The Art of Manliness - Beyond Midlife Myths — Why Middle Age Can Be Your Prime Time

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00:01:55.440 today at shopify.com slash manliness. Again, that's shopify.com slash manliness. One more

00:02:00.760 time, shopify.com slash manliness. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the AOM

00:02:08.980 podcast, which since 2008 has featured conversations with the world's best authors, thinkers, and

00:02:14.060 leaders that glean their edifying, life-improving insights without the fluff and filler. The AOM

00:02:19.180 podcast is just one part of the McKay mission to help individuals practice timeless virtues

00:02:23.080 through thought, word, and deed. Also, be sure to explore our articles in artofmanliness.com,

00:02:28.180 read the deeper dives we do in our Substack newsletter at dyingbreed.net,

00:02:31.700 and turn our content into real-world action by joining the Strenuous Life program at

00:02:35.220 strenuouslife.com. Now on to the show. Many of us grew up believing that midlife

00:02:47.500 is when things start going downhill.

00:02:49.280 Your body's breaking down,

00:02:50.820 your best work is behind you,

00:02:51.940 and you may fall into a full-blown existential crisis.

00:02:54.960 But a lot of what we think we know about midlife

00:02:56.660 turns out to be based more on pop culture

00:02:58.380 than actual research.

00:02:59.760 My guest says the reality is much more encouraging.

00:03:02.200 Her name is Margie Lockman,

00:03:03.440 and she's a professor of psychology,

00:03:05.080 the director of the Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University,

00:03:07.640 and the author of Primetime,

00:03:09.000 A New Vision for Midlife.

00:03:11.100 Today in the show, Margie discusses

00:03:12.560 what age range constitutes midlife,

00:03:14.280 and how it's not just a matter of chronological age,

00:03:16.020 and whether people really become less happy

00:03:18.100 and experience a midlife crisis during these years.

00:03:20.800 She explains the surprising ways

00:03:22.180 your mind continues to improve

00:03:23.400 even as some ability to slow down

00:03:24.780 and why this stage of life often represents

00:03:26.700 a peak combination of creativity and judgment.

00:03:28.980 We also talk about the real challenges

00:03:30.220 that come with midlife

00:03:31.080 and how adopting the right mindset and habits

00:03:32.940 can mitigate those downsides

00:03:34.100 while helping you make the most of what Margie argues

00:03:36.080 can truly be a sweet spot in life.

00:03:38.020 A time when you still have much

00:03:39.040 of your physical and mental vitality

00:03:40.420 and it's coupled with seasoned experience and wisdom.

00:03:43.720 After the show's over,

00:03:44.420 check out our show notes at awim.is slash primetime. All right, Margie Lachman, welcome to the show.

00:04:01.320 Thank you so much. I'm really glad to be here. So you are a professor of psychology who researches

00:04:06.260 adult development with a focus on midlife, 40s to 60s. Well, actually, we're going to talk about

00:04:12.460 what is midlife exactly? How adults experience the world and themselves throughout their life.

00:04:17.800 This is a surprisingly new field of psychology. Why did psychologists who studied human development,

00:04:24.340 why did they often ignore adulthood and particularly midlife?

00:04:28.820 Yes, that's really interesting. As a developmental psychologist, we were mainly focused on infancy

00:04:36.680 and early childhood and adolescence. And then the gerontologists were focused on later life

00:04:43.480 and the problems of old age. What we realized, and this was in the 1990s, that there was a big

00:04:50.100 hole in the middle. We really knew very little, especially about midlife. And I think a lot of

00:04:56.800 that stemmed from some of the early famous psychologists like Freud and Piaget. So Freud

00:05:03.660 basically thought that development stopped around adolescence. Your personality basically was sort of

00:05:10.720 fixed in childhood. And Piaget thought that your cognitive functioning was fixed by the time you

00:05:17.580 were adolescent or in early adulthood at the latest. And personality psychologists really

00:05:23.460 thought that personality was set like plaster for many, many years. So in the mid-90s, we started

00:05:30.820 to realize that maybe we were missing something by not examining the whole area of adulthood.

00:05:37.140 People thought things were very stable, that nothing was going to change until the decline

00:05:42.060 set in in later life. Okay. And so you and other researchers started looking at adulthood and what's

00:05:48.560 going on there and how people change and the challenges they face in adulthood and how those

00:05:52.940 challenges might change how they adapt to life or experience life. And the approach you take

00:05:58.400 is this idea of lifespan research. What is lifespan research?

00:06:03.860 So lifespan research is focused on how people change over time. Other approaches might just

00:06:10.960 compare people of different ages. So you might compare a 30-year-old with a 40-year-old or a

00:06:15.760 50-year-old. The lifespan approach follows people over time. And so we started this longitudinal

00:06:22.100 study called Midlife in the United States over 30 years ago, and we've been following the same

00:06:27.500 people over time. And the advantage of that is you can really see how people move into midlife

00:06:33.980 and then transition out of midlife into later life. So we've been able to see the processes

00:06:40.020 of change rather than just looking at people of different ages at the same point in time.

00:06:45.480 And the main advantage is that you can really focus on prevention. So we can identify issues

00:06:51.900 early on. The earlier you identify some of the important factors that relate to your

00:06:58.160 psychological and physical well-being, the earlier you can intervene and identify some

00:07:03.440 of the problems that can be addressed. And when you're doing lifespan research and

00:07:08.880 you're following these people from maybe their mid-30s to their 70s, what things are you

00:07:15.460 looking at in their life? Are you looking at their health, their relationships? What

00:07:19.680 sort of the factors you paying attention to? Definitely all of the above. We really take

00:07:25.040 what I would call a biopsychosocial approach. So we look at their biological functioning,

00:07:29.420 their psychological functioning, and their social functioning, their cognitive functioning.

00:07:34.520 What we like to do is to really focus on modifiable factors. So what are the things

00:07:39.740 that you can change that might help people to move through the aging process in a smoother way,

00:07:47.280 in a healthier way. So we look at things like your lifestyle, your health habits, your mindset,

00:07:53.040 that's a big one, your attitudes, your personality, your cognitive functioning. And these are things

00:07:58.680 that we can modify. We can identify ways to either prevent or to slow the declines that

00:08:06.260 might naturally occur with aging. All right. So your research in lifespan domain focuses on

00:08:11.140 midlife. We throw that word around, like I'm in my midlife years now. How do you think most

00:08:17.000 lay people define midlife? And then how do researchers like you define it? It's truly a

00:08:23.280 moving target. The older you are, the later you think it starts. And what's interesting is that

00:08:28.920 those in their 30s and 40s don't really want to call themselves middle-aged, so they kind of push

00:08:34.500 it up a little bit. Those in their 60s and 70s want to be considered middle-aged, so they don't

00:08:41.000 want to be considered old. So they tend to think midlife lasts into the 60s and 70s. But I would

00:08:47.760 say that the heart of midlife is really the 40s and the 50s. Another aspect, though, is really how

00:08:53.380 old you feel, what we call subjective age. There's so much variation at a particular chronological

00:08:59.920 age that it's not as useful as thinking about how old people feel. And the way you feel can be

00:09:06.140 influenced by so many different things, not only your physical health, but even your social

00:09:10.720 relationships, where you are in terms of your life course. So at age 40, some people are very

00:09:16.780 healthy, other people are not. Some are married, some are not. Some have newborns or young children

00:09:22.360 and other people have children who are leaving the nest. So there's so many differences in terms of

00:09:27.860 how a person's constellation of events and lifestyle is at a particular age that I really

00:09:34.980 like to think about midlife in terms of the roles that you have. If you're in the middle of

00:09:40.640 generations, for example, so you have people who are younger and older who are depending on you

00:09:46.600 and you're focused on helping those who are in your family or in the workplace or in community

00:09:52.740 who are younger and older, to me, that's really a way to define midlife. Being in the middle

00:09:58.120 generation and having your responsibilities that are focused not only on yourself, but also on

00:10:03.720 those who are younger and older. And that can really happen at any chronological age.

00:10:09.120 Anywhere from 30s to 60s, you can be in that sort of middle range.

00:10:15.220 All right. But so for the most part, rough ballpark, 40s to 50s is generally

00:10:19.320 midlife for most people.

00:10:21.680 Yes. That is, I think, very reasonable way to define it if we want to focus on chronological

00:10:27.060 age. I usually say 40 to 60 plus or minus 10, which would make it 30 to 70 if I really want to

00:10:35.220 broaden the definition, mainly because we know that when we ask people if they feel they're in

00:10:41.000 midlife, people in their 30s will say yes. People in their 70s will say yes.

00:10:45.040 Okay. So it's a moving target. And what's interesting too about the idea of midlife,

00:10:50.440 particularly in American pop culture, we have this idea about midlife. It's pretty negative.

00:10:56.220 like, oh, you're over the hill. You got to have a midlife crisis. It's obligatory.

00:11:00.460 But your research debunks a lot of these negative stereotypes we have about midlife.

00:11:06.220 Let's start with this idea of the midlife crisis. Where did this idea that once you hit your 40s,

00:11:11.660 you're going to have an existential crisis and you go buy a car and divorce your spouse

00:11:16.940 and marry someone younger, where did that come from? That is something that we can trace to

00:11:23.960 an article written by a psychoanalyst named Elliot Jacks in 1965. That's one of the earliest

00:11:30.280 mentions that we have been able to identify. And he was someone who wrote about famous artists,

00:11:37.340 but also people who were his patients. And what he found was people in their mid thirties to early

00:11:43.760 forties were concerned that they were on their way downhill, that everything was decline afterwards

00:11:50.980 and that they weren't as productive as they were.

00:11:53.880 And they were feeling like they were afraid of death.

00:11:57.420 So that's where we think it started.

00:11:59.300 It got popularized in a number of ways, though.

00:12:02.000 One of the most well-known ways that we see it popularized was with Gail Sheehy's book,

00:12:09.620 Passages, where she called the transition at different ages, especially age 40, as a

00:12:16.880 predictable crisis.

00:12:18.480 So the assumption that everybody would be going through this.

00:12:21.420 And it resonated with a lot of people

00:12:23.200 because there are people who do have difficulties

00:12:25.460 as they make a transition into the next decade.

00:12:29.300 There's, I think, another book came out around that time,

00:12:31.780 Daniel Levinson's book, The Seasons of a Man's Life.

00:12:35.200 And he talked about the midlife transition as well.

00:12:37.560 Absolutely.

00:12:38.320 In fact, Daniel Levinson and Dan Gould is another one.

00:12:42.340 They all were talking about these different transitions,

00:12:45.700 mainly going from 20s to 30s to 40s. And Gail Sheehy really drew heavily on Dan Levinson's work,

00:12:54.200 but he also did speak about these transitions. But he said it was really a natural part of adult

00:13:01.880 development that as you are going into the next decade, and there's periods of stability and

00:13:07.800 change throughout adulthood. But he didn't necessarily say that it was a crisis. I think

00:13:13.480 it was really not until Gail Sheehy popularized it that that became more of a common term.

00:13:19.240 And certainly it's also popularized by Hollywood and novelists who love to portray the midlife

00:13:25.980 crisis with these stereotypical views of getting a red sports car, as you know.

00:13:31.760 Yeah. And see, I remember growing up in the late 80s and 90s, there's a lot of movies that came

00:13:38.160 out made by baby boomers because they were hitting their midlife then. It was about the 0.96

00:13:43.020 midlife crisis. I remember City Slickers with Billy Crystal. I think there's some other ones

00:13:47.820 too. Same sort of thing about these people, baby boomers hitting midlife and they're having this 1.00

00:13:51.480 crisis and they try to go on this adventure and try to figure things out. And it's kind of 1.00

00:13:55.060 popularized that idea even more. Yeah. It can be really funny and people do have issues in midlife.

00:14:01.820 It is a difficult time. There's a lot of stress. And so it kind of capitalizes on that. And I think

00:14:06.700 people can relate to it. And then another thing that happened that entrenched this idea of the

00:14:11.460 midlife crisis even more, is that in the 2000s, there was this research that came out that showed

00:14:17.700 that people experienced a U-shaped curve of happiness. So they'd start out happy in young

00:14:23.220 adulthood, they would get progressively less happy as they approached midlife, and then had their

00:14:29.120 happiness go up as they left midlife. Tell us more about that research. This is a very interesting

00:14:35.880 period of time when there were many studies that consistently found this U-shape, which basically

00:14:43.660 means if you compare people from 18 to 70 and you give them a questionnaire that asks them to rate

00:14:51.040 their life satisfaction on a 10-point scale, with zero being the worst possible life and 10 being

00:14:57.500 the best possible life, what they found was those who were in their 40s and 50s were lower than

00:15:04.740 those who were younger and older. Now there's a number of things that I think are problematic

00:15:10.340 with that work. So let me say what I think the problems are. So first, when we looked at the

00:15:16.960 data, the differences between those who were younger or older than those in midlife were very

00:15:23.020 small. So on this 10 point scale, we're talking about a few tenths of a point. So maybe 7.4 for

00:15:29.780 those who were in midlife and 7.8 for those who were in early adulthood or later adulthood. So

00:15:37.260 those are really small differences, although with the large samples that they had, and these were

00:15:41.360 samples not only in the US, it was really all over the world, these were statistically significant

00:15:45.960 differences. So it became really common knowledge that the low point, in fact, they said the nadir

00:15:52.560 of life satisfaction is age 47. They pinpointed it to that particular age. So first of all,

00:15:59.240 it really was a very small difference. The other point I want to make is that now they have

00:16:05.840 retracted, the people who propose this U-shape have retracted it. And it's unfortunate why they

00:16:12.260 retracted it. The reason they've retracted it is because it turns out that the younger people,

00:16:18.340 those under 40, are the ones who have the lowest life satisfaction. So it really seems that it's

00:16:26.100 just a difference in terms of where you rank yourself relative to the other ages at one point

00:16:33.660 in time. And that, in my view, is not the best way to be looking at this question about whether

00:16:40.360 midlife is good or not. First of all, there are huge individual differences at any age. So on

00:16:47.020 average, it doesn't really tell you much about why some people are doing better than others.

00:16:51.040 And the other thing is that when we follow people in our longitudinal study, we don't see people going down in midlife per se. We see pretty much what I would call consistent, stable life satisfaction. Most people maintain their levels of satisfaction throughout life. Those who are happy tend to be happy most of the time.

00:17:11.840 With some blips when there are problems, certainly if you follow people on a daily basis, you can see their ups and downs.

00:17:18.720 But we don't see this downward trend in midlife on average as they do in the U-shape studies.

00:17:25.200 All right.

00:17:25.480 So being miserable in your midlife, not universal.

00:17:28.260 But I think your research did show there's a small percentage of people who do experience what you might call a midlife crisis.

00:17:35.020 I think it was like 20% to 25%.

00:17:36.780 Correct.

00:17:38.280 We asked this in the very beginning of our study.

00:17:41.280 We asked people, and this is from earlier generations, not current generations.

00:17:46.100 And they did say they had a midlife crisis, but as you say, it was only about 20 to 25%.

00:17:53.300 And I think it's important to qualify that what they meant by a midlife crisis was not necessarily what Elliot Jacks originally had talked about,

00:18:01.900 which was people thinking everything's going downhill.

00:18:04.800 The kind of things that they talked about were more related to events that happened to them in midlife.

00:18:11.000 such as getting divorced, or losing a job, or getting an illness. And those things can really

00:18:17.980 happen at any age. If they happen to you in midlife, then you may call it a midlife crisis.

00:18:22.820 There were some people who did talk about fears about getting older, but that was less likely

00:18:29.160 than those people who are focused on these external events.

00:18:33.200 All right. So this idea of the midlife crisis, not really a thing. Some people experience it,

00:18:38.820 not very many, but it's not because you hit your 40s and you're automatically going to have an

00:18:43.480 existential crisis. You just happen to have stuff that happens in midlife that can cause a lot of

00:18:47.980 stress. Most people generally go through midlife satisfied with life. Nevertheless, this idea of

00:18:55.040 the midlife crisis still exists. And one of the arguments you make in the book is that believing

00:19:00.480 this idea or buying into this idea of the midlife crisis can hurt you. How can it hurt people if

00:19:06.200 they buy into this idea that I hit my 40s, it's all downhill from here.

00:19:10.780 I'm glad that you brought this up because I will say that as I'm reading articles

00:19:16.460 so often these days about the millennial midlife crisis, I am getting concerned. I do think what's

00:19:23.780 going on is that many people in their mid-30s and early 40s are experiencing a lot of stress

00:19:30.960 because of the financial crisis that we're all going through and things related to housing.

00:19:38.080 And this is causing a lot of stress. And I think people are labeling it as a midlife crisis because

00:19:43.540 they happen to be in midlife. And it's a very difficult time because there are many people

00:19:47.440 depending on them and they're having financial stresses. And so it is really important to

00:19:53.000 address this because I think a lot of people are expecting to have a midlife crisis or thinking

00:19:58.800 that what they're having is a midlife crisis. Now, why is it so dangerous? I think any negative

00:20:05.440 aging stereotype is dangerous. There's been research that shows that if you have a negative

00:20:11.920 view of aging, it actually affects your health for years. And in fact, it could even affect your

00:20:17.180 longevity and how long you live. So having these negative views of the aging process have been

00:20:23.260 shown to be detrimental to your health. But I also think that if you are expecting a midlife

00:20:30.520 crisis and you're not doing well, you're feeling stressed, you're unhappy, you may be missing

00:20:36.200 things that you can do something about. So you may be depressed. Well, we have a lot of ways to

00:20:41.280 treat depression, for example. Or maybe you're experiencing hormonal changes and you think it's

00:20:46.980 a midlife crisis. There are things we can do to address hormonal changes. So I think we can miss

00:20:52.560 things that are treatable and important if we just label any maladjustment or difficulties

00:20:58.860 in midlife as a midlife crisis and chalk it up to that. And so if you think you're just supposed

00:21:04.340 to feel terrible when you get to midlife, you might not seek the help that could actually be

00:21:08.520 beneficial to you. Yeah. Believing in midlife crisis makes it kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:21:13.900 Yes, absolutely. But I mean, the thing about midlife is it is a transition point because

00:21:20.040 you've had about 20 years of adulthood under your belt. And you're probably looking back at your

00:21:25.080 life and thinking, how am I doing? I've had 20 years of adulthood. How am I doing in my career,

00:21:30.860 in my relationships? Am I as far as I thought I'd be? And some people might look back at this time

00:21:36.680 like, boy, I'm really behind on things. I'm not where I want to be. And that can cause some

00:21:41.980 depression or some existential angst. But your research has found that there's a thing you can

00:21:47.640 do to mitigate some of, you know, sort of internalizing this idea that, okay, I've

00:21:52.420 reached midlife. I'm not doing great. I'm having a midlife crisis. And it's this idea of the life

00:21:58.040 review. How can a midlife life review help during this transition period between young adulthood

00:22:04.100 into midlife? That is a really great point to make because I think there are many people who

00:22:12.740 are getting to age 35, 40, 45, and not having accomplished all of the goals that they thought

00:22:21.060 they would have by this time. There's just a general trend of people taking longer to reach

00:22:26.640 the traditional adult milestones. For example, people are marrying later or not at all. People

00:22:34.760 are having children later or not at all. People are taking longer to finish their education.

00:22:40.180 People are taking longer to enter the workforce.

00:22:43.520 So all of these things that people may have thought if they look at earlier generations

00:22:47.980 that they would have accomplished by age 35, 40, and if they haven't, that makes them

00:22:53.760 feel that they are behind and that there are problems with not having met their goals.

00:22:59.900 But what I like people to think about is there's still a lot of time left.

00:23:03.780 There are things that you can still do.

00:23:05.460 It's not all or nothing, and there's plenty of time left to accomplish these things.

00:23:10.740 Now, the life review is something that I think is very beneficial.

00:23:16.060 A lot of times people are so busy in midlife, they're on automatic pilot and they don't

00:23:19.900 take time to sit down and reflect and think about where they are or why they are where

00:23:25.660 they are or what they really want to do.

00:23:27.980 So this is what the goal of the life review is.

00:23:30.120 And you can really do it at any time.

00:23:32.120 Originally, this life review is developed for people in much later life to reflect on

00:23:36.940 their life.

00:23:37.460 I thought it would be very beneficial in midlife because not only are you looking back to see where you've been, but also where you want to go. And so I think that's very beneficial for people to reflect and think about what their situation is and what they can do to move forward.

00:23:54.160 Yeah. I think also doing the life review, you might feel like, oh, I haven't really done much so far. But if you ask some thoughtful questions and be like, well, is that really true? You look back, well, actually, I've done quite a bit. There's a lot of things I have done. I've laid a good ground, a foundation here. I can build off of that for the next 20 years.

00:24:14.880 I did something like that when I turned 40 on my 40th birthday, I got a hotel room near my house

00:24:20.520 and just want to be by myself. And I took all my journals that I had from since I was a kid

00:24:25.900 all the way through young adulthood. And I just read through them all, all night.

00:24:30.900 Cause like in that, you get to see how you developed. And I also in these journals,

00:24:34.060 I kind of established my goals I had for myself at different periods of my life.

00:24:37.980 And I was able to kind of see, Oh, how did I do? And then how have, how have my goals changed?

00:24:41.860 and am I at where I want to be?

00:24:43.840 I thought it was a really useful, productive practice.

00:24:46.060 It only cost me, it went 70 bucks

00:24:47.920 for the night in the hotel, that was it.

00:24:49.980 Amazing, that is exactly what I would hope people can do.

00:24:53.580 So I'm really excited to hear that you found it valuable.

00:24:56.880 Yeah, you got a list of questions people can think through

00:24:58.880 when they do their midlife review.

00:25:00.480 10 or five years ago,

00:25:01.480 what did I think I'd be doing at this point in my life?

00:25:04.220 Which of those expectations have come true, which haven't?

00:25:07.180 What's going well right now?

00:25:08.760 What's not going well?

00:25:10.280 Am I happy with what I'm doing?

00:25:11.400 why or why not? What am I doing or not doing that I want to change? What is truly essential

00:25:17.160 in my life right now? What is less important? What are my highest priorities? Where do I want

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00:29:53.740 And now back to the show. All right, let's talk about some of the things you will experience

00:29:59.760 in midlife because you are getting older and your body and mind changes. One thing I've noticed

00:30:05.460 about being in my 40s is that sometimes I feel like I'm just not as smart or as quick as I used

00:30:11.480 to be. I mean, there'll be times when I'm at my computer trying to figure something out and think,

00:30:15.680 when did I get dumb? I used to be able to do this really fast. Am I imagining this or do you kind of

00:30:23.840 get dumber in midlife? Definitely not. You don't get dumber. You actually get smarter in midlife. 0.99

00:30:30.500 Now that said, things are slowing down. This is part of the natural aging process, but they

00:30:36.580 shouldn't be slowing down so much that you really notice it on a daily basis. It might take a little

00:30:41.560 bit longer to think of something or to do something than it was when you were in your

00:30:45.480 twenties. But the slowing is a natural part of the aging process and probably the one that's

00:30:51.380 most noticeable. But you're not dumber. There are two kinds of intelligence that we talk about. 0.98

00:30:58.760 One is fluid intelligence, which is on the way down. It's slowly, gradually declining,

00:31:05.020 but it really shouldn't affect things that you do in your everyday life, especially because

00:31:09.980 the things we do we're familiar with and we have learned how to do them and we can improve on them.

00:31:17.400 So it's only when we take people into the lab and give them novel stimuli and give them a speed

00:31:22.740 test, make them do something really quickly that we see significant declines in midlife. But those

00:31:27.820 really don't translate into daily life. So yes, there are some things that are going down. On the

00:31:33.780 other hand, and this is really what's most valuable, is crystallized intelligence is going up. And

00:31:39.140 that's basically your knowledge and your experience and all that you've acquired for your 30, 40, 50

00:31:46.140 years, you have so much knowledge and so much that you can apply to new situations. And that can

00:31:52.640 really compensate for any changes that you might experience in the fluid intelligence.

00:31:57.920 All right. So yeah, our fluid intelligence in midlife, it's slowing down a little bit. So we're

00:32:01.900 not as quick on our feet as we might've been in our 20s. But that crystallized intelligence is

00:32:07.260 going up, sort of stuff we know in our head. And I think there's been studies done that showed that

00:32:13.080 individuals with a lot of crystallized intelligence, older people can often outperform the younger

00:32:18.540 people who have maybe higher fluid intelligence, but because they don't have that crystallized

00:32:23.080 intelligence, they kind of flounder a bit before they get the answer. And then, you know, the wise

00:32:27.100 old people like, well, here's the answers, I already know it. Yes. In fact, probably the

00:32:32.080 simplest example is on a vocabulary test. When you're in high school taking your SATs, you've

00:32:38.360 got to study these vocabulary words and try to do well on the test. And if you compare performance

00:32:44.140 of a young adult on a vocabulary test with that of a middle-aged or older adult, the middle-aged

00:32:50.300 and older adult will outperform the young adult just because they have lived longer and they've

00:32:55.580 read more and they know more. It's just a natural process of gaining more knowledge and experience.

00:33:00.860 I think another thing that happens in midlife and why it might feel like your fluid intelligence

00:33:05.640 isn't as good. I think in midlife, you just have a lot more to think about and use your

00:33:11.260 fluid intelligence for, because I'm thinking about in my forties, I'm like juggling work

00:33:15.500 and then I'm juggling kids schedule and I'm juggling, you know, paying bills and I'm

00:33:19.760 juggling, you know, other responsibilities. And so my fluid intelligence or my prefrontal

00:33:24.240 cortex has got a bunch of stuff in the hopper that's got to sort through. And when I was

00:33:28.860 in my 20s, I hardly had anything going on. I didn't have kids. I didn't have a house. I didn't

00:33:33.820 have much responsibility. And so it was easy to be quicker because I had less to think about.

00:33:39.440 Exactly. I like to think of this in terms of executive functioning. So executive functioning

00:33:44.840 is what we use to juggle schedules and to plan and to organize things. And so multitasking in

00:33:53.300 midlife is huge. And so executive function is still pretty good in midlife. Again, it's on

00:33:59.840 this downward trajectory, but the good news is that all of the experience of juggling and doing

00:34:08.420 all these things in midlife actually is good for you in terms of maintaining your executive

00:34:13.160 function. So the more activities you do, the more things that you do to draw on your executive

00:34:18.400 functioning in midlife, the better able you are to maintain your executive functioning into your

00:34:23.140 later years. All right. So having kids can help you and help midlife because you have to balance

00:34:27.140 all that stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So that's good to know. So you're not going to get dumber

00:34:32.280 in midlife. In fact, you have this crystallized intelligence that can beat that quickness you 0.88

00:34:37.740 might've had more of when you're in your twenties. So yeah, that's good to know. I'm glad to know

00:34:42.180 that. One thing I've also noticed people complain about in midlife is that their memory gets worse.

00:34:48.300 like, ah, where did I put the keys? Why didn't I remember to do this thing? Does our memory get

00:34:53.320 worse in midlife? Yes, to a certain extent, it does. Again, it's part of this natural aging

00:35:00.340 process. Most people don't notice major memory changes in midlife. Again, the slowing could

00:35:07.260 affect it. Sometimes it takes a little longer to remember something. You might feel something's on

00:35:12.260 the tip of your tongue, but you can't quite get at it. That starts to happen in midlife.

00:35:16.940 But there are things that are affecting it. Changes in the brain are happening. So things like shrinking of the regions of the brain, cardiovascular disease can affect memory. So yes, there are memory changes in midlife, but for the most part, they're not problematic or pathological in the sense that we think about dementia, which that really doesn't happen in midlife.

00:35:41.340 And there are things we can do.

00:35:43.220 So in other words, you can use external memory aids.

00:35:47.020 So you don't have to remember phone numbers.

00:35:49.500 You can have them in your contact list and you can have your calendar to remember dates.

00:35:55.340 So even if you are experiencing some memory problems, you can rely on these memory aids to help you.

00:36:01.740 Yeah.

00:36:02.120 And also the thing too with memory, why it might feel like you don't remember as much.

00:36:05.960 Again, it goes back to that idea in midlife, you probably just have a lot more stuff to remember.

00:36:10.120 And so, yeah, you have to rely on those memory aids, externalize your memory.

00:36:13.460 Completely. And in fact, sometimes when we think we're having a memory problem, it's really more

00:36:17.580 of a learning problem. So you go to a party and you meet someone and they tell you their name.

00:36:22.700 And a few minutes later, you don't remember their name. It's not really that your memory is a

00:36:27.000 problem. You are paying attention to too many other things. You're at a party, focusing on all

00:36:31.780 these different things, and you probably never got the name into long-term memory in the first

00:36:37.600 place. So it's really not a memory problem, but we tend to think, oh my God, my memory is going

00:36:42.600 downhill. And that's not necessarily going to be the case. What about going back to the initial

00:36:49.400 idea of the midlife crisis where the guy was talking to artists and writers and things like

00:36:53.440 that. And they just felt like, oh, my best creative days are behind me. I'm going into midlife. All my

00:36:59.660 good ideas are gone. I can't be creative anymore. Do we get less creative and innovative as we get

00:37:04.520 older? Not necessarily. We did a study of inventors, so people who had received patents

00:37:12.360 from the U.S. We started the study because we were really interested in looking at midlife

00:37:18.720 functioning outside of the lab. Most of our cognitive studies are done where we bring people

00:37:23.300 into our lab and give them cognitive tests. We wanted to see how cognitive functions were

00:37:29.860 operating in real world settings. And this was one example, the patents. And we thought that

00:37:36.640 midlife might be the cognitive sweet spot. Because of what I talked about a few moments ago,

00:37:41.460 the crystallized intelligence is on the way up and the fluid intelligence, yes, it's on the way down,

00:37:46.900 but it still has a long way to go before it hits bottom. So we kind of saw this point in midlife

00:37:51.520 where we thought it might actually be the best of both worlds. And we looked to see when patents

00:37:57.340 were most common? At what age these patents were most common? And indeed, it was in early midlife.

00:38:02.640 They were the most common in the early 40s. It was also the case that many people patented for

00:38:09.960 the first time after age 50. So patenting continued into 50s and beyond. So it's not that all of a

00:38:16.560 sudden your creativity dwindles. Yeah. Another thing I've seen is that I think we often have

00:38:22.020 this idea of entrepreneurship. It's like the young entrepreneur, like the Mark Zuckerberg

00:38:25.980 or the Steve Jobs when he was in his 20s

00:38:28.360 and he founded Apple.

00:38:29.600 But when the researchers look at it,

00:38:31.240 most successful startups are started by people

00:38:34.580 who are in their 40s or 50s.

00:38:36.620 Yes.

00:38:37.200 So that I think has to do with their decision-making

00:38:40.780 and their experience

00:38:42.180 because they've learned from past mistakes

00:38:45.200 and draw on those kinds of experiences.

00:38:49.080 And there are different kinds of intelligences

00:38:51.520 that are working.

00:38:52.480 And so some of the more forward-thinking

00:38:54.840 kinds of novel breakthroughs might occur earlier on. In fact, we found something to support that

00:39:00.340 in our patent study. Whereas those in later life, they're also doing innovative things,

00:39:05.780 but they're more drawing on changes to things that they've already worked on,

00:39:10.560 going in new directions with things that have already been established. But those people who

00:39:15.620 are in their forties and fifties are really at the peak of decision-making and have a lot of

00:39:20.060 experience. I also want to add that one of the things we looked at was multi-age, mixed-generational

00:39:25.820 teams, because many patents are not done by individuals, they're done by teams. And we found

00:39:30.860 some preliminary evidence that those patents that were made by people of mixed ages, so having

00:39:38.160 younger and middle-aged and older adults, actually were the ones who were the most successful.

00:39:44.900 All right, that's interesting. All right, so this is good news. You're actually midlife,

00:39:47.720 you're at your peak of creativity in certain ways, peak of good decision making. So the things you

00:39:52.980 start will probably be more successful. I'd love to hear this. Let's shift over to our physical

00:39:57.740 health. How does our physical health change in midlife? In many ways, things are going on. Now, 0.62

00:40:04.140 the first thing people notice are the obvious outward changes. So people get reading glasses

00:40:10.600 because of presbyopia and they get gray hair and thinning hair and they feel like they're slowing

00:40:18.880 down or when they get an injury, it takes longer to recover. So those are the things you can

00:40:23.040 actually see. But on the inside, there's a lot of things that are also going on. Things like bone

00:40:29.500 loss, muscle loss, change in lung function, immune functioning, all of these things are

00:40:35.200 declining slowly. A lot of these things we can do something about and I think that's what's

00:40:40.480 most important is that the earlier we start to take note of these kinds of changes and do things

00:40:48.860 to try to modify or prevent decline, the better off we're going to be. All right. So you're not

00:40:54.400 doomed to get fatter, weaker, and creakier in midlife? Definitely not. But the things that we

00:41:00.420 do know about in midlife, so if you are going for regular checkups and look at your biomarkers like

00:41:07.340 cholesterol or glucose or blood pressure or BMI, what's I think really important to say is that

00:41:14.640 those indicators in midlife are more important for your later life than what happens in later

00:41:20.720 life because it's a long process. If you have high blood pressure for 30 years, that's going

00:41:26.340 to do a lot more damage than if you get it later on in life. So it's really important to focus on

00:41:32.560 these things in midlife. It's really making a long-term investment in your health. And so if

00:41:36.860 you're able to address some of these health issues in midlife, it's going to pay big benefits later

00:41:42.880 on in life. All right. So exercise, eat right, get those checkups, because that's going to make your

00:41:47.060 midlife experience more pleasant, get more out of it. But it's also setting you up for a better

00:41:52.560 elderhood. Exactly. All right. Let's talk about this. What about friendships and relationships?

00:41:57.880 How do those change in midlife? One of the things that happens in midlife is we get so busy

00:42:03.300 with our day-to-day responsibilities that we sometimes lose track of our relationships that

00:42:10.580 are outside our immediate family. And social relationships are so important for midlife,

00:42:17.080 but even into later life. So if people can maintain friendships in midlife that carry over

00:42:22.960 into later life when it's actually even harder to make new friends, it's really important. And

00:42:28.860 what we find is that it's important to get and give social support to others. And this can be

00:42:35.540 in your family as well as with friends. But we find that one way to maintain friendships is to

00:42:42.400 incorporate it into other activities. So doing things with your family and a lot of friends

00:42:50.020 typically will be from your kids' friends' families. So if you can do things that not only

00:42:56.680 your social, with other families and friends, that's a really good way to do it. Or if you want

00:43:01.680 to exercise with other people like your friends, that's also a good way to do it. We call it

00:43:06.380 temptation bundling because really what it's doing is you're doing two things that are important.

00:43:11.560 You're seeing your friends, you're talking to your friends, and you're also exercising at the

00:43:15.820 same time. So it kind of does something for the busy people in midlife to try to combine them

00:43:21.420 at the same time. Something my wife and I have noticed with our friendships as we've gotten

00:43:26.120 in midlife is it seems like it was a lot easier to make friends when we were younger and our kids

00:43:31.360 were younger. Like something about that stage of life makes it easier to make friends because

00:43:35.380 young kids, they don't have a lot going on and you can just kind of throw them together

00:43:39.680 and they get along. But when your kids get older, their personalities are more formed

00:43:45.120 and they get along more or less with other kids. And everyone's got extracurriculars going on at

00:43:51.840 different times. People are busy. So it just, it seems like it just gets harder and harder to sync

00:43:56.460 up. And it seems like if you want friendships in midlife, you have to be even more intentional

00:44:02.440 about it. Yes. I think that makes a lot of sense. And in some ways it's really upon us to really

00:44:10.480 make a concerted effort to maintain the friendships that we, we had established,

00:44:15.480 especially for the people that you really care about and that you really enjoy. You may not

00:44:20.100 necessarily want to keep up with all the people that you had made friends with earlier on. But

00:44:27.060 to the extent that you are interested in people that you had good relationships with, it does

00:44:34.440 take more effort to maintain those relationships. Another thing that could cause stress that's

00:44:41.320 related to relationships in midlife is that when you're in middle age, there's a good chance you

00:44:47.640 have parents who are in their 70s and 80s, and they've got health problems and issues that you've

00:44:52.840 got to tend to. But then at the same time, you have kids who might be in their teen years or

00:44:57.780 just about in their young adulthood, and they're going to be stressed with that. So when you're

00:45:01.940 in midlife, you're trying to balance both of these sets of relationships. Yes, this is what we call

00:45:07.620 the sandwich generation, right? The middle-aged adult who has kids who are still depending on 0.59

00:45:13.820 them and they require a lot of attention. And then their parents are starting to have health

00:45:19.100 problems or aging in ways that require assistance. And there's a large percentage of those who are in

00:45:25.820 middle age who are faced with this kind of squeezing between generations. And it can be

00:45:32.140 very stressful because you're also needing to focus on your own health and well-being and your

00:45:36.860 own work. That said, I think that this may be the time in midlife where you just have to address

00:45:43.360 this need and realize it's not going to last forever. Your kids are going to grow up and

00:45:48.260 your parents are not going to live forever. So it is a crunch time in a way. And I think

00:45:53.680 one of the reasons that midlife is ideal in a way to be able to handle this kind of

00:45:59.560 squeeze between generations is because of this notion of generativity. This was a concept

00:46:04.860 developed by a famous psychoanalyst named Eric Erickson, and he called generativity the main

00:46:12.400 task for those who are in midlife. So it's really concern for the next generation. And

00:46:18.220 midlife people are really good at it. It may take its form as parenting, but it can also take its

00:46:23.780 form as mentoring younger people at work. And so at that time in midlife, not only are you being

00:46:31.160 generative to other people who are younger than you, but you're also now taking care of people

00:46:37.000 who are older who are depending on you. And that does create a crunch.

00:46:43.040 Yeah. But I think the idea is just to embrace that idea. I'm the adult now. I'm the person

00:46:48.020 in charge. And I have all these talents and these skills and this experience. And I'm in a position

00:46:53.240 to do a lot of good during this time. But what we find is that social support can go both ways.

00:47:00.560 you can give social support and receive social support. And the ideal situation is a balance,

00:47:08.540 giving and receiving. In midlife, it turns out that the balance is tipped towards giving. You're

00:47:14.240 giving more to other people. As you get into later life, it may flip and you may be able to reap the

00:47:20.320 benefits of all your giving and be able to receive more social support. Okay. So besides just

00:47:26.340 thinking about, okay, this is just going to be a short period of time. Maybe change your mindset

00:47:30.760 about this period where I can be generative about this. Any other tactics you've found that are

00:47:36.420 useful to help people manage this sandwich generation crunch? One thing to keep in mind 0.99

00:47:41.880 is that research shows that giving social support is good for your health. It's not only that it's

00:47:49.080 benefiting the people you're giving the support to, it actually benefits your own health. So if

00:47:53.400 you think of it as I'm being active and I'm juggling a lot of different things, but I'm

00:47:59.260 doing something that's purposeful and meaningful. I think that can really go a long way towards

00:48:04.780 helping people feel that this is really something that is good for me as well as for the people that

00:48:11.280 I'm helping. Yeah. I also think too, just making sure you carve out time for yourself. If you're

00:48:15.900 starting to feel really overwhelmed, just take a step back and maybe find some other people that

00:48:20.280 can help, you know, fill in while you take a, you know, a weekend off just to take care of yourself.

00:48:25.780 Great point. Yeah. So, I mean, one of the big points in your book is that midlife, you call,

00:48:32.020 you know, the title of your book is prime time. Midlife can be the prime time of your life. And

00:48:37.580 I think what we've talked about in this conversation is that a lot of these myths that we have about

00:48:42.280 midlife, not necessarily true. Yes, there's some downsides, but there's a lot of benefits to being

00:48:48.720 in your 40s and 50s. And going back to this idea of mindset, you talked about the people who

00:48:53.960 successfully navigate midlife. They take what you call a gain frame mindset as opposed to a loss

00:49:01.140 frame mindset. What's the difference between those two mindsets? The gain view is thinking that you

00:49:07.540 can improve and make changes and go in new directions. And that's really in contrast to

00:49:13.460 the loss view, which many people hold, which is that things go downhill with age and there's

00:49:18.520 really nothing I can do about it. So being game frame means asking, what can I still build

00:49:24.980 instead of what am I losing? And so this mindset goes a long way. If you think there's nothing you

00:49:31.360 can do, then you really won't do anything. So in this case, really having a game frame means that

00:49:38.560 you're going to invest the time and energy on your psychological, cognitive, physical,

00:49:44.180 and social well-being, and that will bring big benefits.

00:49:48.620 Yeah.

00:49:48.860 And you gave, throughout the book, lots of case studies of individuals who took this

00:49:53.000 gain-frame mindset, people who maybe they hit their 40s and they weren't where they

00:49:57.980 wanted to be in their career, and instead of thinking, well, it's over for me, I had

00:50:01.580 my shot and I didn't get it, I'm going to go back to school, get an education and something

00:50:06.840 else, and I'm going to try something new.

00:50:08.560 because I've got plenty of time left. I think when you get to age 40 or 50,

00:50:12.920 some people think it's the end. There's not much time left, but you have half your life left.

00:50:17.320 So I like to say, think of your life as half full, not half empty. That approach, I think,

00:50:22.780 goes a long way towards being able to conceive of making big changes. There's

00:50:27.740 many things that you can do. And yes, there were some examples. For example,

00:50:31.460 the guy that got his PhD at age 72. When he was in his thirties, he had started towards his PhD,

00:50:39.320 but he had to put it on hold, what I call goal shelving. So he couldn't do it because of his

00:50:44.980 family situation. He did other things, but it never left his mind. He always really wanted

00:50:50.820 to get that degree. So he went back to school in his sixties when it was possible and he got

00:50:55.260 his PhD at age 72. So there are many inspiring stories of people who accomplish things that they

00:51:02.420 couldn't do earlier on. Yeah. I love that idea, that tactic of goal shelving. Can you tell us

00:51:08.320 more about that? Yes. So sometimes you can't do things right here and now. So you're very busy.

00:51:15.560 You maybe, I think the idea of getting a degree is one thing, but maybe even changing professions

00:51:21.780 or changing jobs, it may not be possible when you're in the thick of things, having financial

00:51:27.060 obligations and things like that. And so you might decide, I'm not going to be able to do it now,

00:51:33.240 but I'm going to work towards it. Say you want to get a new profession. I have a story in the book

00:51:39.120 of somebody who was a social worker, but really wanted to be an interior designer. Now she didn't

00:51:44.740 have the skills to be an interior designer, but she couldn't give up her social work job. And so

00:51:50.180 she kind of goal shelved the new goal of being a interior designer, but she didn't let it go

00:51:58.040 completely. In her spare time, she was taking courses and reading and trying things out so

00:52:03.960 that she could see how that profession might turn out later on. And once she was equipped with the

00:52:09.740 right skills, she was able to change from being a social worker to being interior designer. So

00:52:15.700 Even if you put something on hold, it doesn't mean that you have to completely abandon it.

00:52:20.460 You can be doing things to learn and acquire the kind of skills to optimize your skills

00:52:26.820 so that ultimately you'll be able to make that change.

00:52:30.060 Right, because you've got plenty of time to do it.

00:52:32.000 No one knows how long they're going to live.

00:52:33.580 That's something we do need to acknowledge.

00:52:35.600 But for the most part, statistically speaking, there should be plenty of time.

00:52:39.680 Yeah.

00:52:39.980 And you also highlighted people who hit their 40s and they didn't have the relationships.

00:52:45.300 They weren't married.

00:52:46.600 You know, they're like, oh, I'm bummed out.

00:52:48.100 I lost my shot.

00:52:48.800 But like the people who were able to find love, they took the game frame mindset towards

00:52:54.340 midlife and said, hey, you know, I didn't get married in my 20s or 30s.

00:52:58.900 Maybe kids are off the table at this point, but I want that.

00:53:02.680 I can still have it.

00:53:03.320 I can still make it happen for myself.

00:53:05.620 Yes.

00:53:06.020 There's a story in the book about a woman who was very successful professionally and

00:53:10.880 she was happy.

00:53:12.120 She wasn't able to find the right relationship.

00:53:15.300 many, many years, and she realized she wasn't going to have children. However, she put herself

00:53:20.760 out there. She went to social events. She was always there doing things. She had opportunities,

00:53:25.920 and eventually she did find someone, and she got married in her 50s, and she wound up having

00:53:32.400 children. They were her new husband's children from a former marriage. So that's a lovely example

00:53:38.220 of how things can turn out. Well, if there's one thing you hope people take away from your book

00:53:43.240 after finishing it? What would it be? I would say don't dread midlife, embrace it. It really

00:53:49.900 is prime time. I do want to say just because midlife is prime time for those who are beyond 0.93

00:53:55.260 midlife, it doesn't mean it goes downhill from there. You can do things in midlife to try to

00:54:00.260 maintain prime time as long as possible. Now, we have this negative view of midlife as a time of

00:54:07.320 crisis and decline. And what I really hope to do with the book is to replace that narrative

00:54:13.020 to see midlife as a time for growth, and I think there are so many options and things that you can

00:54:20.160 do. It can be a difficult time, a busy time, a stressful time. People are on autopilot because

00:54:26.220 they have so much going on, and so I don't want people to miss the joys of midlife. I want them to

00:54:31.300 really realize that there are so many things in midlife that are important for you, for those

00:54:38.940 who are younger and older, and also for your long-term health and wellbeing. And so this is

00:54:44.920 a time where you can use your skills that you've developed over the years, and there's still plenty

00:54:50.920 of time. So I like to think of midlife as an opportunity rather than a period of crisis or

00:54:57.800 loss. And in that sense, that mindset of thinking of midlife that way really can help people change

00:55:04.820 for the better. I love it. Well, Margie, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to

00:55:08.280 learn more about the book and your work? Well, I have a website, MargieLachman.com,

00:55:13.640 which would be a great place. I put a lot of information about my research on that website.

00:55:19.780 So I would suggest that as a starting place. Fantastic. Well, Margie Lachman,

00:55:23.720 thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Brett.

00:55:27.080 My guest here is Margie Lachman. She's the author of the book, Primetime. It's available

00:55:30.280 on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about her work at

00:55:33.700 our website, margielachman.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash primetime,

00:55:38.500 where you find links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic.

00:55:48.880 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. If you haven't done so already,

00:55:52.360 I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on the podcast player that you use to

00:55:55.960 listen to the show. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing

00:55:59.320 the show with a friend or family member who would think with something out of it.

00:56:02.320 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:56:04.340 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:56:05.840 Remind you to listen to the A1 Podcast,

00:56:07.380 but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - July 07, 2026

Beyond Midlife Myths — Why Middle Age Can Be Your Prime Time

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