The Secret to Healthy Aging
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Maintaining a forward-looking approach to life and keeping one’s "peak" ahead as a strategy for healthy aging in mind, body, and spirit.
This philosophy applies to personal growth and organizational leadership.
Transition to Business Ownership
Material success is fleeting: Achieving material goals, like owning a luxury car, does not bring lasting happiness.
Resilience in adversity: Overcoming financial and career challenges builds inner strength and redefines success.
Value of the journey: The process of growth and self-discovery is more fulfilling than reaching a specific milestone.
The BMW Story
Goal realization can feel hollow: Achieving a long-held goal without planning for the next step can lead to emotional stagnation.
The importance of "what’s next": Always having a new goal or aspiration helps maintain motivation and vitality.
Fulfillment lies in progress: The act of striving toward a goal is more rewarding than the goal itself.
Lessons from My Grandfather
Purpose sustains vitality: A lack of purpose or challenges can lead to emotional decline and a sense of loss.
Retirement is personal: For some, traditional retirement can feel like a loss of identity, while others thrive by finding new ways to contribute.
Lifelong learning and challenges: Continual engagement with meaningful activities keeps the "fire in the belly" alive.
Reflections on Aging and Purpose
Staying relevant: Avoid living in the shadow of past achievements; instead, focus on building new successes.
Forward-looking mindset: Viewing the present and future as "the best days" fosters optimism and resilience.
Avoid stagnation: Growth and excitement come from pursuing new challenges, not from resting on past accomplishments.
Looking Forward: Setting New Goals
Big-picture thinking: Creating an ecosystem of professional tools and frameworks enhances long-term purpose.
Scalability through innovation: Leveraging technology to amplify impact.
Continuous growth: New books, keynotes, and coaching initiatives keep life engaging and purposeful.
Questions to Guide Your Journey
Face fears: What’s something you’ve always been afraid to try?
Pursue dreams: What unfulfilled aspirations still excite you?
Expand relationships: Who do you want to connect with or deepen relationships with?
Reinvent yourself: Who do you want to become in the next phase of life?
Set new goals: What’s the next level for your business, career, or personal life?
Conclusion: The Secret to Healthy Aging
Always keep a "peak" ahead—whether it’s a personal, professional, or relational goal.
A forward-looking mindset is essential for a fulfilling life.
Take charge of your journey and embrace every stage with enthusiasm and purpose.
Thanks for listening!
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I was being interviewed on a podcast recently. It was actually, an interview I did with one of my best friends in the world, Owen Fitzpatrick and his changing minds podcast. And he was asking me about aging and if I feared aging, how I felt about aging, did I fear death? Um, and as of this recording, Um, I'm about two months away from my 60th birthday and that's why he was asking me.
It's kind of a big milestone turning 60. I could remember being a kid or actually a young adult and my grandparents were around 60. And I thought they were old and I don't feel that old. So he asked me the question and I was actually pretty pleased with my answer. And it, it brought together a number of different.
Ideas and stories that I hadn't really brought together before. So I want to share that with you. And, the focus is kind of personally on this idea of keeping your peak in front of you and how that, really helps us, I think,age in a much healthier way, mind, body, and spirit. But it impacts your team and your company as well.
So bear with me. I'm going to share a couple stories, some ideas from my life and then ask you some questions that may help you discover this concept of keeping your peak in front of you and healthy aging. I want to help you discover how that works for you, which may be different than how it works for me or for others.
So starting with one of two stories I'm going to share with you, back in 2004, I transitioned from being a management consultant, working for large management consulting firms, getting a nice steady paycheck, um, buying a new house, having my first Luxury car. It was a Lexus back then. Transition from that to owning my first business.
It was a staffing and recruiting business that I owned for three years. I should have only owned it for a year because it was not a very good business for me. more on that in a minute. but I could remember, you know, in those days, and initially I was driving my Lexus and then as I lost more and more money in my staffing and recruiting business, I was driving a Nissan Altima.
And now there's nothing wrong with a Nissan Altima if that's what you're driving. But for me, it was a step down from the Lexus. And I could remember being, um, You know, on the road, driving around, I was selling from place to place, trying to build my staffing business, and I'm driving my, you know, kind of beat up Nissan Altima, and I see people around me in their Mercedes and their BMWs.
It pissed me off, and I know this is going to sound awfully shallow, but we know each other so I could be vulnerable with you. Um, I can be shallow here and there. I looked at folks in these nicer cars, in these luxury cars and it pissed me off because I thought. Man, I'm working my ass off. I'm probably working harder than them.
I'm smarter than them. How come they're driving around in these nice cars? And I've got my Nissan Altima. And again, I know it's shallow, but I had hooked up in my mind that a symbol for success was if I could drive around in a nice car, that would mean I was successful. And thank God I have a wife that's very frugal with money and wouldn't allow me to buy the nice car when we didn't have the money for it.
So for a long, long time, I drove around in this Nissan Altima and then finally I ended up closing the staffing and recruiting firm, starting my coaching business. That took a couple of years to really get going, but I finally got to the point that we were. paying all our bills a bit more comfortably. And I went out and I ordered my first BMW.
And I was so excited that, you know, as I was getting my business to the point, that I could afford my first luxury car. And I could remember on a Wednesday evening going to finally pick the car up. I had ordered it a week or so before Super excited to go Pick up the car and I could remember vividly Being in the car The passenger side window rolled down the salesperson showing me how the last few gadgets worked in the car before I drove away and shut the window, drove away.
And I felt this instant horrible feeling, this depression. Like there was this 500 pound weight. On me. I don't remember ever feeling that bad. And I thought, what the hell is going on? I just, you know, realize this goal again. I know a shallow one, but realize this goal of being able to afford my first nice car, luxury car, since I started my own businesses and I felt horrible and drove home.
went to bed that night feeling really bad, didn't sleep much, couldn't figure it out. I had actually was lucky enough. I had a call with my business coach the next morning and I said, David, help me understand what's going on here. I just realized this big goal. I finally got my business to this point of being able to afford this car and I don't remember ever feeling this bad.
And he kind of laughed a little bit and he said, Mike, you got a nice car. Pat yourself on the back. What's next? And I thought, holy crap, this car doesn't change my life. I'm still waking up in the morning, doing the same thing. That I did before I bought the car. How does a damn car change your life?
And his question, what's next sounds like a simple one, but it helped me understand that I hadn't figured out what my next big goal was. I had this goal for years of getting to the point that I was finally making enough money in my business that I could pay all my bills and afford the extra to buy a nice car.
But I never thought about what was beyond that. And that's what was making me feel so bad is that I had realized this goal, but then I realized the goal doesn't change my life. And that was a horrible feeling. the years of all that work to achieve something that really doesn't matter.but it taught me two things.
One is it's not about the goal, reaching goals, achieving goals doesn't make us happy. We think it will, but it almost never does. And if it does, it may be for a fleeting moment. What makes us happy is the journey along the way, the progress in getting there all the way from the time that I was.
Throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars out the window. And then when I finally started making some money, and being able to put some money away and pay the bills and not be so worried about losing the house, that felt really good as I was growing it. It was the journey that made me feel good. The other related thing I realized, you know, first was it's not the destination, it's about the journey.
But the second one related to that is, Having some big goal always in front of me. Having my peak, having my best in front of me, not behind me. What was that next dragon I was going to slay? And without that next goal in front, again, the destination is just a new destination. It doesn't change your life.
And it was only when I set my next goal And started making progress on that goal that I started to feel really good again. Like I hoped I'd feel when I realized the destination. So, the biggest thing it's taught me was you've got to keep your peak in front of you. What's that next dragon you're going to slay?
What's the next big goal? story number two.
is a story about my grandfather. I called him Pop. And if you're watching this on video, or have seen most of my videos, you know right behind me is a sign that says Hester Street. And it's a street sign from Hester and Christie Street in Lower Manhattan.
That was where my grandfather grew up. And I keep that back there to remind me of my grandfather. My grandfather was, man, the best man I ever knew. He was, you know, not because of any major success he had in business or life. He was a, blue collar guy, never made a lot of money. We grew up in the Bronx.
We, me and my parents lived on the sixth floor of an apartment building in the Bronx and Nan and Pop, my grandparents lived on the fifth floor, but he was the best man I ever knew because he was so strong, so proud of his family. He always had a gleam in his eye and a fire in his belly. He was tough on the outside, but all soft and squishy and big hearted on the inside.
Well, he was 83 years old and he was driving a cab. He had worked all his life.he really had no business driving that cab. He couldn't see very well anymore. He had gotten into a few accidents and he was kind of very unceremoniously, fired from that job. Now, he didn't tell us he was fired. He was too proud for that.
my grandmother told us and at that point, I could remember that being the last day I ever really saw Pop, I ever really saw my grandfather. Now he lived three years after that, but he wasn't Pop anymore. He would sit in the chair, my grandparents always came over for dinner and then stayed after dinner and we'd watch TV, whether it was a Yankee game or.
Some show on TV. And I remember seeing pop sitting in his chair, knowing he couldn't hear very well, realizing the TV was probably kind of low. And I said, pop, could you hear the TV? And he said, no, but don't worry about it. It was like, he was just waiting to die from being such a strong, proud, hardworking man.
Pop was just waiting to die. His life, the best parts of his life. he viewed as now being behind him because he wasn't working. He couldn't be useful anymore. That's the way he looked at it. So it felt like for the remaining three years of his life, he was just waiting to die. He was alive, but there was no life in him.
And what I took from that was That retirement for me was not a very positive word because I looked at my grandfather, and frankly, from there I kind of saw it in other people that once they retired the fire went out and there was nothing to challenge them, nothing to cause them to learn new things, take on new challenges, new ways of thinking.
So I hooked up in my mind that retirement was actually a dirty word that I always wanted to have something to look forward to. Now, if you have a goal of retiring, please, there's nothing wrong with that. Cause there are a whole lot of people that quote unquote retire from their job. But they have very fulfilling lives after that.
Doing something. Maybe it's charity work. Maybe it's helping others. it doesn't mean retirement's bad, but that's what I hooked up in my brain. And again, this idea of keeping your peak in front of you. My grandfather viewed his life as now his peak was behind him. He was no longer useful. All he had to look forward to was the downhill slope until he was gone.
So those two stories, the story of the BMW, the story of my grandfather to me, and I've told those stories before, but I've never put the two of them together, but I think putting the two of them together are about keeping your peak in front of you, which I think drives healthy aging, healthy mind, body, spirit, that we're continuing to feed our mind and challenge our mind and challenge our bodies because we've got something bigger and more important in front of us.
Last little bonus anecdote. I'm not sure it's a story is my wife and I, I think it was about 10 years ago, went to see a band that we loved in the eighties called Squeeze. And, you know, they've got some popular songs tempted. If you've heard, or if I didn't love you, I'd hate you. if you're young, you probably don't know who they are.
If you're old like me, you might remember Squeeze. And they were really big in the eighties. I don't remember the last time they put out new music. Well, we went to see them about 10 years ago.past their prime. And they didn't sound bad. But they looked horrible. And I don't mean they looked old or wrinkly or anything like that.
They looked miserable. They looked like they didn't want to be there. they were playing at the Bergen Performing Arts Center. Which, I don't know how many people it holds, a few hundred. Where they used to play in front of many thousands. In arenas. And here they were, 30 years after their prime.
20 or 30 years. After their prime. Playing the same music. To a much smaller crowd. I'd feel miserable, too. And I think I would look miserable, too, if my prime was 20 or 30 years ago. I can't imagine what that would be like if my peak, if my life's peak was 20, 30 years ago and I was just kind of living from the echo of that.
That sounds terrible. Now As I said, as of the recording of this, I'm a couple of months away from my 60th birthday. And, a lot of people I know are starting to slow down. They're not focused on growing in their career or growing their business. They're thinking about their exit. They're about to turn 60 and maybe they're thinking by 63 or 65, they want to quote unquote retire or whatever that means for them.
So they're starting to slow down. I feel like I'm just getting started. You know, I have spent the last, man, what is it, 18 years or so building my coaching business. to something I'm very proud of, to something that is very lucrative. Thank God I get to work with clients. I love to work with, I've written a couple of books.
I've got this podcast. I get to interview amazing people. I do keynotes on stage. It would be easy for me to say that's enough. Me and my wife are able to travel and do the things we want to do. I don't need a bigger house. I don't need a boat. Why don't I just kind of ride things out? But that's not where I am.
Because of what I learned from pop, and what I learned from the BMW story, and what I learned from seeing Squeeze on stage, I'm just getting started. My peak is in front of me. I have built this, you know, this brand around breakthrough leadership team, the book and my coaching and the better leadership team show.
But when I look out at the next year or two, I'm building a whole new ecosystem. Now depending on when you're listening to this, maybe this ecosystem is already out there. I've created this framework, which I've talked about on this podcast called the talent density framework. It's what my next book, the strength of talent is about.
I'm developing software that I'll be beta testing in a couple months that may take a Very unscalable business of being a coach and a speaker and an author and maybe using software to make it a scalable business. I'm looking forward to new keynotes and workshops based on the talent density framework.
I'm looking forward to the day that there could be other talent density certified coaches out there that may be able to spread the word and get the framework out there and sell the software. I already have the idea for the next book. I'm going to write my fourth. There's so much in front of me that causes me to wake up excited every single day.
I am not looking back at any point in my life and saying, Oh, those were the good old days. Bullshit. For me, the good old days are now the good days, not old days. The good days are now and better days are coming.
The political situation in the world and who won the presidential election and what wars are going on out there and what's going on with climate change. Believe me, all that stuff is important and it impacts me, but I'm in control of my life, nothing else. And I've got so much to look forward to because I'm keeping my peak in front of me.
So what is that for you? What's that next dragon you're going to slay? Out there. What does that next peak look like for you? So let me throw some questions at you that may help you figure it out. If you don't know what's next for you, that's big. Or if you do have it, maybe this will help you craft it a little more clearly.
But here's some ways to think about it. What's something you've always been afraid to do?
I could remember, and this is back. Interestingly enough, this is right back around 10 years ago when I was turning 50. I've always been the guy around the table, people say, Oh, Mike, you're funny, you should be a stand up comic. And they didn't mean that literally, but it was a way of complimenting me that I could be funny from time to time.
So I decided to do something super scary and take a stand up comedy course and get up on stage twice doing a, God, I think it was an eight minute routine at the comedy cellar in the village. That was scary. But again, that's a way to keep a peak in front of you. What's something new that motivates you, that keeps the juices going, that would have kept, for my grandfather,the fire in his belly and the gleam in his eyes.
So what's something you've always been afraid to do? What's something you've always wanted to learn? What's a dream you have that you haven't moved forward on? It's never too late. What's the next level in your business or your career? What's the next level in your life? Who do you want to build a stronger relationship with?
Who do you want to become?
What's next for you? And not just you, I know I've been talking about this from a very personal standpoint, but what's next for you? What's next for your team? what's next for your company?
So I always say, if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. This kind of self leadership is so important for that.
So I hope I helped you get there today. And I hope if I'm lucky enough to talk to you down the road or meet you. And I ask you, what's that next dragon you're slaying?
What's that peak you've got in front of you? I hope you always have a clear answer as I always will. I'm 60 and man, I'm saying, well, wait till you see me when I'm 65 and I've got my keynotes going in the new book and the new software. I hope when I'm 85, I'm saying, man, wait, I know I've, I'm good now.
Wait until I'm 90. Go make it happen. What's next for you? What's next for your team? What's next for your company? Talk to you soon.