Birthday Speech

Why I’m Happier, More Fulfilled, More Relevant, and More Excited Than I was 20 Years ago

Getting “older” can be a greater opportunity than you think

Please let me how you like having a video version of my post. In case you’d rather read, the transcript of the video is below.

It’s my birthday.

Let’s flip aging on its head!

Now, I’m actually not very big on birthday celebrations, but what I realized when I woke up this morning on my birthday is really big.

I mean, it’s a lot of stuff that I’ve already been learning and applying to my own life, and it’s part of this endeavor that I’m doing New Way Forward, sharing it with other people.

But it really clicked on me because I was sitting there thinking, oh, I’ve had a lot of birthdays.

But it doesn’t feel like it.

I mean, in the first place, it’s kind of like, what the hell happened to a lot of them?

Did I go rip them a week old, or was I abducted by aliens?

Where’d the time go?

But I also think I in no way, shape, or form perceive myself, feel like, act like, or think like one would believe somebody my age would think.

Hmm.

The other thing was, I was thinking, wow, ten years ago, I was this age.

That was considered old by a lot of people.

But yet, and here’s the payoff.

Compared to 10 years ago, compared to 20 years ago, I am in better health than I was then.

In fact, I’m probably in the best health of my adult life.

I’m happier.

I Am More Fulfilled

So instead of like, well, compared to 20 years ago, if you talk to me then being like 20 years ago, man, you’re going to be, you know, kind of starting to fade out.

No, it’s the opposite.

I mean, I’m going to say it again.

I feel better.

I’m more excited about the future.

I’m feeling more relevant, more active, and more aligned with what I want to do.

This is the new reality of longevity.

This is the new phase of life that exists for almost all of us if we take advantage of it.

It’s a longevity revolution that’s going on.

Now, what happened to me was about 12 Years Ago.

It shouldn’t take anybody 12 years.

I had a lot of life, plus I didn’t have stuff like I’m sharing to help me through the process.

But I really started thinking, what’s going to be next for my life?

The content creation business I had been doing, I’m like, this isn’t, you know, the shelf life is about to expire on it.

I need something else.

And so I started, for instance, looking into, well, am I going to want to retire, traditional retirement?

And I pretty much knew that I wasn’t going to be suited for that anyway.

And there’s the question of having a longer lifespan and health span.

Can you afford to do that?

So I started looking into it.

And first of all, what I found was, was that there was a mega trend going on of people retiring.

And after about a year of the retirement honeymoon and bliss and stuff, they started having problems.

And what I later found out that it was was a loss of relevance.

A loss of purpose.

Loss of relationships.

The biggest thing is a loss of self-identity.

I mean, a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Something to go after and to challenge yourself for and succeed at, fail at, change, whatever.

Life, in other words.

And I saw that.

You know, incidents of recent retirees in terms of alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, big-time divorce, depression, and such were on the rise.

Because not only were people losing that, but you know, if you’re 65, if you take moderately good care of yourself, you can live healthy and active and independently into your 90s.

What are you going to do with that 30 years?

You say, well, 65.

Well, 30 years ago, you were 35.

Look at how much life you lived.

So what are you going to do with that?

And then I also, by the way, found out that having a purpose, having a reason to get out of bed in the morning, having things that you’re doing to make a difference, to keep you involved and active and such, is actually a huge health factor.

I mean like, literally physiologically and mentally and cognitively, it’s healthy.

But also it gives you the motivation to be healthy.

So, I started looking at what I was going to do.

It took me many years of research because I got into this, talking to people, listening to experts, reading, and starting to try some stuff for myself.

I needed to approach it differently than I had before.

So I started taking baby steps to just learning and figuring it out.

I did like a really basic intention.

Like I said, how basic can I get it?

Well, how’s this?

How do I want to feel every morning when I wake up ten years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, whatever?

I’m like, okay, how basic can I do this?

Well, let’s see.

First of all, I wake up.

That’s pretty basic.

I feel great.

I’m in great health.

And I love what I’m doing.

I love the way that my life is going and what I’m involved in and active in, both in terms of, well, with this endeavor, New Way Forward, professionally, but also my lifestyle.

And I’m excited about today, no matter what it is that I’m doing.

And I don’t have to worry about money.

Maybe I don’t have a Lamborghini or a Swiss Chalet.

I don’t need that.

But I don’t have to sweat money.

Well, that was the foundation.

As I started thinking and learning about things, I realized that I could check those basic things.

Would it fulfill them?

By the way, I’ve got five of the six going on right now.

Because I’m waking up with all those things.

I’m just not there financially yet, but I’m growing.

Here’s the other thing that I discovered, and this is really, really big, is that the moment I got started, I was happier.

I was excited.

I was motivated.

With my health, baby steps.

So when I started this endeavor, I wasn’t in that great a shape.

And what I started doing was just waking up every morning thinking, what’s one healthy thing I can do today?

You know, maybe it’d be what I would eat and not eat that day.

Or maybe it would be, you know, a 20-minute brisk walk.

Or actually going to the gym.

Or, you know, whatever.

Well, just like a baby, and with all of these things, but I’m speaking specifically about the health thing, what happened?

Well, all of a sudden, I’m taking several baby steps a day.

And what happens with a baby?

They start taking more and more steps, and then they start walking, and then they start running and leaping around and climbing trees and jumping.

The same thing happened to me because I got into it.

All of a sudden, I’m listening to people and researching about diet and supplements and resistance, the difference between resistance training and aerobic training.

What do you really do?

And I kept being blown away by how little you had to do to be in great physical shape.

Where now I go into the doctor and it’s like, so why are you here?

I wish I had your blood work.

I know people, I’ve got patients who are 20, 25 years younger than you are and you’re in better shape than them.

Quite a few of them.

And then, of course, being who I am, I realized I need to find something that’s really aligned with who I am, that if I’ve got this longer health span available to me, because that’s the important thing, by the way.

I mean, you can live to be 100, but if the last 10, 20 years of your life you’re sick, that’s not much of a life.

No, it’s what your health span is.

And so, I started thinking, what am I going to do with all these years?

And I’m like, you know what, this is MY TURN.

Because now that I’m older, I’m in the best possible place to really figure out what’s right for me in my life.

And now that my two sons are grown and they’re out in the world, one of them’s halfway around the world,

What Better Time Is There?

With this new extended health span that’s available to me, now’s the perfect time.

Now, what the life map is is that you know, again, you learn, and then you’re an apprentice in life, and then you go pro when you get older, and it’s your turn.

And I’m living it, and I’m absolutely, like I say, compared to 10 years ago, compared to 20 years ago, I’m in better shape, I’m more excited, I’m more active, I’m more aligned, I’m more happy than I was back then.

What does that tell you?

I’ve shared this with 30-somethings, let’s say.

So, in other words, people who are younger have families and good careers.

Life is good with each one of them.

People I knew professionally, for instance.

And they’re like, hey, Paul, what’s this new thing you’re doing?

What’s this New Way Forward thing?

And I would tell them that.

I would say, well, first of all, you know, you’ve got, you know, you can easily live into your 90s, in your case, maybe even your hundreds, and not just live, but be healthy and active.

And so instead of thinking, well, you know, hey, 65, I’ll retire.

I’ll play golf.

I’ll have a hobby.

I’ll do this and that, which, by the way, for some people is wonderful.

That’s great.

Go for it.

Traditional retirement is ideal for them.

But for more and more of us, we want that relevance.

We want those challenges.

We want that contrast in life between working and then having time off and really enjoying it.

Life is full of contrast.

And so I said, OK, you know, there’s this new longevity thing.

And I said, and then, you know, if you think about it, the older you get, the more you know about your stuff that you’re really in a position to say, what do I really want to do?

Oh, Paul, wow.

That changes my whole outlook on retirement.

And I’m like, well, you know what the trend now is: people aren’t waiting for 60 or 65 years old to do it.

I mean, look at what COVID accelerated in terms of, you know, the great resignation and quiet quitting and now the great rethink.

This is the era of the great rethink that’s going on.

And you’ve got people in their 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s who are completely redefining their lives and certainly redefining what their age is.

And again, I got two reactions.

One, wow.

This Changes My Outlook on Life

You know, my research and such, and I’ve met and talked to a lot of these people, is that out of necessity, you know, people got laid off from their job, they’re 58 years old or something, they get laid off from their job, they can’t find another one because of ageism, or they hit retirement and they realize they didn’t have enough money, and they’re like, I’ve got to earn an income, I’ve got to pivot, I’ve got to be innovative in my thinking, and they pivoted to something else.

A lot of them are entrepreneurs and solopreneurs like me, and they’re saying being in that challenge is the best thing that ever happened to me because I love it.

I’m loving what I’m doing.

It’s giving meaning to my life.

It’s my thing.

I mean, the numbers are a little old.

I’m waiting for the Kauffman Index to update them but from about five years ago.

Their survey in the United States showed that baby boomers were outpacing millennials in the number of startups in the US every year by a 2 to 1 margin, which just also makes sense because you’ve advanced your skills, your talents, your knowledge, you’ve got networks, sometimes some cash or access to it, and they have a higher rate of success.

But that’s just one example.

So…

The big takeaway I have from this morning was that I and so many others have flipped aging on its head.

We’re viewing this as olderhood.

We’re older.

We’re not old.

If I say to you he’s “old”, what do you think?

You know, somebody who’s infirm, bent over, challenged.

If I say somebody’s “older”, you’re like, oh.

As one woman said, well, I don’t know what that means because I don’t know that person exactly.

It’s the last sadism that is acceptable, which is ageism, that’s going on in our society.

And now we’re changing that with proof in the pudding.

And so, yes, I’ve had a lot of birthdays, but I’m not acting my age.

This new reality is one of the greatest gifts that ever has been given to humanity.

Of course, if you open up the gift and use it.

And the other thing that I’ll leave you with is that

I’ll be happy when I get there.

Well, there is no there there because right now I’m still climbing.

I’m still challenging myself.

I’m still building and creating stuff.

I’m still figuring out stuff.

I’m still learning.

The biggest thing of all, I’m still learning, learning, learning.

So I realized there is only one there there, and that’s death.

That’s definitely a there.

Well, I’m not in a rush to get there.

I’m going to make the years and decades of life I expect to have ahead of me some of, if not the best, years of my life, especially in terms of what I have control over.

And so one of the things that I’ll leave you with is something that I’ve found to be really helpful.

I’ve shared this with other people, and they say that it’s been helpful, too.

And you can do this at any age.

I wrote a letter from my future self to my current self, and it was a thank-you note.

It was a letter from my future self, so you know, maybe if you’re 30, maybe it’s your 50-year-old self or your 60-year-old self.

I picked 95, and I imagined, and this is what it did for me. It forced me to identify in very fundamental terms.

What I would thank myself for doing now and in the interim.

What would my 95-year-old self say, hey younger Paul self, thank you for doing these key things because as a result of that, I’ve had this life.

Unfortunately, it’s not stock tips or who to bet on in the 2035 Super Bowl, but it did help me, just like that basic morning intention that I told you about. It did help me think about what I want my life to look like and feel like what I want to be happy about in terms of again it was things like fulfillment and purpose and relevance and making a difference and having the health to be active and doing whatever I want to do and not being sick not being on medications all that stuff.

When you identify those fundamental things, you’ve got the foundation.

You’ve got the launch pad.

You know, that’s why I got a rocket as my logo for New Way Forward.

It’s launching yourself in the right direction that’s right for you and only for you.

It’s not what your parents wanted you to do.

It’s not what society tells you what to do.

It’s not even what I would tell you to do because only you can determine it.

And that really helped me a lot.

Instead of this attitude of thinking, I’m getting older.

My God, I had my thirty-year-old son say, “Oh my God, I’m 30”.

“I’m getting so old”.

I’m like, are you kidding me?

Instead of thinking of this automatic decline, lack of relevance, and lack of purpose in life, I just told you that I am in so much better physical shape than I was 10 or 20 years ago.

I am doing much more of what I want to do, and I’m being fulfilled by it more than I was 10 or 20 years ago.

The new possibilities abound.

So maybe instead of saying happy birthday, we should start saying happy birthdays to the ones in the past and the ones in the future.

Ultimately, my ultimate goal is that whatever birthday, however many birthdays I have while I’m on this earth, I want to go out feeling like in my last moments, I made all of those birthdays worthwhile.

Looking for a New Way Forward in your life? You can get my free “Launch Yourself Get Started Guide” by going to www.NewWayFWD.com.