Old School

Unleashing the Stubborn Optimists

Jul 3

Part of my summer research project is looking into all the different programs currently on offer for what I call midlife ‘transitionists.’ I’ll publish a complete overview in good time, but I thought I’d share some nuggets I’m discovering, because so many elderberries have told me how tempted you are by these sorts of programmes.

Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) was the pioneer, that launched back in 2009 and Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI) was next, starting in 2015. There are now half a dozen other programs in the US (Notre Dame, Minnesota, Texas @ Austin) and I hear that Oxford University in the UK will soon be launching its own version. A Stanford DCI alumni is pushing hard for some Swiss universities to consider a launch. Most are hardly what I’d call accessible - yet. They need to spread and democratise. I’m betting they will.

One of the reasons this trickle of tests may turn into an 8-lane educational highway is because of something I keep writing about: Demographics as destiny. As birthrates plummet around the globe, and the 50+ population expands in inverse proportion, the supply of traditional students, those young 18-year-olds, is shrinking apace. In the US, there is a well-publicised ‘demographic cliff’ coming up in 2025. It’s the result of the beginning of the steep decline in birthrates that started during the 2008 financial crisis. It has just kept falling since.

Each programme is very different, and very much a product of the school that created it. Harvard’s programme was never really designed with midlife transitions in mind. It came out of the Business School, where three professors (Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria) thought that successful, experienced leaders could be harnessed to address some of the world’s more intractable problems. It had a vision of moving people from Q2, for-profit careers to Q3, for-purpose endeavours. It’s now in its 14th year and has some 600 alumni in what it calls the ALI Coalition.

Stanford’s DCI emerged from the Medical School, giving it a different ethos and approach. It’s also in a warm, sunny climate a million miles from Boston’s astonishingly frigid winters (and ALI starts in January). Stanford is more focused on the idea of holistic midlife transitions, incorporating health and fitness, memoir writing classes and a year-long programme on Designing Your Life, run by the professors who wrote the book of the same name. There are far more couples doing the Stanford programme together partly because it is a lot less international. Every month, I’ve been chatting to a couple of participants in the Stanford programme and comparing notes. Our general conclusion? It would be great if we could merge the two!

Both programmes have some stellar, inspiring people dedicating themselves to purposeful ageing and engaging with a challenging world. I’ll be sharing their stories in a new podcast I’m recording over the summer (more about that another day). Just this morning, two of my ALI cohort were in the news. Marcy Syms has spent the past decade trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment, now signed by the requisite 38 states in the US, through into law. New York has just built on her work to enshrine the ERA into the state constitution, as a bulwark to guarantee abortion rights - among other protections. And Renee Hall, the former police chief of Dallas, was on CBS News explaining the inexplicable rise in unsolved murders in the US.

Stubborn Optimists

They are both good examples of what Costa-Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres, the force behind the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, calls stubborn optimists. Catch her inspiring TED talk here. These are people who keep their faith in the future and humans with their eyes wide open on the god-awfulness of the present. And with a realistic appraisal of the past. We need more of them - now.

‘Jamais deux sans trois,’ texted an ALI friend this morning. We’ve been buffeted this week by the Supreme Court’s tragic trifecta on guns, abortion and now the de-toothing of the Environmental Protection Agency. Not to mention back home in the UK, where Johnson is up to some comparable tinkering with the rules. Which did merit one of the better lines in the media this week. Andrew Rawnsley in The Guardian, describing the nerves and fear of Boris Johnson’s aides: “a shiver is going around members of the cabinet looking for a spine to run down.” (Wish I’d written that). There has been much anguish among my fellow ALIers about what all our good intentions and efforts can possibly amount to in the face of such a backward onslaught.

“This is what stubborn optimists sound like. Familiar with the craziness, skilled at navigating turbulence, and determined enough to play the longer game.”

But this is a time for all good people to … keep going. We need the stubborn optimists to learn from yesterday’s mistakes and today’s reversals to push for future improvements. This is no time to despair, give up and run for the hills (although I’ve been sorely tempted.) If you need additional encouragement, watch Kevin Kelly’s related TED talk on Why The Future Will Be Shaped by Optimists. A convincing call for not giving up and for continuing no-matter-what on a centuries-long arc towards progress. It was shared on our ALI chat as many of us were feeling the need for a talking-to pick-me-up. Bet you are feeling the same. It’s hard to resist the going-down-the-tubes vision of the world right now.

What Elders Are For

I’m beginning to think that this is a key role for us older folk. In preparing for a panel discussion I’m facilitating for this week’s Women in Finance Summit, I was struck by Raj Sheth’s story. He’s moved from CEO to a Board role at Pirum Systems, the start-up he joined in Year 2, some two decades ago. Now 57, he laughs at all the young crazies in the tech world crowing about the latest fad or coin or disruption. He’s seen it all before, and has learned to ride the waves with perspective and some degree of equanimity. He’ll now be helping and accompanying the next generation, passing on the baton with hard-earned wisdom attached. The compassionate calm and detachment he communicates made me think that this is what stubborn optimists sound like. Familiar with the craziness, skilled at navigating turbulence, and determined enough to play the longer game.

That’s where all these midlife programmes come in. We need to unleash the older. Many (not all) are eager to serve - and inter-generationally accelerate hard-won knowledge and experience sharing. That’s how humans grow and evolve. But they need the space and time to skill up, gear down and get connected with like-minded SOS (Stubborn Optimist Sorts) - no matter what happens. It’s been one of the most valuable gifts I’ve been given at ALI. These folks aren’t gonna let darkness dampen their determined push for better. On the contrary, that’s why they’re here. They give me hope.

Onwards!

SURVEY RESULTS

Thanks for your Feedback! Surveys are a pain, but the results are fascinating.

Looks like I managed to describe my readers pretty well. (My favourite sort of people, SOSs in your own right.) You gave my attempt at describing an elderberries reader a massive thumbs up:

The hunter for the well-lived life. Seduced by the idea of maximising each of life’s 4 Quarters. Over educated Q3ers ready to recalibrate and Q2ers smart enough to prepare ahead. Curious about all forms of travel, intellectual as well as global, both inwards into self-awareness and outwards across cultures and differences. Reader of books, stats and news, hungry for the dopamine hit of the next, the new and the underlying. Carer of multiple others and the world, engaged in work they believe in, juggling with the portfolio their multiple passions toss up. Appreciating a Sunday breather with a soul sister to take it all in, digest deeply, and start again.

And you generally seem to appreciate my weekly wandering around my mindscape. Which encourages me no end as I type into a purple void.

100% of you have flatteringly said you’d recommend elderberries to a friend. Please feel free, here’s a button to help.

And half of you have asked for more Harvard-related content, hence my focus this Sunday on the programme and the people, above.

35% of you said you’d be happy to consider a paid form of applause, which would give me a huge boost and push me to spend even more time on this side-hustle in the coming months. So nudging back.

And half of you also expressed interest in my Midlife Rethink program which I promise to offer regularly in 2023. If you feel in the need of a ReThink Right Now, email me at queries@20-first.com. If there’s enough interest I might do a special session just for elderberries in the fall. Unleashing others in turn.

Elderberries