The Midlife Male is a newsletter and podcast by Greg Scheinman sharing experiences on aging, success, personal growth, and navigating midlife. If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up.
“Whoa, we’re halfway there…”
If you’re in midlife, you know the rest of the lyrics. (If you don’t, it’s “Livin’ on a prayer” at the top of your lungs.)
I hadn’t heard this song in years. I was having a conversation with my friend Jerry when he used it. Later that same day, I got in my truck and it came on SiriusXM (“Hair Nation” – that’s what I listen to on the way to the gym).
Weird how coincidences happen like that sometimes.
But there I was, singing loudly to myself, taking advantage of the sound system in my new Jeep Wagoneer, which happens to be fantastic. Two thoughts came to mind.
One was “Whoa – we’re already halfway there with the year.”
The other was “Well, actually… I don’t want to live my life on a prayer.”
It’s not that I don’t pray, have faith, or am not a spiritual guy—I am. That’s gotten me through some of the toughest times in my life. It’s just the way my brain works.
I need more measurable, quantifiable standards to operate in my everyday life.
The Bon Jovi song I actually prefer is “It’s My Life.” In that song, Jon sings:
“It’s my life, it’s now or never… I don’t wanna live forever… I just wanna live while I’m alive.”
Now that message I can get on board with.
Here were five reflections that came for me during this holiday weekend.
No. 1: Mind games work
I didn’t want to get in the cold plunge today before writing the newsletter, but I had already written out what I was going to do in a very specific order. If I don’t do it, then I have not held myself accountable. When I struggle to keep my word, I have to play little tricks on myself.
I said I was going to write after my cold plunge. My computer was sitting in the dining room inside our house. One thing I can’t stand is walking right into an air-conditioned house after getting out of the freezing cold water. It’s 100° here in Houston, and it actually feels better to be outside.
So, as a preemptive strike to keep my day intact, I took my computer out of the dining room and put it on our outdoor table in the backyard. I opened the laptop and positioned it perfectly so I could move immediately from the cold plunge to my chair and my laptop, with zero distraction or interference, and get started on the newsletter.
Is that a lot of prep and work? Is that a lot of thought just to do what you say you’re going to do? Maybe. The cold plunge is only three minutes out of my entire 24-hour day. Writing this newsletter is something I’ve done every single week for 256 consecutive weeks. Both are simple. And yet doing both is hard.
No. 2: Consistency is a challenge
I know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. I even want to do it. And yet I still struggle.
Avoiding distraction, not doing something easier, not saving “it” for later, not reordering the sequence that I know works—these are ongoing challenges.
It’s easier to default to comfort, but it’s harder to lean into discomfort, make the better choice, and take the harder path, even when we know it’s the right one. Hard decisions make life easier, easier decisions make life harder in the long run.
Success is about consistency. But it’s even more about having the discipline required to consistently make better choices. It’s about doing what you say you’re going to do the majority of the time, even when you don’t want to. That’s how you build a better life.
Every week, every day, every task, you stack up those wins. You create a vision for your life and reverse engineer back to executing it. What do you need to make that happen?
Maybe it’s a ritual, a coach, a trick, or a partner, wife, child, or trainer to help hold you accountable. None of us can do it alone. None of us have it all figured out.
I look at my life and my work as a series of small victories, surrounded by various defeats, mistakes, and missteps. Each newsletter, speech, cold plunge, conversation, and task completed (or skipped) adds up.
When I say I’m going to do something and I do it, I build trust in myself. I create momentum. And when I break the chain, I simply start again. I’m not as hard on myself as I used to be. I think it’s one of the real benefits of being on the other side of 50.
No. 3: Let real-life observations reground you
One way I fuel my desire to be consistent is to observe my surroundings. This helps me continuously verify that the grass is not actually greener on the other side.
I saw a neighbor getting home from a business trip yesterday. I could tell by the way he exited the Uber: Carry-on roller bag, laptop bag, blazer over his arm, and that look on his face that says “it’s been a long day.”
I saw a post on Instagram about a friend who owns a studio, stepping in to substitute-coach a 5 a.m. workout class tomorrow. I thought about how fortunate I am that I don’t have to get up at that hour anymore, as there are plenty of people I know who set their alarms for 5 a.m. every day.
I ran into a guy at the airport who tried to hire me a lifetime ago, back when I sold insurance. He’s still selling insurance.
I talked to another friend who’s out of work and is afraid to meet with his executive recruiter because he knows what she’s going to tell him and it doesn’t excite him. Yet the thought of shortening his runway in his 50s with three kids to put through college scares him even more.
And then there’s every weeknight, when I take the dogs out for a walk around the neighborhood, and always see the same guys in their home offices through their windows, working. Depending on the house layout, I can sometimes see their wives and kids in the next room over, either the dining room or living room, and the contrast is stark.
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When I ask guys what they want, they tend to start by pointing out the people in their life who have this or that, or are doing this or that.
“But what do YOU really want?” I ask. “Not for appearances or perception, but for yourself?” I’m often met with a blank stare at first.
If you’re not sure how to answer that question, commit to trying different things. Test and retest. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to start. Part of discovering what you want includes identifying what you don’t want.
Action creates momentum, and momentum is positive.
No. 4: Doing the work means choosing all of it
Launching a new website, podcast, and midlife male magazine is exciting (and right around the corner). I can see the successful outcome vividly in my head.
Design mocks from the spring. We’re far past “halfway there” — can’t wait to show you very soon what we’ve cooked up.
But here’s the truth: What’s required is a lot of work when nobody’s watching.
It’s the late nights refining content, the countless hours of planning, and the relentless grind of making sure every detail aligns with the vision. It’s also the fact things often take more time, money and frustration than you think they will.
On the morning of July 4th, I read this from Leo Babauta’s “Zen Habits.”
“When you choose the benefits of an action, you also choose the drawbacks.
If you want to be an author, you can’t only choose the finished novel and book signings. You are also choosing months of lonely typing.
If you want to be a bodybuilder, you can’t only choose the fit body and attention. You are also choosing the boring meals and calorie counting.
You have to want the lifestyle, not just the outcomes. Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense being jealous. The results of success are usually public and highly visible, but the process behind success is often private and hidden from view. It’s easy to want the public rewards, but you also have to want the hidden costs.”
Leo Babauta
Two hours later a coaching client emailed me the very same passage with a note saying “this really spoke to me and what we have talked about together in our last few sessions.”
Weird how coincidences happen like that sometimes.
No. 5: Focus on performance
“I look great, and I feel like shit.”
That’s what I’ve been telling myself lately. I fell into the over-indexing trap I so often talk about and I need to do better.
Stop thinking about what your body looks like and start thinking more about how it performs. When your body performs well, it will look well. Not the other way around.
Recently I’ve heard a few stories about guys at the top of their game being derailed by health issues. We can control as much of what we can control, and at the end of the day there’s still so much we can’t control. Health issues don’t really discriminate.
If you’re not training at all, have fallen off your training or need to make adjustments to whatever you’re doing or not doing, now’s the time.
It’s also the time to remind yourself that if you’re overdoing it, you may just want to have that piece of cake, burger or slice of pizza and add a day off to your training schedule. 80/20 sounds about right.
Make your halftime adjustments
Midyear is like halftime.
You finish the first half, go into the locker room, make adjustments, and come back for the second half to perform better.
Reflect on your standards, goals, your actions, and your commitments.
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Are you living on a prayer, or are you taking control?
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What have you learned, observed, experienced?
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Are you making harder choices?
Keep score. Stack your wins. Note your losses. Live your life fully and with intention. It’s your life—it’s now or never.
Go out and win the second half. ◆
Right before I wrote this newsletter, I was doing this*
I’m weird. The cold plunge is fun to me. I like the energy boost I get, and what I like even more is that I don’t have to go far to experience it — especially this time of year in Houston, where it’s likely going to be 90 degrees every day until… **checks watch**… Halloween.
Cold plunges are shown to help reduce stress and detox the body through vasoconstriction. They’re also a part of a popular wellness protocol called contrast therapy, in which you alternate between hot (sauna/hot shower) and cold to tax the body and reset important nervous and hormonal systems.
I like the cold plunge for the mental benefits. As someone who’s launching a company, I have to do hard shit. If I can lay in cold water alone with my thoughts and stay the course, I can do this—cold plunges remind me of that.
Plunge offers a temperature-controlled plunge pool that fits perfectly in your backyard. It keeps the water exactly at the temperature you want, every time, which makes habit-building a breeze.
Learn more about Plunge here and use code MidlifeMale for $150 off.
*Partner content
Did something in this newsletter resonate with you this week? Reply and let me know.
In Health,
—Greg
