Aging - Short bites. Episode #5. Take-aways

As we come to the end of the hour, we could, you know, spend hours, and there were so many other questions, and we might do a follow-up actually. But I'd like to end this conversation the way it began, with a tour de table. And so one of the premises of this podcast is that there's too much talking and not enough doing. And so what I'd like to offer is to pass the mic and tell us what you've heard you heard today that will inspire you to start doing something differently than the way you did it prior to this conversation, or just share something that we haven't talked about, or something that you'd like to leave the listeners and viewers with. And I'm gonna start with my own takeaways to give you guys a moment to collect your thoughts. So I heard two things that I found really interesting. Intriguing and interesting. The first one is this idea of self-fulfilling prophecy, which— so age discrimination in a way is the experience that we have about age discrimination is based on the narrative and the story that we tell about who we think we are. And that's definitely— I want to revisit my own narrative. And as I shared earlier, the vision that I have for aging is based on my parents, my grandparents, et cetera. And maybe that needs to be reconsidered, because after all, things have changed. So that's number 1. Number 2, I almost had an aha moment because, as we all know, the world is getting very overwhelming with, you know, a vast amount of information and data, and you can spend a lifetime looking for data. And that can be— that can create paralysis where, you know, you don't know, should I be doing this or that? And then you'll find the evidence based on what you believe. And if acquiring data is no longer the skill set that one needs to make sense of the world and to go about in the world, and what instead we need is this capacity and ability to process change, then the entire boomer generation has something that the young generation don't have, which is tapping into their intuition. For those, for the baby boomers, who recognize that we're overwhelmed with data, that data is no longer the essential element to make the right decision because there's conflicting information, but it's actually tapping into our intuition and trusting this intuition, then I completely believe that there is within the boomer generation an amazing talent. And I started this conversation recognizing that they had an easy life and they were kind of not in tune with the new generation, the climate change, and, you know, if you look at who's in power. Now I'm leaving the conversation with this feeling that some of those baby boomers who are recognizing their intuition can actually change the world.

So—

oh, we're hearing an interesting noise. Oh, it's gone. So they can actually change the world. That was my last sentence, and that's my takeaway. So thank you so much for this insightful discussion. Would you like to go, Donna?

Sure.

Well, it's been really wonderful listening to everybody, and I love the idea of presence. I love the idea of maturity, and I love the idea of reality that Linda's bringing forward. You know, it's not that it's imagined. These are very real issues that older people face, that ageism does exist. But for me, my takeaway is that I will continue on my track, which is to continue to create opportunities for people in the baby boomer and Gen X age group. Because if the opportunities are, you know, if it's challenging to find those opportunities in the corporate world, and those are in fact shrinking, and in fact, in the research that I did when I did my TED, 25% of new entrepreneurial ventures are started by people 50 and older, that it just reinforces for me to stay on this track and to bring actual value and employment to people who could use it. And then to take that environment and also use it as an opportunity to mentor younger people so that we continue to improve the conversation where they understand the relevancy of a wiser, older mentor employer where our skills can be melded, our maturity and let's say their technology.

Thank you, Donna. Jim?

First of all, it's really been an honor to sit in on this, so thank you everyone for this conversation. I love that Linda brought up narratives because our work is about helping people identify the subconscious narrative that's running their life without them knowing it. Uh, Bruce Lipton, the brain scientist, indicated that 95 to 99% of our brain activity is spent subconsciously recreating the past. That means most of the time we're being run by a narrative. We don't even know what it is. We're being run by it without us knowing how. And that buries the opportunity to understand the other narrative, which is the true self that we are, that we were born into, has always been true, and always will be true. And to help people uncover the first narrative so they can remember the second is, I think, an opportunity to send the message to people, notice how you collude with your experience of ageism. You collude in the experience of it. Through your subconscious mind and free yourself from the agreement reality that exists in the world. Thanks for the chance to share that. I really enjoyed this.

That's very powerful. Lots of powerful words. Linda?

Yes, I am. Thank you. And I echo everyone's sentiment that this has been fantastic. It's been a great honor to talk with everyone. And I guess my closing remark is that I look at today as participating, or I get to participate in this incredible social shift. And people describe it in certain ways. And I think one of the ways it's being described by one segment of the population is as ageism. And I don't know that it accurately reflects what I believe is going on, right? Certainly, my experience is different. And so, I think that the perspective that's been brought today with things like love of life and intuition and presence, and certainly the purpose that I've advocated. I think those are, those are the linchpins to help people reframe how they express this period of social change. And I think it's incredibly exciting that we're all very active in pursuing it, albeit from different angles. And, you know, what I've experienced in my work is that there is enormous potential that is untapped. And so the fact that we're all agitating this from different angles is only goodness. So again, I can't thank you for letting me participate in that. I really enjoyed the format. Congratulations on the work.

Thank you. So Roxanne, you started the conversation. I'm going to let you end it in the way you want.

Oh, thank you very much. You know what struck me is that What I learned from today is I have a little bit of a contrarian personality type, and I kept looking for what's the other point of view. I have this rule when I'm doing consulting and coaching where I say, let's employ the rocks 180 rule here. What if we looked at this from the opposite point of view? And one of the things that hit my brain today was that ageism really affects every age group. Young people have the opposite problem that older people have. They have no experience. The job says, we want to hire you, but you don't have experience. How do I get it without getting a job first? And many older people are dismissive of younger people in countless ways. And being an inveterate optimist, I think that having all of this conversation, as heated as it can be at times, is a way of raising the collective consciousness to start understanding and appreciating what are the strengths of each age from a life development point of view and not from a discrimination point of view. And if we cannot be attached, as I think none of us are here, which has been a great positive for me, if we don't get attached to our particular situation, our particular age, our particular upbringing, then we have this ability to see what are the positives and the challenges for every age group along the way. I will admit I wasn't thinking about all this when I was a younger person. So that might be the singular takeaway that we older folks can offer and role model is to embrace all ages and not shy away from or hide the fact of our own individual ages. And so, I know that's the core of your work, it sounds like, Donna, with your Quester blog of navigating these transitions. So, that's my big takeaway that, you know, I learned that I actually, when I think ageism, I've been guilty of it myself towards younger people at this particular age of mine. So, Consciousness raised. Thank you for bringing us all together, Virginie.

That's wonderful. Well, I'm glad that we had this conversation. I think it's, it's really at the end of the day all about compassion and not getting too caught up in our own narrative and able to see someone else's perspective. So, you know, you brought some really good points that I haven't thought about, which is just being dismissive of younger people. And usually we get what we attract. So, you know, it's maybe not surprising that we got the OK boomer because after all, you know, we are very criticizing the younger generation for any reason that it could be. So thank you everyone, I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you.

Thank you so much.