Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

A Man's Perspective on Midlife

November 21, 2022 Michele Henning Folan
Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife
A Man's Perspective on Midlife
Show Notes Transcript

I thought it might be interesting to get a man's perspective on midlife, and when I started my search, I stumbled upon a midlife-focused podcast, hosted by a male, who speaks to both men and women.  Perfect!

As Broc Edwards was moving into his 50s, he realized that he really didn't know how "to do" midlife.  He decided at this "crossroad", that he would start a podcast (his second podcast, actually) that features midlifers doing life pivots, emerging from their comfort zones, and making the most of their earlier experiences, to ensure a more fulfilling second half.  His popular show the Midlife Mastery Podcast, is a result of introspective interviews with both men and women who are taking life's bull by the horns.

Broc and I discuss:

The importance of catering to the fifty plus crowd and marketing dollar allocation 

The similarities and differences between men and women in midlife

Defining the midlife crisis

What is truly important to midlife men

You can find Broc Edwards and the Midlife Mastery Podcast at:
 https://www.instagram.com/midlifemasterypodcast/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=midlife+mastery+podcast
Website - https://midlifemasterypodcast.com/
The website lists Broc's top five shows, which is a great place to start.


Follow Asking for a Friend on Social media outlets:
https://www.instagram.com/askingforafriend_pod/
https://www.facebook.com/askforafriendpod/

Please provide a review and share. This helps us grow!
https://lovethepodcast.com/AFAF

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
I thought it might be interesting to get a man's perspective on midlife and when I started my search I stumbled upon a midlife podcast hosted by a male who speaks to both men and women. Perfect. My intention was to see if men and women have some of the same thoughts and feelings about aging and midlife and I believe there are similarities. But the one striking difference between men and women is community. Women are better at building community and supporting each other. This is not some marketing ploy perpetuated by social media. It really is a thing. What results is a stronger network for women to have camaraderie as we age and it goes way beyond book club pickleball and Bunco. Health, Wellness, career, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is asking for a friend. Welcome everyone to the show. Today's guest decided that being in midlife didn't make him want to be 25 again, but he certainly wasn't ready to disappear either. Brock Edwards decided that he take his well earned wisdom and knowledge to bring others together to share their passion, enthusiasm and ideas for mastering midlife to create an amazing second half. His podcast is appropriately named the midlife mastery podcast. Welcome to the show. Brock Edwards.

Unknown Speaker  1:45  
Thank you, Michelle. I really appreciate it. It's great to be on today.

Unknown Speaker  1:48  
Well, it's nice to have you on. I first of all, would just love for you to introduce yourself to the listeners, tell them a little bit about you, where you're from and all that good stuff.

Unknown Speaker  2:01  
Sometimes people ask what's your superpower? This is my kryptonite. Just talking about myself. I'm normally on the other side of the microphone. Introduction. I grew up in a very tiny town in northern Nevada. Since then, I've lived in Indiana, Colorado, Texas, moved about four different jobs and things my focus is really on learning and development. I love helping people live up to their potential, whatever that looks like to them. I like being involved in it, whether that's professionally in terms of corporate training, or used to do some coaching used to do blogging, and now focus my creative outlets on podcasting. In between all of that I recently took up racing, go karts and try and keep up with my wife and kids. There you go.

Unknown Speaker  2:47  
You're busy, and you're juggling a lot. Brock and I just were talking prior to recording that he and I both have day jobs like real jobs. We do this and the off hours. So we are recording this in the evening. It is a juggle, but we make it work.

Unknown Speaker  3:04  
Absolutely. Now I need a creative outlet. I don't really watch sports. I don't do a lot of things that normal people do. I guess this fills up that time that I would be using another way as if I were someone else.

Unknown Speaker  3:16  
Exactly. Same here. How long have you been doing your podcast?

Unknown Speaker  3:21  
Depending on how you can midlife mastery is my second podcast and I started that right about two years ago. Hasn't been two years. Yeah, so 2020 just released the 60th episode. Prior to that I was doing a podcast called The imperfect action based on the idea that Imperfect Action beats perfect inaction. I did that for a couple years as well. And that one hit about 114 episodes.

Unknown Speaker  3:43  
That's impressive. Was there any defining moment that made you say, I really want to do a podcast about midlife,

Unknown Speaker  3:53  
I turned 50. I turned 50 in 2020. A couple of things happen. One, I realized I didn't know how to do midlife, I didn't know how to do 50 Looking around, I'm very into personal development and self help books and all that and I can find a ton of stuff for people in their teens, 20s 30s, even 40s. And then you hit 50s. And it's like the world just thinks we don't care anymore or something. I'm a little confused about it. I just wasn't finding anything. Even when I did searches on midlife podcasts. I was not finding much at that time. It's grown quite a bit since then. But it was pretty sparse then, right about that time I came across just a mention that those of us over 50 Spend 50% of the money, at least in America and we get seven or 8% of the marketing. That just completely blew my mind. Just shut me down. I could not imagine companies leaving that much money on the table. What I took from that is that if the world isn't catering to us, there's probably a lot of other people out there who also don't know how to do 50 and 60s in midlife. And that there's like this space between 50 and retirement that just gets ignored. And you've mentioned in the introduction there about me, as I kind of look at marketing, and I'm not a marketer, but I'm fascinated by marketing. It either represents what people think I think about myself, or what people think I ought to think about myself. I could not relate to any of the marketing that was aimed at, it's like, we're not getting any and the stuff that we get really sucks. It does seem to be aimed at either, hey, I should want to be 20 again, or I should just be kind of shuffling off to the side waiting to die. I can't relate to either of those. I realized I didn't know how to do it that I didn't know how to podcast. So I just started reaching out to people and thought, hey, if I'm curious, other people are curious, too. There doesn't seem to be an outlet. But it seems to be a strong need. I like helping people live up to their potential that drives me and fits my own personal mission. Just all those things came together. Midlife mastery was named by a friend, it's a little bit of a misnomer, because I am not the person saying, here's how you should do 50 and beyond, I'm the person looking to others to figure out how do I do 50. And beyond

Unknown Speaker  6:05  
to your point, the people that I have on the show are people that typically are experts in their fields, or they are people who have done some extraordinary things in midlife that have given them some better life fulfillment, or have made an impact on others. I think we need to showcase those people and let others know that there is life after 50. There's my gosh, we've got 3040 years ahead of us. Let's live to our potential.

Unknown Speaker  6:44  
Absolutely, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  6:46  
Have there been any aha moments for you. Since you started doing these interviews with mid lifers?

Unknown Speaker  6:53  
Just the painful Aha, that I already know what it takes. What it seems to come down to creating great midlife is just the same as creating any other great thing in your life one know what you want to work consistently toward it. I mean, that's what it seems to boil down to that that's a little bit of an oversimplification. But there is another component that doesn't fall into that checklist. And that is, I think, just the mindset that this is a phenomenal time of life. I love talking to people who are excited about midlife, because I don't know, it just seems to be the intersection of having the time, the money, the wisdom, to really be able to enjoy it. I mean, in my 20s, I didn't have money or wisdom, I have more time. Now that we're getting to the point where for the most part, kids are out of the house or headed out, they certainly don't need me quite as much as they used to. I do have more free time and do have more interests to exploring. It's a huge world out there. There's just so much cool stuff that we can be doing and we can be up to, it is a great time to learn new things. So often we get stuck in our old habits and our old patterns. And it's really super easy to do. I really get excited talking to people who have taken on a brand new hobby when they turn 50. Some guests on the 50 they decide to take up mountain climbing like ice climbing, mountain climbing. That's insane. And I love it. There is like you mentioned at 50. Realistically, I've got at least two decades ahead of me probably three, maybe four. That's a lot of time that I know both is a lot of time and will go quickly if I don't focus on living it to my fullest. Kind of a rambling answer. Sorry, Michelle. Asked me another question. I'll give you a better answer.

Unknown Speaker  8:35  
I think there's some parallels here. Because many women have spent the bulk of their adult lives either caring for children, maybe a spouse, their home, then you have maybe aging parents or ill parents. Now, like you said they have more time to devote to ourselves, but we may feel a little stuck. I guess women aren't always sure what it is that may bring them joy or fulfillment. They aren't used to putting themselves first. It's almost as if we need to have permission to say it's okay to put yourself first and to do things that would really make you happy. As you're talking I'm thinking maybe men have some of those same novelty issues, but same concerns or they almost need a push.

Unknown Speaker  9:32  
I'm about to speak about things in very gross broad generalizations. Everyone's different. If when I say is different than your life, great. Leave it in the comments. Let us know tell me where I'm wrong. I'm very comfortable with that. But it is interesting. One of the things I noticed was as I look around and initially like on Instagram, that's primarily where I'm at on social media. 80 plus percent of my followers were women. If I wasn't targeting women, my guests are fairly split. I haven't done a count, but I would guess it's close enough to 5050. When I do searches for things dealing with midlife and over 50, and all of that, women come up a lot more in terms of podcast resources, ideas, even businesses aimed at those over 50 tend to be again, gross generalization here, owned by or promoted by women. I couldn't figure out why. In fact, I asked a lot of guests offline. Hey, this is something I'm seeing. Are you seeing this too? I'm getting a little off up your initial question here. But one of the things I've noticed is that men don't necessarily have a trigger point is a phrase that comes to mind on that's accurate, but a life event. How's that the way women do in midlife, you tend to get a menopause, and you tend to get empty nest, not that men aren't involved in raising their kids. And again, everyone's different. Everyone's situation is different. Men's identities generally don't change in midlife, they don't have this moment where they're going. I'm no longer a caretaker, I'm no longer worried about other people in a way that's different than they always have been. I think, again, just observation that there's not that pivotal moment so much as perhaps women sometimes have where they're really faced with who am I? What am I doing what I want to do? How is my life going to play out from here on out?

Unknown Speaker  11:30  
I think this crossroad, that you're talking about Crossroads a great word. I think this is sometimes why midlife women are asking for divorce more than midlife men

Unknown Speaker  11:42  
could very, very well be from what I understand. There are more divorces in midlife that it does go up after a certain time. I'm not an expert in divorce at all. But I can certainly understand how if you've been spending the past 20 or so years, focused on career and kids and just getting along that when those things are removed or changed, you're going well, who are you that I'm living with? Do we know each other? Do we still like each other? Without really stepping back and going, Okay, what is this going to look like for us? How do we want it to be different now that it can be different? It's easy to just stay in that same rut.

Unknown Speaker  12:18  
I would call it a rat. And I did have a sex and relationship therapist on the show. I'm actually having her back. Yes, it was pretty popular. I think people are trying to define what their marriage will look like going forward, things change, there may be sexual dysfunction there is that loss of identity, maybe the wife doesn't feel fulfilled or doesn't have an outlet. Now, all of those things can play a role in people just trying to work their way through this time. But I would argue to that, it really should be a great time to embrace that alone time that you have now as a couple that maybe you can travel and do some things together. But you have to find some commonality. And what that looks like.

Unknown Speaker  13:13  
One of the things about midlife that I have found is that it happens at a different timing for everyone. And there isn't a specific point when you're young, you graduate high school, and then maybe you go to college, or maybe you go to trade school, or maybe you get a job, then in that 10 year period, you're probably getting married or having some sort of very serious relationship, maybe having kids. There's all these big life defining moments that happen. And we're all real comfortable with them happening then. But then you get to midlife and there's no trigger. There's nothing that makes you step back and say, Hey, am I doing what I want with my life? What's the next step for me? We forget that at any moment, we can do that in our life. You were talking about maybe people needing permission to go do this. I think that's in part because there isn't this big, Pivotal trigger moment for a lot of people the way we get when we're younger. Yet at any moment, we truly can just step back and go hey, is this where I'm headed? Do I want to head here? Do I want to do something else? When we're faced with it that probably does cause relationship issues, midlife crises, you know, whatever.

Unknown Speaker  14:18  
It's also a good argument for counseling, therapy, life coach, something along those lines. I talk about that quite a bit on the show. It's okay to ask for help. We don't have to figure this all out ourselves. If we do feel that rut or we don't know what the next step looks like.

Unknown Speaker  14:39  
It's really easy to get stuck in our habits, our habits of how we communicate our habits of the topics we communicate on our habits of how we fight. I mean, if you've been married for a while, you get to be pretty pro level at just taking something simple and going right to a cutting argument. You don't have to work your way down to a deep argument, you know all the shortcuts. I'm Getting partially there everyone, but we get really comfortable with how we think things are in, it's really easy to make some big assumptions based on a lifetime of patterns that it can be hard to break out of that I would agree sometimes that additional help is very, very helpful just to help us see where our assumptions are, where we're not questioning ourselves deeper.

Unknown Speaker  15:19  
Sometimes there's a stigma, if you will, around asking for some assistance in vetting your options. I think I have come to terms with Hey, it might be nice to get somebody's unbiased little push. I would consider it for myself and I have been thinking about that recently. Just thinking about what do I do with this podcast? How do I take it to the next level and that sort of thing? I'm not afraid to ask for help. Let's put it that way. You brought up the midlife crisis? I know not everybody goes through a midlife crisis per se for the gentleman. What do you think my midlife crisis would look like today?

Unknown Speaker  16:02  
I have a really hard time speaking for anyone who's not a midlife male who lives in my house anyone beyond me. I'm not an expert in their lives. I'm also someone who has had existential crises every six months between the ages of 20 and 40. I'm very comfortable with questioning, am I on the right path? Am I doing the right thing and then fretting about it for a while. I suspect that's what a lot of midlife crises are, you get to that point and realize, I'm not where I thought I was going to be. I don't know where I want to be. I don't see a path out of here and feel trapped where I ended up. Some of it may be just wanting to be cool and relevant again. One time we all were and then we got busy with stuff and then we look around and realize just how out of touch we are with the entire world or the world moved on without us anyway. Here is a distinction I've seen between midlife men and midlife women, midlife women are really really good at bonding together cheering each other on forming community. Men are terrible at that, from what I've seen. I know there are some men who are good at that. Also, men don't seem to identify with over 50 the way women do. Women, like I say, and this is based just on looking at social media and talking to some guests, women seem to really own the over 50 hashtags and men, not so much, they don't really seem to pull it into their identity quite as much. In fact, when they do, and this was an early observation off Instagram, the men who identify with being over 50 tend to not wear shirts in their Instagram photos, they tend to be really fit guys in the gym. And that's where they're identifying. Versus just, this is a part of my life. I think it's more segmented. I think men break it down and don't necessarily think over 50 They just think how are my finances doing, how's my career doing? How's my fitness doing and all of that, again, big generalization. But I do think that's something that women do much, much better is just being able to find people to talk to, from what I've observed, from what I've heard from talking to people, suicide rates go up in men, for men and midlife. There's a lot of isolation and loneliness, a lot of men, our last really solid friend was in college, or even before that way, everyone since then is often just someone you work with and you enjoy being with at work, but not necessarily something you carry on in your life. That's just tends to be I don't know if that's because men are just very career focused, or career and kids and family and don't have time for that community piece. Or we're just wired that way. I don't know, it's just an observation of some differences that I've noticed. I can say in my own life, my wife is much much better at keeping up and maintaining and making new friendships than I am. If we can generalize based off my life, and we really shouldn't, but that holds up.

Unknown Speaker  18:52  
Well, should we push our spouses to try to keep those connections alive with their friends? Hey, why don't you get up poker night together with your buddies? Or I know my boss, he does a Bible study to try to keep connected with a certain group of men. Do we as women encouraged that? Instead of trying to keep the husband's home all the time? Because we hate it when they were gone. We were trying to get three kids to bed. You know what I mean? It's like, what do you mean, you're going out?

Unknown Speaker  19:26  
I don't know. I know my wife has kindly tried to do those sorts of things for me, and it drives me nuts. But I'm kind of stubborn that way. I don't like anyone telling me what to do. Even the people I really care about. I like them telling me what to do. I do appreciate that support and encouragement and reminder because at this time I live time slips by really, really fast. I don't know I think it's good to step back and think you know, what are those new hobbies I can explore? What are new challenges I could be taking on now? How can I get involved with other people in that? I think there is something to be mindful about just reaching out To those friends that we've always had, one of the cool things about the world as the internet has connected us all in one of the challenging things is that means that some of my best friends live 1000 plus miles from me. I can't pop over and do something with them. They're awesome people. But it takes an effort. There's a challenge there. I don't know what the answer to that challenge is. I think I appreciate the thought and the support. Somewhere in me says I'll figure this out myself. And I'm probably not as good at figuring it out myself as I should be.

Unknown Speaker  20:30  
I guess the question would be, then how do we keep from spiraling into a funk? You talked about suicide rates tend to be higher for this age group for males? That's scary. Is there something that men need to be aware of to keep themselves from getting to that point, I don't know.

Unknown Speaker  20:50  
One of my guests Joker, Stan, he did a great thing on vulnerability, something that men aren't good at. And it's something we haven't been practicing our entire lives. Again, in general, but especially I suspect, my son will be much more comfortable with vulnerability than I was. And I'm much more comfortable with it than my dad was. Just as I learned about it in the 70s. He learned about it in the 40s and 50s, my son, we progressed, but we develop those habits and approaches when we're young. And when I was young was 40 years ago. That is something that many of us are not good at. And yet that is that piece of just being able to reach out to someone have a friend to reach out to and say, Hey, I'm struggling here. Or even just be able to say, Hey, I miss you, I would love to connect more. What can we do about that? A lot of times that connection is pretty superficial or is about other subjects other than ourselves.

Unknown Speaker  21:48  
And women. We do book club, and we have Bunco or just wine night. Women are really good at organizing things. And getting together. I just guess men aren't wired that way necessarily. That's really interesting. In terms of guests that you've had on your show, I'm just curious, have any of them made you think, wow, I need to do more of that. Or that's a really interesting perspective on midlife.

Unknown Speaker  22:19  
Most of them. There are a few, the standout, a Don McPherson, he does a podcast called 12 Geniuses He was talking about I think he is planning to live to be 120 or something between good genes keeping himself fit and where he sees technology and medicine going. It's very realistic to him. Where I found myself getting stuck was just the idea that I'm not even to the midpoint, then if that's the case, what decisions would you make differently in your life, if you were going to live another 6070 years from now, versus thinking you're only going to live two or three decades?

Unknown Speaker  22:56  
I need to keep working. I don't live my ability to support myself,

Unknown Speaker  23:02  
you'd probably make different health decisions. As the old joke goes, if I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. Different financial decisions, different relationship decisions, every category of life, you would think about very differently if you were planning to live 70 more years versus even 30 more years. That one really had me thinking for quite some time. What I see in most of the guests is just an intentionality about midlife about a strong desire to either they sat down and thought about how do I do midlife Well, or they're just too busy enjoying the midlife to have really given it much thought they are just going nonstop. Guests I've had on a couple times actually just released an episode Gail Gensler. She's awesome. She's 6061 very much into kickboxing for staying fit. And I forget if she shared this on the episode or just when we were talking is that men her age basically can't keep up with her. They're either wanting to retire and sit in front of the TV or they just don't have the energy or desire and I just love that full throttle non stop energy that she has and other people that are really focused on just having a really great midlife have.

Unknown Speaker  24:14  
I know who you're speaking of the way I would describe her if she lives out loud? Yes, she is out there. By the way, she looks fabulous.

Unknown Speaker  24:25  
In fact, she refers to it as living in beastmode mirrors, I can tell that's a great description for it. Her and other people like that. They're just committed to having a really, really great life. I get inspired by that. I love to surround myself with that. I aspire to that. I mean, I have very positive feelings about midlife. Hey, I've got human feelings to doubts and wonderings just cool to be around people who inspire me and that's one of the great things I personally get out of doing a podcast is I get to talk to awesome people. I get ideas from them and inspiration. Hopefully they get the listeners do as well.

Unknown Speaker  24:58  
Do you take better care of yourself? off now, before I did since before you started having all these conversations with these mid life, people who are getting out there and doing it,

Unknown Speaker  25:09  
I actually was close to this time last year, I guessed or someone had posted something, just reminding everyone, they probably had to visit a doctor occasionally and probably ought to nudge those important people in your life to get out there and visit the doctor. Occasionally. I realized it had been like a decade since I'd done my annual visit, I am tend to be a very healthy person anyway. For the most part haven't had need I do notice. I'm in fact, one of my goals this year is just to have really great bloodwork been working on that a little bit not as much is, well, I'm not there yet. How's that?

Unknown Speaker  25:48  
I appreciate your honesty, Brock. And I'm not going to scold you for not going to the doctor more often. But I do think that because I have more, I don't want to say I have more time because I'm just as busy now as I was 10 years ago. But I think I realized that I have to be more intentional about my health eat better exercise differently than what I did 10 years ago. All those things. I've picked all this up, really, I don't want to say Instagram, but following women that are really good at that. It's been inspirational for me, I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm trying to bring experts in health and wellness to the podcast so that people say, oh, yeah, I need to go do that. Or, you know what, that's something that's been nagging me, and I'm too embarrassed to ask my doctor about it. And I know men have their own issues in midlife, that can be cholesterol can be sexual dysfunction, it can be a myriad of things. Sometimes our pride gets in the way of asking about it. It's not comfortable. Like we said, we may live another 3040 years. Why not be happy? Why be miserable, if you're not functioning at your best level,

Unknown Speaker  27:10  
this is really the age where it all starts catching up. I've certainly noticed that was pretty enthusiastic. In my youth, I grew up racing motorcycles, and then mountain bikes and other things. And I've just done a lot of stupid things in my life as well. And when you're young, you bounce and at this age, I don't bounce quite the way I used to, you don't get up quite as quick. This is when you start feeling those aches and pains. They don't go away quite as fast. I've always eaten pretty well. But I definitely noticed some things that I used to eat a lot more of and just, I feel it now when I'm getting too many desserts or too rich of food or whatever it do start noticing that it's this you mentioned crossroads of just all those bad past decisions catching up and realizing and also having the sense of mortality and the sense to be able to look at and say, hey, if I keep down this path, this isn't taking me to a good place, I need to nip it in the bud. Now, that's been a bit of a realization there over the past couple of years just live catching up needing to get back on track on some things.

Unknown Speaker  28:15  
I know, for women in this age group, because we're going through menopause. And there's a question here, our bodies are changing, we are probably carrying a little more weight around our middle, we get a little self conscious about how we look. How I don't want to put you on the spot. But are men super concerned about that? Should we be self conscious about that kind of stuff? Or are men okay with it because their bodies are changing, too.

Unknown Speaker  28:49  
I've been married 27 years now, I don't know that I have a great answer for that. Both my wife and I have we have aged together we have put on weight together. I don't know. I know that I couldn't be the first one to criticize someone else about not being who they were when they were 19 for the most part, and this is just a personal thing. I'm sure everyone's different, but I don't think age is an attraction there. But I've always been a fan of gray hair and people just really willing to be authentic with who they are. That just that self confidence. I think everyone is attracted to people who have high self confidence. I love that being able to just kind of own who you are and where you are and be comfortable with yourself. Those are the people who are fun to be around. Those are the people I want to be around.

Unknown Speaker  29:32  
I was gonna ask you about. You're not going to go out and get a younger girlfriend and get some hair plugs and a sports car.

Unknown Speaker  29:41  
younger girlfriend no older girlfriend No. I mean that would create all kinds of inconveniences in my life. No I'm getting there I am no desire, very, very happy where I'm at somehow I looked into choosing really well. When I was too young to know the difference and has worked out well for Both of us but hair plugs no good genetics so far so hanging in there

Unknown Speaker  30:04  
and yes you do you have a nice set of hair.

Unknown Speaker  30:07  
Sports Car well I already own one and but I've owned sports cars and fast cars in that most of my life so that's not like a new thing for me. Now it is a Miata judges you will there. I don't know I say I've been through existential crises way too much in my life to you're trying to have the stereotypical midlife crisis.

Unknown Speaker  30:27  
I just did the ask. It's easy to poke fun.

Unknown Speaker  30:29  
And I certainly do poke fun, you got that stereotype going? I think it is searching for youth vitality, relevance, trying to feel different. This is also the time in life when we can afford that car that we always wanted. When we were in high school, now's the time of life where we have the time to indulge too much in whatever it is that we're indulging. And you mentioned, you're just as busy now as you were 10 years ago, and I would totally agree with that. But I do find it's a different kind of busy with kids. You don't have as much choice on when you're busy once kids are grown. Yes, stay busy. But I have a lot more choice on a when am I going to be busy or not? As my wife does as well, I don't know, we can poke fun at the stereotype. I am certainly guilty of doing that. I think it is that yearning, that exploring that not knowing who you want to be and what to do, and dissatisfaction all coming out in ways that are probably a lot of fun, and probably really counterproductive.

Unknown Speaker  31:25  
And I get that that's where the coaching the life coaching comes into play. That's so we don't go get a girlfriend and earplugs.

Unknown Speaker  31:33  
Unless you can afford good ones. That's always the danger, the cut rate, plastic surgery, save up, get the good

Unknown Speaker  31:39  
stuff. Don't go to Mexico for your hair plugs.

Unknown Speaker  31:43  
No cut, right? I mean, I feel the same way about tattoos, I see a lot of them where it's just like, man, you probably just should have saved money for one more week before he went and got that one. Again, doing permanent things, if you're going to do them is probably worth spending the money on it.

Unknown Speaker  31:55  
My luck, I would get a butterfly and I would end up looking like a moth in 10 years. As things expand, that's just a bad look. I thought I'll pass on that tattoo idea.

Unknown Speaker  32:07  
I was gonna think about how are you going to look in the next 1020 years?

Unknown Speaker  32:11  
Hopefully no worse than I do now. But we all know about that. That's right. I did have a question for you. And I was gonna play a little game with you. And have you rank some things like an order of what you think men are what is most important to men, I should say? I think you answered one of these already. My four things were success at work, friendships, sex, affection, slash appreciation.

Unknown Speaker  32:40  
Although some pretty good, I think we probably spend more effort on certain things. Some of it's easy to let go by the wayside, the crew time out, it's really easy. Let friendships and relationships go by the wayside. Got to keep showing up at work every day. If you want them to keep paying you. That's easy. But it's easy, then to neglect the things that we're not required to do, even if they're still really important to us. And I think that's where that relationship and friendship piece can fall down a bit. We just get focused on other things. I don't know. Can we read them all equally?

Unknown Speaker  33:10  
Yeah, actually, you can, when I was planning out our conversation, just thinking of some things. I think it depends on your personality, what ranks some people are just very driven success. And the appearance of success is very important to them. But maybe some men just really want to be appreciated for what they do.

Unknown Speaker  33:33  
Maybe some nuance there. When you say success, everyone's going to define it a little bit differently. When I think of success, I think at at least the base level, we all want to be appreciated. I think we all want to know that we're doing a good job. We want to know that we're able to take care of us and the people important to us. Whether you're chasing titles, or the absolute dollar, we define success different. But I think knowing that we're doing a good job and contributing to the world. I guess that's kind of how I broadly define success there. So that overlaps with the other pieces as well.

Unknown Speaker  34:06  
That's good. I think just the appreciation piece. Again, I think that's really part of your personality, because I think some people just want more appreciation. I don't know if you're familiar with the Enneagram. only vaguely there are certain personalities within the Enneagram who really want to be appreciated. It's the twos there too. So it's one through nine and the twos really, really want to be appreciated. If that's part of your DNA, your makeup, then yeah, that's going to be important. I'm going to probably edit a lot of this because I'm rambling too. I do want to go back to your podcast because I want to talk just really quick about how people would find you. If they want to tune in to your podcast.

Unknown Speaker  34:50  
It's available anywhere you would find podcasts. In fact if you want you can just ask Alexa or Siri to play midlife mastery podcast. You can find it on YouTube. Although no video it's audio only. So it's really boring YouTube. One of the challenges I've actually found in midlife is that a lot of mid lifers don't listen to podcasts. If you look at the numbers, our group doesn't listen to that many. And so I found myself saying things like it's available on your favorite podcast app, and realize that there's people out there who don't have a favorite podcast app and don't know what I'm talking about when I say that my mom has one of them easier just to direct her to YouTube or wherever, Spotify, but really any place if you just search midlife mastery podcast or search my name, Brock Edwards, it should come up. Website man Life Mastery podcast.com. You can find me on Instagram at Life Mastery podcast. Those are the most places you can listen to the podcast right on the website. Or if you're like me and use something like Pocket Cast or an app, you can get it there. Spotify is great. Anyway, I'm repeating myself. It's wherever you want to find it.

Unknown Speaker  35:53  
You know, it's interesting, you just tell you about how you and I are both doing midlife podcasts, and people in midlife, aren't as comfortable with podcasts. I think we've got a challenge in front of us getting that information out there. And I guess social media has been really helpful for me.

Unknown Speaker  36:12  
People listening to this podcast right now, don't have a challenge when we say hey, just go find it on the podcast app. But growing into those who don't, or when we say hey, you know, share with your friends. There's a lot of people who are like, Hey, you should listen to this. And then you've got to give the person a 10 minute instruction on their phone, and they've got to download an app and they've got to create another password that they don't need in their life. And it's a whole thing into it. It's just an education piece for people to realize it's not as hard as it sounds. It's just if you're not into listening to podcasts, it's helpful for those of us who provide them to open up those other spaces. So that's where I started going to YouTube and some other spots just to make it easy to find and really easy to listen to.

Unknown Speaker  36:52  
Have you done any Tik Tok yet?

Unknown Speaker  36:54  
Well, I have not. I've downloaded the app. I'm intrigued by it. I'm not that good at video that's holding me back there from doing much on tick tock. That's one of those where there's not a lot of mid lifers on tick tock. If you look at the percentages, I kind of suspect those that are on tick tock are really enthusiastic about midlife, smaller but much more excited audience and I've known some other midlife podcasters who've done very, very well on tick tock, I just haven't explored that territory yet.

Unknown Speaker  37:24  
I'm not going to see Brock Edwards dancing on tick tock and doing fun little things with little pop up bubbles,

Unknown Speaker  37:31  
no, or anywhere else for that matter. So I mean, that's

Unknown Speaker  37:35  
it, and guess what, I'm not doing it either. I'm 58 years old, and I just figure I'm gonna stick to my guns here and continue to do what I'm doing. YouTube. I haven't ventured there yet either. But that might be my next step.

Unknown Speaker  37:50  
We'll see. That's really simple. So that's easy to do.

Unknown Speaker  37:54  
This was very fun. I really appreciate your honesty, and sharing your midlife journey and your podcast. I encourage everybody to tune in to the midlife mastery podcast. I've listened to some of them. He has some great guests. Thank you for being a guest today on the show.

Unknown Speaker  38:14  
Absolutely. This has been fun. I say I don't get to be on this side of the microphone that much. It's a treat for me. I will also say if you go to the website and Life Mastery podcast.com on the right hand side there are the top five episodes if you're just wondering where to start. Those are the ones that everyone else was like those are really good places to start.

Unknown Speaker  38:32  
Perfect. Great suggestion. Appreciate that very much. Thanks again for being here. Now You bet. Thank you, thank you. Follow asking for a friend on social media outlets and provide a review and share this show wherever you get your podcasts, reviews and sharing help us grow

Transcribed by https://otter.ai