Communication essentials: midlife what?

Welcome to 2022! I’m excited for year two of the ‘communication essentials’ blog as we continue to dig into topics and ideas that could potentially impact our ability to lead our projects, teams, organizations and communities.

I’m going to tackle a big topic right off the bat — the topic of having a midlife crisis.

While I have entered ‘midlife,’ I have yet to face a midlife crisis. And I’m ok not checking that box, to be honest. Especially when you consider the alternative, which I discovered earlier this week on the ‘What’s Essential’ podcast.

I’ve referenced this podcast before but if you haven’t checked it out yet, please do. Simplicity and pertinence delivered with true emotion. A must-listen for me. Anyway, Chip Conley, an author and speaker from the hospitality industry, joined the podcast to talk about repurposing your life and what he referred to as ‘the midlife edit.’

His point? Don’t focus on what you want to add to your life — which is how a midlife crisis typically presents itself. Instead, focus on what you want to remove from it. What do you want to ‘edit’ out?

Truly, as we hit our, ahem, mid-40s, we do have an idea about what we don’t like, don’t want to do and are just tired of completely. This isn’t meant to take energy away from what’s important in your life — it’s meant to allow you more time to focus on it.

Doing more of what brings us happiness? Who could argue with taking that thought into 2022?

Listen to the whole podcast (30 minutes).