Transcription:
Health and Well-being After 40: Part 1

Amanda Wilde (Host): Welcome to Happily Ever After 40, a podcast brought to you by ProMedica, where we discuss midlife health and wellbeing. In this first episode, our panel will explore life after 40 the joys, the challenges, and how we can bring balance to this important stage of life. I'm Amanda Wilde. And my guests are Rick Black, ProMedica corporate rehabilitation director, and Paula Grieb, Metro chief nursing officer and chief operating officer ProMedica, Russell JE Children's Hospital. Welcome to you both. Paula. I'm gonna start with you, but let's get you both in on this first question. What are some of the perceptions around midlife and how do they compare with actual experiences?

Paula Grieb: Well, hello, and thanks so much for having us. This is Paula and one of the things that I think is probably the biggest misconception on folks is that our midlife is really less than. Right. Less than where we are in our twenties or thirties and less than headed towards retirement years. And I have certainly found for me, these midlife years really have been the best. they've been the best personally. They've been the best professionally, and the opportunity, to continue to grow and expand in my midlife years has been just, massively significant for me. It's been a great time of life.

Amanda Wilde (Host): So it's a growing time.

Paula Grieb: It is a growing time, for me personally, I continued to grow in my education, went back and worked on getting a doctorate, well into my forties. I've continued to grow professionally in my career with ProMedica. And certainly on, the family side as my, children have grown and begun their adult lives as well. It's just, really been a great time of.

Amanda Wilde (Host): What do you say to that? Rick?

Rick Black: I think it's a really exciting time because you're at a different position in your career. in my case, my kids now have just gone off to college and so it's an opportunity for my wife and I to get reacquainted. And it's a chance to think about, okay, what do we want to do over the next 10 or 20 years? And so it's kind of setting, a plan and thinking, okay, we've gotten to this point and let's think about what's on the horizon and thinking about new opportunities, learning new things. And being able to do things that we weren't able to do in the past when we had the kids at home and we were dealing with all those challenge of having a family.

Paula Grieb: Oh, that's so incredibly true, right. That opportunity to focus on us. For a moment instead of love the children, right? I mean, our kids, our families are everything to us, but it is a different time in life when you've launched them from the nest and they're growing and you get to focus a little more time on, you as a couple, you as an individual. It's fabulous.

Amanda Wilde (Host): Why would you say it's so important that we prioritize our health and our own wellbeing during this time of life, Paula?

Paula Grieb: I think for me, if I were honest, it would be because in my earlier years I didn't do that. My children were young. I had, Super close together. we were busy family. My husband was busy. I was busy. We as a family were busy, our kids did the typical things, right. Travel sports, dance, cheer, whatever it was. And the focus really was on them and managing, the day to day schedule. Day to day schedule for work day to day schedule for the kids day to day schedule for the family.

And really if I were honest, probably for me from a health perspective, I probably took a backseat to that a little bit, and focused on them instead. And don't regret that. In this phase of life, I have the opportunity to refocus and get back to ensuring I'm doing the right things for me, so that I'm healthy and well, and can be my best self for myself, my family for work for all of those things.

Amanda Wilde (Host): Well, Rick, like how do you navigate that transition? If your focus has been elsewhere, you just had kids leave the house. I mean, so for at least 18 years, your focus has been elsewhere. Now you're changing that. You're shifting that a bit. But your habit is not to focus on self. So How do you navigate this transition?

Rick Black: Well, I think, it's been really fun to kind of do an inventory. Of where I am right now. and thinking about looking back and thinking about what personal and professional goals I had, and looking at that now, whether I have or haven't achieved them, and then again, creating some kind of a plan. For the future and then beginning to execute it and kind of breaking up into different compartments. Right. There's the physical component, the mental component, the spiritual component, and looking at those different pieces and creating a plan. So beginning to incorporate those things, and just gradually making changes.

It's not okay. It's December 31st. I'm gonna make a new year's resolution and I'm gonna work really hard the first two weeks of January and try to make a change. And then it falls off the map. It's not like that it's really longer term, right? Because we have a life expectancy nowadays of, probably for men probably close to 80 years old. And so you've still got a lot of life left to go. And so you have to think long term, slow and long term.

Amanda Wilde (Host): You touched on life expectancy. When my friend Marcy turned 60, her party invite read 60 is the new 40, is there some truth to that?

Rick Black: Absolutely. Have you ever looked at older pictures of either grandparents or great grandparents? And when you find out what age they actually were in those pictures, they just seem so much older. Whether it's the style of clothing or hair, perhaps, but even people's general expectation of their health and their physical activity by middle age, oftentimes dropped off. And so now you see people in their sixties, they're so vibrant, they're active, they're living a full life.

Paula Grieb: I couldn't agree more. Right. we're talking about this at home over the weekend and you do look back at pictures and see pictures of my grandparents that are close to the age that I am now and think holy smokes. What a difference a generation or two has made for us. And I think some of that's philosophy, how we feel about life. I think certainly some of that is science, what we know and how we take care of ourselves. But I think a good part of that is exactly what you're talking about. What do we do? How do we plan? What are our goals? How do we shoot for those goals? And navigate that in this phase of life, but it's markedly different than even a generation ago.

Amanda Wilde (Host): Oh, then even a generation ago. So that's exponentially increasing our life, energy in later years.

Paula Grieb: If you asked me, I would say yes. I've seen it in my parents, Compared to my grandparents. I think my kids are gonna say the same thing. They're gonna see it differently for me than they do their grandparents. .

Amanda Wilde (Host): We kind of have to shift our expectations then of what 40 is, what 60 is, what 80 is.

Paula Grieb: We started working on our bucket list. Why are we waiting to 75 to work on a bucket list? Why would we do that? we feel good. W 'ree physically active, we're healthy and well, we have the means to begin to look to that. And we have the freedom from, some of our, obligations from when our kids were younger. And why are we waiting for a bucket list? It's on our plan. Right. As Rick said, you make a plan and we worked to that plan and why not? Now's the time.

Amanda Wilde (Host): And that can include career or career change. I do see a lot of people gather expertise up to around age 40. And then in that next decade, they sort of peel off and do their own thing because they have gathered that kind of expertise and sort of shift what they're doing in the work world. You're both in executive leadership positions. Does this inform your understanding of life after 40 at all?

Rick Black: I don't know if this directly gets at what you were saying, but one thing you learn over time then is the ability to say no. Because when I was younger, I didn't say no very often. And there was a lot of good to that because I did very interesting things. I had great experiences and I learned a lot from it. But on the other hand, it can also distract you from your primary goals. And I think that as you get into middle age, your ability to say, yeah, that sounds very interesting, but I think I'll pass on it because it will take me away from this other focus. And I think that that's a skill that people develop over time. So it allows you to focus better and to work towards what's truly the priority for you at that time.

Paula Grieb: I paused for a moment because I was thinking like, Hm. I wanna be sure we answer this. I think you're spot on. I think the other thing that I would say to that is at least for me on the professional side, I think one of the best parts about being in an executive role is really the development of the people that work with us and around us as well. So not only do we have the luxury of sometimes being able to say no, sometimes we can also say that's interesting. I think we need to do that. Let me engage somebody in that journey and I'll assist in the navigation of it, but really that responsibility will get to somebody else.

And, for me, I think on the professional side, that's just been huge. I love that part of the journey at this point in our lives where our performance is amazingly fun, but the development of the next generation is just as fun. And just as rewarding and engaging for me anyway.

Amanda Wilde (Host): Yeah. You lend your expertise to advance others who are younger. What would the current you at mid fifties tell the past you or someone else who is actually turning 40?

Rick Black: Oh, somebody who's turning 40.

Paula Grieb: Like the me 40. Yeah. Oh, so many things. Yeah. I would say a couple of things that immediately come to mind for me. Trust yourself. If I would have spent a little less time worrying about, did I have it right. And more time in projecting it outward? I think that would've been huge for me because when I look back 99.9% of the time, I would've had it right, in the get go. BUt I wasn't sure I trusted myself. So I would say first of all, trust yourself. I think the other thing that I would say, that I have learned that has been incredibly valuable is know your network.

Know your network of people, personally, professionally, who they are. How they help you. The strength of that, those relationships on both sides of the fence personally and professionally, because for me, that network is incredibly important. It feeds me internally, but it also, I think feeds me professionally, externally as well. and much of what we do in healthcare, almost all of it is a team sport. So knowing, navigating, building that I think is huge. I think those are two things I say right off the bat.

Rick Black: I like that you talk about the network because one thing I would encourage people, younger people, but even people at 40 kind of mid-career is to have mentors and to reach out to those mentors. Because I think that for transition to 40. is a difficult transition for some people. And I think it's important to have mentors who are living the life, that you could envision that you are living, and to reach out to them for their support and guidance. And I think often we are afraid to approach people.

And in fact, I think we'd be pleasantly surprised if we reach out to people, ask for their thoughts on their experiences, what worked for them, what didn't work for them and to take advantage of that, even at a point where at 40 you're starting to feel more confident in your professional life, your family life. I think it's really critical at that time to continue in order to continue grow.

Paula Grieb: that's a great point. I teach a class, every few months and one of the assignments, because there really are very few. Right. But one of the assignments is mentor. Have one, be one You need one, no matter where you are in your career. And you should be one, no matter where you are in your career. I think that's a great point.

Amanda Wilde (Host): Oh, wow. That's really something to ponder. Rick Black. Paula Grieb, thank you both for a great conversation about an exciting time of life midlife. Thank you to our listeners for listening to Happily Ever After 40. Until next time, Stay Happily Ever After 40.