3 Ideas Missing From My Book
The challenge of being an author with a big publisher is that you deliver the final manuscript about a year before the book comes out, which means new ideas may percolate to the surface that won’t be captured in the published book.
Here are the 3 big ideas (3 months after my most recent book was published) that came to me after I’d submitted the “Learning to Love Midlife” manuscript, which I would include in a revised edition:
- A revised definition of midlife. One of the big questions that arises at my book talks is, what’s the definition of midlife? Most people are looking for a quantified answer. As many of you know, I suggest there are three stages to midlife: early midlife (35-50), core midlife (50-60), and later midlife (60-75). But, my new answer is this: “Midlife is the bridge between early adulthood and later adulthood,” which makes sense since early, mid, and later seems like a logical progression. The longer we live, the longer that bridge, so midlife may stretch forty years.
- Invisibility vs. Irrelevance. I wish I had spent more time in the book discussing the difference between how women and men experience midlife based on social science and what we’ve observed at MEA. Women in their 50s often cite “invisibility” as one of the biggest challenges, while men cite “irrelevance.” Given those two very different perspectives, I could have written a whole chapter on this topic.
- The social science of longevity. In the past year, a lot of journalist ink has been spilled on tech bros, biohacking their way to immortality. The media is obsessed with the physical science of turning back the human clock. And, yet, no intervention has proven to be as effective in extending longevity as Yale’s Becca Levy’s study, showing that shifting one’s mindset on aging from a negative to a positive adds 7.5 years to life. I wish I could have amplified that message in the book since it’s so much more accessible to the average reader than spending $2 million per year on Bryan Johnson’s rigid regimen or Peter Diamandis’ Abundance Platinum Longevity & Immunity Trip, which costs $70,000 per person for a 4-day experience.
If you enjoyed reading or listening to “Learning to Love Midlife,” I’d appreciate it if you could leave an Amazon review for the book at THIS LINK. The day after the book launched in mid-January, it hit #1 on Amazon’s Happiness/Self-Help bestsellers list. Still, the best way to keep a book relevant to those who scan books at Amazon is the frequency and quality of the reader reviews, so I deeply appreciate your assistance. It’ll only take you a couple of minutes. Thanks!
-Chip
