Episode 19: Michael Clinton on Reinventing Yourself for the Rest of Your Life

Michael Clinton wants to be sure you’re in control of your life as you head into your 50’s, 60’s and beyond. Redefine yourself before others do it for you; own who you are, reassess your relationships. We are all living longer, not just getting older, and it’s up to us how we want to live those years.

Michael Clinton’s new book is ROAR into the Second Half of Your Life (before it’s too late) from Beyond Words Publishing.

Resources:

ROAR into the Second Half of Your Life by Michael Clinton (2021)

Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing

Transcript:

Betsy Bush (00:55):

What do you want the second half of your life to look like? If you're 50, you may just be approaching your life's midpoint. If you're 60, you could have another 30 years of productive living ahead of you. How can you make the years to come as fulfilling and rewarding as anything you've yet experienced? My guest today, Michael Clinton has written the book for these times. Michael's book is Roar into the Second Half of Your Life (before it's too late) from Beyond Words Publishing. Michael is the former president and publishing director of Hearst publications. He's also a photographer, a marathon runner, a private pilot, and so many other things. Michael, welcome to The Latest Version.

Michael Clinton (01:45):

Thank you. Thank you, Betsy. Great to be with you today and for all your listeners, appreciate the invitation.

Betsy Bush (01:51):

Great. Thanks. There are so many different conversations at this moment around this idea of reinvention and re-imagining oneself heading into a period where we all thought, well, traditionally we should be, I don't know, in the rocking chair on the porch or something. And then, but we're all in this looks like I don't want to do that. I've got energy, I've got my health. I've got time. Why are we all having this conversation right now?

Michael Clinton (02:23):

You know, I think it started a few years ago as the, you know, those famous boomers of which I am one, I'm a, a, a younger boomer, but the boomers have a long history of reinventing everything, right. They've reinvented through their whole lifetime. And I think they are in the process of reinventing what a 50, 60, 70 plus year old life looks like. And, you know, I think that the, the headline here is that the old construct is all being blown up. You know, they, they don't want their father's retirement. They want to rewire and do the next thing. And many of them are launching businesses. You know, the largest cohort of entrepreneurs are 55 to 64 year olds. Uh, they've amassed a lot of wealth. You know, there's still a lot of inequity in the world, but as you probably know, this generation is going to have the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world, 60 to $70 trillion in the next 25 years. So they have capacity. So they want to do things that are going to excite them, whether it's career or new lifestyle, or I say, why not build a house at 80 or, you know, why not, you know, try something new at 70. So I think they're, they're redefining everything. And I think the pandemic has really just amplified it.

Betsy Bush (03:42):

Take us through your roar acronym, because I found it really, really interesting because you, you came to some, some really interesting ideas that, that I really identified with.

Michael Clinton (03:55):

Thank you. The roar, which is a great action word just in general, right. Is an acronym for the book is in 12 chapters and it is, you know, in four parts. So the R is re-imagine yourself before others do it for you or circumstances do it for you. And re-imagine your favorite future. So what is your future that you want, uh, based on your, where you are right now, the, O is own, who you are, where you came from, but also all your numbers, your health numbers, your financial numbers, your ultimate number, which is, do you have your stuff in order own your strengths and weaknesses, things like that. A is the action plan. There's a concept called life layering in the book, which is how you build on your experiences in your life, in your world. And the are, is reassess your relationships because holistically speaking, everything that we do, ultimately, it's the people around us, our family, our spouses, our partners, our community, that that really are the ones that are the wind beneath our wings, so to speak, to get, get things done. So it's a sort of simple formula with a lot of flesh put in, obviously, to get to this, um, to this manifesto.

Betsy Bush (05:09):

You know, the one I really identified with was own who you are, because I think a lot of us have spent our lives trying to fit in with the crowd when we were in school. We, you know, you, you want to wear the shoes. Every other kid is wearing, or, or in college, you want to run with the pack, or even in the workplace, you don't want to be the person who sticks out and is different.

Michael Clinton (05:33):

You know, the thing that many years ago, I read a book called The Five Regrets of the Dying, which is, sounds a little somber, but it was actually extremely enlightening. It was a hospice nurse who sat with, you know, hundreds of people over the years. And the number one thing that kept resonating with all of her in her, all of her conversations with was, I wish I had been more true to myself, which is what you just said. You know, I wish I had listened to my own north star. I wish I had followed my path that I really wanted to follow and that I didn't do what my parents or my spouse or my kids, or my neighbors or whatever. And I think, you know, that that's hard to do it takes courage, but it's, it is the formula I think, for a fulfilling and successful life is to follow your own north star.

Betsy Bush (06:22):

And that's really where our value comes in is our unique perspective, our uniqueness, you know, period, where if you're the person who is able to spot that one trend or spot that one thing that speaks to you as, as a unique person, that might be where your real value is. And yet a lot of people spend a lot of time suppressing.

Michael Clinton (06:45):

Well I'll give you a great example. I interviewed 40 people in the book, all who made major life changes. And to your comment, one of my favorites was the guy named mark, who was a wall street, executive MBA from Michigan was having a very successful track run as an, as a banker investment banker in his late forties. He had this epiphany that he was not really doing what he really in his young life had wanted to set out to do. And he stepped out of the job. He went and got a degree in adolescent education, a master's degree. And he is now teaching math in the inner city schools. And he is, is happier than he's ever been. But, you know, he was, he was one of the fortunate, lucky ones cause he made the pivot in his late forties and said, I need to do what is right for me. So I think these stories in the book, you know, are meant to inspire people that you can do it too, regardless of where you are in your life.

Betsy Bush (07:45):

How did you find those 40 people? Some of them had really inspiring stories to tell, and they were from all walks of life. I'm wondering, where did you find them and what did, what did you learn from them? What did they have to teach you?

Michael Clinton (07:59):

That's a great question. You know, I, the filter was two filters, 1, 45 plus, and two that you had to have made a 180 degree turn in your life in some form career lifestyle, personal to put you onto a completely different path. So I knew some of the people because I had been inspired by them just in life, but I had hired a, um, an editorial assistant and asked her to go out and find people for me. And she did an amazing job finding individuals. And then I had word with mouth, you know, for people who knew that I was writing the book. So it was very interesting. It all kind of happened organically. And someone would say, oh, I knew this, this guy who lived in Los Angeles or, oh, I know this woman who, you know, reinvented herself completely as a professor at Stanford university. They never taught before and only has an undergraduate degree. And she's like one of the most popular professors at Stanford. And, you know, it's just kind of grew organically. So I reached out to different people and most everyone with a few exceptions were willing to tell their story because it w they were inspirational stories. So, you know, it was, um, that's how it happened.

Betsy Bush (09:06):

You know, a lot of us are, you know, living the lives that are 17 or 18 year old selves chose for us, you know, whether or not to go to college, which college, which major,. who your friends were. Uh, so much of our lives paths are determined by the decisions that that person made way back when you were very lucky, your 17 or 18 year old self was very smart. And, and you knew that you wanted to go to college when in fact you were, I think the first person in your family to go, you were a first gen student as it was.

Michael Clinton (09:46):

Yeah. First gen first gen students, you know, my parents were high school graduates, but there were, it was really no higher education in the late, but my parents were also very tuned into cultural activities. And whether we went to museums or to every Friday, we went to the library and we were allowed to take five books out for the, for the week. And it was a family ritual. And so they were very much exposed us to many things. And it was words, the words that I read in books that ultimately captured my imagination, that there was something bigger out there. And my parents were great. They were encouraged us all to go to college, but they wanted us to follow our own paths. And I remember my father once saying, do you want to be a ditch Digger, be the best ditch Digger there is. So there was not, you know, I found my path and as did my siblings and going to the university of Pittsburgh to study economics and political political science was a huge opener for me, just in terms of, you know, impacting my future path. And so, yeah, education to me is a lot, as you know, there's a thread in the book about how important education is regardless of where we come from. And there is, there is a lot of money out there for adult who may be gave up education. In fact, in the, in the book, we did a survey of, we had 600 completed questionnaires from, uh, you know, adults from various walks of life. And the two biggest comments were 1, I wish I had done more to pursue a better education. The second one was I would rethink who I married, which is a whole, there's a whole other book unto itself, but the education piece it's, you can go back to the university at 40, 50, 60, I'm a proud, uh, 60 something graduate of a new master's degree from Columbia university.

Michael Clinton (11:35):

And if you don't have your own money, there's a lot of money out there that funds adult education and whether it's college or university or certificate or Pell grants. So there there's, there's really no excuse. If you want to pick up that thread that you might've lost, or take a left turn and go do something else go. One of the women in the book who's in her fifties was a book editor, and she went to medical school and, you know, she basically did it all through scholarships that she found, and she's in her early sixties now, and she's a doctor. So there's, it's never late. It's never too late.

Betsy Bush (12:10):

It's never too late. I also got a second undergraduate degree at Columbia, and I wonder if we didn't pass each other on the stairs at Lewis Hall.

Betsy Bush (12:27):

You know, with the pendant in the backpack, um, I loved being back on campus because I just found it so energizing. I just love that, that energy and the challenge that wasn't like, nothing else that I didn't countered in work life, which is studying for a test writing papers. It was great. It was actually great fun, but I love being back on campus because I feel like, uh, for a lot of us who were undergraduates maybe 40 years ago, there was a lot to learn. There's a lifetime of learning in between then and now. And the, um, the courses you maybe tried to avoid as an undergraduate are full of, of real treasures that I think can be better appreciated now.

Michael Clinton (13:19):

Yeah, I think the, you know, the lifelong learning concept is something that's thriving in higher education right now. And I'll go back to the boomers. They're really the ones driving it because the, you may know that the number of college potential students over the next decade is going to drop dramatically. And so a lot of colleges are going to have some problems on the enrollment front, and they're trying to build continuing education programs. And it's the boomers who are really, you know, the ones embracing that. So even if you, you go and take a few courses around the subject that really interests you, it's keeping that lifelong learning thing that is, um, is driving this new, new trend that the post 50 life oh, absolutely.

Betsy Bush (14:09):

And all of these things need to be undertaken with intention. And I think you make that very clear, which is it's not going to just happen to you. You have to be very intentional about what it is you want to do. And, and I took your experience becoming an accomplished photographer as, as one of these cases. And, and you, you, you build it into your life layering, uh, experience. Can you tell me a little bit about how you went about becoming the photographer that you are now?

Michael Clinton (14:44):

Thank you. The life layer in concept of integrating something into who you are is know, and I'll use the photography. I had always been a photographer like everyone else who, who does amateur photography, but I ultimately decided I wanted to go, you know, knee deep or should say neck deep into the whole subject. So aside from learning photography and taking photography courses and learning about digital photography and teaching myself and going to classes, I also started to study photography. I started to go to photography auctions. I started to learn about collecting photography. I started to learn about the great photographers. It ultimately led me to the acquisitions committee of the international center of photography here in New York. Now I'm on the board of trustees there and on their executive committee, I'm the executive VP of the board. And, um, along the way, I ended up through a friend, had a pop-up show of photography. And I, I did as a fundraiser, which led to multiple more shows. And ultimately I published, um, my publisher that I worked with has published eight books of my photography. So I sort of over the course of, I don't know, 10 years, all of this happened and, you know, I continue. So my layer of photography is very, very rich and you know, I'm a collector and I'm on that ICP board. And I still take photography, produce, shoot photography. I'll have another photography book in the works at some point. And so, yeah, all in, you know, go all in on the subject and build a rich layer and stay with it for a lifetime. And it is, um, don't worry about what people think about, you know, are you good? Are you bad? Or you just go for it, let's go for it.

Betsy Bush (16:35):

But I mean, I was really struck. It's not just, you know, what F stops and now I'm, I'm trying to think about the photography I learned, you know, the field of focus, but what makes a good photograph and, and the great photographers and studying the history of photography. So you have a very deep intellectual understanding of photography that may be a hobbyist might not have, and that, that enriches your photography as, as other people see it, even if, you know, they're unaware of your background, clearly that's something you're bringing to it, but it's the enriching that's really enriching.

Michael Clinton (17:15):

Yes. Yes. That's true. And the other great thing about digital photography is that you just delete, delete, delete. You're not spending a fortune on film, but I learned what I learned, digital photography. I was like, whoa, this is like, really, because you can take thousands of pictures and decide which one you're going to, you're going to showcase. But yeah, I think that's the key is that, you know, you really go deep into a subject and you become a, you know, become the, if you will, resident expert within your, your group, your community, everyone in my world that I know a lot about photography. And so they know I'm the guy to call. If they want to, you know, get, get into the topic in one way.

Betsy Bush (17:57):

You also call out a lot of us who spend a lot of time on our devices and, you know, watching, you know, there, there are so many shows to watch. And I shouldn't actually say this as a podcaster cause there's so many podcasts to listen to, but let's be honest about the fact that a lot of that is just it's enormous time suck and you lose hours of time that you could be using to make your life better.

Michael Clinton (18:24):

So guilty as charged, you know, I'm on my device, like everyone else in a constant kind of way. And you know, how much time can you spend scrolling through Instagram and Facebook and you know, all, all of the platforms, the challenge of what I like to give, especially younger people is to, to, to challenge them, to put down all technology for 24 hours. And they look at me like, you know, I just stepped off another planet. Like they can't even imagine it. And by the way, that's for all of us. And if you just put down all your devices and commit to no technology for 24 hours, first of all, that is what goes on in your mind is really great because things start to surface and you start to think of things and see things. And I say to people, go take a walk in the park, have a meal with your friends, your family, and think about all that you spend the more spend on those devices and how you can channel that time into one of these activities that we're talking about. So, you know, photography, the photography example, you know, if you think about X number of hours a week, that you can spend towards your, your passion or what is, if this interests you, it really is, has, has big meaning and impact, you know, in your life. So technology's our friend and it's also our detractor.

Betsy Bush (19:41):

You're very upfront about needing to take care of our health. And I think this is something we need to keep emphasizing, especially for this crowd. That's moving. We want to have good years, right when you're in the coming decades and they're not going to be good, good decades if we don't have our health. And I know you're a marathon runner, but you're very, you're very clear about this.

Michael Clinton (20:08):

Yeah, it's fundamental, right? It's probably the most fundamental thing that you have as you live longer. And so I like to use the phrase. We are all living longer as opposed to are getting older, because it's just a flip of, uh, of a, of a word that has a lot of more relevant meaning. And as we live longer, there's an enormous amount that science has brought us to keep us strong and healthy, but most people, and I hate to say it to the men who are listening, but I think men are more guilty of this than women is that they just don't pay attention to fundamentals like blood pressure and cholesterol and LDL and heart rate and those kinds of things, because those are the sort of the, the foundation of it all. And then how do we, you know, we can't as 50 year olds eat the way we ate as twenty five-year-olds, you know, we just have to think about our diet and fiber and all of those kinds of things. And so I think the numbers, the health numbers are critical to having a long and productive life and other things like, you know, I'm a, I'm a two time skin cancer survivor. And so I'm diligent about getting the skin checked and making sure that there's nothing happening that I should be concerned about. And so it's just, it's knowing your body and you know, your body, you know, when something's not working and it's knowing, you know, how to take care of yourself, all things come off of that, all things come off of that.

Betsy Bush (21:33):

Your book is filled with so much wisdom. And I always ask my, I always ask my guests for three pieces of advice that they would give to others who are kind of facing this, maybe this emptiness, thinking, I don't know what's going, I've had people say to me, I'm, I'm a few years from now. I don't know what's going to happen retirement. I haven't thought about it at all. What, what advice do you have for people who are facing a, um, kind of a blank page? How, how can they start?

Michael Clinton (22:07):

It's it's more common. That response is more common than not meaning the majority of people who you talk to say, I have no idea what I'm going to do, or I'll, I'll decide when I get there. And that is a bad formula because in one instance, a woman that I interviewed, she said, I spent three years of my life trying to recreate what I had just left. And it was a three years of wasted time because that was then, and you know, now is now, and I need to find different paths, which she ultimately did. You know, she was a high powered executive in a corporation. She now her new path is she mentors, women who are mid career in terms of how do they get to C suite positions? And she's loving that new, new pathway for her. But what I found with most of the people who did the pivot in this book is they spent a full one to two years really going through the dissection of what mattered to them and what did they want to do next? And I'll share a personal story. When I knew I was about a year from stepping out of the day-to-day in my, um, my profession, I had made that decision and I knew it would be about a year out. And I, my job was, was, it was a very intellectually stimulating job because I'm in the media and it's all about concepts and words and all of that. So I knew, I knew I needed something that was going to fill that gap. So that's when I started the master's program. So I was sort of in school in the last year of my day to day. And then when I transitioned out of the day to day school was my intellectual challenging outlet, this master's program, which was 12 courses. And that was a really great segue for me. So you have to know what, what are the things that are important to you as an individual? And then it's put in the put in the time and the brain power to start building the building blocks, um, and, and challenge yourself and challenge the traditional thinking because the proverbial go out and play golf and hang out with the grandkids is good for about six months. And then you're like, okay, now what? And so I think that, you know, we, we have the opportunity as 50, 60, 70 plus year olds to do many, many, many exciting new things that are not what is the traditional path. We just have to find, what is it that turns us on?

Betsy Bush (24:43):

Do you think COVID is getting more people on that path sooner are younger people reaching the conclusions that a lot of us might have met, might've come to at, you know, mid fifties or 60 or something like that.

Michael Clinton (25:00):

It is definitely impacting younger professionals in a more profound way. And they're thinking about, do I want to be in this career? Do I want to be in this company? You've heard the expression, the Big Quit, you know, people who are leaving their jobs, because they're saying, you know, this, this existential moment has, has led me to that. Do I want to live in a big city? Do I want to opt out and go and work, work remote in a smaller town, somewhere in a place around the country that interests me. I do I want to be with this person who I just spent 18 months living with in four walls. And, you know, is this really what I want my future to be? And I think younger people, you know, in their forties and younger had been much more nimble, but, but I think people in their fifties and sixties and seventies can do this too. I mean, it's, it's a long arc in a construct. We, we box ourselves in with self-imposed ages. Um, and so self-imposed things that are quote unquote, supposed to be age appropriate. And what I would argue is you should be person appropriate, you know, you should do, you know, it's not unusual for a woman to have her first child at 50. There are many examples of it, you know, or there are people who starting businesses at 60, or, you know, starting a new love life at 70. And so, you know, it's, it's a person appropriate thing. So we, we cage ourselves and box ourselves in the culture. Does it too, in terms of expectation. And, you know, with the roar manifesto is, is, you know, fight against that and, you know, reconstruct a different kind of future based on what you want. And that's really the message.

Betsy Bush (26:37):

It's very inspiring. And I think for a lot of us who don't have role models in our own parents and for a lot of us who are finding our own ways, you know, making the path by walking as it were, it's great to have some inspiring examples, such as you've provided for us, Michael that's, it's been, um, it's a great book and I've really appreciated reading it. Michael Clinton's book is roar into the second half of your life before it's too late from beyond words publishing Michael. I want to really thank you for being with me today on the latest version

Michael Clinton (27:18):

As you. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was great to be with you. And, um, and I hope your, your listeners take some great lessons and value out of our conversations.

Betsy Bush (27:28):

Thanks so much, Michael bye-bye. Thanks for listening.