Achieving Life Long Relevance
If there was one overarching theme to my life right now, it would be laying the foundation for the rest of my life. And one of the questions I am trying to answer is how “work” fits into my plan of leading a rich, active and engaged life until the very end.
Therefore I was delighted to recently sit down with five incredibly inspiring women, all in their 80s, to discuss what it means to remain relevant and engaged throughout one’s life, and specifically how the role of work has evolved in their lives. These women came together in 2021 to start their own company, the Nonprofit Consulting Group (NPCG) to offer pro bono consulting services to nonprofits in response to the needs they saw following Covid.
I was deeply inspired by our discussion and left convinced that life after 50 can be purposeful, fun, and full of opportunities for personal growth. These women are choosing to be engaged with life every day and through their choices, they are staying relevant, engaged and vibrant. They are proof life does not end after 50!
I hope you enjoy our (lightly edited) conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.
Finding relevance through formal or informal work
Feeling relevant is as important at 30 as it is at 50 and at 80. And this is true for the women I spoke with as they have a deep desire to stay relevant both in the world generally as well as professionally.
Each of them worked in some capacity over the course of their lives and they did not want to lose that part of themselves as they left the traditional workforce and got older. So they chose, in their words, to “recycle themselves and their skills into a new form which is more flexible and more collaborative and just as rewarding.” Beautiful!
While opportunities to stay relevant exist through their evolving roles with their families, it was the challenge of staying relevant professionally which they needed to figure out. And thus, NPCG was born. Not only as a way to stay relevant, but also as a way to give back. NPCG allows them to continue to use their skills and share their knowledge but in a new way as consultants. And in return, they get to see how different organizations function and they stay current on issues in the non-profit sector.
As you think about what might be your “NPCG,” they offered two great pieces of advice:
Think about your lifelong professional path as a portfolio and add to this portfolio along the way, using the various skills you acquire in different ways.
Pick a job or career which gives you joy.
Redefining work
I know over the last 5 years my perspective on work has evolved. And I have spent a lot of time exploring what work will look like going forward. So I was curious to see what this group had to say on the subject.
Not surprisingly, the role of work had evolved for everyone. And now, as they have mostly stepped away from paid professional work, they have chosen to spend more time on community work and volunteering. As one woman said, her life feels like a seesaw. When she graduated from college, her father told her to get a paying job and do her “do-gooding” at night. This was a formula she followed into her mid-60s when things flipped, and she could spend more and more of her time on community-focused work.
And where climbing the corporate ladder and titles might have once been their focus, that too has shifted. What they now find rewarding and valuable is being able to work both individually and as a team and to work with people they might not have had an opportunity to work with otherwise. And at this point in their lives, they do not feel as competitive with others or the need to be the head honcho. One of them reflected that as you get older what is “important is the ability to think about problems and come up with solutions. But you do not feel you have to push your solutions; you just want to put them out there and if someone takes it great and if they do not that is great too.”
Lastly, their lives are made up of many different pieces and they do not want any one pursuit to dominate as work might have earlier in their careers. So flexibility is critically important. It is fundamental to how they work, and they protect it by working as teams and carefully choosing what projects they take on.
What they enjoy about work now
I loved how positive they were when talking about their work. From the language they used like “collegial”, “friendship”, and “fun” to how partnering with each other has allowed them to continue to grow professionally and do meaningful work.
One of them summed it up beautifully when she said, “One of the joys of their group is that there is no ego. They are genuinely there to help each other and work hard. We have never had a fight or argument and we always listen and build upon others’ ideas.” Another chimed in, her voice full of emotion, “One of the things about this wonderful group of women, two of whom I didn’t know that well before, is that my life is so much richer for having them in my life.”
I could not help but think it sounded like work utopia. Once one is not as focused on compensation, title or career path, could this work utopia exist for everyone?
The role of luck
I have often suspected that a lot of life depends on luck, although I also believe we can take steps to put ourselves in the way of luck through our mindset and actions. This sentiment was echoed by the group. As one person said, “A lot of your life is about luck. If you are lucky, you marry the right person, your kids are healthy, and then you can think about yourself. As the 5 of us sit here today, we are healthy, our husbands are alive, and our kids are OK. We are a very lucky group.”
And one person added, “when tough or bad things happen, you can choose, up or down.” Meaning you get to choose how to react. And the decisions you make lead to the life you will have.
Parting Thought
In the US, it seems like there is a fixation on retirement – and the ideal retirement means you get to stop working and leave behind the bureaucracy, the calls and meetings, and the stress to go live somewhere warm and play golf every day. And with “retirement age” around the corner it leads me to ask, “Isn’t there something in between?” Can I leave behind the aspects I do not enjoy but still do work I find engaging, interesting and thought provoking? My conversation with this group convinced me that yes, there are still decades left where I can reap the benefits and rewards of work while minimizing the negatives.
And finally, I asked everyone for one word to sum up how they feel about the opportunity for meaningful and thoughtful engagement at 80. Their response: blessed, enriched, grateful, valuable, and a bonus. I hope I am so lucky when I am 80!
To be continued…
