Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Dr. Neil Fiore

Broadcast and podcast starting: January 4, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 1-11-10 the podcast is also on the links below

Aging, Hypnosis and Story Telling [ 1:01:49 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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My 9-year-old twins are on book six of Harry Potter. My college students son and daughter watched the Star Wars and the Ring movies, my wife watches lot of science fiction TV, and yes I love Desperate Housewives. We crave stories and have lots of stories about success in business and sports, but few about how to age well. We met today’s guest, Dr. Neil Fiore, author of Coping with the Emotional Impact of Cancer, when he shared with us the psychological strategies that helped him overcome a “terminal” cancer diagnosis thirty years ago. He is a master of storytelling and hypnosis and today shares with us how stories can help us be liver healthier, happier, and longer lives.

It is such a delight talking with Dr. Neil Fiore. I thought it might help to give some context for Ericksonian therapy compared to other psychotherapies. In the, Dr. Albert Ellis challenged Freudian psychology with how your thinking was wrong, and in-your-face advice about what you should do. Dr. Phil is the reincarnation of Albert Ellis.

Also in the 1950s, Dr. Carl Rogers’ challenged Freudian psychology with his client center therapy, which became very popular. Rogers believed the answer was within the client, and would loving feed back and paraphrase what the client said to help the client sort things out for himself. With little credit, Rogerian therapy is the approach many personal coaching programs are teaching coaches these days.

In the 1960s, Dr. B. F. Skinner developed radical behaviorism, which said behavior change was all a matter of what you reinforce and what you punish. Eventually, cognitive behavioral therapy became the most popular therapy, using Skinner’s reinforcement principles and Ellis’ emphasis on what you think—the cognitive in cognitive behavioral psychology.

Like Rogers, Erickson believed people have the wisdom already within them but need guidance in finding it. But rather than just facilitating the client finding the answer within, Erickson assessed what the client needed and crafted a story to help the client discover and realize the solution. Which school of therapy is right? If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Therapists who have a full toolkit, tend to use their favorite tools but also use a different tool if that if what the client needs.

Comedians follow the rule of three in setting up jokes—two to set up the pattern and one to violate it. Dr. Fiore described how Erickson’s rule of three was to give three validations, for example acknowledging his son’s pain, blood, and fear, before leading him a new direction with thoughts about bragging rights. NLP practitioners and hypnotists call this pacing where the client is and then leading where the client needs to go.

Neil is also very into thinking of the brain as a computer and taking control of the computer by overwriting problematic default programs. With depression, for example, just by noting each day three things that went well, and what you did to help it happen, you may not need the Prozac. Finally, he places a lot of emphasis on quickly taking control of emotions and relaxing by inhaling, holding your breath, tensing muscles, exhaling, connecting with your environment, realizing you are taking control, and tuning into wonder rather than worry.

Dr. Fiore’s website is www.neilfiore.com. Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com an www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com.ous love at every age.

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Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Carol Denker

Broadcast and podcast starting: December 21, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 12 28-09 the podcast is also on the links below

Love and Romance After 50 [ 44:25 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Television shows like to snicker and make fun of grey-haired romance, but journalist Carol Denker found that love and even sex after 50 can be better than ever—and illustrates it with stories and pictures from sixty couples who found love after 50 and found it to be better than ever.If you have ever thought, if I knew then what I know now…., this is about how, whether married or single, you can have that second chance with love and romance grey hair and all.

This is about feeling like a sixteen-year-old in love even if you have a sixty, seventy, or older body. Ms Denker’s book is Autumn Romance: Stories and Portraits of Love After 50.I love the song Young at Heart, you know:
Fairy tales can come true; it can happen to you
If you’re young at heart…. My favorite version has Jimmy Durante singing it as his voice is old and his soul is young. Carol Denker’s stories and photos are like a Frank Capra movie—uplifting and renewing our belief in everyday miracles.

The common thread was a change in attitude and outlook, shedding any slavery to peer pressures, and taking risks. It was interesting that she identified several clusters—including those who chose to pursue a lot of self-growth, those who reconnected with old sweethearts, and those who found someone with whom they had “so much in common.”  Just as real life is often stranger than fiction, the stories read like fairy tales. But, as Jimmy Durante sang, fairy tales came come true—if you’re young at heart. Carol’s couples give us a lot of clues as to how  to do it and inspiration to believe and seek amorous love at every age.

Carol Denker’s website is www.autumnlove.org. The site about her protraits is www.aportraitbycarol.com. Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com an www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com.

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Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Dr. Angeles Arrien

Broadcast and podcast starting: December 7, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 12 14-09 the podcast is also on the links below

Aging in the Second Half of Life [ 50:02 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Children immerse themselves in the fun and identity metaphors of Harry Potter, young adults in the metaphors, mentors, and finding meaning in Star Wars. But what about the quest for identity and meaning after 50? Dr. Arrien has studied literature, poetry, and many cultures to help us seek our own quest for a richer, more meaningful second half of life.To review, like the Freudian psychologist Carl Jung, Dr. Arrien is fascinated with symbols, metaphors, and cultural heritage.

In The Second Half of Life, she focuses on the neglected subject of psychological and spiritual development after 50. It is refreshing to hear our sixties described as the youth of our wisdom years and eighties and nineties and beyond as the peak of our wisdom years. She describes 50 as a milestone when people tend to start shifting from an emphasis on ambition to an emphasis on meaning, from doing to being, from acquisition to divestiture, from me to we. She describes it as a time of increased clarity and objectivity.

She distinguishes journaling from keeping a diary with journaling being more insight and action oriented. She uses four questions: What has inspired me, what has challenged me, what has surprised me, and what has touched or moved me. She noted that in death and dying research, people want the closure of having addressed five issues: thank you, I love you, forgive me, I forgive you, and goodbye. She talked about the eight lies, for example, I’ll be happy when I have more money, when I marry the right person, when I and more successful, etc. and the four bones—the backbone, wishbone, funny bone and hollow bone.

Addressing this subject was a stretch for me in while I certainly use a lot of metaphors in therapy, coaching, and hypnosis, I usually use them strategically to achieve a fairly specific objectives, as opposed to be immersed in them as a general growth exercise. It’ not a question of who is right but different people resonating with different styles. For example, some people thrive on meditation; while others would find it torture. Thus, I am delighted to have the diversity, and I am delighted to stretch my own thinking and my own style by reading The Second Half of Life and talking with Dr. Arrien.

I read her book the hard way—in a day. It is really much better suited and more valuable to read a few pages a day to let the ideas incubate before reading more. I find her concept of concept of monthly journaling with a focus on growth questions and action especially generative. Finally, it is important to get associate with positive people. Dr. Arrien is positive and her view of aging is very refreshing and positive.

Dr. Arrien’s website is www.AngelesArrien.com. Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com an www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com.

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Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Jeffrey Zaslow

Broadcast and podcast starting: October 19, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 10-26-09 the podcast is also on the links below

Keeping Friends a Long Time [ 17:08 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Which of your friends have you known the longest? How long have you known that friend? Does the length of that friendship make it valued? Keeping childhood friends when you all still live in the same city is quite an accomplishment. It’s even more impressive when your schoolmates are scattered all over the country. Jeffrey Zaslow, author of The Girls from Ames, documents the lifelong friendship of eleven girls form Ames Iowa who maintained close friendships for more than forty years, despite being scattered all over the country.

I had hoped reading The Girls from Ames might give profound insights into the glue of long friendships. Instead, it was like watching an episode of The Waltons. Simple truths. There are no magic bullets, friendships require a commitment and the follow through of being there for your friends. Graduating from high school poses a big challenge to childhood and high school friendships as so many people go away to college or move away to take a job or follow a lover who has moved. I found it interesting that as people get older, friendships are easier

-easier because we are more likely to have money for travel,
-easier because after childrearing is no longer consuming our time we have more time
-easier because we have less wanderlust and less need to try everything and more need for roots
-easier because we have more maturity and better understand the value of friendship.

Those who no longer work full-time have even more time for friendships. I find that a very positive message. Indeed if you start a friendship at 50 and live to 100, that is still a fifty year friendship.
That extra maturity also gives us more insight and empathy, for example providing more support to a parent her son or daughter/your friend dies. In the meantime, the ideal situation would be to have a grandparent, parent, or mentor who alerts us to relationships we should be paying more attention to.

What held the Girls from Ames together was a friends forever commitment they made to each other before they were even high school age. That is probably quite rare and most friends for life friendships are in twos or threes. I suspect that people from very small towns feel more bonding and commitment. People who have intense experiences with a church, sport team, or other organization probably are more likely to bond. People from unique schools that instill school loyalty are more likely to bond as well.

While Jeffrey Zaslow is probably correct that women’s friendships tend to be face to face, focused on sharing their lives, and emotional, while men’s friendships tend to be side by side doing things, there are many exceptions. A sizeable number of men have no interest in sports, poker, and macho pursuits and many men would cite women as their best friends. Indeed, as sex roles are becoming less distinct, the nature of male friendships may tend to become more like women’s friendships.

It will be interesting to see if Facebook provides the face time friendship requires. There is considerable research that finds people with friends live longer, healthier, happier lives. But that research doesn’t say anything about how long those friendships have to be. I note that there have been several movies about friendships that start when people are quite old. Examples include Morgan Freeman and Jack Nickelson in The Bucket Brigade. In the Bucket Brigade Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are very ill in a hospital and write their list of things to do before they die. While ostensibly men doing activities, they wrestled with meaning, purpose, relationships, and the angst of dying—face to face emotional heart to heart talks just like women have.

Research on friendship finds that as people age they tend to be more selective about friends and focus on a smaller number of quality friends and on family. This is as it should be. Youth is the time to try many different things including getting to know people from different backgrounds and cultures. By fifty, we have a pretty good idea of what relationships are likely to lead to quality friendships and what relationships are likely to be shallow. Thus the middle years and beyond are a time to focus on quality. But I would add a caveat. Salespeople know the importance of always seeking new customers. Otherwise, attrition will leave them with fewer and fewer clients. Likewise we need to cultivate some new friendships at every age so we don’t find ourselves with a paucity of friends.

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Broadcast and podcast starting: October 12, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 10-17-09 the podcast is also on the links below

Life Makovers [ 27:40 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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You wouldn’t run a business without a plan, but  do you have a written plan for your life? Dr. Brickey walks you through a multi-level system for developing a plan for your life. The system is loosely based on Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels.

The Logical Levels of Life Planning

Level	Question	Function	Components
Spiritual	Who else?	transmission	vision and mission statements
Identity	Who am I?	mission	primary question, scripts, roles
Beliefs	Why?	permission/motivation	beliefs and rules (values are rules with a passionate commitment)
Capabilities	How?	possibilities	talents and skills
Behaviors	What?	action	habits
Environment	Where?	constraints	home, neighborhood, friends, family, light, sound, climate, etc.

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Broadcast and podcast starting: September 28, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 10-5-09 the podcast is also on the links below

What’s Good About Aging [ 23:49 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Remember the first time a birthday made you feel old? the jokes? the doubts? the fears your best days were behind you? Maybe you imagined someday wasting away in a nursing home. That’s when you got sucked into the script for thinking and feeling old. Our youth-obsessed culture promotes the idea that aging is all downhill. But I’m here to tell you that for most of us, life gets better as we age. Today I will depart from my usual format of interviewing an anti-aging expert and share with you my Top Ten Social Perks for Being Over 50.So let me get right to my top ten list.

The Top Ten Social Perks of Being Over Sixty©

by Michael Brickey, Ph.D., ABPP

1. Research finds that older people are happier

Research finds that older people report being happier than younger people. The percentages of Americans who said they were very happy were: 28% at ages 18-27, 31% at 28-37, 32% at 38-47, 33% at 48-57, 36% at 58-67, and 38% at 68-77. It drops to 34% for ages 78-89. Still, the 78-89 year old Americans are happier than people under 60. Why? Older people are more comfortable and secure with who they are, what their values are, and what they want to do with their lives. Research finds they focus more on positive events and less on negative events.

[Reserach based on Mroczek, Daniel, & Kolarz, Christian.  The effect of age on positive and negative affect: A developmental perspective on happiness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998, 75, 1333-1348.]

2. Less peer pressure

For most teens, especially girls, fitting in, being liked, and being popular are paramount issues. While seeing themselves as rebellious, teen culture is actually very conformist. Teens spend many hours worrying about the right clothes, the right music, and being hip. Age brings a clearer sense of identity and less importance on peer pressure. Employment requires being concerned about pleasing the boss, coworkers, and customers. When employment is no longer required for income, there is a new freedom from peer pressure.

3. More wisdom

Age brings experience and knowledge and learning from mistakes-our own mistakes and others’ mistakes. Living longer doesn’t guarantee wisdom, but it is a prerequisite.

4. More time

Rearing children takes a lot of time and energy. When they eventually leave home, it is eerie how quiet it becomes and how much more time there is. Retirement (or no longer having to work for the money) brings more discretionary time. It can be a time to pursue passions. It can be more time for friends and family. It can be more time to slow down, enjoy life more, think more, and smell the roses.

5. Better control of emotions

Research shows that age brings better skills at managing emotions and dealing with problems. Experience dealing with a lot of conflicts brings skills. In marital or long-term relationships, couples learn what to fight and what to accept. In short, age brings a larger, more tested repertoire for dealing with problems.

6. Better story tellers

Researchers had people listen to stories told by older people and younger people. They rated older peoples’ stories as more interesting, more informative, and of higher quality. This comes at a time in life when seniors are stepping up to being the family matriarchs and patriarchs and passing on family

traditions, values, and stories. People tune out lectures. Stories, however, hypnotize listeners and slide in the message.

7. Sexuality doesn’t complicate relationships as much

Many seniors have a rich sex life and sexuality is important in their lives. Sexuality, however, becomes less about proving manhood or validating being desirable and loved, and more about warmth, caring, and sharing. Age brings fewer worries about political correctness and whether a hug or compliment will be considered a pass or sexual harassment. For couples, there is less fear of children overhearing or interrupting intimate moments and less fear of an unwanted pregnancy. Older men often become more emotionally involved in sex as they need more physical stimulation.

8. Better quality friendships

Youth is a time to experiment and try new things. It is a time to make friends with a wide variety of people. Experience teaches which friendships are likely to be rewarding and which friendships are likely to be superficial. With age, some friendships last for decades. Such friendships are indeed treasures. Research finds that older people have fewer causal acquaintances. They place more emphasis on family and close friends, are more satisfied with their relationships than younger people, and feel strong bonds to close friends. Many “prune” their friendships and make remarks like, “I don’t have time for those people.” There is a shift from novelty to quality, from popularity to meaning.

9. Pride in age again

Children proudly hold up fingers to tell their age and can’t wait until their next birthday. Each birthday is a landmark event. Adults in their thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties see age as eroding vitality and attractiveness and try to hide and deny their age. After sixty, age starts becoming something to be proud of and gives a sense of accomplishment and achievement. By ninety or 100 there are serious bragging rights.

10. Understanding the circle of life

The story of Peter Pan begins, “All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” Age bears witness to cycles of birth, marriage, children and death; of hard times and easy times; of war and peace. Age brings an understanding of life’s rhythms and cycles. A great sense of satisfaction comes with this glimpse into the secrets of the universe.

Certainly a person can have sixty years of experience or one year of experience sixty times. Of course, not everyone over sixty experiences these perks. The perks cite generalities. Nevertheless, if you are a person who continues to grow with age, you are likely to experience these perks.

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Broadcast and podcast starting: August 31, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 9-7-09 the podcast is also on the links below

A Tour of Longevity Research [ 40:27 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Research is vital to separating opinions and myths from beliefs that have support. Rather than just talk about longevity research, we are going to take two tours. The first tour looks at centenarian research including Dr. Belle Boone Beard, Dr. Thomas Perls, the Delaney sisters, Waldo McBurney, George Dawson, Lynn Peters Adler, and Amy Gorman.

The second tour is of aging research. It starts in Copenhagen with the twins studies finding only 25% of longevity it genetic, the Copenhagen Heart Study finding graying hair, balding, and or wrinkles don’t affect longevity. In Boston we look at Dr. George Vaillant and the Harvard Study of Adult Development-longitudinal research that has been following a cadre of Harvard students since 1939. Also at Harvard is Dr. Becca Levy whose longitudinal research found that whether people had positive or negative views of aging affected their longevity decades later. On the other side of Boston is Zone Diet creator Dr. Barry Sears, who in addition to a balanced Mediterranean diet is emphasizing inflammation as the common denominator of chronic diseases and fish oil as vital to restoring healthy Omega 3: Omega 6 balances.

The tour then goes to the University of Pennsylvania (in Philadelphia) where Dr. Martin Seligman showed how people can learn to be more optimistic. He also developed the field of positive psychology and promoted in when he was president of the American Psychological Association. It’s just an hour drive to the plastic surgery practice of Vincent Giampapa in Montclair NJ. I included this stop as he is a good example of the clinical services cutting edge of anti-aging medicine. Dr. Giampapa’ practice will study your genes and health issues and prescribe supplements to (hopefully) turn on helpful genes and turn off unhelpful ones. He also will harvest stem cells and freeze them for later needs. Finally he has a new procedure of injecting fat cells (which are more likely to have stem cells) into facial skin to rejuvenate the skin without surgery.

Next we fly to the Life Extension Foundation at Ft. Lauderdale Florida to meet with Joe Faloon the editor of the Life Extension magazine. The Life Extension Foundation has been ten years ahead of physicians with heart disease (e.g., CoQ-10 with statins, fish oil, bioidentical hormones and inflammation and endothelial aspects of heart disease. The Foundation has fearless fought the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA. It is funded by vitamin and supplement sales and donations. It conducts and funds a lot of cutting edge research.

Next we go to Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland Ohio) to meet with Professor Stephen Post. He is the dean of altruism research and cites numerous research studies that find altruistic people live longer. Then we drive along the lake fronts to Chicago to meet with Dr. Ronald Klatz, founder of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (AAAAM). It board certifies physicians in anti-aging medicine and is a clearing house for anti-aging research. It also sponsors a lot of conferences. Then we to Minneapolis, MN to the School Sister of Notre Dame. This is where Professor David Snowden did longitudinal research with nuns, including autopsies of the brains when the died.

If you really want to see what is new in anti-aging medicine, the place to go is the AAAAM annual conference in Las Vegas. This is the trade show for showing off all the new technologies and products.

Then we fly to San Francisco where Stanford University professor Laura Carstensen developed socioemotional selectivity theory. The theory says that as we age we place more value on emotional experience (and on close friendships). A similar effect happens when people are facing major illness, disasters, and war. While in San Francisco, we can visit cardiologist Dr. Dean Ornish. Way ahead of his time, he developed a low fat diet that dramatically improved the health of heart patients. But it wasn’t just the diet, it also was his emphasis on stress management and exercise.

The we drive down costal highway 101 to Los Angeles and take in the breathtaking views of the ocean. We visit psychiatrist Daniel Amen. His approach is to study brain scans and prescribe diet and lifestyle changes to help patients develop healthier brains. The proof is in the follow up brain scans. While in Los Angeles, we can visit Suzanne Summers in Malibu. Yes this is the same Suzanne Summers that was on Three’s Company and hawked the thing master. She is a major advocate for bioidentical hormone replacement. Her most recent books primarily consist of in-depth interviews with leading hormone experts.

Finally we want to visit professor Sonja Lyubomirsky, the dean of happiness research. She says that 50% of our happiness is a genetically determined set point. Ten percent is circumstances. The remaining 40% is in our control and she outlines how to work with that part to increase happiness.

Well, enough travel, I’m headed back to the Ageless Lifestyles® Institute where we focus on the mind game of living longer, healthier, and happier or what I call the Anti-Aging ABCs® (Attitudes, Beliefs, and Coping Skills). Her we also provide personal coaching and keynote and seminar services.

Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com and www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com.

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Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Dr. Matt Narrett, Chief Medical Officer for Erickson Living®

Broadcast and podcast starting: August 20, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 8-31-09 the podcast is also on the links below

What Erickson Living® Can Teach Us About Aging [ 1:00:49 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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To me, Erickson Living® is the Google of services for seniors. Its twenty communities are amazing, it’s medical services are the medical services we all wish we had, Erickson’s Retirement Living Television is only national TV network for seniors, the Erickson Tribune has a circulation of three million, and the Erickson School of Aging, Management and Policy at the University of Maryland and the Erickson Foundation conduct and support a lot of research on aging.

Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing John Erickson, a true visionary. He recently retired. When I learned that Erickson’s new COO and Erickson’s Medical Director, wrote a new book Old is the New Young: Erickson’s Secrets to Healthy Living, I knew it would be good and arranged to get Dr. Narrett on Ageless Lifestyles®.

I talk about John Erickson being a visionary because he doesn’t just see what people want and provide it. He envisions what we should want and makes it happen. Thus, Erickson Living®  has well-paid primary care doctors spending half an hour per patient visit, using electronic records networked with hospitals, and practicing holistic medicine and preventive medicine-all on a Medicare budget. If he had just created Erickson Living® it would be impressive. But to also create the Retirement Living TV, the Erickson Tribune, and the philanthropic and educational programs he has created, is stunning.

Happily, Erickson Living® isn’t the only visionary in senior healthcare. Bill Thomas, creator of the Eden Alternative and the Greenhouse Movement and Paul and Terry Klaasen of Sunrise Assisted Living also have visionary leadership. There are many more people making an impact on a smaller scale. I mention these people because of the size of their impact. It is an innovative time for seniors.

On the surface Old is the New Young isn’t a profound or visionary book. Much of the advice is advice commonly found in news reports and magazine articles. What is unique is that instead of piecemeal advice, the book weaves together a holistic picture of what seniors need, with an emphasis on having a life with purpose. The holistic picture is quite unique. Thus instead of advice like use your mind, do crossword puzzles; we are told crosswords are OK if you like them but what really matters is curiosity and interactive learning–and a reasonably good diet and reasonable amount of exercise to stay healthy mentally and physically.

Of course you never know where that curiosity and a little chutzpah will lead. After Erickson Living® community at Greenspring women in their 70s, 80s, and 90s  made the pin-up calendar, The Ladies of Greenspring Calendar, the men at Greenspring countered with The Hunks of Greenspring Calendar.

Erickson Living®’s website is www.Erickson.com. Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com and www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com.

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Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Image/Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Broadcast and podcast starting: August 3, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 8-10-09 the podcast is also on the links below

Passion, Renewal, Risk and Adventure in Boomer and Senior Aging [ 52:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Chapters in books are so unnecessary. Think how many trees would be saved if the print just continued on. But we love chapters. They help us group concepts, alert us to transitions, and reward us for completing an episode. Harvard professor Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is a developmental sociologist who focuses on stages of human development. She describes ages 50-75 as the third chapter in our lives and titled her new book, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50.

I’m amused at theorists that come up with principles that are so simplistic as to be useless tautologies like Freud’s conflict between our life and death drives, theologians who see life as a conflict between good and evil, and anti-aging products have the one single key to health and youthfulness. Stage theories can be simplistic and rigid. What I like about Erik Erickson’s eight stages and Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot’s third chapter is that they are flexible and accommodate individual differences. Thus some third chapter Boomers and seniors focus on career walls, some go back to previous passions, some deal with unresolved traumas, and some go yet another direction. For some it is a shift from career achievement to making the world better or leaving a legacy. Earlier stages of development may be revisited briefly, in great depth, or not at all.

Self-help books and gurus tend to focus on building motivation, visualizing outcomes, and following principles. Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot focuses on studying role models and their pain and struggles. As her book title indicates it’s adventure and it’s also risk. However, whether it is people starting a business or creating a new chapter in your life, naively following your bliss can be disastrous. The more you learn about and prepare for what you are getting into, the more likely you are to be successful. For example, when considering a new career, learn as much as you can about it. Role models and mentors can be enormously helpful in reducing trial and error learning. The Third Chapter is a wonderful source for role models on dealing with the personal and emotional anxieties and roller coaster ride that often goes with making big life changes. So why do it? As Erickson put it in his seven stage, it’s about generativity vs. stagnation.

Humans love stories and this is about making sense of your life story and choosing your next chapter-as opposed to just going with the flow and letting things happen. Thinking of your future as a story can help. Telling it to others is very helpful. The Third Chapter makes an excellent group discussion book and the web site has a free discussion guide. Perhaps writing your story can help as well. If you have ever taught a course, you know that you learn the material much better when you teach it to others. Likewise, you become much clearer about your story when you tell it to others or put your story in writing. Dr. Lawrence-Lightfoot’s website for her book is www.TheThirdChapter.com.  Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com and www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com. 

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Host: Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey

Guest: Image/Color Consultant Dawn Waldrop

Broadcast and podcast starting: July 27, 2009 on webtalkradio.net. After 8-3-09 the podcast is also on the links below

What Colors and Clothes Look Best for Boomers and Seniors? [ 49:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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It may not be fair but people do judge a book by its cover. And people do judge you by your appearance-even before you say a word. One of the challenges of aging is that our body shapes and complexions gradually change with age. Your wardrobe and appearance can make you look older or younger, competent or clueless, fabulous or flat. What looked good at 20 can be quite unflattering at 50 or 60. Image and color expert Dawn Waldrop consults with and teaches business leaders and professionals on how to look their best. The result has often been promotions, raises, and increased sales. Today she is going to help us learn about how to choose colors and styles that help Boomer and help Seniors look and feel their best.

With my Anti-Aging ABCs®, I posit that how you think affects how you feel and how you feel affects how you look-your posture, demeanor, energy, and facial expressions-and when you look better, people respond to you more positively-prompting you to feel even better. The same is true for your wardrobe and appearance. When you wear clothes that fit well and are harmonious colors and fabrics, you feel better. You feel more energetic. And people respond to you more positively-both because of the vibes you are putting out and because of their response to your visual harmony. You could protest that all this is just superficial. But just as men are genetically programmed to respond to women’s figures, we are all genetically programmed to be attracted to beauty and harmony and be turned off by disharmony.

Certainly one can go overboard with clothes or cosmetics.  John Edwards didn’t need to pay $400 for a haircut. You can go overboard with anything. With good planning the right wardrobe for you can cost less as everything in your closet is functional and everything goes together. Choosing the right color costs the same as choosing the wrong color. The wasted money comes from a closet full of clothes you rarely wear. The wasted money also comes from the fashion industry’s planned obsolescence with incessant changes materials, lapels, lengths, and styles. That is certainly wasteful. For some being fashionable is a job requirement. Those on very tight budgets can favor choosing clothes that are slower to go out of style-as opposed to those Member’s Only jackets.

The bottom line is that time spent planning pays off in having a closet that works, not wasting money, and looking and feeling your best. In a nutshell the process is to

1.     Know what coloring and materials work for you.

2.     Study your activities and what kind of clothes you need for those activities.

3.     Find the stores that meet your needs. Dawn suggested that Internet stores often offer a better selection than what an individual store can stock.

Dawn Waldrop’s website is www.Best-Impressions.com. Dr. Brickey’s other websites are www.DrBrickey.com and www.Anti-Aging-Speaker.com.

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