How to Reinvent Yourself at Any Age: Life Layering for a Longer Life

Michael Clinton: I was the most boring person I knew because all I was doing was basically working.

Dr. Lisa: Friends, we are all moving forward together along this timeline and it’s easy to miss the fact that what we’re doing here and now in our present is directly related to the life we’re going to be living years from now.

Michael Clinton: I was focused on being relentlessly successful.

Dr. Lisa: The choices that we’re making in terms of how we live, what we do, what we prioritize are planting seeds that we will reap many years down the road. So it’s important that we’re all thinking about this in an intentional way and making intentional decisions that are investments in the future we want to experience.

Michael Clinton: A lot of people do put their identity in what they do for a living. They lose their job or their profession changes or they “retire” and they don’t know what to do themselves. They’re lost.

Dr. Lisa: By the end of today’s episode, you’re going to get a lot of new ideas that help you craft that path intentionally so that the life you’re living in the future is one that you really enjoy and that feels good for you. If you’re new to the show, this is your first time here, hit follow wherever you listen. We’ll do this again. If this is a repeat offender here with me, thanks again for being here and for your support. I want everybody tuning in today to think about who else in your life needs to hear this message and then share it with them. So we spread the love.

Michael Clinton: When I came to New York with $60 in my pocket and no contacts, I mean, I literally started at the bottom. So I knew that I had to work triple hard.

Dr. Lisa: My guest today is Michael Clinton and he’s an interesting guy. He spent 40 plus years at the top of the magazine industry. He was the president and publishing director of things like Hearst magazines, the company behind Oprah, Elle, Marie Claire Esquire. And so he’s done all kinds of stuff, but then he did something even more interesting. He stepped away from that corner office, went back to grad school in his sixties, started writing about how the rest of us can reimagine our lives, not just at retirement, but well in advance of that so that we can create the future we want to be in. His new book is called Longevity Nation. And it’s about building a life that goes out far into the future. And Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Clinton: Lisa, what a great introduction. Thanks. It’s great to be with you and to join in with all of your listeners and viewers.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah. Well, you know, it’s always such a treat to talk with people who don’t just have an academic perspective, but have actually lived the things that they teach. And it sounds like you have done a lot of that. And I understand that this all began with a concept that you came up with that you’ve got life layering and that has influenced your own trajectory. Will you tell us a little bit about this idea and how it turned into this bigger work?

Michael Clinton: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Lisa. So the concept of life layering happens when I was about 39 years old. You know, I had a great personal life, great family life, love life. I had a great job. I was the publisher of GQ. I mean, that was a very cool job, right? What I realized is I was the most boring person I knew because all I was doing was basically working. You know, and I think a lot of us when we’re building our careers, we’re building our professional resume and our identities as we work, work, work, work. And we put a lot of other things to the side. You know, I always say that, you know, your professional life, your personal life, if you’re going to partner up, if you’re a parent, you might be a parent in your 30s or 40s, if you decide to have children. But at 39, I had a little bit of a sort of existential moment. And I decided that I needed to find myself in a more personal and humane way aside from work. So I’ve always had this sort of adventure gene in me. So I decided when I was turning 40 that I was going to take a flying lesson because I wanted to be a pilot in my mind. I would go hike and climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of friends. And I would take a race car driving class.

Michael Clinton: And some people say, well, maybe you’re having midlife crisis. I didn’t view it that way. I viewed it as get a life buddy. And I ultimately became a pilot. And I ultimately climbed many other mountains. And I wasn’t interested in the race car driving thing. It was kind of a– didn’t really turn me on. And what I realized is my adventurous spirit was very much a part of who I was as a human being that brought me joy and fulfillment and happiness. And so I proclaimed to my family and friends that my 40s were going to be my adventure years. And so I started to build this layer, what I called ultimately a layer of life, that I was always very intentional that every year I was going to do something that was adventurous. And I ended up creating an adventure travel club. And we do– every year we do something adventurous. We’ve gone to Patagonia. We’ve hiked the Simeon Mountains in Ethiopia. We have run marathons, which I’ll get to in a minute, in Mongolia. And my adventure layer was part of my identity that I was building. And whenever I was having a stressful moment or an anxiety or work wasn’t going well, I would kind of lean into my layer. And I would think about what kind of a new adventure I was going to be creating. And then when I was in my 50s, in my early 50s, I had started my career as a writer and all of a sudden been taking a lot of photographs. And I had become very interested in photography. And a friend of mine said, why don’t you do an exhibit of your work? I was hyped. That’s not something that was sort of on my radar. Make it happen. Make it happen. But she talked me into it. And I said, you know what? I’ll do it as a fundraiser. I was on the Starlight Foundation board, which you might know is Make a Wish for Kids. I said, I’ll do a fundraiser for Starlight. And we had a pop-up photography show in Soho. And I sold a lot of photography. And people were like, your photography is really good. And I was like, well, maybe I’ve got this unfounded gene in me around photography. So I decided my 50s were going to be my creative years around photography. So I had many more shows. I ended up joining the International Center of Photography board. I went to all of the galleries. I started collecting. And all of a sudden, I had this other layer as being a photographer and being interested in photography on top of my adventure layer.

Dr. Lisa: On top of my adventure. And adventure photography.

Michael Clinton: And I ended up, Lisa, I ended up having a book published called Wanderlust 100 countries. It was all about my adventure and photography from around the world. And so what I realized as I was doing this is I was building these other identities around my life. Because what happens is when you’re in your 40s and you start moving into your 50s, kids grow up and move away. Hopefully your partner’s still with you, but you never know. Jobs, jobs, companies get sold. You might be downsized. If you start losing those kinds of identities or they become diminished, how do you build other identities to build a muscle about your own self identity? So I call these the life layers, building identities and layering them on top of each other. So today I have multiple layers, life layers, in addition to adventure and photography. But those are my happy places. And so we build this life layering idea to build other identities. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell, if that makes sense.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.

Dr. Lisa: And you’re almost talking about personal diversification and that there can be a real risk if you become so fixated on one or two things that you have exclusively wrapped your life around, maybe at the expense of others, that as time passes and those original things fall away or change, then who are you? Is it okay if I ask? I hope this isn’t too personal, but I must know. There’s a reason why I am a podcast host and a psychologist is because I want to know all the things. And so I’m curious. So you mentioned that you were like, you know what, when I was 39, that you wanted to build in a new layer. What happened before that? Did you begin to experience a gap or a, you know, you said, I realized that I was boring, because people don’t make this kind of change unless there’s a motivation. And I’m wondering what it really was for you.

Michael Clinton: That’s a great question. You know, I came from a very poor working class family. I was the first person in my family history to go to college and graduate from college. I came to New York City in my twenties to launch publishing career. I was focused on being relentlessly successful because I came from, when I came to New York with $60 in my pocket and no contacts and no connections, you know, I was not, I had none of that stuff to help me along the way. I mean, I literally started at the bottom. And so I knew that I had to work triple hard to find a path and find a success. And listen, I was very, I was very fortunate in that I became the youngest publisher in the business at 34 when I became the publisher at GQ. And so I landed my dream job, a dream job, you know, 10 years out. And so I was really focused on proving to myself that I could be successful to my family, to everybody. And then when I sort of got a little sort of comfortable in my own success, quite honestly, that’s when I thought, okay, I need to take a pause here. And I think a lot of people, you know, especially when you’re building a profession and you’re trying to build your reputation and you’re trying to build a name for yourself in an industry, you spend a lot of time putting all the marbles in that basket. Yeah. So, you know, I think once you reach a certain level of success, and I had then had subsequently more, many more levels of success, but I don’t think I could have gotten those other levels of success without that pause to say, okay, how do you become a better, more interesting person to yourself and to those around you? And all my layers ultimately taught me that work was over here, a very important part of my life, but it wasn’t my whole life. And you said something really interesting. I love your line, personal diversification. You said something really interesting. You know, a lot of people do put their identity in what they do for a living. And I hate to pick on my gender, but many men do it even more so. What happens is they reach a point where they lose their job or their profession changes or they quote unquote retire and they don’t know what to do with themselves. They’re lost because they haven’t created these other identities, right?

Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. And I think so many of us can relate to this. I know that I can too. And I think that you have a superstar story, but like, you know, I’ve gone through periods where I’ve been so like obsessively focused and driven on whatever it is that I’m doing that that seems like the most important thing in other parts of your life are neglected. And I’ll also share, you know, even the experience of being a parent with little kids and that for many people, that is all they do for years and years. And so it’s whatever it looks like in your life. And I’m speaking to our friends listening to us right now is just to get visibility have you put a lot of your energy and your focus in one part of your life at the expense of others and that there comes a time maybe like to your point, Michael, there’s a little bit of spaciousness. It opens up. Maybe you can step back a little bit. Maybe the kids are getting bigger. Maybe you’ve attained a little bit more career success. You finally have space to do something a little different and to pay attention to that because Michael, what you’re saying is that the wisdom of experience is like if you don’t do that and just kind of let things chug along without intentionally trying to develop a multidimensional life that is in alignment with your values, by the way, and I want to talk more about your work that you’ve obviously done there. You can be left at the end with very little.

Michael Clinton: Yeah, I love the way you frame that.

Michael Clinton: I think I would make one slight nuance in your comment and I would say find the space because

Dr. Lisa: that’s good. I wait. I wait for the space. I need to go get it.

Michael Clinton: Yeah, exactly. Because I think what happens to your point, especially people in their, you know, 30s and 40s who are raising kids and are running around building a career and trying to make all the ends meet, et cetera, I always suggest to people I know and family, find that space for yourself, whatever it is. You know, carve out that hour, carve out that half a day, carve out whatever and put it on the calendar and that’s your space to cultivate and develop. I’ll give you one example. I met a woman who was a working mother who became a single parent because they got divorced. They had two children. And she was telling me that every other weekend is when she gets her kids. Her kids go to her ex-husbands every other weekend. And I said, “Wow, that means every other weekend you are on your own?” She’s like, “Yeah.” And I said, “Wow, what are you doing with that time?” And she said, “Well, you know, I’m kind of, you know, she was kind of this and that.” I said, “Do you realize what a gift that is for you?” You know, she was, call her 45-ish. And I said, “You have 48 hours to do whatever you want to do. So what is it that you want to really focus on?” And it was like a light bulb went off. And she realized that she had this incredible gift 26 weekends a year where she could find the space to do, build her layer, build another layer for herself. And she also really became very focused on fitness and nutrition, ultimately became a runner. I met her through my marathon community and she became a marathoner and she found her space. She made her space.

Dr. Lisa: So good. Well, and you know, I’ve heard you say that this is now more important than ever to be developing these different layers and thinking about what your life is going to be like and designing it far into the future because people are living longer than ever. You shared that you’re doing some projects with the Longevity Institute at Stanford and that there are now projections that, you know, a five-year-old today, like 50% chance they are going to live to be 100. And so even people in midlife now could be living healthy lives longer than ever. And so like our time horizon is expanding into the future. And so Michael, in our first segment, you were talking about this very intentional energy that you applied to your own life and creating these different layers where you developed parts of yourself in order to feel like you were more whole is kind of what I took from it, that there wasn’t just one thing you were into. There were a number of different things. And so part of what you’ve been doing more recently is working with Stanford University, their Longevity Institute on like development across the lifespan. Is that the right way to describe it?

Michael Clinton: Yeah. Yes, it’s actually the Stanford Center on Longevity, which is at Stanford University. I’m on their board of advisors. And we look at this concept, Lisa, and the thing you mentioned earlier, which is the studies and the science and other studies have shown that today’s five-year-old has a 50% chance he’ll live to be 100.

Michael Clinton: The 100-year life is here and it’s evolving and growing. If you are 40 today and healthy and do all the right things from lifestyle standpoint and preventative, and we’ll talk about medicine and technology in a minute, you’re probably going to live to be 90 or older. And so in the previous generation, well, let me go back to just give you a little perspective. 100 years ago, life expectancy in America was 62. Today life expectancy is close to 80. 100 years ago, there were 7 million people who were 65 or older. Today in America, there are 62 million people who are 65 or over. And that’s going to grow to 80 million. Yeah, that’s going to go to 80 million within the next half dozen years. So today’s 40-year-old is going to be on this trajectory of life expectancy growth, which is going to continue to be there through, once again, personal lifestyle decision making because only 25% of your longevity is really your genetics. The rest of it is the things you do personally, and then new kinds of diagnostics and tests and drugs and so forth. And so this is opening up a completely different set of life cycles for people because now you can have three careers. Today’s 25-year-old is going to have a 60-year career, and it may not be one career, it may be two or three careers because they’re going to have to also fund a 90-year life and they’re going to have to re-skill and learn new things. And as you know, we’re right in the middle of all the AI evolution, and so they’re going to have to re-skill and learn new things, and jobs are going to come and jobs are going to go and have to be very proactive. But the key is what we call at Stanford the new map of life, which people can pull up on read about. And it’s this very idea that in the new second half cycle of life, you’re going to be doing different things than your parents and grandparents did. First of all, the idea of retiring at 65 is going to be old news because if you’re going to live another 25, 30 years, you can’t sit around and watch television or play golf for 30 years. It’s just not sustainable. It worked in the 20th century. I like to say we’re now living 21st century lives in 20th century institutions that need to catch up with us. So, this whole idea of having multiple careers, launching a creative practice at any age, even in your 50s and 60s, getting repartnered, becoming an entrepreneur after a career, all of this is now, what I’m really excited about is the next generation that has this as a real, it’s going to be more and more real for them. The current 65 plus year olds are kind of just discovering this and learning about this. The 30 to 45 year olds, if you will, they’re going to really live this. This is going to really be their life. And so it’s really exciting. What are you going to do with this gift of all these additional years that are in front of you? Yeah.

Dr. Lisa: So cool. And I mean, really the importance of some intentional life design, absolutely, so that you can be developing other parts of yourself. But the other thing that’s coming up for me, like just hearing you talk makes me so happy because I want to keep going. I can’t imagine retiring and just the opportunity to have more of a runway, if you will, to do other things feels amazing. But I’m also struck by, I mean, even in my own life, I think that I could get so careerist and obsessive about whatever I’m doing. And even what you were talking about, about learning how to fly planes, I would love to do something like that. But I’ve always had this thought, later, it’s not the right time, et cetera, et cetera. And just to think that maybe there’s more time than we have thought in some ways. But at the same time, things change and flow forward so quickly that you do actually have to take action and make it happen. And I’m just so curious what you’ve seen, the differences between people who shift, pivot, and kind of unleash these new chapters almost over and over again. What are the key ingredients of being able to do that well and intentionally? Because one of the things that you mentioned is this absolute clarity around your own adventurous nature. And to me, that speaks to a internal self-discovery process where you connected with your core wiring, your values, who you really are at an essential level. And how do I make more of that show up in my world? And that work can be hard to do. With what you’ve done in your book, do you have any insight into what kinds of things support that?

Michael Clinton: It’s really a great question. And I often get asked, is it nature or nurture? But the skills that people have to reimagine and pivot and rethink. You know, I wrote a book prior to this one called Roar into the Second Half of Your Life. It is really designed as a personal development book for people who are at midlife. I call midlife 45 to 50.

Michael Clinton: And during that process, we coined a phrase called the reimagineers. The people who really seem to have this skill to be able to pivot, to reinvent in an ongoing way, in a fluid kind of ongoing way. And some of the things that I learned from the men talking to many of them, and people can read their great little stories on our website, roarforward.com. There’s a tab all about the reimagineers in our monthly newsletter, etc. But I learned a few things that are part of it was nature, which I’ll talk about first. This is a group that you touched on it. Spent a lot of time on their internal thinking about who are they fundamentally as human beings? What are the things that bring them joy, bring them happiness, bring them satisfaction? Many of them spent a good year or two really exploring their inner landscape before they did a pivot. And that’s right. It does not happen in a weekend.

Dr. Lisa: Right.

Michael Clinton: It’s got to be very thoughtful and introspective. And it’s got to be time put in, whether it’s journaling about it or thinking about it, as a through line. But in the subtext of many of that, those that process is many of them had fundamentally were very optimistic people, were very future forward looking people, or people who felt that the future possibilities were there for them in general. And so there was this common threads. We ultimately did a big study around this group that we call the reimagineers. And they did have a lot of fundamental personality traits that were around these elements that I just talked about. And a lot of people will say, well, that’s great. I’m not that person. And how do I do this? And how do I get over the fear factor and the uncertainty factor and the risk factor? Because the people have the nature piece of it. They tend to feel, I’m going to kind of jump in. I’m going to kind of get on the path. And for those who feel that it’s more of a nurturing thing, there are a number of things that we developed. They’re in this book, Roar, and a toolkit for building, for discovering maybe what your pathway should be. And what are some of your core personality traits that might help you uncover and discover a new pathway or a new layer for yourself? So I’m going to give you one tool, which I think is a fun game for people.

Michael Clinton: We call it the five word game. When you have a moment, write down the five words that you think most describe yourself to you. And it shouldn’t be things like sister and husband and wife. And it should be loyal and generous and funny and whatever those elements are. Attitudes. Attitudes. Thank you. Attitude. Then go to 10 people in your universe, spouses, partners, kids, friends, best friends, et cetera, and ask them each to write down the five words that describe you in their mind. And don’t tell them they can’t talk to each other. They are all going to submit these five words and you’re going to map them all out. And if none of those words match your words, you’re in big trouble. Because then you have a perception of yourself that your friends really, you know, that person who says, I’m really empathetic and all your friends say you’re the least empathetic person I know. You know, you want to make sure. That’s rough. Yeah, that’s rough. You take those words and what’s the one word that bubbles up as the word that your people see you as? So in my case, when I did the Five Word Game, my word that I, that’s important for me, and nine out of 12 people wrote generous.

Dr. Lisa: That’s a great word to be known for.

Michael Clinton: Yeah. So generosity, generosity of time, of spirit, of money, of, you know, being there for people. I pride myself on that as a core part of who I am. And so I had already done this, so it didn’t come out of this, but a group of us, a group of us launched a foundation 16 years ago called Circle of Generosity. And we grant a random acts of kindness to people who are in dire straits. We might, you know, help them in their mortgage or their rent if they’re going to lose their house or whatever. We help a lot with natural disaster. But generosity has always been a core part of me. And the question is, when you find that word, how do you mine that word to, what are the branches that come off that word where you could build a next layer for yourself, a next first step for yourself, a next new pathway for yourself? It’s also fun. It’s a fun little thing to do because you get to hear what all your friends think about you.

Dr. Lisa: And assuming that it’s good, I mean, who knows? But yeah, this is so fun though. But then I think that, you know, once you have that and developing little branches that the creative process here is, what does the actualization of this look like in my life? How do I bring this into being in a more tangible, experiential way? So can I give you the sample? Go in all kinds of directions. You could start a foundation. Give me another example.

Michael Clinton: Yeah, yeah. I want to give you a great, I want to give you a great fun example. So I met a woman, she’s a reimagineer.

Michael Clinton: And I’ll give you her name in the back end. She was an elementary school teacher in suburban Atlanta. She married a high school sweetheart, had a couple of kids, whatever. It was, I think it was two or three. And she decided in her late 50s that she was like done teaching, she was just ready to hang up that career. And she didn’t know what to do. And her kids said to her, and particularly one daughter, “Mom, you are so funny. You are the funniest person we know. And you should come, you should go do an open mic session at a comedy club.” And she said, “I have no idea what that means.” So they go to a comedy club in Atlanta and she goes and gets on the stage and does this open mic session and she gets great feedback from the audience. And she’s like, “Maybe I am funny. I guess I am funny.” And she then had this moment where she said, “Well, you know, I don’t want to funny enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not young enough.” You know, all the usual tropes that we put on ourselves. She ended up hiring a woman who coaches female comics. And Patricia Forehand is a standup comic today. She works the comedy club circuit in the Southeast. You can look her up, Patricia Forehand. She’s in her sixties now. And out of that word funny, she found a new pathway and she’s loving her life.

Dr. Lisa: And then she didn’t even start it until, what, 59, 60? That’s incredible.

Michael Clinton: In her late fifties. I write about her in my book, Roar, as an example. So at her, I was like, “Oh my gosh, you are so inspirational.”

Dr. Lisa: You promised to share some of your hacks, if you will, for not just how to extend your life. I mean, that’s one part, but I think that the bigger thing is a life worth living where you’re healthy and happy and vibrant and having a good time. I know you’ve put so much thought into this. And there are a few specific things that you recommend over and over again. Where do we start?

Michael Clinton: Yeah. Well, let’s start by saying, when I’m out giving talks and speeches, Lisa, and I ask everyone in the audience who wants to live to be 100, about half the hands go up. And then I say, who wants to live to be 100 if you’re healthy and you’re mobile and you have your cognition and all the hands go up. And to your point, we may not get to live to be 100, but the key is we want to live a long, quality, healthy life. And then at the very end, before we leave planet earth, it’s a very short period where you exit stage left.

Michael Clinton: And the longevity hacks that can help you do that, you can start at any age, the younger, the better, but at any age, because think of it as compound interest in the bank. It just all builds on itself. And I’ll give you sort of the five quick hacks that I think everyone should think about. And some of it’s common sense, but some of it people don’t necessarily think through. The number one, number one is the importance of movement and exercise and strength and balance, and doing that every day of your life until the day you die. Motion is lotion. Exercise and fitness is the key to healthy natural medicines. It’s many, many studies and many, many studies have shown that you can start this at any age. If you start this at 75, you see benefits. I met an amazing woman. You can look her up on Instagram, train with Joan. Joan didn’t start working out until she was in her 70s. She’s now in her 80s. She has like 2 million followers. She has a whole training program for people of all ages who participate with it. The importance of exercise and movement, and if you start that early, it’s just all compounds and you’re healthier. Number one.

Dr. Lisa: I love the metaphor of compound interest. When you start putting money away in the bank when you’re in your 20s, compared to when you start in your 60s and you’re saying you could still benefit, but man, is it better to take it seriously. You’re saying every day.

Michael Clinton: Every day. Every day. Okay. The science is 150 minutes a week minimally in one way, shape, or form. I say for busy people, do exercise snacks. Walk up the steps. Don’t take the car. Walk a few blocks. Do squats while you’re on the cell. Do pushups or sit-ups while you’re watching TV. There are lots of little exercise snacks you can do to help give yourself that exercise movement. Number two is the conscious consumption of what you put in your mouth. Number one, if you smoke, I implore you, please stop smoking. It is the number one worst thing in terms of your body. Smoking and vaping is really not great for you. It’s really toxic to your biology and your system. I haven’t eaten meat in 50 years. I’m not a meat eater. I’m plant-based. I eat fish. I am conscious of eating what I eat. Beans are the highest protein-packed thing you can buy. That’s why in places like Mexico and Latin America, beans are such a staple. They’re affordable. Mix them in with salads and legumes and really think about being as fresh food as you can have. Drink moderately, obviously. I love a glass of wine. Also, enjoy life. I love Mexican food and margaritas. So don’t get crazy. But be smart about what you eat. Once again, it’s compounded. You don’t become pre-diabetic. You don’t develop issues with plaque in your arteries. Start early. Stick with it. Change your habits. Once again, you do it any age and you get the benefit. The third is the power of sleep. The importance of sleep. But it’s really measuring your deep sleep and your REM sleep. I track myself on an Ora Ring on a wearable. I track my sleep patterns. I’m a big believer in the indicators of wearables. They give you directional things in your biology. We publish Esquire magazine and I write for Esquire. One of our writers wrote a story, “How My Ora Ring Saved My Life.” Because he kept getting the red flashes on his phone on his Ora Ring app. And his wife said, “You better go.” Just like four days, five days in the wife’s life. His wife said, “You better go get yourself checked out.” And it turned out he had a major health issue that his ring detected for him. So it’s a tool that we have now that we didn’t have a few years ago. Sleep to superpower. Go ahead.

Dr. Lisa: Just pause you because I know we don’t have a ton of time left tonight. And I appreciate your reminding everyone about the importance of just these foundational health habits and how, you know, as the years go by, they compound. And I think even at my own stage of life, I’ve started to notice a difference between people my age who are taking their health seriously and those who aren’t. And they’re showing up differently in the world and how they feel. So my last question for you, Michael. I’m not going to ask you how old you are. And you’ve been around for a while, right? And I’m sure have people in your orbit who have taken one path or the other. And just as a final, perhaps even cautionary tale, what are some of the things that you have noticed about people that you’ve been close to who have not done any of these things, either in terms of their health habits or in their intentional efforts to redesign their lives? In this chapter kind of way.

Michael Clinton: They thank you for that question. They’ve either become sedentary or they’re eating and drinking too much or eating their own kinds of food. And they start developing illnesses, you know, from diabetes to heart issues. I have two younger brothers who both had quadruple bypasses. And I would point to people in my own family who are too sedentary and don’t eat right and all the above. So you see younger people, you see this happening to younger people. And I would add to that, we have a lot of tools and tests available to us. I mean, I think you know that colon cancer is now, they’re discovering the people in their 40s are getting colon cancer. Like, get a colonoscopy. Get a colonoscopy. You know, get your breast exam. You know, there are so many exams and so many ways you can now be preventative in combination with lifestyle. And you know, so here’s the kicker, Lisa. So when I’ve always been a runner, I became a new, yet again, rebooted marathon runner in my mid 50s when my sister called and said, “Would you run a marathon with me?” And I said, “When did you start running?” And she said, “Tomorrow.”

Dr. Lisa: And you’re an adventurer. So of course he said, “Yes.”

Michael Clinton: I said, “I probably got one more in me.” And we went to London because it was her birthday week. And so we had a whole family trip to London. We ran the marathon. And the night before, I met a guy who’d run seven marathons on seven continents. Like, wow, I didn’t even know that was a thing. So my sister and I ended up saying, “Let’s do it.” And I celebrated my 60th birthday by running a marathon on Antarctica, which was my seventh continent. And after that sort of one and done idea, I’ve run 15 more marathons. Now, my peers who I see who are not exercising and not doing and working out are the ones that are now dealing more with health issues. And you know, I’m a healthy specimen, knock on wood. And I attribute a lot of it to my exercise, my movement, my eating right, my sleeping right, all those components. But going back to compound interest, you know, it all builds up. So I bank it away.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been such an inspiring conversation. Michael Clinton, any last words of advice for people tuning in who are, you know, just grappling with this idea about the decisions that we’re making now at an earlier stage in life, midlife, you know, you will reap what you sow 40, 50, 60 years from now and have to do that intentionally. Is there anything else you’d like people to know? Or is the punchline here to read the book, Longevity Nation, and all will be revealed?

Michael Clinton: Well, of course, always. But what I would like to say, which is really is part of my advocacy now, is we assuming fundamentals like healthy and lifestyle and so forth and preventative approaches to your health, you’re going to have a very, very, very long runway with the way life is moving and the advent of we didn’t get into all the discussions of GLP ones and medicines and new classes of drugs, which are going to help a lot. The GLP one is the miracle drug. The early clinical trials are showing a lot of benefits above and beyond.

Dr. Lisa: Mental health, too.

Michael Clinton: Mental health, addiction, sleep apnea, so many other things. But with the advent of AI and technology integrated into medicine and development of drugs to help with diseases and precision medicine, that’s going to be the icing on the cake. So if you are 40, think about the fact that you’re going to live to be 90 or more. Are you thinking about it? Are you prepared for it? Are you saving enough money for it? Are you giving yourself a break that you don’t have to get everything resolved next year? You’re going to have this longer runway, presumably. And so think about that in terms of your own reinvention, your desires, your dreams, thoughts, your goals in terms of a long life, a long, healthy life, hopefully.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, definitely. And then do something about it. Figure out how to amplify the parts of yourself that you want to experience more of, and also what you need to be doing consistently in order to take care of the hardware.

Michael Clinton: That’s right.

Dr. Lisa: Thank you so much for spending this time with us today. Michael Clinton, you guys, the new book is Longevity Nation. Michael, tell us where to keep up with you, learn more about what you’re doing, the book, the foundations.

Michael Clinton: Yeah, thank you. Follow me on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn. It’s my preferred method because I do a lot on longevity there. Roarforward.com is our website. We have a free newsletter, as I mentioned. You can see all the stuff that we’re up to and live a long and happy life.

Dr. Lisa: Amazing. Thank you again so much for your time today. It’s been great. Thanks, Lucy.

Michael Clinton: Thank you so much.

Dr. Lisa: You guys, that was such an interesting conversation with Michael. I didn’t want to derail his train of thought, so I resisted my natural impulse to interrupt and interject. But part of what was coming up for me is I think I personally have probably not even been paying enough attention to some of these things sometimes. Like, just how easy it is to get into your little whatever you’re doing, right? I lose sight of some of the broader perspective. I know that I feel better when I exercise every day. And then sometimes I’m like, “No, I can’t. I don’t have time.” But I’m definitely feeling recommitted to that daily practice for sure. I hope you are too. But the other thing that Michael brought up that I thought was just so powerful is like, what are we all doing to intentionally stay connected to who we really are, what’s important to us, what we care about, what we want more of?

Dr. Lisa: Because I think it’s that quiet voice inside of us all that can be easy to ignore, especially when life is so busy or we’re so hyper-focused on other things. And so Michael dropped a bunch of great strategies, right? What are the five words you’d use to describe yourself? Ask your friends to do that. What do they say? What are the common elements? I also have at my disposal, I’ll share some with you, some other tools that I have encountered over the years that I think give you great visibility into some of the same things. I am a big fan of Suzy Welsh. She’s been on the show in the past. She’s the founder of a system called Becoming You, which really focuses on career clarity. If that’s something that you’re trying to figure out, I invite you to go back through my podcast feed, look up that episode with Suzy Welsh. But one of the things that she’s put out that I think is fantastic, and I use all the time with clients, it’s a tool that I teach to the clinicians who are going through my coach training program for therapists, is the values bridge assessment that will ask you a bunch of questions that are designed to illuminate your core values. But also, here’s the hard part, show you the gap between what you’re saying your values are and how you’re currently living and how big of a distance there is between what you’re saying you want and what you’re actually doing. Not always comfortable, but important information to have, right? If you’re interested in learning more about that, you can go to, I think it’s suzewelsh.com. You’ll find a link to the values bridge assessment, and she has created a little discount for my listener just because she’s amazing. Use the code LHS to get, I think, like 10% off your purchase if you want to go check that out. So I’m a fan. Other explorations that I think are so interesting could even be journal prompts, things like, you know, say I was 100 years old and looking back at my life and thinking about what I was most proud of, what was most valuable to me, and also potentially what are some of my biggest regrets. And just right through it, whatever comes up or narrate it, if you’re not much of a writer, you’re more of a talk out loud kind of person. Great, record yourself a voice memo. All good. But the point is to be thinking about it, that answering that question for yourself, and just using that as information. Again, what is the gap between the thing I’m saying that’s important to me and what I want, and the trajectory that I’m on? Where is this path taking me? Do I need to pivot or shift? So these are all ways of just getting access to these deeper parts of yourself that we need in order to make meaningful decisions about what to do differently. Because you know, it’s easy to do all kinds of stuff. Doesn’t mean it’s the right stuff that requires that insight. Of course, also, that is what good coaches and therapists do, particularly coaching therapists are here to help you create clarity over your core wiring, who you are, what you want, your values, your aspirations, and also visibility into the obstacles standing in the way between what you want and the path forward. And so that’s a lot of what we do in coaching psychology is not just identify goals and like, okay, what are the action steps to get there? But really, what are the obstacles? Many times they’re internal obstacles. They are the thoughts that we’re harboring. And they’re the old core beliefs with the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what we’re capable of, what is possible. And sometimes it’s very important to examine those in an intentional way so that we can decide if those are things that are true, or that maybe they’re just artifacts of old experiences that it’s time to let go of. Because when we do that, we can start moving forward again, go back to school, go get your private pilot’s license. You know, actually start living the life that you want to live. So just be aware of that. And then lastly, if you’d like support in any of that, I have opportunities for you. Of course, through my practice growing self, you can connect with a very experienced therapist who practices coaching psychology to support you in this because it’s also true that this is true by the way. It’s one thing to get insight, who am I? What do I want? What do I do to attain it? What are my obstacles and growth opportunities? But then there’s also, how do I hold myself accountable and actually do the things? And that’s another thing that a great coach can do for you and with you is help you actually take the action that you need to get where you want to go. And so that’s what we specialize in, a growing self related to your self-development, related to relationship improvement, related to life design, career clarity and professional development. And the way to get started is to come to growingself.com and just request a consultation to meet with an experienced clinician on our team to talk about who you are, what you think you might want, what’s standing in your way and get a sense of how they could help you. And then one last thing before I let you go, there’s another thing that I’m super jazzed about and I just wanted to put this in front of you in case it would be a good resource, either for you or someone in your life. It is a program that I’ve developed called Unstuck in Eight Weeks. And this is a really special situation because as I’ve mentioned on the show before, over the last few years, I have pivoted by my professional focus. I’m still certainly supporting clients and individuals through one-on-one work. I’ll always do that. I love it. But what feels like the next layer for me is really my work around educating and developing other therapists, particularly around coaching competencies because therapists, we are trained to diagnose and treat clinical mental health conditions. And when people come in the door wanting something else, if it’s life design, if it’s career clarity, if it’s a better relationship, we therapists are often left trying to use clinical mental health interventions or insight-oriented talk therapy slash counseling techniques off label in a way that they weren’t really designed for and that quite frankly don’t work that well to meet the needs of people who are doing the kinds of work that we’re talking about on today’s episode, believe it or not. And this is a problem in the field. I think a lot of people believe that therapy is something that it really isn’t. And then when they learn about coaching psychology, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I want that.” So anyway, because of this gap in my own profession, I’ve really pivoted into teaching other therapists coaching psychology. And as part of this, I have a training program and an aspect of this training program is an eight-week practicum where my coaching students are connected with clients, maybe even you, through this unstuck in eight weeks program where we’re able to offer very, very, very low-cost coaching services for this period of time to do a lot of the things that we’re talking about today, getting clarity about who you are, your wiring, your values, your goals, your obstacles, your action plan, and the motivation to actually do the things. It’s literally what we’re doing in this program, but at a huge discount like $49 a session compared to what most coaching therapists charge, which is many times that because coaching therapists are unicorns. It’s very rare. So if you are interested in this, you can come to my website again, growingself.com forward slash grow to learn more about the unstuck in eight weeks program. You’ll probably get on the wait list. This only opens up five times a year and the availability is really limited. But if you put yourself on the wait list now, you’ll get an email when enrollment becomes available and you can sign up to save your place. Okay. So loaded you up with all kinds of resources. Thanks again so much for spending this time with me today. I hope this conversation was as interesting for you as it was for me. And I will be back in touch soon with another episode of love, happiness, and success. In the meantime, take care.