Unfurling the Many Chapters of Your Life
Unfurling the Many Chapters of Your Life
Hello from the majestic Adirondacks in upstate New York. My family and I are here for a long weekend and a special occasion—to celebrate our nana’s 100th birthday and the remarkable life she’s lived.
Nana graduated from college at a time when very few women had that opportunity, and then went on to get a master’s degree. She became a social worker and eventually founded a mental health clinic for young mothers and children. She had two successful boys, four wonderful grandchildren, and four beautiful great-grandchildren. On top of all this, Nana traveled the world and spent the second half of her life in the mountains surrounded by family, friends and nature. To me, Nana set the standard for a rich and fulfilling life.
Living to 100 is an incredible feat. According to Wikipedia there are only 97,000 centenarians in the United States and less than 500,000 in the world. Despite this rarity, the number of centenarians is expected to increase rapidly in the next thirty years due to advances in healthcare and lifestyle changes. In fact, according to Pew Research, the world’s centenarian population is projected to grow eightfold by 2050. There are even longevity experts who predict some humans alive today will live to 150.
Several years ago I read The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in the Age of Longevity by economists Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott. They provide a comprehensive analysis of the social and economic implications of increased life expectancy. They also share practical solutions for rethinking finances, education, careers, and relationships as we live longer and healthier lives. This book was an eye-opener for me and changed the way I think about my career, health, finances, and how I want to spend my days. I was surprised that it also energized me—if I’m lucky, I have many life chapters ahead of me that I can’t even imagine right now.
Many understand life as a line that moves like this:
…with ourselves as points moving through distinct life stages upon that line:
Nana chose to do things differently from most of her peers. When she was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, the well defined or linear path was what most people were handed by their parents and society. Social norms and roles prevented people from exploring new possibilities and imagining new identities for themselves. Divorce? Coming out of the closet? Multi-ethnic relationships? Nomadic living? Multiple careers? A career for mom? All of these were taboo and unthinkable not long ago. People held tightly onto these scripts and expectations because they were passed down from generation to generation.
People no longer expect their lives to unfold along one linear path, from school to work to retirement, with a spouse, baby, and home ownership coming along inevitably in the middle. This script is outdated. Now, as life expectancy increases, the very notion of adulthood and elderhood is being reinvented—the majority of us will have the opportunity, should we choose, to redefine who we are, how we live, where we live, and what we do for work many times over.
Bruce Feller unpacks this notion in the excellent Life Is In The Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age, writing, “The idea that life follows a series of carefully calibrated progressions seems preposterously outdated. Instead of passing through a series of preordained life stages interrupted by periodic crises, we experience life as a complex swirl of celebrations, setbacks, triumphs, and rebirths across the full span of our years.”
Kinda like this:
Look and feel familiar? This scribble is how my life seemed over the last seven years as I got sober, left investing to become a coach, and became a father. I felt like I was walking in the wilderness at night without a map. There were no clear lines of demarcation, especially when I was in a transition, so I didn’t know what way was up or down and I didn’t know if I was making progress. At times, I didn’t even know who I was any more. I was disoriented, confused and scared for long stretches of time. One of my former colleagues even commented that I was “all over the place.” It sure felt that way.
While this might be a little scary or downright frightening, it isn’t bad or uncommon. In fact, it’s natural—change and transition are woven into the very fabric of the universe. Change is also messy, non-linear and unpredictable, even when we’re trying to control the outcome. Sometimes we even have to take a step back and revert to old and familiar ways to move forward. This is why it’s difficult to make sense of where we are, especially in a transition. Without knowing it, we’re stuck in the middle of a messy swirl without a vantage point to locate ourselves and appreciate where we are in the journey.
However, as I look back on my life, I realize that this ball of complexity, chaos and confusion actually unfurls into distinct and organized chapters linked together by transitions.
My career path is a good example:
By tracing my countless steps over two decades—beginning as an intern at Microsoft and journeying through many jobs and multiple careers—I now see that there’s a non-linear yet natural order to my path with somewhat clear chapters and transitions.
When we step far back and look at the complete picture, we see that the totality of our life is a rich tapestry of chapters and transitions happening across multiple dimensions or threads all at once. These threads include health, love, education, work, family, location, play, and more. When stacked together, they overlap to form an intricate quilt.
As you can see, each thread is a string of chapters linked together by transitions which go on to form new chapters:
According to Dr. Frederic Hudson, Founder of the Hudson Institute of Coaching, “Each subsequent life chapter has a somewhat (or considerably) different value base, cast of characters, and social agenda. Each redefines your sense of purpose. Yet each sequence is an extension of what came before and has as many commonalities as differences. Each new life period is different from, yet similar to, the last one. With each serial life chapter, there are new, temporary answers to the perennial human questions: Who am I? Where am I going? What am I up to? Who is going with me? How will I get there?”
As we get older and are willing to look back, we can see how our experiences have shaped us into who we are today. We can also see how different events and circumstances have forged distinct chapters in our lives, forming a coherent whole that begins to make sense with distance. By understanding these threads, chapters and transitions, our lives take on new meaning and we gain a deeper appreciation of the journey we’ve been on. Most importantly, we can rewrite our personal histories and pen new chapters based on what we want, who we’re becoming and where we’re heading.
This weekend I’m going to make sure I ask Nana a few questions about the chapters of her life and her own transitions. I encourage you to do the same with anyone in your life that you value and respect. Their stories are invaluable to us and tell us more about ourselves than we might realize.
Happy 100th birthday Nana. I’m so grateful you’ve been a part of my life.
🤔 For Contemplation
We shouldn’t and don’t have to wait until elderhood to look back and make sense of the path we’ve been traveling. You can start today.
To help you reflect on the various chapters and transitions in your own life, here are some prompts to help you look back and connect the dots:
What have been the major chapters and transitions in your personal life and career?
How did you respond when these chapters came to an end? Are there any patterns such as behaviors, habits and feelings?
What chapter are you in now? Are you at the beginning, middle or end? How might you know?
What have you learned about yourself through the process of transitioning from one chapter to a new one?
How have you changed through the chapters of your life?
How have the various chapters of your life prepared you for the future?
🎧 The Art of Growing Up with Jerry Colonna
ICYMI episode 1 of my new podcast dropped last Friday. It was a fun conversation with Jerry Colonna, the legendary executive coach and CEO of Reboot. In the episode, we discuss why stories unite us, what we can learn from depression, and the 'second adulthood.' We also explored what it feels like when you’re working on something that’s not your calling, how to resist the quiet and discomfort of being alone with oneself, and how to pick up the trail of your life to find clues for what’s next.
Listen on iTunes, Spotify, wheretheroadbends.fm, or your favorite podcast app.
🌱 Seeds of Change
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Here are five things I’ve been pondering about change and transition since last issue. If any resonate, feel free to share them with those in your life.
👨🦳 The Adult Years
Speaking of Dr. Frederic Hudson, I recently devoured The Adult Years: Mastering the Art of Self-Renewal, “a compelling look at adulthood as an opportunity for continual revitalization, reorientation, and positive change.” Its pages are packed with frameworks, wisdom, and quotes on change and transition. The copy sitting on my desk is already filled with dogears and dozens of highlights. If you’re undergoing a transition or simply looking to understand the process of change and renewal, I can’t recommend this book enough. I have no doubt it’s going to be a major influence in my work going forward. Purchase at Bookshop.org.
😐 Kay Gardner on Legacy Burdens
I’m a huge geek, especially when it comes to Internal Family Systems (IFS) and “parts work.” The past few weeks I’ve been diving deep into the IFS concept of “burdens” because they are so core to that model. For those unfamiliar, "burdens" are the emotional pain and distress that our parts carry. Burdens can be seen as patterns of behavior or beliefs that are passed down from generation to generation, or can be the result of traumatic experiences. In my pursuit to refine my understanding, I discovered this mind-bending interview with Kay Gardner, an IFS therapist, where she discusses the concept of “legacy burdens.” According to her, “if there’s a trauma that happens in one generation, that trauma gets passed on unless the people in that generation are able to do the work that they need to do.” The result? We are carrying our ancestors’ pain and burdens. Those traumas show up in our parts. Watch on YouTube (12 minutes)
☔️ The Problem Cycle
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to take a class on the Sedona Method by my teacher and mentor Jim Dethmer. Towards the end of the session, he showed a slide with “The Problem Cycle” that stopped me in my tracks
This cycle illustrates what the mind does when it senses a problem. Our mind’s job, after all, is to scan our environment, identify all the potential problems to keep us safe, and move into action. In fact, as Jim explained, our minds are quite skilled at making up problems and believing they are real because we think there’s a threat to our approval, control, security, separation or oneness. When we’re willing to see that the mind makes up, believes and justifies problems, we can begin to release them.
🌿 The Process of Life
I saw this quote from English writer Jeanette Winterson in James Clear’s newsletter yesterday, and I thought it was too good not to share:
"We live in a society that peddles solutions, whether it's solutions to those extra pounds you're carrying, or to your thinning hair, or to your loss of appetite, loss of love. We are always looking for solutions, but actually what we are engaged in is a process throughout life during which you never get it right. You have to keep being open, you have to keep moving forward. You have to keep finding out who you are and how you are changing, and only that makes life tolerable."
Source: Women at Work, Volume II
🌈 Who You Actually Are
Bryan Johnson has been everywhere over the last few weeks. For those of you who haven’t been exposed to the recent headlines, he’s a former tech CEO and centimillionaire who’s now spending $2 million a year to reboot his body and reverse aging. I’m rooting for him because I respect anyone who is on a mission, willing to walk their own path, and share their learnings with the world. Last week, I was pursing Bryan’s Twitter feed and this tweet immediately caught my attention:
It reminded me of my essay, Why Is It So Hard to Change?, and our resistor “parts” who sabotage what we really want and what is good for us. The image is a perfect visual representation of the mono-mind model versus the multiple-mind model. As you likely know, I strongly believe that we are all multiple. I can’t wait to use this image in a future talk or presentation.