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Marc Cooper thinks you have an important choice to make. Will you become a wise elder or just someone who’s getting older?
Marc Cooper joins us from Portland, Oregon.
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Bio
Dr. Marc Cooper is a former healthcare consultant, for almost 30 years – at the practice, corporate and organizational levels. Prior to his consulting career, Dr. Cooper was an academician, basic science researcher and practicing periodontist. He felt a shift later in life, leading him to create and lead an organization called the Contemporary Elder Institute. This is a movement to raise awareness around the transformation we all experience as we age – turning knowledge into wisdom – and how it impacts the remainder of our life experience. On the road to becoming an elder, there are no clear road signs, no GPS to guide the way, and no reliable maps to follow. Navigating this path demands acquiring and cultivating higher wisdom—insights that transcend mere knowledge and shallow appearances.
Marc explores a transformative approach to aging in his book Older to Elder: The Thinking and Being of a Contemporary Elder. He rejects our culture’s predetermined and often detrimental path to late age. Marc champions a new path: a path of strength, contribution, and deep self-worth, the path of a contemporary elder.
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For More on Marc Cooper
Older to Elder: The Thinking and Being of a Contemporary Elder
The Contemporary Elder Institute
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Podcast Episodes You May Like
The Well-Lived Life – Dr. Gladys McGarey
The Pursuit of Wisdom – Ben Lytle
The Measure of Our Age – MT Connolly
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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast
There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.
About Retirement Wisdom
I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.
Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms.
About Your Podcast Host
Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.
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Wise Quotes
On Olders and Elders
“Older is objective and elder is subjective. Older is defined by the culture. This is what happens when you get old. These are the problems that occur….So there’s a certain element of conventional knowledge that people can expand their lives through their health span, their lifespan… That’s distinct from a cultural viewpoint… You would observe it in their language, and you would observe it in their listening. So another is a listener, and another knows certain principles that are practiced that older does not, and one would be that listening is more powerful than speaking, that you listen in a way that allows for the other person to have safety…. So an elder earns the light on a different area. So if you watch them speaking over the fence, the elder is nodding his head or her head and smiling and being warming and bracing in a certain way of this of this individual, bringing a level of humanity that he or she has accomplished, and that is welcome, refreshing, and longed for in the older person.”
On Switchbacks on Your Path
“One of my teachers once said, if you see your steps clearly on the path. it’s the wrong path. If you’ve ever done some hiking, there’s things called switchbacks. And then you keep on climbing and then there’s a switchback and you keep on climbing and there’s a switchback. But I’ve had a lot of switchbacks. And my switchbacks have taken me places that were unexpected. So although having a professional health care career, I also was enmeshed in the Native American Aboriginal world for a while, where elders were present. And so I was able to generate relationships inside of that context, as well as to develop my professional relationships and success in here. And what I saw was missing here was available here. And what was available here wasn’t available there. There was something that was was not linked. So I spent time with elders. And then I trained with a shaman, and his older to elder, when I was not older yet, was in my 50s.Now I think that’s really young. It’s just a spring puppy. In my own consulting arena, I brought that particular set of distinctions there. And then I saw it in myself. I began to see the impact that it had when you’re engaged in different sets of inquiry and questions and understandings.”
On Discovery versus Protection
“Elders are in discovery. I think holders are in protection. How do I protect my assets? How do I protect my health? How do I sit there? There’s a certain shell that older has, that elder has taken off. People don’t listen as an open element. They already have surmised much and know much….And part of the elders’ beauty is to live in a world where you don’t know. So you’re in wonderment. You take walks and you go in nature and your mind stops and the beauty grabs you and there’s stream water and all of that. And all there knows how to get there in the daily life to be in that arena in that moment where they don’t know. And life’s a mystery. But they’re smart, because they’re learners too. They’re going for deeper understanding, not to protect themselves, but to understand themselves and the world better.”
