Midlife Mastery - with Daniel Wagner
Midlife - the main words associated are 'crisis' and 'spread'. But what if we challenge the societal narrative and make midlife the opportunity of our lifetime? What if it was our invitation to become more intentional, live more purposeful, and use our accumulated wisdom to contribute to the world around us? In Midlife Mastery we'll explore ways to do that. So that the best is yet to come.
Midlife Mastery - with Daniel Wagner
Midlife Mastery - 6 months in: hopes, dreams and reality on the vision so far
Daniel Wagner and Laura Winton co-host the Midlife Mastery podcast, a show dedicated to exploring the challenges and opportunities of midlife. Since we started in October, we've shared insights from our guests about aging, life transitions, and how to navigate this dynamic stage of life with confidence. Our podcast aims to build a community for those seeking inspiration and practical advice to thrive in midlife.
In the past six months, we've learned that it's not about the destination but the journey—filled with meaningful conversations and discoveries. As our audience grows, so does our enthusiasm for diving deeper into the art of mastering midlife. Join us as we continue our adventure, offering more stories, tips, and insights for embracing the richness of midlife.
Hey, Daniel Wagner here, founder of Midlife Mastery. In today's episode, I'm interviewing and get interviewed by Laura Winton. Some of you might know that our first episode ever in October 2023, was with Laura. She is a conspirator here in the Midlife Mastery and I just wanted to give you a little bit of an update of where we've come since the early days Some good, some bad, some outright surprising and we are where we are and I want to give you a quick update. Enjoy. So this is a very spontaneous recording. Laura, You've got to jump off in 33 minutes. You've got a live coaching session in our joint venture called Prospros Practice, where you help about 35 healing practitioners with digital marketing.
Speaker 2:So since we last spoke, Daniel, what's been going on?
Speaker 1:Great question. Yeah, I would have to say that best late plans sometimes don't happen. We had great ambitions around launching a program. We had three or four different iterations that were almost ready to be planted and in truth, it's now middle of March, 12th of March, and the one thing that has happened is I interviewed quite a few beautiful people, yeah, and I think that's pretty much all that happened on the inside what happened that I've done a ton of research, read tons of books all my books now.
Speaker 1:they used to be marketing become a millionaire, now they're all about aging and midlife. I joined coaching programs myself to know what's out there. So you could say I'm doing extensive field research on what's out there and I guess for any new venture launching that's quite a good start. The question is at what point you stop researching and what point you start testing or late.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what happened. I got four really good interviews lined up over the next few weeks and I still believe very strongly that this segment of population, the midlifers according to Chip Conley they started 35, but I always say the 40, 50, 60s in that age they definitely are crying out, although quietly, they're crying out for help and they need help. This is what my research tells me. They need help in multiple ways. One is to give them a place, a community, where they know they're not alone. Some of the biggest things that seems to help normalize your internal dialogue is literally realizing you're not alone. The second big message, I think, is inspiring them with examples that it's not too late, whatever that inner dialogue tells them that this is a great opportunity to start fresh or pivot this beautiful word that we all heard so much in the COVID years. I really feel it's an opportunity. And then there is the practicality of tools, modalities, support, mentoring, coaching from people who've already been through it. Yeah, you can go in many directions, but I still believe strongly.
Speaker 1:So that hasn't changed the foundation of why Midlife Mastery should exist as a support for people in midlife. That's still here, the shape of it. I don't know what's your sense. We've been talking back and forth. You've seen me excited, hope from hope crushed and hope crushed. What's your sense? What's really needed here?
Speaker 2:I think I would definitely echo some of the things that you've said and that have come through from your own research, and I think there's just and I think you touched on things and how they've been since the pandemic, since COVID, and I think, for better or worse, it has very much changed people's outlook on life and I think for people who are further along in their journey, it's very much certainly a sense that I absolutely have, that I feel very much that I did things the way I was supposed to do it, like this was in my 20s. What I was aiming for. This is the direction that I was going. Life was telling me this was the tick list and I was off to tick all the things off of that list. But now and I think COVID has really just given us a hard stop that's made us all kind of reassess.
Speaker 2:In some way, I'm very much looking at my life, thinking I need to do any of these things. I have done some of them. I'm by a lot of checklists. I am still ticking things off and doing well, but actually are those the things that matter to me? And I think I often end up having conversations with my friends when we talk about things like. One of the things we keep coming back to all is the idea that all the rules are just made up, this idea that we're very much told that we need to do things in a certain way, in a certain order, and actually we're all sat here now thinking Maybe not.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's a huge point. It's a huge point, laura. I feel that it hits people in midlife because some of the aspirations, the early ideas of how we think life should pan out, hasn't pan out that way. And this is logical, right. Why should life happen according to your plans? But at 40, 50, you're like, okay, certain things won't happen. Certain appointments have clearly happened, be it to all speed or burnout, be it a career ending, a company falling. But you have had these experiences that you were not expecting and I totally agree with this. And I'm 57, 58 this year and I'm thinking for the first time and I've done a lot of so-called self-development work. I'm like, who's rulebook am I playing by and why? And my father passed away 13 years ago. I still hear some of his ideas and expectations and my mother and my mother, and there's the culture and the country and the white maleness and the Austrianess and I'm like, oh my Lord what do I?
Speaker 1:want? What do I actually want? If I knew what I have the courage to go after it, because it clearly is a time in life and a time in the world potentially, but I don't know. I cannot speak from your and my experience. What I know, to actually go more after the, what I enjoy, what's meaningful, the financial aspect. Some of my research led me to Carl Gustav Jung and Eric Ericsson and they took out stages of adult development and they literally say there is almost a flip in values. The first path of life is about acquiring, you could almost say, the outside in bringing the world into your life. And then it flips and it's about what do I share, what do I give, what could be a value that I can create? A better society, or narrow community, or even narrow, how could I need for relationships they seem so obvious as topics, but the transition, if you're flipping values, what's important to you, that's not trivial, right. It takes I think it takes that idea of coaching, supporting people, allowing it to be there.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of it is giving permission, potentially giving yourself permission.
Speaker 2:For me personally, this week I've stepped down from a volunteer leadership role that I've had for five years and I've been in a situation where it's been demonstrated to me that, when it comes to the crunch, I'm not supported in the way that I would want to be, and people want to say that things are therefore my fault. And they are not. And I was, and I spent time thinking, oh, but I need to keep doing this, I need to keep doing this, I should keep doing this. And then I was thinking why, in my professional life, I have the confidence to know that I choose to work with people who respect the work that I do and support me when I need supporting. Why am I allowing somebody else to do this when I'm in a different role in my life? And I think there's also that reflection and that permission. But then I think, as you get older, there's also that confidence to have a think about things and then say, no, actually we're not, that's not going to be how it?
Speaker 2:is.
Speaker 1:Really interesting. Yes, I could reflect on similar situations in my own life. I said no to which I never did in my life. I said yes to everything Bring it on more, quicker, faster, right. And now it's like the great midlife edit, the great maybe this one not right, and it sounds very deliberate, but it's not. It's almost like it comes to a point where you can't do it anymore the way you did it. So it's not how I got this great awareness now that I'm making conscious choices. It's almost like it's an involuntary choice. I just have to do this.
Speaker 1:I had a great coaching session with one of my coaches and he said to me so why did you not go with that opportunity? And I said to him I just can't do it anymore. It doesn't align with my values. And he said if you say can't that way, it sounds like you're a victim of circumstances. And he said say the same thing again and say I don't want to do this anymore. And I said it and I'm like, wow, it's different. And I'm noticing around language patterns. I'm so accustomed to try to harmonize everything and be okay with everything, but in truth I'm not okay with everything. I've got to be. If the camera just made me really small right at the bottom Like hello.
Speaker 2:Every round, it'll do it again, yeah.
Speaker 1:Not supposed to do that. That's right. Track Monday yeah, moving into your own power Again. This is something that most people fall into a role, a relationship in their 20s, as you said. Right, you do your 20s, 30s, 40s thing and then something happens that gives you a chance to rethink it. And as we live longer, I notice also people dying all around us. As you get older, you have more of these occurrences. But in truth, we added 30 years to our life expectancy in the last 100 years. And our model and you spoke to that the old rulebook, the three phase life right, study, work, retire, die right. So, and this 20 years, grow up, then 40 years, work and then retire at 60. And if you're lucky, you make it 10 years or whatever.
Speaker 1:That definitely isn't true anymore. I don't know what to retire from and what to retire to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think also, and this idea that just work is just one focus for a chunk of time. Like another friend of mine and I, we always have this thing where we're talking about other people and things that they do in their spare time, and our thing is always everyone needs a hobby, Otherwise, what are you going to do? Work until you retire and then end up with no hobbies because you never explored what it was that you wanted to do. Like this idea that there's just a chunk of time where only work has to be a focus, I think is becoming fast becoming a really antiquated way of looking at things.
Speaker 1:I agree it's a lie, it always has been a lie, but we were led to believe that this is the way, and maybe when you were piling up some private pension in a corporate waiting for the day, possibly. But if I look at my current setup, with a little pension from a few years of employment, some savings, some You've got to figure this piece out yourself. You can't rely on a state or a company to do it for you. And I also fully agree regarding hobbies. Right, I just I love playing guitar, writing songs, singing, and for about 15 years I didn't do it because I didn't allow time for it, and I'm like I can't imagine that anymore, that I'm so obsessed with accumulation of something that didn't give me what I thought it would give me anyway. But that's for a different conversation.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, and that's a lengthy conversation as well, I think.
Speaker 1:It's the one we can squeeze in today, but I appreciate very much, laura. You came into this with me in October as we're about to roll up our sleeves and get going in our five-month in and I just love the way we support each other. You support me. We have a little venture with our prostrose practice that we're regularly adding about a small amount of people, but I really feel Midlife Mastery. It's almost like the seed has been planted but it hasn't yet shown, it hasn't come out of the ground yet. Somehow.
Speaker 2:No, I agree, and I think it's again. I think it's all of these things are work in progress, and I also think it's just quite a valuable lesson for us and generally for Midlife Mastery. I think you and I are often quite open about the projects that we work on and how they're actually going, and I know that we both share successes and challenges with our community in prostrose practice, which I think is a great thing. I think it's OK for us to be recording this six months in and be like we have done some work and we are working towards this, but we don't have it figured out yet. It's like actually it's work in progress for us as well, and I don't think that takes anything away from it.
Speaker 1:I hear you. I would hope to even say it's the opposite, that it will mean that, when it comes to fruition, it's the right thing at the right time, in the shape that we're really happy with, because I know in the past.
Speaker 1:I would just like no, we need the launch plan. Let's do it regardless. Late night, burn em it down, make up some programs, sell some people into it, and we'll figure it out right. There was even a short time when we thought this would be the case, and maybe this is part of the midlife wisdom. I just could not. I didn't want to.
Speaker 1:I can't do it, no, I don't want to do it that way anymore, and now it's a bit like so what else is showing up? And I think what's showing up is a more oh my God, it's a hateful word more authentic, a more aligned, more real, more wrestling way with how things are actually, and we're still moving towards a. I think we're going to do a beta launch, right? I think it's really a good idea to run a five week, six week, nine week, 12 week program where we take the first group of people through and see if what we had mapped out is actually working and creating information. There's no point doing a big launch. I think there will be a small group invitation, a handful of people six, eight, 10, 12, and just, yeah, get started, get some results, get some. I think this is as good as we got.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at Laura we should wrap it up. You've got to get ready for you.
Speaker 2:I do yes, our other ventures are calling.
Speaker 1:Any other last comments to midlife mastery and the venture ahead.
Speaker 2:I think, reflecting on this six months, I think it's just as exciting as it was when we started out. I don't feel like this isn't exactly the direction that we were planning, but I don't think it's any less for it, and that's always a journey that I'm very happy to be on.
Speaker 1:Same great. So as our following keeps growing, as more and more people subscribe to our podcast and get to know midlife mastery, something's brewing. Let's see what's coming.
Speaker 2:Thank you, laura, thank you Till next time.