Encourage Your Brain: Would You Start a Grad Program When You're Supposed to Retire? I Am!

I have a very big birthday coming up, and I've been sharing with my team that I'm having some cognitive dissonance around it, like, am I over the hill? And some wide-ranging emotions, everything from pride over where I am at this point in my life and how much I love the work I get to do and the people that I get to be with, and at the same time, some contracted emotions around, I'm feeling a bit of embarrassment. So in sharing all of this with the team, they all said, yep, that sounds very honest and real and vulnerable. And so I thought I'd go ahead and share that, yes, coming soon is a big birthday. And the funny thing is that at the time that most people would be asking questions like, when are you going to retire? I went off and did something kind of crazy. So a few months ago, I learned about a graduate program that intersects leadership with psychoanalytic theory and organizational change. And as I heard about it, I just thought, oh my gosh, I would be like a kid in a candy store getting to learn about that. So I just got accepted to the Executive Master in Change program with INSEAD. Many of you may be familiar with their reputation as an international business school. And so my program will begin in about 6 months, and I will get to go to Fontainebleau, France, for 9 times every other month, making trips back to France to be able to undertake this master's program. So that's kind of the, the funny irony about the thing that happened to me on the way to my big birthday. And so as I was thinking about it, I thought, you know, it's so appropriate for what I love to do, which is coaching. And coaching is so much about having an expansive mindset or a mindset that just grows and is curious and knows that there is never an ending, ending point in what we can learn. And so for my birthday, I have given myself the gift of learning. And happy to get to share that with you and many of the people that I get to work with on a daily basis. So in case anybody really is wondering how big is the birthday, it's that birthday where you get this little card from the Social Security Administration and qualifies you for Medicare. So most of you in the U.S. will know what that means. So for my birthday, my wish is that you too would give yourself the gift that is going to be most meaningful and most empowering to you and the people that you love and live with and work with.