Midlife Crisis? Why Life After 50 Could Be Your Best Years Yet - Transcript

Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy.

Chip Conley
When you shift your mindset on aging from a negative to a positive, you gain seven and a half years of additional life Wow. Which is more life than if you stop smoking or if start exercising at 50.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, actually, if you end cancer and heart disease on the face of the planet, you'd only get 5 to 7 years of life extension.

Chip Conley
I know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone via my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at this scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out function health for real time lab insights. If you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, Hyman Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your routine, visit my website, supplement store, for a summary of my favorite and tested products.

Welcome to The Doctor's Farmacy. This is Doctor. Mark Hyman. That's pharmacy with an f, a place for conversations that matter. And this conversation today with my friend, Chip Conley, is one that I think really matters because it's about how to develop wisdom, especially as we go through our midlife and disrupt a lot of the beliefs that we have about what it means to get older, to get unstuck, to get free.

We had a really deep ranging conversation about a lot of my personal life story, his personal life story, his struggle with cancer, the things he learned through a lot of the challenges of his life that I think are gonna be helpful for all of you. Chip's an amazing guy. He's disrupted the hospitality industry twice. 1st is the founder of joie de vivre hospitality, which is the 2nd largest operator of boutique hotels in the US. And then as Airbnb's head of global hospitality and strategy, which I'm sure you've heard of Airbnb, and that led a worldwide revolution in travel.

He cofounded the MEA, the Modern Elder Academy in 2018 in Baja, Mexico and opened a second campus in Santa Fe, which I just visited. It's a 26 100 acre regenerative horse ranch inspired by his experience of intergenerational mentoring as a modern elder at Airbnb, where he was he called himself a, mentern, which is a a mentor and an intern at the same time. And he really helped build and grow Airbnb into one of the most successful companies in the world. And now he's dedicating his life to reframing the concept of aging. MEA supports students to navigate midlife with renewed sense of purpose, possibility.

He's a New York Times bestselling author. His 7th book, Learning to Love Midlife, 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age, is out now. It's great. Check it out for sure. It's about rebranding midlife to help people understand the upside of this often misunderstood life stage.

So I encourage you to check his workout. And now let's jump right into our amazing conversation together. Welcome, Chip, back to the doctor's pharmacy podcast. It's so great to

Chip Conley
be here. Yay. It's great to be here, Mark. We're here in Santa Fe. We're

Dr. Mark Hyman
here in Santa Fe Yeah. In New Mexico. Yep. I

Chip Conley
just had

Dr. Mark Hyman
back surgery 2 weeks ago. You had struggled with your own health issues. Yep. And you have been an advocate for something that is it's something that most people dread Yeah. Which is getting older.

Yeah. And midlife and redefining what that looks like. Because, you know, as most of us look at people around us in society, we see the process of getting older Yeah. As kind of bad news. Of course.

You know?

Chip Conley
Yeah. If if there's a bumper sticker, we just don't do it. The the opposite of Nike.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right. Just don't do it. And and here we are. I'm about to be 65. You're not far behind me.

Yes. And we're still going strong and being creative and doing stuff. And life is kinda different than it was for generations past at this age where True. I'm gonna be in an age this year where I can go on social security and Medicare, and yet I'm moving to a new town. I just bought a new house.

I just got married.

Chip Conley
You have a lovely wife.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I have a beautiful

Chip Conley
Who's younger than you? Who is? Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I started a new company. Yeah. I am trying to work really hard to change the food system and be more active in ways than I've ever been Yep. And healthier than I've been in a long, long time. So, you know, we have to kind of begin to rethink a little bit of this whole process.

And what I'm curious about is, you know, you came from this very successful career as a hotelier. You were Yeah. Really instrumental in the development of Airbnb, which all of us know and have used. And and yet you kind of turned your attention to a different focus as you've entered in different phase of your life, which is how do we reimagine this process of midlife as not a burden but an opportunity? So what's the first word that comes

Chip Conley
to mind when you hear the word midlife? Retirement? No. What words what goes with it? Getting

Dr. Mark Hyman
old Midlife. Crisis. Exactly. Crisis.

Chip Conley
So this is the life stage as the worst brand I know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I got a new car and I did not get a 911 Porsche.

Chip Conley
Okay. But you got something red. No. No.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think I got something red.

Chip Conley
Okay. So midlife crisis is an age old trope that, you know, Hollywood made famous by American Beauty with Kevin Spacey, you know, and and a bunch of other famous Hollywood actors who hit 45 or 50 and then said, okay. To hell with it. I'm gonna become an adolescent again. But the reality is most people don't have a crisis.

What they have is a feeling of being stuck. And, Brene Brown, a good friend, says it's the midlife unraveling. Because around 45 or 50, your life is so raveled up. To be raveled means, like, being stuck in a string, like, so wound up that you sort of feel a little bit like you don't have any choices. And so

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like, you've made your choices and you stuck with

Chip Conley
Or you've you're stuck with your choices. Exactly. So I like to call it the midlife chrysalis because midlife for the butterfly was the chrysalis, caterpillar chrysalis butterfly. And the truth is that the u curve of happiness research, which has changed a little bit recently because people who are younger are really in a bad place. But generally speaking, it has historically shown that 45 to 50 was the low point.

And from a, like, early to mid twenties, your life satisfaction declines, bottoms out around 45 to 50, and then with each decade after age 50, you get happier and happier and happier. And so what if midlife is not a crisis, it's a chrysalis? It's a time for metamorphosis and transformation. And so I started my own life. I had a very rocky age 46 to 49.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. What happened?

Chip Conley
I lost 5 male friends to suicide. Oh, man. This was 2008 to 2010. They were ages 42 to 52. I had my own company, my boutique hotel company that had grown to be the 2nd largest in the US, but the great recession was coming along.

I didn't wanna be doing it anymore, but I didn't have a choice because we were in a struggle there. I have a African American foster son. He was going to San Quentin wrongfully. I had a long term partnership romantic partnership that was ending, not by my choice. Oh.

So everything and, you know, I was running out of cash. I mean, it was all bad, and then I had an NDE. I was

Dr. Mark Hyman
Sounds like a lot of fun.

Chip Conley
Yeah. I know. The NDE was like an allergic reaction to an antibiotic. And long story short is 4047. I was at the bottom of the u curve happiness.

The research on u curve happiness had not come out yet, but I can say personally, yes. My low point was there. And then I just said, like, okay. I've gotta have a hotelier wake up call on this one, and I completely changed my life. But what I recognized at that time was there's so little in the way of resources to help people through rites of passage, rituals, schools, or tools in midlife.

We have a lot of social infrastructure to support people through adolescence, but we don't have much social infrastructure to help people through middle lessons.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Middle lessons.

Chip Conley
And middle essence is a word that's been around for a while, not popularized, but it basically says, like, hey. In adolescence, you're going through all these transitions, emotional, hormonal, physical, and identity transitions. And in midlife, you're going through the same transitions, but on the other side.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I'm, you know, I'm gonna be 65. So I I think I'm right about midlife.

Chip Conley
You are. Well, listen. So you I don't know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I don't know. I don't know.

Chip Conley
Back in the old days back in the old days, old days being, like, 50 years ago, midlife was 40 to 60.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
So you wouldn't even have been in midlife. And then it was 40 to 65, and maybe 45 to 65. When I did the research for my new book, Learning to Love Midlife, 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age, I found that many sociologists now believe that midlife is 35 to 75.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And it's sort of the it's the bridge between early adulthood and later adulthood.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And if we're living to a 100, later adulthood may last 20 or 25 years

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
After this midlife. And midlife has these three stages, early midlife, which is 35 to 50, the core of midlife, which is 50 to 60, and later midlife, which is 60 to 75.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I feel like now, like, I'm back in my twenties. Yeah. And it's it's it's and it has to do with the the way I think about things, which is curiosity, openness, exploration, innovation, things

Chip Conley
that you don't associate with Openness to new experiences.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I'm constantly learning new things.

Chip Conley
Yeah. You you weren't always this way?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I kinda was, but I I think for many years, I got stuck in this in in what you call these entanglements, you know, marriage, kids, job, you know, the rest of

Chip Conley
the day. All these identities. Success.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Trying to get somewhere. Trying to build something. Trying to do something. Yeah.

And be somebody. And now I'm like, And why were

Chip Conley
you doing that? Who was who were you doing that for?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Was it

Chip Conley
your parents?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, a 100%. Yeah? Oh, yeah. Well, 2 things. 1, my mom said to me, there's only room at the top, which I got mad at her for many times, but but she was basically saying to me, strive for excellence.

Yep. And my fathers both were my stepfather and my father were both very judgmental. And, you know, I'd come home from school, dad, I got a 98. Well, what happened to the other 2%? And he wasn't joking.

Right. You know? And I wasn't a bad student, obviously. And and yet, I I spent a lot of time trying not to be them, you know, because they were both serious failures. And I I I

Chip Conley
Oh, were they serious failures?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, yeah.

Chip Conley
Both of your fathers?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, my father went bankrupt. I had to support him through the last latter part of his life. My stepfather was supported by his brother who done who would who did well. And, you know, so we

Chip Conley
So your mom didn't do so well with her her choices? She

Dr. Mark Hyman
I I know. It took me a minute to hear

Chip Conley
still living or no?

Dr. Mark Hyman
No. She died. Okay. She died. She was an amazing woman.

But, you know, the the the things I had to unlearn from what I learned were were a big part of my growing up.

Chip Conley
So what was the age at which you had your midlife unraveling? You had the sense of, is this all there is, or is this am I living someone else's life?

Dr. Mark Hyman
So it's probably around in my like, around 52 when I I got my second divorce, and I'm like, holy shit. Like, what am I doing? And where am I going? And who are my people? And is this is this what I'm dealt with?

Because I don't like this. And I I was trapped. Yep. And and I I I think I I spent a lot of time and a lot of work and met a lot of new people that helped me emerge from this place

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And reinvent my life, which now is, like you said, you said, I think you're right. The happiness I've been the happiest I've ever

Chip Conley
So I've only known you in the last 5 to 7 years or so, and and I've only known you as who you are today, which is someone to me who is, age fluid.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
You are not defined by your biological age or your chronological age. Actually, the chronological age.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And you're you're not defined by your generation. And so I don't I I don't know that, Mark, from before, but I also know you've had a very storied career. I feel like I'm interviewing you now. You've had a you've had a very storied career, and and you worked your ass off in order to be able to accomplish what you've accomplished. But what I've appreciated about you is that openness to new experiences.

And the curiosity and openness to new experiences are 2 of the variables that are most correlated with living a longer, happier, healthier life.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, in your book, Learning to Love Midlife, 12 reasons why life gets better with age, which I'm certainly finding, it's sort of, you know, it's sort of an opportunity for us to rethink something that we previously at least I previously kinda had some fear about. You know, the fear of getting older, the fear of losing function, the fear of being irrelevant, the fear of, you know, just kinda getting stuck in old friendships and old patterns and old stories. And and, you know, the chrysalis is I would say it more like a crucible.

Chip Conley
It is a crucible. Because I had

Dr. Mark Hyman
to burn off a lot of the old stuff that, you know, kinda kept me from actually being in a happy place now as I've gotten older.

Chip Conley
We call it the great midlife edit. Yeah. So there's a, you know, Richard Rohr, famous Christian mystic, is teaching at our Modern Elder Academy campus here in Santa Fe right now. I just jumped over here for this interview, and I'm gonna go back there. He says that the first half of your life is about accumulating and the second half of your life is about editing.

And I'll and and it's around midlife that all of a sudden you start to realize, oh, wow. There's another world out there beyond my ego and you start to actually shift. And there's a lot of shifts that are happening, but nobody gives you a road map to say, like, oh, you're in midlife. Guess what? And and so what I've just loved about writing the book and then for now six and a half years running the world's 1st midlife wisdom school is to help people to see that, yes, there are a bunch of things that get worse with age.

Our our short term memory, sometimes our bodies, although you're in great shape, and a lot and, you know, I'm in good shape but not great shape, partly because I'm dealing with, some cancer issues which we'll talk about. But long story short is, when you look at the things that get better with age, your emotional intelligence and emotional moderation, your ability to actually be socially have social capital Yeah. Social wellness. You value relationships more, your ability to edit things, your wisdom, your crystallized intelligence

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
Your ability to get off the treadmill and say, you know what? I don't wanna be on that fucking treadmill. That's someone else's treadmill. Your curiosity about, about spirituality. All these things get better with age.

So we live in a culture, especially in the US, where the primary way we define each other is based upon how we look. And it's okay. Nothing wrong with that. But there's other playing fields

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
That are getting better with age. And so I wanted to sort of say, okay. Well, there's a lot of antiaging products and services out there. Most of them, let's be honest, are anti women products. Right.

They're about the natural like, they keep women feel badly about their natural process of aging. Right. And I wanted to create an a pro aging product and service because Becca Levy at Yale has shown that when you shift your mindset on aging from a negative to a positive, you gain 7 and a half years of additional life

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow.

Chip Conley
Which is more life than if you stop smoking or if you start exercising at 50.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, actually, if you end cancer and heart disease from the face of the planet, you'd only get 5 to 7 years of life extension.

Chip Conley
I know. So So this is really remarkable, and her research has been done over the last dozen years, but it hasn't gotten a lot of attention. And we you and I both know there's a lot lot of attention on biohacking and on longevity right now, but it's mostly on the physical side of sight. And I think it's interesting and I'm I'm glad and I, you know, I hats off to you and Peter Attia and and Peter Diamandis and all of the people who are helping us to see like we can actually with proper interventions, some of which are actually really fun and easy Yeah. We can actually live a lot longer

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
Because of what we do physically, to ourselves and what how we feed ourselves as well. But what's not gotten a lot of attention is the social science of longevity. Yeah. The social wellness piece. Bob Waldinger's work at Harvard showing the number one variable for people living longer, healthy, happier lives.

It was how invested were they in midlife and beyond in their social relations.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Absolutely.

Chip Conley
Dan Beutner, who's a our faculty, from Blue Zones.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Buddy. Yeah.

Chip Conley
Yeah. Dan. I love Dan. In fact, I think when I we first met, we might have been actually with Dan. I don't even know about that.

But long story short, at a YPO event. But Dan, you know, his work in Blue Zones is very much focused on the natural process of the things you can do even if you're living on Sardinia on a on a mountain that is good for you, where they don't have gyms or anything else like that. They don't have keto diets, but, like, people live to a 100.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And and, of course, Becca Levy's work on showing how shifting your mindset on aging has such a profound impact on not just living longer, but living happier as well. So let

Dr. Mark Hyman
me ask you this because, you know you know, I've been through a lot. You've been through a lot. You had cancer, prostate cancer, still dealing with it. You've had lots of loss, lost your friends, you've lost relationships, you've had a lot of sorrow and heartbreak, physical challenges. I've had, you know, 3 divorces.

I've had many, many illnesses.

Chip Conley
You just had 2 weeks ago back surgery?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Had back surgery, which, you know, is a little bump in the road. I'll be back. Don't worry. And and in some ways, you know, those kinds of life experiences can kinda make you hardened Yeah. And bitter and Yeah.

Closed down. And and the question I have is, you know, all of us go through that because, you know, when you're born, you know, everything's great. Everything's alive. But then people start dying. Your parents start dying.

Your friends start dying. You have losses. You have successes financially. You have losses financially. You have all these good things happen to you, and all these bad things happen to you.

And it it sort of accumulates. And in a way, you know, it can weigh you down. I see a lot of people as they get older being weighed down by the weight of all the story, the old stories that they carry around with them from their life. And so the question is just how do you get free? Because in a sense, from the chrysalis is is a a liberation.

Right?

Chip Conley
Yeah. It

Dr. Mark Hyman
is. And so so that liberation process, it's almost a modern elder Liberation Academy. Yeah. Right? So how do you how do you get into that process of liberation from all that weight that we've carried around?

Yeah.

Chip Conley
So how do you move from the weight of the world to the wonder of the world? Yeah. Good. As my friend, doctor Keltner, doctor Keltner is on our faculty and teaches people about awe. You know, part of it is I I I like to say that, our painful life lessons are the raw material for our future wisdom.

Dr. Mark Hyman
For some people though. For some people, it doesn't.

Chip Conley
I agree. The raw material. So you can have good raw material, but if you don't do anything with it Right. You cannot be a great chef in the kitchen. Right.

You might have all the ingredients and or even a recipe recipe, but if you don't know what to do with it, you know, it's just a it you know, it it's gonna taste really badly. Yeah. Or or or you'll never even cook it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So the key is

Chip Conley
to figure out how do you metabolize your experiences. So how do you take this raw material and metabolize it into in such a way that it becomes wisdom as opposed to just, you know, something that, you know, kicked your ass?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Bitterness.

Chip Conley
Yeah. Or bitterness. So, I've been doing an exercise, practice, for 35 years now. Every weekend, I started doing this when I was 2 years into starting my boutique hotel company. So I was a CEO of boutique hotel company at age 26.

Wow. Like, who knew? Right. I had one hotel in the 10 Orlando in San Francisco. And in when I was 28, the company was having some troubles.

And so I started to practice. Every weekend, I'd come home and I take I took a journal off the wall. And I didn't journal, but I actually created what I called my wisdom journal. My wisdom journal. And I would write 4, 5, 6 different lessons I've learned that week.

Uh-huh. Generally, painful ones, personally or professionally.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow.

Chip Conley
I'd say, here's the lesson I learned. And then I would ask myself, how will that serve me in the future? I've been doing that every weekend.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That explains everything. That explains everything. No. Well, I mean is not an easy thing to do because it means you have to stop, to to look at yourself

Chip Conley
20 to 30 minutes. Honestly. Yeah. Honestly. You do?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Lie to yourself

Chip Conley
about who you are. But guess what? It it accelerates your ability to cultivate and harvest your life lessons. Yeah. And guess what?

If you do that, you have wisdom.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Alright. Well, I'm a little late in the game, but I'm gonna start that because that's a great practical

Chip Conley
Oh, it is a really great practice. And when I was, like, the CEO of my company going through the great recession, I went back to the dotcom bust in 911 and said, like, what did I learn then? Because I was going through something very similar, and I went back through these journals. And so I now do that with my leadership team. So one of the best things you can do with this is to take it to an organization.

So Joao de Vivre, my hotel company, at Airbnb, where I was helping the 3 founders as their modern elder, and they called me the modern elder because they said the modern elder is as curious as they are wise.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh. It's

Chip Conley
like, okay. I'll I'll be that. Yeah. And then at MEA, my midlife wisdom school

Dr. Mark Hyman
That that stands for modern

Chip Conley
Modern Elder Academy. Yep. We do a leadership lesson, exercise once a quarter. So the leadership team comes together and we have each of the people let's say there's 8 people on the team. Each person says, here was my biggest lesson of the quarter.

And then they say, and here's what it's gonna do, how I'm gonna how it's gonna serve me and the company in the future. Yeah. And each of us do that, so there's candor and authenticity, but also learning, a growth mindset of, like, okay. I'm gonna improve and get better as a result of this. And then we finish the meeting with each of us saying, what was our biggest lesson as a team?

And then we arm wrestle over that one to say, like, what did we learn from it? So this thing I've been doing for 35 years, I now do and have been doing for 20 years with all these leadership teams I've been involved in. And it's beautiful because what it does is it helps create a wiser organization. Because we're living in an era right now where artificial intelligence has made knowledge a commodity. Yeah.

So we have to have knowledge workers and knowledge management. You know what? Bottom line is, we are now in the wisdom era. Because when knowledge is the commodity, wisdom becomes scarce and a value. Yeah.

And so how do you create wiser people, wiser leaders, wiser organizations?

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's true. You know, I was thinking and I think about what you're saying, and I'm thinking about this process that I've seen happen to so many people, which is as we get older, things fester. Resentments, grudges. And I I saw this even with my own father who kind of withdrew from life, and he was this vibrant guy who traveled Europe for 11 years and was a journalist and was, you know, worked for ready for Europe and smuggling, you know, after the war, watches and cameras across borders

Chip Conley
Wow.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Helping the Jews who'd hid in the forest to

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Sort of make some money after the war. And, you know, he just was an incredible guy and dreamer and, you know, pilot. And I just saw him start to contract and to get hardened. And and and what you're saying is this is you know, it sort of reminds me of 1 of the supreme court justices, I forget his name, long time ago, said the the greatest disinfectant is is light. Yeah.

And and I think, you know, we have to disinfect our own thoughts so we don't fester in those old patterns and old stories that keep us from actually being free as we grow. Because I I think what you're doing, Chip, is creating a structure where we can actually build this process of of wisdom generation Yeah. Through bringing light to the darkness.

Chip Conley
Yeah. And that light comes in the form of community. It comes in the form of lessons and and learning and and school. I mean, part of the reason I created the Modern Elder Academy MEA was because I lost those 5 friends to suicide. Part of it was because I was at a very low point during that time.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So you were far away from that either?

Chip Conley
No. I wasn't. I you know, one of my friends who took who took his own life is named Chip. Like, how many friends do I have named Chip? And he he took his own life.

And so I'm at the memorial service, and I'm going through my dark night of the soul, or now what I call the dark night of the ego. And I was I was thinking because That's good. Because in fact, that's what's happening.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's good.

Chip Conley
It's not

Dr. Mark Hyman
the dark night of the soul.

Chip Conley
Your ego. Your ego is starting to disintegrate. Yeah. Meaning, there's things that you built your life upon believing that that was who you were, and it's not working out the way you thought it was.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And you think, oh my god. Everything is going downhill from here. And so that's why we need support because we need we need programs and rituals and rights of passage and and education to how to understand transition. So MEA was created six and a half years ago with a campus in Baja, not too far from a property you used to own in Baja, in Pescadero, about an hour north of Cabo. And then we have a 26 100 acre regenerative horse ranch here in Santa Fe that has 2 retreat centers on it.

And then we have

Dr. Mark Hyman
You have horses?

Chip Conley
We have horses. We have we have dozen a dozen horses. And long story short is we do programs that help people reframe their relationship on aging, and understand longevity from a social science perspective, navigate transitions because we're going through all kinds of transitions from menopause to divorce to retirement to, starting a new company or selling a company to parents passing away, empty nest, lots. So navigating transitions is a piece of it. Cultivating purpose, which is a really important piece of living a good long life.

You know, part of the reason people actually lose a sense of momentum in their life is when they retire and lose a sense of purpose. Yeah. And then finally, owning wisdom. Like, what if wisdom was this superpower you have as you get older? Yeah.

And guess what? It could be. Yeah. So our average age of the people comes 54. About little over 60% are women.

We've had 55100 people from 50 countries come. 5050 countries. I know. It's a lot. And, love it.

We have financial aid for people who can't afford it, and it's great.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So how do you how do you help people move towards the wisdom piece, towards towards the freedom piece, towards the liberation from those old patterns and stories and kind of enter into a place of of possibility and renewal. And, you know, like, I I'm sort of shocked at where I'm at in my life. You know? I thought, okay. 65.

I'm gonna slow down. Maybe I'll kind of play more tennis. And, you know, I took a little break in Maui and rode my bike 3 hours a day and did a lot of that. But I I I

Chip Conley
It's not

Dr. Mark Hyman
for you. Well, it was for me, but but I also feel like I'm in this moment. This feels so new. Yeah. And I it it kinda makes me, like, laugh because I'm like I look in the mirror and I'm like, I don't think I look 65.

You don't. And I don't feel 65. You don't. And I don't certainly act 65.

Chip Conley
You definitely don't.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And I and I have a and I actually most of my friends are in their thirties and forties. Yeah. Because I what I find is that people who are in that, you know, 50, 60, 70 age group, not all of them obviously, but a good bunch of them kind of are starting to get calcified. Calcified, ossified.

Chip Conley
And So, yeah, so the key is how do you so if we're running if if midlife lasts 40 years, let's say, 35 to 75, and and let's also say, like, who knows? There's a woman in this week's workshop who's 91 years old. She's the oldest person who's ever come to that workshop. That woman is Like,

Dr. Mark Hyman
she's getting a 30 year mortgage.

Chip Conley
She's yeah. And she's like she acts like she's 45 or 50, and she looks like she's 65 or 70. So, you know, we all age differently. You know, there's lots of there's a chronological age. There's a biological age.

There's a a cognitive age. There's a sexual age, and on that one, you're still a teenager. But the bottom line is we We won't

Dr. Mark Hyman
talk about that.

Chip Conley
We won't go there. Okay. The the the life we live, we can curate. Mhmm. But if midlife is a marathon and we are carrying all of this excess baggage from earlier in midlife or from childhood, there's a point at which we need to actually learn how to let go of that.

So we do this thing called the great midlife edit at at MEA. You can do this at home. I write about it in the in the book learning to love the midlife. It's actually a practice of saying, what are the things I have a fixed mindset about? Where do I have a limiting belief?

And it doesn't have to be just about age, but it could be. It's like, oh, I'm never gonna meet, I'm 60 years old. I'm never gonna meet my my my my life. Yeah. Or I'm 50, and it's too late to start a company or or whatever it is.

We give people the opportunity to identify and acknowledge what it is that's letting let holding them back. And then we give them the opportunity to throw away in the fire. Or there's, you know, there are there are other kinds of rituals you can do.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So basically, you you help them see it.

Chip Conley
Help them see it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you'll

Chip Conley
have to cross. That the fixed mindset is something that you tend to hold on to. And a growth mindset and you can focus on improving yourself and winning, and a growth mindset is focusing on improving yourself and learning. And we need to help move people to the growth mindset because if you only play games that you can win, as you get older, your sandbox gets smaller and smaller. Right.

And there's a lot of people who live who live that way, and they wonder why they're so bored. Yeah. Or they wonder why they are so

Dr. Mark Hyman
Actually actually, you know what? I I kinda wish I could have more time to be bored.

Chip Conley
Me too. Sound like

Dr. Mark Hyman
the world is such a fascinating place. Yeah.

Chip Conley
Well, that's and and that will serve you well the rest of your life.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, one of my favorite films I ever saw was you might have seen it. It was about the these comedians, Norman Lear. It was Mel Brooks

Chip Conley
and

Dr. Mark Hyman
What was it called? Kyle Reiner. And I forget the name. They're all, like, 90 to a 100 years

Chip Conley
old. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But I actually got to know Norman Lear pretty well before he died. Yeah. You know? And and, it was funny. I was at his 100th birthday, and Rob Reiner was in, you know, in in at the at the at the at the dinner.

And and, Norman Lear gets up. He's a 100 and 1. He just goes on and on and on. He's talking. He's sharp as a tack.

And and Rob Reiner goes, shut up, or this is gonna go on until your 101st birthday. It was very fun.

Chip Conley
Well, a sense of humor is also something that is correlated with living a longer healthier life and growth mindset.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But that movie the thing about I mean, about the movie was that they were all still working.

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
They were all still creating.

Chip Conley
George Burns used to say, I can't die yet. I've got I've got a show tonight. And so he, you know, he he can't he would book himself a year or 2 out Right. Because it was sort of the mentality of, like, I can't die. I've I've I've got to be on stage.

So

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's right.

Chip Conley
Yeah. But humor is important. Humor is very humor and humility. Both of those are really important pieces of the process of living a longer healthier life and a growth mindset. When you have a fixed mindset, you have a tendency to be self conscious.

You you have a tendency to have that voice of your father or mother in your head Yep. You know, saying, like, you know, you didn't do well enough.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
And so that all that does is create a perfectionism that actually stunts you and means that you're not gonna try new things.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How do you how do you get people practically you mentioned one editing piece, but give us some of the other tools that you use to help people move from this chrysalis to this liberation and becoming sort of a butterfly in the last part of life and really tapping into that wisdom and happiness and joy and and engagement that that's possible for us.

Chip Conley
Well, I'll give you a few. I'll give I'll be brief with them. First one is there's 3 stages to a transition. And for those who wanna learn more about this, on the MEA website at the bottom, footer, there's something called the anatomy of a transition. It's just a free resource that actually talks about this.

So there's the ending of something, there's the messy middle, and there's the beginning of something. And once you sort of understand that that there are 3 stages to any transition. Ending, you wanna ritualize that. Messy middle, you need social support, and you need to find the through line of how you're gonna get to the other side of this and have some hope and belief in that as Victor Frankl showed in the concentration camps in World War 2. And then on the other side of it, the beginning of something new, you have to have a growth mindset.

So we really go into depth about how to help people improve their TQ, their transitional intelligence. And TQ is very important. So we we came up with that as trademarked MEI term, but we came up with that partly because we are going through all kinds of transitions as is the world, but nobody helped us to learn how to master and navigate these transitions.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
So that's one piece. A second piece is I love this question. What is and I'm gonna ask you this question. So what is something that you know now or have done now, Mark, that you wish you'd learned or done 10 years ago? Think about that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I think I I I I look at the patterns of choice I made that were focused on trauma that I had from my childhood of being a people pleaser Yep. That undermined a lot of my ability to have healthy relationships, that undermined my ability to even be more successful in the world and to be more effective at and when I mean success, I mean to to be more effective at achieving the mission of helping heal people through functional medicine. Yeah. And I I wish I'd I'd kinda cracked that one. Yeah.

But it it was it was locked inside, like, 10 Russian dolls. Like or maybe it was like a a diamond in a, you know, in a huge, you know, rock quarry that was just impossible to get to for me. And I tried for years, and I went through a process I've talked about. Actually, I talked about it on the diary of a CEO of how I actually, you know, did that. And Yep.

Yep. Yeah.

Chip Conley
Well, so now I'm gonna ask you the next question. So that was beautiful. First of all, thank you for your authenticity on that. Now 10 years from now at age 74 to almost 75, what will you regret if you don't learn it or do it now? You don't have to you don't

Dr. Mark Hyman
have to No. No. No. I I I I I actually been thinking about it because I'm in a process right now, which is forcing me to look at this, which is how do I be, more of a warrior king in in my life, and and in in in a kind, benevolent way. Okay.

And and so often I've been, not able to stand up for myself in the ways that I need to. I'm not able to tell the truth in the ways I need to tell it. I'm not

Chip Conley
Because it's gonna disappoint someone.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Because it's gonna disappoint someone.

Chip Conley
Make you look bad.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, mostly because it's gonna maybe get disappoint someone. Because, you know, when I was a kid, my father, my stepfather was a rageaholic. So if I told the truth, it I would come at me with rage and violence and physical violence. And so I've learned to kind of, you know, navigate the world in a in a bit of a punitive way

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Which I really kind of overcome over the last, you know, 12, 14 years.

Chip Conley
Yep.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But I feel like I still have a lot to learn there. And I feel like I I I feel like I'm at this moment in my life where, like, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that there's a scientific revolution that's happened that hasn't reached the public

Chip Conley
Yep.

Dr. Mark Hyman
In medicine to help people really transform their health Yep. Through what we call systems medicine, network medicine, functional medicine, whatever you wanna call it.

Chip Conley
Yep.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's it's a paradigm shift. And and I know that that that my job here on the planet is to help steward that in. And if I don't act in the right ways, that's in integrity Yeah. That's telling the truth, that's standing up to

Chip Conley
the forces that are pushing against me as a warrior king, that that I will regret it. So you just answered your question beautifully. And I think the question then might be and and again, the question is, 10 years from now, what will you regret if you don't learn it or do it now? The thing I would say to you if if you were in an MEA workshop right now and I was I feel like

Dr. Mark Hyman
I'm in a workshop.

Chip Conley
Yeah. Exactly. And if and if we were working together, so I'd say, like, okay. So what is it that's the what's the tangible of that? What's the specific that actually you need to do in order for you to know that you've done that?

You don't don't answer it. Because I wanna actually take give people another perspective on this. For me, when I asked myself that question when I moved to Mexico 8 years ago, this is before MEA opened, but I knew I loved Baja. I loved Pescadero and Todos Santos, the neighborhood Mhmm. Where I bought I bought a home and renovated the home.

The thing that I said to myself, well, gosh. 10 years from now, I will regret. At that point, I was 56. I will regret 10 years from now if I don't learn Spanish now

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
Or if I don't learn how to surf now.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
And yet, I had a mindset, a fixed mindset saying, I am too old to learn a foreign language. I am too old to learn surfing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I started learning surfing when I was 62.

Chip Conley
So Well, exactly. But so but for me, the thing that got me off my duff Yeah. And gave me that was the sense of, like, the anticipated regret.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
10 years now, I will regret, especially thing that's physical. You know, because it doesn't get any easier. And also mental, like, foreign languages are not easier as you get older. So anticipated regret is a form of wisdom. Uh-huh.

Anticipated regret is a form of wisdom, and it's a catalyst to take action. So that's a question I would ask. Sort of

Dr. Mark Hyman
like the Chinese. You're gonna need a 10 year plan. Well, you yeah.

Chip Conley
Or at least at least this idea that, okay, am I comfortable with the fact that 10 years from now, if I don't do that, am I gonna be okay with that regret?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And if your the answer is yes, then there's no catalyst at all. You you're you're comfortable with that. So these are the kinds of questions we like to ask at MEA, and they're including a question like, okay. Once a year, you should become a beginner at something. Yeah.

So that you just I when I go to a cocktail party now, that's the first question. People should say, like, oh, what do you do? Where where do you work? It's like, my first question is, like, so what are you a beginner at these days?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
And people are like, oh my god. They walk to the bar and like

Dr. Mark Hyman
I need a drink.

Chip Conley
They they're like, I need a drink. Like, who the hell are you? Right. But helping people to see it's okay to be a neophyte, to be not very good at something Yeah. But to be learning it.

Yeah. Peter Drucker was famous. He was a management theorist, lived till 95. He had a practice, and his practice was every 2 years, he would study something to become the one of the world's leading experts on it and something unrelated to being a business school professor or, you know, business author. He wrote, 2 thirds of his 40 books after the age of 65.

And so this is a man who said like That's insane. Curiosity and learning are sort of like the fountain of youth or an elixir for the soul. Totally. I call I don't like to call it lifelong learning. I call it long life learning.

How to the how to live a life and how to curate a life that's as meaningful and deep as it is long. Because I think we're gonna get better and better at the longevity Yeah. The length of a life, but the depth of a life is also important.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I mean, that it's true. I mean, I I I've written 19 books and

Chip Conley
Is that right? Yeah. Oh my god.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and I've

Chip Conley
written 7, and I I think that's a lot.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and the reason is because I wanna learn something. Yeah. Like, I know this much, but I wanna I wanna really become an expert in this topic and do do the research and the hard work. And it's and I find it, like, so invigorating. It's like, I I was talking to my wife the other day.

I'm like, we will both wanna go back to college. Yeah. And she's like, we're too we can't go to college. Like, yeah, we can because they have summer courses. Oh, they do?

There's 3 week courses. And so I actually used to be at Cornell where I went to undergraduate.

Chip Conley
Oh my god. You should have gotten the hotel business. That's a major major hotel school. I did go

Dr. Mark Hyman
to the hotel e school for lunch because they had all they had to practice all this gourmet cooking. So I would go there for them, their cafeteria. But the I I actually wanna go back and take Yeah. Courses in different topics that are academic because I love learning. I wanna learn.

I wanna be forced to learn. And I and the reason I've written books is it forces me

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
To learn new things. I'm now forced to learn new things. I'm learning about AI and building a new company, and I have to learn about AI, and I have to learn about tech, and I have to learn about user experiences and and things that I never really understood before.

Chip Conley
I mean, I know

Dr. Mark Hyman
how to be a doctor. Yeah. I'm good with biochemistry and all that shit. But, like, this is all news for me. So and and how to

Chip Conley
So there must be a part of you, though, who is you don't even though you came up with, parents who were a little tough on you, somehow you've gotten to a place where you may not be as self critical as you used to be. Is that true?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think

Chip Conley
well Because otherwise, you might shut yourself down when you're trying to learn something new.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I, you know, I I think 2 things happened. It was like this paradox of things that happened when I was a kid. 1 was my stepfather and father were both very hard on me and judgmental, and we're both failures. So it was kind of a weird dichotomy of them pushing me down while they were down. Right?

Chip Conley
Yep.

Dr. Mark Hyman
My mother basically said to me, you can do or be anything you want. The sky's the limit. Yep. Like, there you have this intelligence, the capacity. You work hard.

You can do whatever you want. And she never and she never put a limit on my thinking, you know, except for one thing. Because my sister was very musical. She says, your sister is a musical one. You can't sing or do music.

And that made me piss off. So one of my one of my things that I I I would regret in 10 years if I don't do it is to learn how

Chip Conley
to sing?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, my wife and I are talking about taking singing lessons. I don't know how it's gonna go, but I I got a guitar

Chip Conley
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
From Bob Weir, an electric guitar Wow. Signed for my birthday. Bob Weir, for those of you don't know, is part of the Grateful Dead and is one of my heroes. And he signed a guitar for my birthday, and I wanna learn how to play the guitar.

Chip Conley
I you know, it's so funny. I I learned how to play the guitar at age 40, and it was one of those things. I I didn't ask the question of, well, I regret. And I loved it until I got all these calluses on my my fingers. You'll get you'll get used to it, but I loved it.

But I I haven't kept it up. But I I I think it's great.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I worry about the calluses because then I wanna feel things and then Yeah. Yeah. But anyway Yeah. Yeah. So so it seems like you've created a a so this revolutionary new framework for thinking about how we age.

Chip Conley
Well, it's a bit of a movement. So, you know, this idea of how do we help people see that purpose and community and wellness are the foundational pieces of living a good longer life after age 50. And, so we have 60 regional chapters around the world, MEA does. Mhmm. So we have 2 campuses, we have online programs, but to have 60 regional chapters means that it's become a global phenomenon.

And the idea of how do you help people to actually feel better about aging. And, you know, I and I we could arm wrestle a little bit about the idea of, like, is aging a disease or is it not? And I, you know, physically, there's no doubt, you know, senescence and and the tel telomeres and

Dr. Mark Hyman
Things get changed. Yeah.

Chip Conley
All of those things are very important. The problem that I have with the the Brian Johnson's of the world in Venice Beach and and many of the people in the

Dr. Mark Hyman
Don't die.

Chip Conley
Longevity movement is that they're fixated on only one part of life. Yeah. The physical side of life. Yeah. And they wanna cheat death.

And it's, like, fine. Go do that. But Yeah. But if, you know, Brian Brian seems like a nice enough guy. I've never met him.

Yeah. I have. But when I listen to him in his podcast, I feel sad for him. Yeah. His life is so regimented.

He it feels so rigid, And, like, to the pack the like, when could he have an orgasm even? And, like, when you know, what time is he gonna go to bed? And Right. There's it it feels like there's a it's a there's a joyless striving to it. Yeah.

And I and I just wanna say

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, he's he's he's actually being a scientific experiment for the rest of us, so I respect him for that.

Chip Conley
I respect him for that as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's courageous. It's like it's like someone going to Mars for the first time.

Chip Conley
Can you

Dr. Mark Hyman
do it? You

Chip Conley
know? Exactly. And what are the, you know, the collateral damage that's associated with it?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, yeah, how is he happy? Is he not happy? I actually met him. I talked to him. He's he seemed very happy.

Chip Conley
So Okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, it's hard to judge from the outside, but Yeah. You know, I I think the the the thing for me that has to do with the physical health part is that, you know, my definition of of of health and and how I wanna age is being able to do whatever I want.

Chip Conley
Yeah. And For as long as you can.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And this year, I learned something new. Helicopter skiing. Yeah. I'd never done it before.

Chip Conley
And you did you do that in Iceland just like I

Dr. Mark Hyman
did in Iceland.

Chip Conley
Which and I just came back from Iceland. My god. Yeah. What a beautiful place.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's amazing. But, you know, it's something I'd always wanted to do. Yeah. I never could afford to do it. I can afford to do it.

Yeah. And it was it was one of the most exhilarating experience I've ever had. And it was something that I wanna continue people do, not at just 64, but at 84 Yeah. Or 94. I mean and I think that for me is why the the biological part is important because it allows us to do the other things, which is to learn Yeah.

And to be engaged in relationships, to have purpose, to do stuff. Yeah. You know? Because if you feel like shit, you just wanna sit around and watch TV.

Chip Conley
Yeah. So The average American watches 40 I'm sorry. The average American retiree watches 47 hours of TV a week. So it's almost like they retire from a job that they were doing 47 hours a week, and they just decided to go be a couch potato watching TV for 47 hours a week. So, yeah, that sedentary life is not good for us, and and it's really bad for our brains

Dr. Mark Hyman
too.

Chip Conley
I mean, the thing that a lot of people think is like, oh, especially recently with Biden having some challenges with his mental capacities in his debate. The reality is that, you know, our our short term memory definitely gets worse with age. But this idea of crystallized intelligence, the ability to be not so fast and focused with your brain, but as doctor Gene Cohen showed, to be able to have 4 wheel drive of your brain, to think systemically, holistically, and to connect the dots. Yeah. We get better at that at that into our early seventies.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And so it's a little bit of wisdom. It's a little bit of intuition. It's a little bit of peripheral vision. And why would we want to actually deprive ourselves and others from that? Which is why part of the reason why this movement part of MEA is, like, hey.

Why is it that Ernst and Young and I like Ernst and Young but and we've had Ernst and Young partners come to MEA, but why are they requiring their partners to leave the firm at age 60?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Really?

Chip Conley
Yeah. And there's a lot of companies that do that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Because they It's

Chip Conley
like to

Dr. Mark Hyman
pay them too much.

Chip Conley
Well, that's a little bit of it. A little bit. Like, hey. You you were like, let's, like, get you off the payroll. But the truth is in some ways, in some parts of your life, that's when your brain is at its best.

Yeah. And so that's why, you know, part of what we have to help do is say, okay. You're going into your next chapter and your next chapter, I like to call it same seed, different soil. Take that seed of your all your wisdom, but plant it in different soil, like I did at Airbnb when I was 52. Yeah.

I joined the company. I was twice the age of the average person there. I had no background in tech, and so I had to learn a lot from everybody else because I thought I was supposed to be the mentor, but I was also the intern. I I was what I call a mentor, a mentor and an intern at the same time. And the bottom line is, you know, I was better off for it by learning from the young ones, and they were by better off for having me there.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think, you know, what you're talking about is is developing different aspects of your physical health, emotional health, mental health, spiritual health, social health, All of which kind of form this soup of happiness.

Chip Conley
That's right. It's not one any one thing. Because, you know, for for all we know, you we might be a paraplegic tomorrow because we get hit in a crosswalk. So if you only have 1 if your physical is the only thing that you actually value in life I mean, Christopher Reeve, you know, God rest his soul Yeah. Was a really interesting character.

Very he's Superman. And then he has a, you know, horseback riding accident. He's a paraplegic. And and he had to learn a new identity.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Chip Conley
And if we are not willing to learn new identities, we get stuck in the old identity. And that that's what feels really depressing. And especially if that old identity is starting to shrivel up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And, you know, and and part of what's happening in our society just feels like we're ossifying our ideas and ideology and identifying with tribalism and Yep. Visit to visit this and separation and discord and disconnection, and it's heartbreaking Yeah. Because we're all human beings. You know? I mean, I had I had I had people criticizing me for treating different patients.

Like, you treated a prisoner. You treated a republican. You treated a Christian. You treated a Muslim. You treated a a democrat.

Chip Conley
I mean, like, what? Like You're a doctor. You treat everyone. Like, come on.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And I'm like, you know, these are all human beings Yeah. First. And whatever they are, second. And we've Yeah. Kind of lost that.

And I wonder part it seems like part of what's happening to us is this sort of this ossification is happening earlier and earlier Yeah. In life. And and and I wonder through the wisdom you've gained through the work at MEA and your just your own personal life, how we kind of break through because what you're talking about is building deep, meaningful Yeah. Social relationships and connections as a key part of living a healthier and happier longer life.

Chip Conley
Yeah. And

Dr. Mark Hyman
that's that's what Dan Buettner showed the blue zones. It's certainly true. So but we're going it's not like we're going the opposite direction.

Chip Conley
Yeah. How do we get the key is how do we learn to get to know each other from the inside out? Mhmm. We tend to get to know each other from the outside in. That's how we've always been and, you know, that's led to certain isms, you know, you know, racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, etcetera.

Well, you know, the reality is that, that's what I've learned at MEA. One of the beauties at MEA is and Dan and, Dacker Kelter's work on awe has shown that the number one pathway to feeling awe in life is not in nature. It's number 3. Number 2 is collective effervescence. Your sense of being with people and feeling a sense of connection.

Yeah. But number 1 in life is moral beauty.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Moral beauty. Let's see.

Chip Conley
Knew? Moral beauty is when you witness kindness, courage, compassion, equanimity, resilience in another person, and it gives you a sense that humanity is good. Yeah. So part of what we do at MEA is when you come and you're in a cohort of, say, 2 dozen people, no one knows each other's last names. We've not sent out LinkedIn profiles.

People can if someone says what do you do for a living, you can answer it but you don't have to. Because, actually, what we really want people to get to know is, like, this person for who they are. And we talk about speaking from the 3rd vault. The first vault is the fact of our facts of our lives. The second vault is the stories of our lives.

The third vault is the essence of who we are. Yeah. And so having people spend a week together speaking from that 3rd vault

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's powerful.

Chip Conley
By the end of the week, they realize, oh my god. The person I've I've connected with the most is somebody who is a big Trumpster.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
And I'm I'm a Democrat and, like but I love them.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
And now I understand them better. So I so I think the world I think America needs to be all coming to MEA

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
For the political division. Because if you get to know people from the inside out, you understand their motivations, and you assume best intentions.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's right.

Chip Conley
And we live in a society right now, partly through social media, where we assume worst intentions.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Such a such a, it's such a beautiful movement. I think, what what I wonder is is people are drawn to you and to MEA because they're already sort of pre kind of set up to think that this is something they want or that they're missing. How do we reach those people who are just sitting on the couch watching TV for 47 hours?

Chip Conley
Well, we get their spouse to go first, and then their spouse comes home so, like, you know in fact, we have someone in this week's workshop, and he's there because his wife went and she came back radiant and and and he said, like, okay. I'm gonna try it. So we had a union plumber, who was gonna be retiring and he his whole life was knowing how to fix things. And, you know, there's only so much plumbing you can do at home with his wife, and she she said, like, you you've gotta go to this program. Yeah.

So I sometimes it's encouragement from family members

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And from friends who've done it. But you can't, you know, you can take a horse to water, but it Yeah. Can't make a drink. If someone doesn't really want to

Dr. Mark Hyman
Look at themselves.

Chip Conley
Look at themselves or build a a deeper connection with other people, it ain't gonna happen. Mhmm. But what I found, you know, 55100 people into this week for week long workshops, is it a real rarity that someone actually doesn't wanna go there? Yeah. Maybe 2 or 3 people in 6 and a half years Wow.

Have left early. Right. Maybe. And that's partly because we actually are in very isolated locations. Santa Fe is not like a commuter school.

Baja is in another country for most people who are coming. So, you know, we could have done this in Sonoma for San Francisco or Hudson Valley for New York, but we chose places that require a little bit of a pilgrimage Yeah. Partly because that first 24 hours, sometimes people look at around like What

Dr. Mark Hyman
the hell am I doing here?

Chip Conley
I have never done anything like this. And but by, you know, by a couple days into it, they're like, wow. This is how I wanna live. And this is why we actually have created residential communities as well. Where you know, we in in Baja, we have something called Baja Sage, which is a regenerative community.

It's based on regenerative living principles with a regenerative farm. We're gonna be doing the same here in in Santa Fe. Yeah. Our regenerative ranch. And so how do you help people not go to a retirement community, but go to a regenerative community?

Dr. Mark Hyman
It it's just a it's a beautiful sort of stake in the ground that you put in to Thank you. Sort of change the perspective of how we think about what happens to us as we go through life and get older Yep. And things change. And and and one of the things that a lot of us deal with is health issues. You know?

I've had my own 5, 6 years ago. I almost died from mold poisoning, and I got autoimmune disease, colitis. I lost £30. You see I'm already pretty skinny, but I was £30 lighter than this. And I was, like, this close to death.

And I had to pull myself out. I've had to pull myself out of a lot of these things. I had chronic fatigue syndrome. I had mercury poisoning. I've had Lyme disease.

I've had those back issues. And, you know, I always found this resource in myself to come back. Yeah. And I and I wonder kind of, you know, you're dealing with something now

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Which is prostate cancer.

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And as long as I've known you, you've been dealing with it. Yeah. And, you walked in today, and I was like, you look great. Like

Chip Conley
Yeah. They're a little a little overweight, but, you know, because of the some of the the cheap and stuff I'm on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I I 6 years

Dr. Mark Hyman
How does the question really is Yeah. How has that affected your thinking about

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Kind of midlife? Because it's like, you think midlife, I could have another 30, 40 years Yeah. But then I'm facing this

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Sort of immediate

Chip Conley
Yeah. Cancer, which is What happens what happens if it's only 3 years? Yeah. So 6 years ago, I found out I had stage 1 prostate cancer just through PSA. PSA, you know, then ultrasound, and MRI, and PET scan or biopsy and PET scan, all that stuff.

So stage 1. It's prostate cancer. No big deal. We'll be okay. And my decipher score was relatively good, which is basically tells, like, my genome, you know, am I at high risk or not?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
But about 3 years later, I went to stage 2. I had what's called HIFU surgery. You know? It was supposed to be fine. I lost half my prostate, but, there's a 1 percent 1 percent chance of metastasizing within, 5 years.

And within 15 months, it metastasized and went to my, pelvic limbs. And so now it was outside the, the prostate, and that's when I had to start to get start a lot of things. So for a year and a half now, I have been on androgen deprivation therapy. So in essence, a testosterone blocker. Yeah.

And so I have, you know, a testosterone score of 8 or 12. So it's really low. Yeah. Like, 2% of what it would normally be maybe or

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's very low.

Chip Conley
And and so that's hard when you're launching a book, launching a new campus.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's what makes you really motivated, feel energetic.

Chip Conley
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, no no libido, clearly, with that. I had to have a radical prostatectomy, so, you know, got the prostate taken out.

And then I had to have 36 sessions of radiation. You know, and my last section of radiation was January 12th this year. And on January 15th, I was on Good Morning America. On January 16th, my book came out. And on January 17th, I was on the Today Show.

So I, you know, I have done it, but I will also say it's taken a bit of a toll. Yeah. So I I take retreats once a month now.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Chip Conley
And whether that's going to Iceland for a week or more often going up to a place called Ojo Caliente north of here to go do the hot springs for 2 to 3 days. Going and doing a silent retreat, by myself for 2 or 3 days. I do that monthly because I need that as the

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing.

Chip Conley
As the refreshment.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I'm gonna I'm gonna take notes from that. I

Chip Conley
Yeah. We do need it. We need it. I mean, you know, like, the it's I love it, you know, because I'm

Dr. Mark Hyman
My my joke was, I'm gonna kinda, go part time and stop working nights and weekends. Yeah.

Chip Conley
Yeah. Well and I you were very similar. The other thing I started to get too is I'm realizing, you know, a lot of people think of cancer as this thing you have to kill. And yeah. I mean, I wanna kill my cancer for sure.

But it the mentality is very much the warrior mentality. And and I've done I mean, I've changed diet. I did a keto diet for 6 months. I I did I've done a lot of different things to actually improve it. I've had functional medicine doctors helping me and supporting me.

And I came to realize that what if I instead of thought of this as something to kill, what if I thought of this as school? I am in cancer school. Mhmm. Cancer's my teacher. What's what's cancer?

Why why do I have cancer? What is the purpose of me having cancer? Yeah. And I've I've learned a few things. Number 1 is, you know, when I'm at I have cancer, I can't always be the hero.

Yeah. I like the archetype for me as hero.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
I'm gonna get strap on that cape and become the hero. And so how do I let other people be the hero? Yeah. And how do I let people take care of me? How do I be less focused on my work?

How do I ask that question, you know, not 10 years from now, what would I regret? 3 3 years now, what would I regret? Because what if I what if this does keep metastasizing elsewhere in my body?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Chip Conley
So that became a question. How do what is it that I really what matters in terms of my relationships?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I

Chip Conley
have 2 sons. I have actually I have a foster son who's 48 years old. Like, that's a long story. And then I have, 2 biological sons, 12 and 9 with a lesbian couple. I'm gay and I that they reached out to me years ago and said, like, we want you to be the dad.

We want your sperm. Like, you know, I was like, okay. I know how to make sperm. Today with no prostate, I don't know how to make sperm. But, thank God they asked a while ago.

So I have 2 biological sons in Texas and I go hang out with them more. And so to actually look at cancer as a teacher Mhmm. And as the opportunity to change my life and my lifestyle in certain ways Yeah. To respect that is great. I can't wait to be off the androgen deprivation therapy because it's put 15 to £20 on me because that's what it does.

Yeah. You actually go through menopause too. I mean, like, you know, like, I I I know what hot sweats do. Hot sweats and night flashes or not not hot hot flashes and night sweats and and, yeah, brain brain well, brain issues too with, yeah, but I will be off it soon enough.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, someone said to me very widely, he said you know, we asked, why is this happening to me? He said, the real question is why is this happening for you?

Chip Conley
For you. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and I, you know, I wish you weren't dealing with this. I wish I didn't have back issues. I wish I didn't have all things I had to deal with. But, you know, it's it's what we make from it. You know, it's meaning and stories we make, and it's all the little bits that help us kinda get to where our soul is supposed to get to.

I don't know what that is for each of us, but, you know, my my deep belief is that, you know, we're here to get our souls free. Yeah. And I and I see your work at MEA as sort of central to kind of redefining the process of getting older and imagining how we can actually get freer as we get older, not Yeah. More stuck. Yeah.

And and the midlife crisis is the stuckness.

Chip Conley
It's the stuckness, and it's the okay. I wanna take, you know, chutes and ladders back to adolescence, because that I liked that period of my life.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And Well, I didn't. Well, you didn't. Teenager is a nightmare for me.

Chip Conley
For some people, it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. I know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I know. I know. Twenties was great. I'll go to twenties. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chip Conley
I can imagine. So and and sometimes you're having your adolescence now too. Yeah. And that's beautiful because, you know, to to be age fluid means you're all the ages you've ever been and will ever be.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Chip Conley
And why wouldn't we wanna be that?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, you know, when COVID happened and I got divorced, I I basically, you know, had a motto, which was no emails, no females, and a backpack. And, and that was really powerful because I just I just got free. I dropped everything, all my identity. I really dove into this sort of work of of Ram Dass, which I'd I'd known for a long time, but he had this sort of audiobook called Becoming Nobody

Chip Conley
Yeah. I love it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
As opposed to this becoming somebody nonsense that we're all striving for.

Chip Conley
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it was it was it was a really important moment in my life where I did the editing. Yeah. And I did the really deep inquiry, and I was looked at how I got to where I was.

Chip Conley
And you saw your patterns.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And I saw my patterns. Yeah. And I'm like, I ain't doing this anymore. This is fucked up. Yeah.

And I I wanna be free and happy. And the truth is I've I've never been happier,

Chip Conley
and I've never I can see it in your eyes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Freer. And it's, and I've never been healthier because I've also learned a lot of stuff about how the body works. I mean, that's the thing about medicine. It's constantly changing. It's not like you learn, you know, how to put together a record player and it's the same record player.

Yep. Like, it's we're it's like a Pandora's box of of magic. Yeah. And and, and I feel like I'm I'm I'm on that ride. And so I feel we we we really are in this in this critical moment in society where the things that you're teaching and things that you're offering are needed more than ever.

And I think, you know, people are listening to this. They're wondering more how to learn about the work and where to find out more. There's, of course, your book, which is, lessons to midlife. But what tell us more about where they can find out about MEA, where they can find out about the work that you're doing.

Chip Conley
Sure. MEA, the m the website is meawisdom.com, and you can see all of our workshops. As well as for those who don't wanna come to our campuses, we have online courses. Also, I have a daily blog.

Dr. Mark Hyman
A daily daily

Chip Conley
blog. A daily blog.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You write.

Chip Conley
That I write, and it's on the MEA website. Wow. And I love it, and it's called WisdomWell. And so if you wanna sort of learn more about this for free, just subscribe there, and you get a daily microdose of wisdom from me.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, I like the microdose idea.

Chip Conley
I thought

Dr. Mark Hyman
you would. Idea. So the book is Learning to Learn

Chip Conley
the Life. Midlife. Twelve Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age, And your website is? Meawisdom.com. And then there's also chipconley.com.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Great. Well, Chip, thank you for the work we've been doing. Thank you for your courage. Yeah. Thank you for making us take a hard look at ourselves when we rather go watch a lot of TV.

And, and I look forward to having the same conversation 10 years from now

Chip Conley
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
When we can look back and ask the same questions.

Chip Conley
Yes. Thank you for being a role model.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Thanks, Chip. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And follow me on all social media channels at doctor Mark Hyman, and we'll see you next time on the doctor's pharmacy.

I'm always getting questions about my favorite books, podcasts, gadgets, supplements, recipes, and lots more. And now you can have access to all of this information by signing up for my free Mark's Picks newsletter at doctorhyman.comforward/markspicks. I promise I'll only email you once a week on Fridays, and I'll never share your email address or send you anything else besides my recommendations.

Chip Conley
These are

Dr. Mark Hyman
the things that helped me on my health journey, and I hope they'll help you too. Again, that's doctorhyman.comforward/marxpicks. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Farmacy. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center and my work at Cleveland Clinic and function health where I'm the chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guest opinions and neither myself nor the podcast endorsed the views or statements of my guests.

This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. Now, if you're looking for your help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. You can come see us at the Ultra Wellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Just go to ultra wellness center.com. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner near you, you can visit ifm.org and search find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who is trained, who's a licensed health care practitioner and can help you make changes especially when it comes to your health. Keeping this podcast free is part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to express gratitude to the sponsors that made today's podcast possible.