as individuals to like, you know, work our own against our own self imposed ageism or that of others and be, you know, focused more towards this growthism. And I loved how you, you gave examples of like Sting and Bruce Wayne Springsteen and Lenny Kravitz and Jennifer Lopez. But can you speak to that, to the, the social justice aspect and you know, regardless. Yeah. People's age.

Yeah, well, you know, our culture is ageist and it has been. I would, you know, say that the boomers also, you know, were the ones who created ageism because of the youth culture that they created, you know, way back when. So it's ironic come full circle, right?

Yeah.

They were partially responsible and all of brands and marketing and imagery always built around youth culture. And of course now with the cohort of the huge amount of people who are in that the age group, you know, ageism is something now that we're confronting and they're going to confront and there are, there's a lot being written on this, on this subject, you know, that are, is going to, is going to change. So here's an amazing piece of image. The Golden Girls. The Golden Girls, the characters in the television show were in their 50s. Now take a look in your image. I mean obviously not, obviously not the mother, but they were all presented in a very old context.

Yeah.

So now, now think about the, the reboot of Sex and the City and the current actresses who are in that. They're all in their 50s. That is, and so that's great. That's just the juxtaposition of what we've done with, with cultural images. And so when I mentioned Jennifer Lopez or Sting or Lenny Kravitz or whomever, we're creating these new role models that the people are creating new role models that are going to serve not just the other boomers, but serve the next generations of what's possible.

That's great. Well, maybe as a way to wrap up. I know from researching you that at 70 year old you plan on running the Tenzing Hillary Everest marathon and at 80 you're going to do Wainwright's coast to coast walk of 182 miles. Of course you are, Michael. But what, what's, what's. Tell us what else is on on that list? What's next?

And well, you know, it's interesting. Thank you. So, so obviously that is a part of my life layering and you know, that is just going to be a build on that.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And so, you know, that's happening. And, you know, philanthropy, certainly, I'm really interested in the benefit corporation world, which is a social purpose business that allows you to both take profit and give back. And so, you know, I'm looking at that particular, particular space in terms of what might I do from an entrepreneurial standpoint. I'm going to build out Roar. I'm going to build out excellent newsletters and courses and seminars, and, you know, that's going to be something that I can do, you know, for the rest of my life.

Wonderful.

So. And then I'll just keep. I'll keep mining the layers.

That's great. So you mentioned, like, the nine out of 12 people, you know, categorize you as being generous, and I would, I would add myself to that list of that. You've been very generous with your time today. I appreciate our conversation. Very generous with the insights with your book and the stories and the research that you've done to do that. For listeners in the audience that want to get this newsletter, want to get your book, want to connect, want to be a part of the Roar world and the roar enthusiasts, what are some of the best ways to do that? And we'll put that in the show notes.

Yeah, thanks. Well, the book is in paperback, paper form, hardbound paper book, kindle and audible. RoarByMichaelClinton.com is the website where you can sign up for the. For the newsletter. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter, Rohr has a handle on Facebook. But yeah, if you want to become a part of the community, go on to roarbymichaelclinton.com and sign up for the newsletter.

Super. Great. We'll get all that put into the show notes. So again, my underlining, my personal thanks and gratitude for the time that you had with us today, and look forward to what comes next and seeing those next layers.

Thanks, Chris. I enjoyed the conversation so much and I'm always around. If I can help in any other

way, that'll be great. Take care, Michael. All right.

All the best. Bye.

Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot LLC. Assistant Producer, Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien Executive Producer and Host, Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website, A lifeinfull for show Notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information uses only and does not constitute the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical or psychological advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast cast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks and until next time.