Why We Created the Modern Elder Academy

Let’s face it, midlife is a marathon. For the past half-century — since the time the phrase “midlife crisis” emerged into the popular lexicon in the mid-1960s — midlife was defined as 45-65 years of age. But, today, in many industries, geographies, and cultures, people start feeling “old” in their mid-thirties. And, on the other end of the spectrum, if an increasing percentage of us are going to live to 100, it’s plausible that midlife and your career might extend into your mid-seventies. This new middle age time span from 35 to 75 feels like a run-on sentence that could use a little punctuation. Recently, this germane Op-Ed in the New York Times suggested how creativity, not flashy sports cars, might be the solution for this challenging period of our life.

Historically, society created rites of passages or celebrations to help people through transitional times of their lives: puberty, schooling, marriage, birth, death. But, because longevity in the U.S. was barely 50 years old a century ago, midlife wasn’t really offered any kind of societal rituals (other than the stereotypical gold watch after spending decades in the same job). And, yet, midlife is full of stressful transitions whether it’s divorces, job or career changes, or taking care of our young children or aging parents. For many of us, midlife is a time of exhaustion from the sheer volume of identities we inhabit.

Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson (Margaret Mead’s daughter) suggests we build our years of increased longevity and career path the way that we might build a new room addition in our home. She writes, “Adding a room to a house is likely to change the way all the rooms are used. Mid-career renewal is potentially a more dramatic change. Rather than building something on at the back, we are moving the walls and creating an atrium in the center. The atrium is filled with fresh air and sunlight, and it presents an opportunity for reflection on all the rooms that open off of it.”

In other words, the increased longevity we may have compared to our parents or grandparents doesn’t necessarily mean an extra ten years tacked on at the end of life. Rather, it means we have an extra decade, or atrium, in our midlife. As I was leaving my position as a senior leader with Airbnb in early 2017, imagining what was next for me at age 56, I started to ponder how those of us in midlife could create an architectural blueprint for a “midlife atrium,” complete with a variety of choices of how to spend those extra years.

This led me to build the world’s first midlife wisdom school, the social enterprise Modern Elder Academy with a Pacific Ocean beachfront campus in Baja California Sur, less than one hour north of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. The Modern Elder Academy provides the place and the tools to start reframing your lifetime of experience in order to grow whole, not just old. During the first half of 2018, we had more than 150 people (average age of 54, but ranging from 37 to 72) go through one-week or two-week beta programs to test out the Academy and we found that the experience was transformative.

In an era that prizes digital intelligence, we believe the need for wisdom, emotional intelligence, and the ability to collaborate and coach is greater than ever. The Modern Elder Academy was created to help people in midlife to repurpose their knowledge and embrace their mastery while appreciating the roles of both a wisdom keeper and seeker. As teens, we’re given all kinds of tutelage to guide us as emerging adults, but we receive none of this as emerging elders.

I joined Airbnb at age 52, never imagining myself “an elder,” but I was twice the age of the average employee. More and more of us are a generation (or two) older than those who surround us in the workplace, so we’re elders-in-the-making, which is very different than elderly. Midlife is the chrysalis that incubates the caterpillar to butterfly transformation that occurs when someone moves from adult to emerging elder — the time of life when social science research shows that happiness begins to bloom in its most robust form. The Modern Elder Academy was designed to help midlifers through the crisis of confidence that is often associated with this liminal stage of life.

Based on my upcoming book, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, our programs are designed to encourage a mindshift toward greater relevance and empower midlifers to consider what’s next on their career roadmap. Because life is a trip. And modern life is a two-tank journey (your mileage may vary...LOL). Society’s outdated model of a three-stage life (learn, earn, retire) taught us that this was a one-tank ride — where we fuel up with curiosity and counsel in our learn period (mostly our teens and early twenties), and burn most of our old school fuel in the earn period. But today, with increased longevity and accelerated changes in the modern workplace, many of us are running on fumes and in need of a midlife pit-stop.

It’s remarkable that at age 57, if I’m going to live to 98 (what longevity websites forecast), I’m less than 50% of the way through my adult life (if I start counting at age 18). So, if there were ever a time to learn more about what Carol Dweck calls “a growth mindset,” this is it, since many people feel they’re over the hill after 50. So, because this journey requires multiple fill-ups, we’ve opened a refueling station at a pivotal fork in the road. With a certificate in Mindset Management, our graduates are given tools to dramatically reduce stress and ramp up resiliency and adaptability — leaving campus renewed and ready for their next few decades.

If you want to learn more you can visit the newly-launched Modern Elder Academy website at www.modernelderacademy.org. Our first public workshops begin November 4 and, given our commitment to socio-economic diversity, 50% of students will be given a scholarship (applications due in August for the earliest workshops).

?Chip Conley is a New York Times best-selling author and veteran hospitality executive who renewed himself in midlife by collaborating with the Millennial co-founders of Airbnb to create the world’s largest global hospitality brand. His new book, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, is now available.