Kaitlin Borncamp on Championing Wellbeing and Aging in The Workforce

Kaitlin Borncamp is a professional nutrition and mindset coach and has the official title of the Wellbeing Champion at consulting firm EY. What intrigued Dave about Kaitlyn is that she says the elephant in the room when she’s talking to clients is always aging. Lots of podcasts talk about physical aging, that’s not what Kaitlyn and Dave will be talking about in this episode, however more about mindset as we age.

Kaitlin shares her knowledge and expertise with Dave about what a mindset coach is, in the context of health and aging, her role as Wellbeing Champion within professional services consulting firm, EY, in corporate America and practical strategies that help with collaborating in harmony amongst different generations in the same workforce.

Join the conversation at the Stubbornly Young Facebook group for the latest information on staying relevant and stubbornly young.



Episode Highlights:

• Impact of age on mindset and the workplace
• Challenges of aging and self-perception
• Addressing age-related mindset barriers in the workplace
• Coaching individuals in their 50s and 60s
• Embracing continuous learning and adaptation
• Finding meaning and value in contributions of older employees
• Prioritizing physical and mental wellbeing
• Staying relevant and engaged as individuals age
• Embracing new technologies and work that brings joy
• Role of curiosity and open-mindedness in navigating aging in the workplace

Ponder and Share:

“Keep learning. I love learning and I just think it can change your perspective. There's always more and more information coming out… And so really, my strategy to stay relevant myself is just to keep learning.

“It's about how do you show up day to day and how does your perception of your life, age, and time actually impact your identity?”

“The commonalities, I would say, for a few great leaders that come to mind that are senior leaders is willingness to have an open mind.”

“They (the aging workforce) are really able to bring a unique perspective and if they don't let the aging become sort of that first barrier, then it really just opens up to be such a great, great value add to the team.”

-Kaitlin Borncamp, professional nutrition and mindset coach

Links Mentioned:

Feel Great with Kait website
Kaitlin Borncamp on LinkedIn
Kaitlin Borncamp on Facebook
EY website

About Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP

Former CPA Kaitlin Borncamp is now a Health Alignment Expert and Mindset Coach with a focus on high-achieving executives and leaders. Having previously worked for top consulting firms and tech organizations, Kaitlin has over 3,000 professional experience as a Certified Nutritional Therapist. Her areas of expertise are stress resilience strengthening, mental health improvement, performance optimization, and daily energy enhancement.

Read my Blog called Rules For Being Stubbornly Young and let me know what you think!

Email your thoughts at dave@stubbornlyyoung.com

Check out where it’s all happening on the Stubbornly Young website

Thanks and looking forward to hearing how you’re remaining stubbornly young!

Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:00:01) - Sometimes I notice it actually doesn't come up, which is great. You know, it's almost the lack of referring to age or the lack of identifying the difference in generation is sometimes the best answer. You know, I think of one senior leader in the technology industry and he is always learning. He's always willing to see what the kids are doing these days type of a thing, right? But not in a way where he's separating himself from them.

[INTERVIEW]

Dave Tabor (00:00:25) - This is the Stubbornly Young podcast I'm Dave Tabor hosting Stubbornly Young, because a while back I began to fear, yeah, really fear that people would begin seeing me as too old to be wanted in their professional lives, and that maybe I'd even be perceived as less relevant in the lives of my adult children. I decided to explore that notion with you through this podcast and with special guests who join me. This time it's Kaitlin Borncamp, a professional nutrition and mindset coach. Kaitlin is officially the Wellbeing Champion at consulting firm EY. What intrigued me about Kaitlin is that she said the elephant in the room when she's talking to clients is always aging.

Dave Tabor (00:01:06) - Hey, lots of podcasts talk about physical aging, but that's not what Kaitlin and I are going to talk about. We're going to be talking about mindset. So Kaitlin, glad to have this talk on Stubbornly Young. Thanks for joining me. 

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:01:17) - Thank you for having me, Dave.

Dave Tabor (00:01:18) - Yes. So what is a mindset coach?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:01:21) - So a mindset coach is really somebody who can help shift your perspectives at a basic level. So when we talk about mindset I'm thinking of things. You know it's really your attitude and your outlook on different things. So what I love doing is helping people shift their mindset and their perspectives around their health so that they can transform their life.

Dave Tabor (00:01:37) - Your title is and I've never seen this title before, Wellbeing Champion for this big international consulting firm EY. So when did that even start? When did somebody become a Wellbeing Champion or are you the first?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:01:48) - I am not the first. I am one of many, and it's a really great initiative that I think is becoming more of a trend these days in, you know what we've referred to as corporate America in terms of focusing not only on the output of employees in the productiveness of that, but also their wellbeing. So coming from a professional services firm, it absolutely makes sense that we would start to focus on the wellbeing of our people. 

Dave Tabor (00:02:10) - Yeah. I mean, I you know, we could get into that from a business perspective. And I almost did. But I'm not going to because what I really want to focus on is, you know, that Stubbornly Young is for people in their 50s, 60s and beyond who want to remain engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives. And you told me, and I had referred to it in the intro to that. The elephant in the room is aging, so talk about that. I mean, you came up with that idea. The elephant in the room is age. So what is that about for you?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:02:36) - So it always comes up, you know, it's interesting and obviously comes up in relation to health of course.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:02:40) - Right. Because that's kind of what we're all sort of fighting against in a way. Right. But in terms of, in mindset, even just people that I, that I'm friends with or, you know, obviously in the office or nutrition clients as well, they sort of have this definitive way that they view themselves based on their age, almost as if they didn't come up with the idea themselves. What do you mean when you're talking to someone younger? So usually it's prompted by being around somebody that's younger, right? Insert me. I'm usually the younger person. Things will be said like, oh goodness, well, I'm too old to do that. Or they just sort of assume the identity as if they were already old, whatever that means to them. So, for example, you know, we could insert any sort of symptom that's associated with aging, right? I mean, we all get it. It's somewhat inevitable, but we believe it to be true almost before it actually is true.

Dave Tabor (00:03:28) - So in a workplace, what does that look like? Like what's an example?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:03:31) - This is kind of funny because sometimes with technology you can very clearly see if somebody's not as technology savvy as maybe some others.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:03:40) - So of course those things come up right, sort of navigating certain systems and things like that. But also it comes up in a way of back in my day type of a thing. And it's like, okay, here we go. And it's true, right? It's always interesting. And I think, you know, we shouldn't lose that perspective as if when things really were different and what the icon of the save button means, right. Like the floppy disk. But when we say it like that, it's a little bit, you know, it's just not so productive. Almost. It's almost as if we're putting down new technology in an effort to sort of put something else up from back in my day.

Dave Tabor (00:04:14) - That expression actually is kind of an intriguing expression. It's like, you know, I've got nine rules for for stubbornly young and one of them somewhere. Maybe I should add one. It's like, don't say back in the day, it's like that paints you into a what did you call it, a self-described portrait?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:04:29) - Almost definitely.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:04:30) - So I think there's kind of two ways to go about it. It's like we can reminisce on things in respect what used to be at one point in time that's always healthy and actually quite interesting. I love learning about how, you know, things came to be, and in fact, I recently bought a book on idioms because I'm so interested by it. But it's about more. So how do you show up day to day, and how does your perception of your life, age, and time actually impact your identity?

Dave Tabor (00:04:54) - Yeah. Do you explore that with people who maybe are starting to feel that they I mean. You're talking with people in their 50s and 60s who are still at the firm, and they're surrounded by people who are like you and others who are younger than they are. So how do you explore those kinds of things with them? Do you tell them, like, don't say, back in the day or I mean, how do you explore this notion of aging for people that are still in that world.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:05:19) - When it comes up in sort of the back in my day context? Sometimes it's funny. So we kind of just laugh and we move on, you know, in other ways when it comes up with technology may actually be appropriate for me or another team member to offer help if they're open to it. You know, for me to show them a better way to do whatever it is they're doing in Excel or what have you. In other ways, though, I would say sometimes I notice it actually doesn't come up, which is great. So it's the lack of referring to age or the lack of identifying the difference in generation is sometimes the best answer.

Dave Tabor (00:05:49) - Do you coach people when it comes to mindset? Do you coach them when you sense that they're thinking along those lines that make them less relatable? Do you talk about that?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:05:59) - Oh, absolutely. I nip it in the bud real quick. Really.

Dave Tabor (00:06:01) - Like give an example.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:06:02) - So without getting into too much of the symptoms talks, we don't need to go and deep into nutrition.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:06:08) - But you know, if somebody's having something like an aversion to working out, for example. Right. Because I'm not as young as I used to be and I don't feel as good as I used to be. And it's harder to get up and I have all the aches and pains and yada yada, yada, right. So you really have to meet them where they're at. And while it's true that they'll never be able to reverse their age, you can actually chronologically reverse your body in health. So I think it starts with identifying what their current mindset is. What are their biggest struggles? What is it about said age and identity that they're actually having a problem with? And let's dive into it. Let's talk about it and let's educate. I think most of this can be improved and worked through on education of how the body works. When specifically talking about health, right? It provides a lot of optimism to realize how important things like nutrition and sleep impact our health. And from that, I think it opens their mind.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:06:59) - It opens our eyes to really be able to take more responsibility. So when we shift it from, this is happening to me because I'm said age to, oh, okay, everything you just told me about my body is true. Therefore I can take responsibility. The changes I make on a daily basis do impact my health for the better.

Dave Tabor (00:07:17) - People who have seen themselves as aging in the workplace, yet are surrounded with young people. What are you seeing is working for them? For the ones that you could think of are still magnetic and high energy, what do you think works for them?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:07:29) - Great question. The commonalities, I would say for, you know, a few great leaders that come to mind that are senior leaders is willingness to have an open mind. You know, it's a decision to have an open mind, and you can want to learn new things, but to be able to actually use it and do it in a positive way is a different thing. And so I think of one senior leader in technology industry, and he is always learning.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:07:51) - He's always willing to see what the kids are doing these days type of a thing. Right. But not in a way where he's separating himself from them.

Dave Tabor (00:07:59) - That's a cool thing to think about. In fact, one of my rules for stubborn young is to learn new things. And I want to talk about in just a second, I want to remind listeners that this is the Stubbornly Young podcast for those in their 50s, 60s and beyond who want to remain engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives. I'm your host, Dave Taber, and my guest for this episode is Kaitlin Borncamp, Wellbeing Champion. I love that title. Getting back to that, the idea of, you know, learning new things, but not from a distance, sort of being within. Right. Talk more about what that demeanor looks like when the senior leaders are learning within this young, vibrant community of work. It's sort of.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:08:37) - A misnomer to think that others aren't learning with you. So realize first that anybody you're interacting with is learning all these new things the new technologies, the AI, the ChatGPT insert, anything that we're kind of coming up to right now.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:08:50) - Right? Everybody else is also learning it as well. And so the way it shows up for them is they bring different thought leadership from things that they find interesting and present it in a way that makes it exciting. They view it generally as an opportunity, not a burden.

Dave Tabor (00:09:04) - Yeah, that's a really good point that young people are learning these things too. It's just maybe young people sort of it's automatic. They understand that this is part of their life. And you know, you're shaking your head. Why?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:09:16) - I'm shaking my head. No. Well, I always think about things sort of in patterns. And so when you think about all of our lives and what was present at the beginning of your life, right? Yes. That's true. Maybe I had more technology available to me at a younger age than, say, somebody, you know, in their 50s or 60s. But I would also say that think about the total change that somebody in that age group has experienced, right? They have seen a much wider array of change.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:09:42) - And so we're all always learning. And if you think back to something like, I would love to know what what people of you know, of your audience think of like the first time a cell phone came out or the internet.

Dave Tabor (00:09:55) - Big and heavy. Yeah.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:09:57) - Yeah, right. The first cell phone. Right. Huge. But what? Do you guys think about the internet?

Dave Tabor (00:10:01) - That's an interesting question because what's different, I think about what I experienced is the internet, when before you were, I don't know, able to use it. You were certainly born, but you weren't using use. It was such a slow developing tool. When it first came out, everything was so slow. You could do very little. You had to type commands, right, as opposed to the speed with which it behaves now. So yeah, the experience was way different, I think, as it evolved. Is that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:10:30) - That, you know, I want to go off of that because I think going back to what you said about how people in my age, I'm a millennial, for reference, but we are still always learning.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:10:38) - And so I think about something, let's say, like a complex topic such as blockchain technology, very complex, very hard to understand unless you're somehow already educated on that, right? Well, blockchain technology in itself is very fast, but the speed of adoption still is dependent on humans, and so the technology might be iterating at a faster rate. It may be changing at a faster rate. The technology itself may literally be faster, like you referred to, right? Nowadays, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's so.

Dave Tabor (00:11:07) - Fast. My first guest is a guy named Mark Schaefer, who's a bestselling author, international speaker, and he said, and he's my age, I guess, in 60s. And and he said, when, when he a new technology comes in, you mentioned blockchain. It could be that it could be NFTs and it could be other things. But he said the first thing he does is grieve for a couple of minutes about the fact that he's got to learn something new. And then and then his philosophy is will just follow my curiosity.

Dave Tabor (00:11:31) - And so to your point, these things are I spent how long did I spend? I don't know, I watched 4 or 5 videos on nuclear fission fusion, whichever, which was the one that just happened nuclear anyway. And I get confused. I still get confused, but I watch like several videos about it to try to figure it out. And I guess I did follow my curiosity. Exactly.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:11:50) - Yeah. And I would say, you know, the same information is available to us all in a sense. Right? So even though I may be quicker on a computer than somebody in their 60s, we we can still find YouTube. We can still learn, you know, at the rate of our curiosity.

Dave Tabor (00:12:03) - Before I move on, because I still want to explore a little more the work that you've done. If you've got any specific examples of people in their 50s and 60s who are wise, who are experienced, who have a lot to share, who talk to you about to the extent they feel relevant in their current world, surrounded every day by more and more people younger than they are.

Dave Tabor (00:12:22) - Have you talked about that with some of the folks you coach?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:12:25) - Yeah, and I would say it's important for them to find specific meaning as to the value that they provide. Right. And to go off of that and to build upon that. And they can be one thing that I think sets them apart is recognizing how much wisdom that they are able to provide the team. You know, like you mentioned, growing number of young team members. We hope that we get wiser as we get older. And so they're really able to bring a unique perspective. And if they don't let the aging become sort of that first barrier, then it really just opens up to be, you know, such a great, great value add to the team. As a millennial, I'm no longer the youngest generation around right in the workforce anyway, so I feel it too. And the generations below me, I think of, you know, what are the kids doing these days and the TikToks and the things. And so I'm also feeling the same way, and things happen faster these days.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:13:17) - But it's kind of like your last guest said, which is, okay, let's grieve for a minute and then let's move on and let's adapt and let's move forward. Because at the end of the day, that's what we're all here to do. We're all here to move forward. My sense is I don't love viral content or trend, you know, fad trends that come up. And so I sort of have an internal time clock where I say, all right, I've heard of a new idea. Let's see if it sticks. Right. Because I don't want to just go dive down some rabbit hole if it's just going to be another viral trend, and then we forget about it a month later or something. So I'm not a super early adopter, but I will say I do follow my curiosity pretty regularly. So I'm with you where it's like, okay, if a new topic comes up. For example, ChatGPT heard about it a little bit until finally it was a couple times I've heard about it.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:13:59) - I said, okay, this if this is real, right, let's go check it out. So I watched a YouTube video, I made an account and I'm using ChatGPT.

Dave Tabor (00:14:05) - Yeah, I was to until they locked me out. I got to subscribe now, but no. Yeah. It became like a it was almost like a party game. It's like, okay, let's write a song, you know, about this. And you feed a few things in and out it comes. And it's kind of fun. Or a haiku about that. Or I had it write a love poem for my wife. That was kind of fun.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:14:23) - Did she like it?

Dave Tabor (00:14:24) - She rolled her eyes and yeah, she kind of did like it, but she. I think she wished she wished I'd actually written it. So no, it didn't really count. So anyway, based on what you're hearing, Kaitlin, and learning from your clients, you know what? What are you going to tell yourself about this notion of staying relevant? Staying engaged? As you get older, you're already kind of you.

Dave Tabor (00:14:46) - You've already described yourself as a midpoint, like, because there are people younger than you. But yeah, I'm not sure quite there. But what do you tell yourself?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:14:54) - Keep learning. I love learning and I just think it it can change your perspective. There's always more and more information coming out. And you know, I have a long list of books that I love to read, and I love listening to podcasts like this one. And so really, my my strategy to stay relevant myself is to just to keep learning.

Dave Tabor (00:15:11) - What else are you seeing people do when you think of the people that are at your firm or other places that you see, like the most vibrant, the most magnetic people in their 50s and 60s that you think are doing a fabulous job staying stubbornly young. What what comes to mind? What do you picture? What are they doing?

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:15:27) - Yeah, they're taking care of themselves physically and mentally. I would say so in terms of physical right, supporting their health, their sleep, their nutrition, getting movement on a regular basis, they're able to prioritize that kind of first thing.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:15:39) - So they're not pouring from an empty cup. And then in terms of, you know, mental stimulation, they've aligned themselves in their work with something that they genuinely enjoy. They love it. They just they almost couldn't not bring that energy to work because they're so aligned with what they're doing on a daily basis.

Dave Tabor (00:15:53) - Yeah, that actually that makes a lot of sense. So ultimately, I mean, what I'm hearing you say is that the best examples of people that you work with that are stubbornly young, are taking care of their bodies. They have a level of physical energy, and they're emotionally they're mentally aligned with what gives them happiness, joy, productivity, whatever that is. Let's wrap up. I'm your host, Dave Taber, today on Stubbornly Young. You've been listening to my conversation with Kaitlin Bergkamp, wellbeing champion. I still love that title. Kaitlin. Glad you could join me. Thank you.

Kaitlin Borncamp (00:16:21) - Thank you Dave.

Dave Tabor (00:16:22) - Hey listeners, this has been episode three of the Stubbornly Young podcast. For those in their 50s, 60s and beyond who want to remain engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives, if you please do me a favor help the podcast spread by submitting a review and sharing.

Dave Tabor (00:16:38) - Catch you next time on Stubble Young and that's that.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]